Now Gmail lets you understand your spam
Summary: A new feature in Gmail Labs offers translation of messages written in foreign languages. No doubt, this feature was probably created with good intentions -- such as being able to effortlessly communicate with someone that doesn't speak your language.
A new feature in Gmail Labs offers translation of messages written in foreign languages. No doubt, this feature was probably created with good intentions -- such as being able to effortlessly communicate with someone that doesn't speak your language.
Unfortunately, I'm sure that most people are in the same boat as me -- I don't know anyone that doesn't speak English well enough to communicate with me. The only people that need me to understand a different language is spammers.
So how about this Google: Let's add to settings the ability to filter out email that is in languages other than the one you speak? Or, better yet, have an exceptions list if you speak multiple.
What do you think? Let's hear what you have to say in the TalkBack!
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Talkback
A complete waste of time.
Not necessarily....
RE: Now Gmail lets you understand your spam
post in other languages in web forms of various websites
I manage. Before, I had to copy and paste from the email
into Google's online language tools to figure out if the
person needed support, or if they were just giving me
feedback.
RE: Now Gmail lets you understand your spam
emails. For instance, you can create a filter and put
into the HAS THE WORDS box, put:
lang:chinese
This will match anything with the Chinese language in
the email.
The problem with trying this with something like
Spanish is someone might send an email like this:
Hola, que pasa?
And another might send an email like this:
Hola! Just wondering what you were up to. Wanna have
lunch tomorrow? Maybe some tacos!
As you can see, people can tend to mix languages...
whether playfully ("Hasta la vista, baby!") or for any
other number of reasons (Did you like the movie
"Moulin Rouge?")... so, while Google's algorithms
attempt to detect the language an email is in based on
the types of words found in it, it isn't guaranteed...
it seems to do a lot better with Chinese, probably
because of the unique typeset. People generally don't
playfully enter ideographs.
RE: Now Gmail lets you understand your spam
From what I understand, Garret,
Henri
RE: Now Gmail lets you understand your spam
of Google's translation feature. It will be a boon to companies dealing internationally.
Fred Keen, President
Supply Source LLC
64 Oak Ave; Tenafly, NJ 07670
Distributor of Inkjet Supplies
Totally useful for some of us!
of English who lives and works in Taiwan. Some
of my email is in Chinese because not all of my
correspondents can always say what they want in
English, so they write to me in Chinese and
expect my son to translate the Chinese into
English for me. He's still too young to be able
to do that, however.
I also have friends in Japan who sometimes send
me emails and letters in Japanese. While I can
read a little of both languages, I can't read
enough to make sense of everything. Therefore,
I frequently use Google translate to help.
As one poster pointed out, though, machine
translation sometimes borders on the
ridiculous, so unless one understands the
structure and semantics of the foreign language
being machine-translated, the translations
often make no sense.
Most of my spam here in Taiwan, by the way, is
in English, not Chinese.
Very useful
As a native english speaker living and working
in France, it can be very handy.
Also, as one of the other commenters pointed
out, a large proportion of the world's
population speak more than one language to some
extent; but speaking and writing aren't always
the same.
As comfortable as I am speaking my second
language, I still struggle to write in it. This
feature has meant that I am more often in touch
with my french friends by email - they write to
me in their language, and I answer in mine.
Andrew
RE: Now Gmail lets you understand your spam
Sounds like Garrent is just another amro-centric unaware that there is a real world here.
Mick
amro-centric?
RE: Now Gmail lets you understand your spam
Ideal for Foreign Newsgroups or Subscriptions
I think it is a great idea and a tool to see if you can get an english version of say something in china technology or russian technology groups to be translated into English.
just imagine your knowledge of other countries taking a leap forward. Not only do you benefit from more material to read (if you have enough time that is) but you understanding of cultures beyond the english borders will have increased many fold further making mankind come closer together in understanding one another.
Perhaps that is one reason why humanity hasn't yet as a one world come to understand itself pureply based on misunderstandings and the need to rule.
I think Google has made another big tool, a gift perhaps, not for reading as some would equate to reading spam email but rather to understand our fellow brothers/sisters of other nations through participation of different groups on the net in different languages.
Who knows in time technology will introduce voice translations for us to understand each other without wasting time reading it.
Cheers!
Sorry. Mea culpa.....
...Cont
If you think machines can translate as language consider my first lesson I developed for teachnig my Computer Aided Language Translation course 20 years ago: Translate the Word "cat" accurately with one algorithm in these contexts:
...cont
?I?m going to the zoo to visit the cat house.?
?I?m going to the marina to sail my cat.?
?I?m going to the red light district to visit the cat house.?
?After a wild night at the cat house and sailing the hobie cat around the marina, I?m going to the humane society to try to find a house cat to inhabit my cat house. I'll take it over to my friend Kate's whom we all call "Kitty Cat" who's brother is a really cool cat!?
"He is the only guy I know who operates a big cat to move earth for Caterpillar for a living."
Their brother just got a job working with the big cats at the California Arborial & Terrestrial zoological center --which the locals in the know all refer to as (you guessed it) the "CAT."
...and finally
Oh, yeah, and then there is the human tendancy to missspel thangz....
RE: Now Gmail lets you understand your spam
The second largest language group in the USA is Hispanics and like many European countries there are significant groups of Chinese and other minority language speakers.
Many specialists in medicine, science, technology and engineering operate in a home language plus English, French or Spanish.
Many of us work for enterprises with headquarters in one language area and operating bases in several - or many.
On balance, I suspect that a world view would indicate more people wish to accept multi-lingual communication than would want to reject it.
Me ? Well, I work in English and French, and I am happy to read incoming mail in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, or German. I'll get the dictionary out for Swedish, Norwegian and Turkish - but that's OK if you have something worth communicating.
Forwards or backwards, modnoc, argaiv, and nisep snoisnetxe are not subjects I wish to discuss with strangers - in any language.
Not useless.
'SpamEater Pro' protect spam, and secure you mailbox.
http://www.111download.com/product/spameater-pro.html
RE: Now Gmail lets you understand your spam
The article clearly pointed out the author's contention that it should be up to the recipient whether to activate it and to what extent. I agree and I hope that Google will take it to heart.