Automatic Translation

It is late and I am tired, but I wanted to shatter at least a few people's dreams before I go have some of my own. There will never be a machine that can translate one language into another. All of those who had your hopes up of getting one of these babies or making a fortune creating something like this, sorry, you are out of luck. Are you despondent yet from the crushing blow I have just dealt you?

What is English? If I wanted to translate something into English, what does that mean? Is the English I speak the same as you speak? If I had a book on complex mathematics that was in Russian and wanted it translated into English, who could read it? People who know mathematics and the set of words called English? What if the author created a new concept, so there is no English word for it, should it create one or just use the original German word?

The only way something could be auto-translated is if each person carried around a computer that knew what you knew and knew what everyone else knew, then it could translate what other people are saying into your language, since everyone has their own. If I read an article on some topic about which I know nothing, the translation system would have to take the words of the author and phrase it in a way that I would understand the original. Even if it has to teach me the topic. So, what level would it have to teach before I understood the original?

What about jokes? Puns? Motivational speeches? Just like there is no real human translation, there can be no machine translation.

Sorry, not much funny at this time of night. Why don't snakes have balls? Because most of them can't dance. Good night.

-Edward

PS What is the difference between a duck? A banana this yellow.