Nov 5, 2016

[Machine Translation Testing with Book Reviews] 書評で機械翻訳のテスト

It was a good autumn day to enjoy sports and driving. The temperatures here today reached around 60’s. There was no need of wearing a thick jacket. Leaves on the trees were colorful. I saw bright yellow leaves on the roads blown up by the wind as we passed.

After coming back home, I played with the translation software using some of the book review posts I found on the Internet. The reviews I searched were on the book titled “レイヤー化する世界（佐々木俊尚）”.


Contents of the book are as follows.

Prologue   Modern Age

Part 1   Middle Ages
 Chapter 1    Europe used to be a frontier long ago
 Chapter 2   Why the medieval empires went vanished

 Part 2   Modern Age
 Chapter 3   The idea of "Nation" is come from fantasy
 Chapter 4   Glory called "Democracy"
 Chapter 5   Collapse of Democracy and Nation-states

Part 3   Future
 Chapter 6   All is swallowed up into a 場)>
 Chapter 7   The society is made up of “Layers”
 Chapter 8   "Super multi-national companies" will put an end to the Country/Nation-oriented thoughts
 Chapter 9   New world systems and us


The book describes the world history from the perspective of Country/Nation, Power, Democracy, and Industrial Innovation, and extrapolate it to make statements on the future.

I personally didn’t feel there was nothing new about what is said to be described in the book. The reviewers write the main points explained in the book as follows.
  1. Country/State and the democracy system based on that are not so robust as we may believe.
  2. Outline of industries are constructed by new technologies, and social systems go along with it.
[Output from Machine Translation]
  • The former is a story of history, there is no room to disagree. Churchill as using the word "tried", social systems are repeated various experiments, it will be said to be still followed. Now is just a chance "democratic era", this is not is not a flawless system. So, what about the latter? In this manual, case showing a change in the new society has been introduced some, but it is unknown whether or not the flow of the change is deterministic. Although the change began, returns to its original state by the swing-back, I would not have never Nante. The future is always something unknown. In addition, even if the change was deterministic, it is not possible to determine whether advances in how much of the speed. Is not surprisingly important because speed. If the span of until a change is long for, will people it is intended to maintain "this remains" even a little increase. However, technology advances, it is pull the trigger of the industrial structure changes, thereby personal life changes, social system so as to follow changes, because is a natural flow. "Still, while I thought that I do not change Nante society ", a wave of change was imminent until buckwheat immediately, which may have enough thing Nante.
  • =========================
  • “We need to be more sensitive to the changes. Instead of getting drifted away by the waves of ocean, we need to be prepared to get on the waves. This should especially be emphasized to younger generations.”


[Study]
This is also a typical Japanese grammar, which goes like, “We Japanese tend to be this way” “We have to be more international in order not to be left behind by the rest of the world,” or “Younger people should always learn to adapt themselves to the changes,” which I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I only want to showcase some examples that may briefly illustrate a view of a group oriented culture. Number one item to point out here is “We Japanese”, number two is “have to” or “should” do this or that. I feel that, even if there is a perfect translation system here, this this type of grammar/word usage will be just the same.

 In this book, the “Layer” is defined as a component or a module where each one represents his or her personality or attribute. The author describes that each layer can support other layers, and is interchangeable or dynamic, as opposed to being monotonous or fixed. 


[Output from Machine Translation]
  • When, you might try to say. "Single fixed existence" is, be replaced with individuals, it will be a "company man". Identity is the person that is in itself rather than, are associated with the company. Aisha spirit is rich, with people who say even that living for longer company rather than. Such a person has the horsepower, but if eliminate the whereabouts of the company, will be broken, instantly.


 [Study]
Why the author keeps saying “Layers”? This passage from the review briefly explains that portion. Here, a “company man” is meant to be someone who loves the company with all his soul and spirit, which used to be very common in Japan. But the author says (and many Japanese may already know or have experienced) that once you get lost in the company, you feel you are finished. You will end up feeling totally desolate with no hope at all.

This output sentences from machine translation may not make sense to many English speakers. Here’s how I understood by also reading the post in Japanese.

Having multiple layers means that one person plays different roles or show different attributes, such as being a blogger, an e-mail magazine publisher, a YouTuber, a husband, an engineer, a fortune teller, a palm reader, a Japanese chess player, and so on. All of these layers (components or modules) establish who you are. The book says having this structure will be safer you don’t have to be totally damaged or destroyed when a big change comes.

This passage should be very appealing (and even catchy) to the Japanese in general. People in general believed (or may still believe) that it was safe to stick to their company and identify themselves as part of it. Author says this type of thinking is getting out of date. Now it's time for us to change our mindset.

It is not meaningless to analyze why the author wants to say this kind of thing in his book, and the reviewer also wanted to pick that up and emphasize that point.


[Output from Machine Translation]
  • "From a single identity, to the multiple identities" This change, which takes you to the individual to "supple" definitely. If, if the individual to society and belong to there has a fractal structure, layering is also and in various fields, it will give us of "supple" it is also to society as a whole. The last moment….


 [Study]
In case this passage doesn’t make sense at all to English speakers, “identity” is the same as attributes of a person. The author wants to encourage readers to have multiple Layers of identities (attributes or personalities) where one Layer can support another. 

 [Output from Machine Translation]
  • Here "field" that is used in, than the "platform", has received wide impression is a little more level playing field. ※ detailed story about the "place" is, please try to see this book directly. As this book points out, it will go become a powerful presence to make a "place" in the future. In addition, if a single entity is to possession of more than one layer, the field might be able to produce any number. However, those that "place" is, of the individual (or company) can serve as one of hope, you might.

[Study] 
“Here "field" that is used in, than the "platform” is meant to be like this. “Here in this book, the “field” is meant to be more than a “platform”.

I now start thinking this “field” might as well be replaced with “scene”. Then I can conclude that the core theme of this book should be as follows.

The “Country/Nation” idea is getting out of date, although majority of Japanese stick to this idea still. This can bring us into problems.

Instead of sticking to the Country/Nation idea, we Japanese should focus more on the “Field,” which is more than a platform.

One example of the Country/Nation model (a multi-national company, the author says) can be General Motors or SONY with these words, “What's Good for General Motors Is Good for America” (Wikipedia says this is a frequently "misquoted" statement, so I would like to use this as a parable), and examples from “Field” (a super multi-national company, the author says) can be said about Google and Apple.

Author writes that the difference between a “Multi-national company” and a “Super Multi-national company” is former is focused on the “Country/Nation” and the latter on the “Scene”.

Each individual’s personality should be mapped out with multiple layers, like the OSI model in the IT networking.

Layers are interchangeable, dynamic, and flexible, and these don’t change who you really are. It’s safer than what we Japanese thought was the normal idea. You can change or switch options even if you fail in one portion in it.

Another example of “Layers” is SNS. There are global services such as facebook or twitter, along with local SNS’s such as LINE (Japan), Weibo (China), or Kakaotalk (Taiwan) that is popular and keeps growing. This phenomenon indicates that people use global and local services with different level (Layer) of reasoning or mindset.

[Reviewer’s Conclusion]
The author of this book says there could be no hope in this country if we stick to the “Country/Nation," which is Japan or Japanese-ness. The reviewer concludes in his post that “we Japanese” should be better off, if we focused more on the "Ba 場 (scene)". He seems to be pretty favorable to this book as well as to the author.
[My Closing]
And the purpose of writing this post here, by the way, is I only wanted to test the current translation software to see how it has improved in the past couple years.

[References]

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