When I was trying to learn Spanish in school, my language teacher told me that my brain was not good at learning foreign languages.
My brain is extremely good at logic and inductive reasoning, which is usually on the right hemisphere (side) of the brain. Language ability is usually on the left hemisphere of the brain.
Apparently, the left side of my brain has gone on a permanent vacation.
My lack of language skills created a strong interest in me to create tools that could help people learn foreign languages. Because of this, I developed the concepts of two computer projects. They are Computerized Translator and Language Analyzer.
About 30 years ago I wrote to many organizations trying to develop interest in these two projects. I even talked to the director of IBM’s language department for over an hour about these projects. He told me that these projects were very intriguing, but the technology was not mature enough for them.
There are 7,159 languages in the world.*1 Some languages have advanced writing systems, while 40% of the world’s languages do not have any type of writing system.
The large number of languages is somewhat misleading. Some language groups are extremely large, while others are extremely small. For example, 20 language groups are so large that 45% of the world’s population (3.6 billion people) speak it as their native language.
Because these large languages are so widespread, the people in these language groups have access to most of the world’s knowledge.
*1 Source: Living Languages, 2022, by Ethnologue
Distribution of languages around the world
The remaining 4.5 billion people have limited access to these valuable resources. In fact, many of them have no access at all. These resources include information about:
About 30 years ago, the idea of an instant text translator was just a dream of the future. Now Google Translate supports 243 languages.
Although this is great, there are still over 6,900 languages with no instant translation. People in these language groups do not have instant access to these valuable resources. Again, some have no access at all.
The Summer Institute of Linguistics is doing some work in this field, but much more work needs to be done.
I would like to give you an example of the complexity of translating text into one of these languages. As I said, 40% of the languages have no system of writing at all.
A linguist would first need to study the language to identify the grammar and vocabulary.
After this, they must develop a system of writing for this language and then teach the people how to read.
Depending on many factors, this could take 3 to 10 years.
Then, they will start translating some articles or books into this language. Some texts can take months, while others can take years. Some can even take decades.
Currently, text translators are designed for specific languages. A completely new system is needed. A translation system is needed that can translate text into any language.
This system will have two inputs:
The text file will be analyzed by AI to determine its grammatical structure and vocabulary.
I realize that I oversimplified this process, but I think that the technology is now mature enough for this to work.
The sounds of human speech can be broken down into small sound units, such as phonemes. The English language has 44 phonemes. The human mouth is capable of making several hundred phonemes.
Since our ears are trained to only hear the phonemes in our language, we often cannot hear or speak most of the other phonemes.
This is why people have difficulties learning a foreign language. They cannot distinguish sounds of their language with sounds that are a little different. This is also why they often speak with an accent.
In addition to phonemes, there are tonemes (tone changes for each phoneme) and suprasegmental (stress and intonation) changes to the phoneme.
The LA software would normally be loaded on a laptop. However, it could be part of a dedicated handheld device, such as the one illustrated to the right. The LA will listen to a person's speech and break each word into its basic sound parts. For example:
The English word "fish" would be: fɪʃ
The English word "water" would be: wɔːtər
The English word "food" would be: fuːd
There are five main ways in which the LA can be used.
If a person is trying to learn a language that is unknown to outsiders, they will have a tribal person speak into the LA. The LA will display the individual sounds that make up each word.
This will save a lot of time and greatly reduce the common mistakes that outsiders often make.
China has a very famous beer called Tsingtao beer. In 1898, Germany took control of Qingdao (a major port city in China) because of the Juye Incident.
Since the Germans love beer, they created a unique beer using the special water from Laoshan Mountain.
They wanted to name the beer after the city in which it was brewed. However, to the western ear, the Chinese Q sounds like TS. To the Chinese, these are completely different sounds, but to outsiders they sounded the same.
In addition, to the western ear, the Chinese D sounded like T.
Qingdao
Tsingtao
This is the reason why the LA would be so helpful in learning foreign languages. If the Germans had the LA 100 years ago, it would be called Qingdao Beer and not Tsingtao Beer.
When the person is collecting samples of the tribal language, the LA will store it in its memory. Once words are stored in the LA, the person can practice learning the words.
Students learning a foreign language at school will be able to learn the language quicker. In addition, they can learn it without an accent.
ESL students will be able to learn English much quicker if they can see what they are saying wrong. This will also help them eliminate the accent of their native language.
Sometimes actors need to speak with a foreign accent. The LA will help them learn the accent because it will show them the sounds that create the foreign accent.
One of the great motivators in my life is the phrase, "It could have been me." When we got married, my wife and I talked about how we were fortunate to have been born in a place that had great schools, great jobs, great hospitals, etc.
We realize that we could have been born in extreme poverty in a third world country. If that had happened, our lives would have been very different.
In addition, if we would have been born there with our current bodies, we would be dead now. We both have had life-threatening illnesses that were only cured with modern medicine and hospitals.
Our back patio
Although it would have been easy to relax and enjoy our retirement, we thought that it would be selfish of us to keep this good life to ourselves.
We wanted others to have a better life. So, we decided to work hard, save our money, retire early, and then move somewhere else in the world to help others have a better life. That is why we moved to China for 10 years.
I was 58 and my wife was 47 when we moved to China. The phrase, "It could have been me" is the reason I still have such a deep burden for these two projects. I know that there are many people who could benefit greatly from these two projects.
Most of the people coming to this website are people wanting to improve their English. However, some of the people are ESL teachers and language experts.
My desire is that some of these language experts will know someone who has the skill sets to take these projects to the next level.
I am not asking that they make me part of the development of these projects. In fact, I do not want any credit, recognition, or recompence if these projects become successful.
I just want to help people in need.