5 ms·

Polish has some of those problems too, at least the ones with conjugations. The words mom (appearing in your contact list), mom (as in call mom) and mom (as in

Polish has some of those problems too, at least the ones with conjugations. The words mom (appearing in your contact list), mom (as in call mom) and mom (as in send money to mom) are different. That applies to proper names too, and it isn't regular. It's not easy to figure oujt who the user refers to if you just have the contacts list and the command. Polish had problems way before nlp, for example "Annie has sent you a message" and "John has sent you a message" would be translated differently (because male/female), same for "2 minutes ago" and "5 minutes ago". Also programmatically formulating natural messages like "Dear John" is nigon impossible.

szatkus 8y ago
I started learning Finnish and it looks much worse. Twice as much cases, consonant gradation and puhekieli. Everything else seems on similar difficulty level as in Polish (maybe except genders, but it's pretty regular). But I may not have a proper perspective as Polish is my native language and I don't work with NLP (although I created a small tool to determine a word based on its inflected form with data from Wiktionary).
- gtrfreewifi 8y ago
  Puhekiäli voi olla vähä vaikiaa, mutta sitten on viälä eriksensä murtehet.
ajuc 8y ago
All Slavic languages are quite quirky in this regard. Most native speakers don't realize it, but when you try to write correct message parametrized with numbers in Polish, you need 3 or 4 special cases: - 1 - 2-4, 22-24, 32-34, ... - 5-21, 25-31, 35-41, ... If you say "out of X" you also need to handle numbers 100-199, 100 000-199 000, 100 000 000-199 000 000, ... separately (because 100 = sto, and if number begins with "s" - "out of X" is "ze" instead if "z") - this is in combination with previous 3 cases, so "199 ouf of 199" is different from "99 out of 99", and different from "122 out of 122". So "Copied X file(s) out of Y" would be: - "Skopiowano 1 plik" - "Skopiowano 2 pliki z 3" - "Skopiowano 5 plików z 5" - "Skopiowano 1 plik ze 100" - "Skopiowano 2 pliki ze 100" - "Skopiowano 5 plików ze 100". Almost no software handles this correctly :) But spell checkers work OK (they just ignore relationships between words usually).
- miki123211 8y ago
  Almost no software handles this correctly because almost no software gives us the tools to handle it correctly. I've translated some software to polish once or twice and they've been using a simple templating system, like message from {name}: {content}, {time} minutes ago. I didn't have access to the source code. As a consequence of that design, some messages were very malformed. Also there were some overused strings, like "liked" for "You've just liked this", "liked" for "things you've liked" and "liked" as in "someone liked your post". Also untranslatable.
  - ajuc 8y ago
    Qt framework has system in place for several plural forms, so plik/pliki/plików problem is solved, and quite elegantly. If the application programmer gives a damn, that is. There's also a way to add context to the strings for translation, so that you can see this "like" is used in this meaning, and that other "like" is used in another meaning. But there's no generic solution to "z/ze" problem as far as I know, you need to do it by hand if you want correct messages. And most of the time programmers don't even realize they need to parametrize such stuff, so the systems don't do any good :)
    - dullgiulio 8y ago
      I imagine that before we have a technical solution that works well enough to be used, natural language (guided by the technological limits) will have dropped such rule in ordinary use.
      - ajuc 8y ago
        Unlikely. The rule is dictated by ease of pronunciation. It's hard to say "z stu", much easier to say "ze stu". The rule isn't hard to implement, it's just not expected to be a thing by framework/library creators.
- babuskov 8y ago
  > Almost no software handles this correctly Gettext solved it 20 years ago. The problem is that people try to reinvent the wheel instead of looking at existing solutions. So, they make their own inferior versions. The rule for plural has 3 cases. 1. When n mod 10 = 1 2. When n mod 10 is 2,3,4 3. Everything else And there's a special rule that the first 2 cases are not used when n mod 100 is between 11 and 29. For such numbers, the 3rd case is used instead. This is actually not that complex. Compare to Arabic, where you have 9 cases IIRC.
balfirevic 8y ago
Croatian is the same. Noun declination makes some sense, as it sometimes allows you to omit prepositions (although I sure am glad English doesn't do that). But gendered verbs are just stupid.
- ithkuil 8y ago
  "gendered" verbs are a thing in Italian too: "I fell" becomes "sono caduto" or "sono caduta" depending on the gender of the speaker. Transitive verbs reflect the gender of the objects when using clitics, e.g. "I ate the apple, I ate it really" -> "Ho mangiato la mela, l'ho mangiata davvero". What's odd in Croatian is that the all the verbs behave as intransitive Italian verbs, reflecting the gender of the speaker: "I fell" -> "pao sam" or "pala sam" but also "pojeo sam jabuku" vs "pojela sam jabuku" if the speaker is a woman. I'm not a linguist, but as a native speaker of both, I always thought it had something to do with the fact that in Croatian the verb "to be" is the only auxiliary verb used to built past tenses while in Italian transitive verbs use the verb "to have". The past participles in many languages behave very similarly to adjectives and thus I thought it might not be surprising that you'd decline them according to number and gender as you'd do with any adjective. So if when you fall you "are fallen", you decline the "fallen" participle/adjective according to the subject, namely you in this case. Thus instead of "have eaten" Croatian says "am eaten" (not meaning the passive voice but just using the verb to be as axillary instead of have) as a consequence you notice the "gendered verbs" more often than in other languages. As to why Italian declines participles when clitics are involved, I assume it adds some redundancy so you can more easily guess what the clitic refers to.
pndy 8y ago
> The words mom (appearing in your contact list), mom (as in call mom) and mom (as in send money to mom) are different. Each time I tried WP8.1 voice assistant to "zadzwoń do mama" it felt me extremely awkward due to nominative case of the word "mama". It should be "zadzwoń do mamy" which is genitive case, if I'm not mistaken, that would make whole phrase sound natural.
- smcl 8y ago
  Interesting, Polish and Czech are so alike and so different :D I guess the word Polish "mama" is pretty much the Czech "mamka" which similarly declines to "mamky" in the genitive case, but "do mamky" here is "into mum" which is ... rather odd (I think Czech would use the Dative "mamce" - so “zavolej mamce” or “zavolejte mamce” depending on your relationship with your phone!) I get tripped up when, for example, talking about getting presents from people and never seem to use the correct preposition - "od" or "z". I seem to use the one that would implied "came out of" not "came from"
  - pndy 8y ago
    It's the same West Slavic language group along with Slovak, thus those are similar to the certain degree but sometimes differ way too much like for example, infamous "szukać" (look for, seek; hledat) and "šukat" (to have sexual intercourse, to put it mildly) or "czerstwy" (stale) and "čerstvy" (fresh). I'm partially able to understand my Czech friend when he does speak in his language and same goes for him. As for "mama", there's a quite good explanation why it does looks similar (if not same) in many languages: https://www.mother.ly/parenting/mama-is-most-universal-word https://www.mother.ly/parenting/mama-is-most-universal-word

