An evaluation of middle aged hanoi tourists’ experience when using google translate for travelling

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION THESIS AN EVALUATION OF MIDDLE-AGED HANOI TOURISTS’ EXPERIENCE WHEN USING GOOGLE TRANSLATE FOR TRAVELLING Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Diệu Thúy, M.A Student: Đoàn Huyền Trang Class: QH2016 HÀ NỘI - 2020 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP ĐÁNH GIÁ TRẢI NGHIỆM SỬ DỤNG GOOGLE TRANSLATE CỦA DU KHÁCH HÀ NỘI TRUNG NIÊN KHI DU LỊCH Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Thị Diệu Thúy Sinh viên: Đồn Huyền Trang Khóa: QH2016 HÀ NỘI - 2020 Signature of Approval: Supervisor’s Comments & Suggestions ACCEPTANCE I hereby state that I: Đoàn Huyền Trang, Class QH2016.E22, being a candidate for a degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honour programme of Translation and Interpreting) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Signature Doan Huyen Trang Date: May 4, 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This part is dedicated to the following people without whom I could not have finished this research paper First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest and most sincere gratitude to my supervisor and former teacher, Ms Nguyen Thi Dieu Thuy (M.A.) I am forever grateful for her timely tutelage and support, both academically and emotionally Had it not because of her I could never shape this research paper as it is today Secondly, I also want to thank 100 middle-aged participants whose cooperation and responses are indispensable for this study I would also like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my dearest friends, especially Hong Phuong, Tong Phuong Linh, Ngoc My, and all my classmates from class QH2016.E22 for always supporting and believing in me Finally, I am forever appreciated to have Dieu Linh and Phuong Ha to accompany me on this thesis experience, I also want to deliver my utmost love and gratitude towards my families as well, for always being big supporters Finally, many thanks to myself for always staying focused on what I have decided ABSTRACT The purpose of this research paper is to examine the limitations and effectiveness as well as the user experience by middle-aged participants towards Google Translate while traveling, an issue which is still new and has a lot of rooms to investigate and address With the aim of enlightening people about the strong existence of Google Translate, its limitations, and weaknesses among middle-aged participants, a set of interviews and questions was posed to middle-aged adults who are currently living in Hanoi and have used Google Translate when traveling From the figures and evidence collected from questionnaires and interviews, it was found out the main purposes of using Google Translate when traveling is to have assistance at the hospital, on the road and at the restaurants The study also pointed out that although some Google Translate features have existed for a long time, it was speech translation and image translation to be used the most by middle-aged participants for technical and quality reasons Moreover, this study managed to corner the limitations and effectiveness of Google Translate Specifically, limitations and effectiveness regarding naturalness and accuracy were addressed in this study From this reality, recommendations are made based on the existing limitations and middle-aged participants to reduce the unpleasant experience and further improve the effectiveness of Google Translate and hopefully other machine translation applications TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Abstract ii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 Background 1.1 Statement of research problem and rationale 1.2 Research objectives and questions 1.3 Significance of the study CHAPTER II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: Literature review 6 1.1 Overview of machine translation 1.2 Two functions of Google Translate 1.3 Previous studies on efficiencies and limitations of Google Translate CHAPTER 2: Research methodology 10 2.1 Data collection instruments 10 2.2 Sampling method: 11 2.3 Scope of the study 11 2.4 Data collection procedure 12 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 14 4.1 Question 1: What are the main purposes of using Google Translate and what features are mostly used by middle-aged tourists? 14 4.2 Question 2: In terms of content and naturalness, what are the efficiencies and limitations that users find when using Google Translate to translate English to Vietnamese for traveling? 18 4.3 Implications of the study 26 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 28 5.1 Summary of the findings 28 5.2 Limitations of the research 31 5.3 Recommendations for further studies 32 CHAPTER 6: REFERENCES 34 APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE 36 APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 41 APPENDIX 3: CONSENT FORM FOR INTERVIEWS 42 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND With the advent of the Internet in the 1990s and the commensurate rapid growth of information and communication technology, Google Translate has taken a further step towards providing more informed and reliable products for the clients Google Translate is a popular translation service developed by Google in April 2006 Since 2012, Google has announced that more than 200 million people actively use Google Translate monthly (Kerr, 2012) Google translates multiple forms of texts and media such as words, phrases, and webpages and it offers a wide range of services including translating multiple forms of text and media such as signs, speech, images, and videos Additionally, Google Translate functions include written translation, website translation, document translation, speech translation, mobile app translation, image translation, handwritten translation Google Translate is available for texting on mobile phones, in several internet browsers for any Web page, YouTube video captions, and speech-to-speech "conversation mode" on smartphones The translation method that Google used to adopt is the Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) and later in November 2016, Google has transitioned its translating method to a system called “Neural Machine Translation”, which marked a significant advance on previous methods The Neural Machine Translation method adopts a technology called deep learning, a system which utilizes the users’ translation to translate the whole sentences at a time and ensures more adequate accuracy As tourism is an ever-developing industry, the need to have translation applications for tourists is rapidly increasing Google Translate research scientist Franz Och had mentioned that the majority of Google Translate users access the service while traveling (Kerr, 2012) In Vietnam, Google Translate is among the most commonly used applications that can help users translate from Vietnamese to several languages and vice versa (TNK, 2017) Google Translate is very convenient since it belongs to the Google ecosystem and it compiles several functions to help travellers With availability for approximately 100 languages and works both online and offline, Google Translate is evolving and expanding its operations in this potential market Google Translate in some situations such as buying tickets or bargaining goods When asking about the features that middle-aged participants tend to use when traveling, it is surprising and significant to pinpoint that the latest methods including speech translation, image translation, and mobile app translation are the most chosen ones What makes those features stand out from other methods is of technical reasons To be specific, speech translation and image translation, are relatively easy to