szatkus 8y ago

I started learning Finnish and it looks much worse. Twice as much cases, consonant gradation and puhekieli. Everything else seems on similar difficulty level as in Polish (maybe except genders, but it's pretty regular). But I may not have a proper perspective as Polish is my native language and I don't work with NLP (although I created a small tool to determine a word based on its inflected form with data from Wiktionary).

gtrfreewifi 8y ago
Puhekiäli voi olla vähä vaikiaa, mutta sitten on viälä eriksensä murtehet.

ajuc 8y ago

All Slavic languages are quite quirky in this regard. Most native speakers don't realize it, but when you try to write correct message parametrized with numbers in Polish, you need 3 or 4 special cases: - 1 - 2-4, 22-24, 32-34, ... - 5-21, 25-31, 35-41, ... If you say "out of X" you also need to handle numbers 100-199, 100 000-199 000, 100 000 000-199 000 000, ... separately (because 100 = sto, and if number begins with "s" - "out of X" is "ze" instead if "z") - this is in combination with previous 3 cases, so "199 ouf of 199" is different from "99 out of 99", and different from "122 out of 122". So "Copied X file(s) out of Y" would be: - "Skopiowano 1 plik" - "Skopiowano 2 pliki z 3" - "Skopiowano 5 plików z 5" - "Skopiowano 1 plik ze 100" - "Skopiowano 2 pliki ze 100" - "Skopiowano 5 plików ze 100". Almost no software handles this correctly :) But spell checkers work OK (they just ignore relationships between words usually).

miki123211 8y ago
Almost no software handles this correctly because almost no software gives us the tools to handle it correctly. I've translated some software to polish once or twice and they've been using a simple templating system, like message from {name}: {content}, {time} minutes ago. I didn't have access to the source code. As a consequence of that design, some messages were very malformed. Also there were some overused strings, like "liked" for "You've just liked this", "liked" for "things you've liked" and "liked" as in "someone liked your post". Also untranslatable.
- ajuc 8y ago
  Qt framework has system in place for several plural forms, so plik/pliki/plików problem is solved, and quite elegantly. If the application programmer gives a damn, that is. There's also a way to add context to the strings for translation, so that you can see this "like" is used in this meaning, and that other "like" is used in another meaning. But there's no generic solution to "z/ze" problem as far as I know, you need to do it by hand if you want correct messages. And most of the time programmers don't even realize they need to parametrize such stuff, so the systems don't do any good :)
  - dullgiulio 8y ago
    I imagine that before we have a technical solution that works well enough to be used, natural language (guided by the technological limits) will have dropped such rule in ordinary use.
    - ajuc 8y ago
      Unlikely. The rule is dictated by ease of pronunciation. It's hard to say "z stu", much easier to say "ze stu". The rule isn't hard to implement, it's just not expected to be a thing by framework/library creators.
babuskov 8y ago
> Almost no software handles this correctly Gettext solved it 20 years ago. The problem is that people try to reinvent the wheel instead of looking at existing solutions. So, they make their own inferior versions. The rule for plural has 3 cases. 1. When n mod 10 = 1 2. When n mod 10 is 2,3,4 3. Everything else And there's a special rule that the first 2 cases are not used when n mod 100 is between 11 and 29. For such numbers, the 3rd case is used instead. This is actually not that complex. Compare to Arabic, where you have 9 cases IIRC.

balfirevic 8y ago

Croatian is the same. Noun declination makes some sense, as it sometimes allows you to omit prepositions (although I sure am glad English doesn't do that). But gendered verbs are just stupid.

ithkuil 8y ago
"gendered" verbs are a thing in Italian too: "I fell" becomes "sono caduto" or "sono caduta" depending on the gender of the speaker. Transitive verbs reflect the gender of the objects when using clitics, e.g. "I ate the apple, I ate it really" -> "Ho mangiato la mela, l'ho mangiata davvero". What's odd in Croatian is that the all the verbs behave as intransitive Italian verbs, reflecting the gender of the speaker: "I fell" -> "pao sam" or "pala sam" but also "pojeo sam jabuku" vs "pojela sam jabuku" if the speaker is a woman. I'm not a linguist, but as a native speaker of both, I always thought it had something to do with the fact that in Croatian the verb "to be" is the only auxiliary verb used to built past tenses while in Italian transitive verbs use the verb "to have". The past participles in many languages behave very similarly to adjectives and thus I thought it might not be surprising that you'd decline them according to number and gender as you'd do with any adjective. So if when you fall you "are fallen", you decline the "fallen" participle/adjective according to the subject, namely you in this case. Thus instead of "have eaten" Croatian says "am eaten" (not meaning the passive voice but just using the verb to be as axillary instead of have) as a consequence you notice the "gendered verbs" more often than in other languages. As to why Italian declines participles when clitics are involved, I assume it adds some redundancy so you can more easily guess what the clitic refers to.

pndy 8y ago

> The words mom (appearing in your contact list), mom (as in call mom) and mom (as in send money to mom) are different. Each time I tried WP8.1 voice assistant to "zadzwoń do mama" it felt me extremely awkward due to nominative case of the word "mama". It should be "zadzwoń do mamy" which is genitive case, if I'm not mistaken, that would make whole phrase sound natural.

smcl 8y ago
Interesting, Polish and Czech are so alike and so different :D I guess the word Polish "mama" is pretty much the Czech "mamka" which similarly declines to "mamky" in the genitive case, but "do mamky" here is "into mum" which is ... rather odd (I think Czech would use the Dative "mamce" - so “zavolej mamce” or “zavolejte mamce” depending on your relationship with your phone!) I get tripped up when, for example, talking about getting presents from people and never seem to use the correct preposition - "od" or "z". I seem to use the one that would implied "came out of" not "came from"
- pndy 8y ago
  It's the same West Slavic language group along with Slovak, thus those are similar to the certain degree but sometimes differ way too much like for example, infamous "szukać" (look for, seek; hledat) and "šukat" (to have sexual intercourse, to put it mildly) or "czerstwy" (stale) and "čerstvy" (fresh). I'm partially able to understand my Czech friend when he does speak in his language and same goes for him. As for "mama", there's a quite good explanation why it does looks similar (if not same) in many languages: https://www.mother.ly/parenting/mama-is-most-universal-word https://www.mother.ly/parenting/mama-is-most-universal-word