use and requires minimum effort or steps to operate Meanwhile, mobile-app translations can be used on smartphones, which becomes a handy and effective tool when participants need to look for information It is also put into consideration that when using these tools, the participants don’t have to type or speak English, thus they will feel comfortable using Google Translate By distributing the questionnaires and conducting interviews, the research was able to gain an insightful understanding about machine translation applications Specifically, this study has resolved the question on main purposes and Google Translate features that middle-age participants use Noticeably, it can be concluded that middle-aged participants tend to use Google Translate in circumstances when it involves communicating with foreigners and background information such as going to hospitals, ordering food, and travelling on the road Such finding can be contributed to the investigation of a larger population with more diverse age ranges Additionally, the research also has managed to discover the mostly used Google Translate features An understanding from that matter has reflected the customer behavior of a population towards Google Translate Based on this understanding, the research can help future research to focus more on analyzing those main translation features In 28 short, the findings about main features and contexts to use Google Translate can be considered as a foundation for future research on a translation tool or situation b Efficiencies and limitations From the findings that have been yielded in the first question, the researcher expects to discover the efficiencies and limitations of Google Translate when using it for traveling purposes To begin with, the data from interviews and questionnaire has helped conclude that the text types which require little background information and settings tend to have a better translation than the others This is further supported by the results from the first question, as it was indicated that text types that require more background information tend to have a greater demand for translation/interpreting Another empirical finding that the researcher has successfully achieved is the efficiencies that Google Translate has from the participants’ observation and experience In general, what Google Translate manages to are understandable and natural translations even though there have been existed various concerns on the naturalness of Google Translate translations By using the questionnaire and interviews, the researcher can draw out some factors which can decide good translations in the context of traveling These factors include the basic level of vocabulary, cultural differences, and cultural expressions Since many conversational talks happening which not require a complicated level of lexical items, Google Translate can solve and provide good translations Google Translate is also found out to have well-processed the sentence structure from English to Vietnamese without any fragments In fact, Google Translate can provide understandable and natural translations in many contexts and text types such as bargaining goods, brochures… 29 As three factors influencing the quality of translations have been indicated, Google Translate was discovered to have certain limitations Firstly, results from questionnaires and interviews provided that in contexts that have more complicated vocabulary and background information such as ordering food, asking for help at the hospital, or listening for tourist descriptions, Google Translate cannot deliver a good translation In addition, cultural differences, particularly the difference in measurement units or personal backgrounds could explain the poor performance from Google Translate Items such as idioms, slangs, or measurement units were found to not have been translated into the equivalent language (Vietnamese) Furthermore, the study also enabled to show the experience of middle-aged Vietnamese living in Hanoi, an interesting and potential group of customers towards Google Translate as a digital product Through data from interviews and questionnaires, the research has managed to confirm that there exists both limitations and effectiveness of Google Translate The limitations and effectiveness of Google Translate in terms of accuracy and understandability can shed lights on the problems of some translation softwares like Google Translate Furthermore, the understanding of the strength and weakness of Google Translate from the observation of middle-aged participants can be used to compare with that of younger participants In previous part, the researcher has mentioned the rationale of conducting this study To be specific, the primary purpose of this study was to see whether Google Translate can replace the role of translator or interpreters Through findings and analysis, it is believed that while Google Translate can be helpful to many users, the need of translators and interpreters is still vital As Google Translate still 30 cannot deliver translations which require background or cultural information, the use of Google Translate can only work best in limited circumstances such as translating road signs or transport guidelines Limitations of the research: When conducting the study, the researcher also is aware of the limitations arising from the study Firstly, since the research is only conducted on a limited population by the chosen method, it is hard to generalize the results from the findings Specifically, when choosing the random sampling method, the researcher is aware that the sample size is quite small, thus it will be difficult to have a high confidence level, as statistical tests normally require a larger sample size to ensure a representative distribution of the population and to be considered representative of groups of people to whom results will be generalized or transferred Another limitation underlying in the research is that the opinions and experience from the interviews and questionnaires are all made by the participants and maybe not academically based Certain opinions and judgments towards the efficiencies and limitations of Google Translate could be subjective and did not involve academic or specialized knowledge However, as the main purpose of the study is to analyze and make observations from the users’ perspective, thus provide recommendations for middle-aged users, this limitation can become a subsequent research topic to conduct The researcher believes that a possible shortcoming of this study is the limits of age range of the participants Middle-aged participants were the only source for investigation and analyzing, which can be improved in future studies Specifically, future researches can expand the population of participants to have more generalized findings From the researcher’s perspective, what should also be considered a limitation is the lack of prior research studies on the topic Topics that are related to Google Translate in specific and translation or interpreting tools are relatively rare and mostly could not be found The researcher believes it was a shortcoming to have 31 related knowledge to take it for reference Nevertheless, this limitation can be served as an important opportunity to identify new gaps in the literature and to describe the need for further research Recommendations on further studies Regarding the recommendations for future research, the researcher strongly believes that further studies on similar topics can explore the effectiveness and limitations of Google Translate of different translation features Throughout this study, it was found out that image and speech translation is the prominent translation features Similar studies in the future can investigate deeper on other translation features such as handwritten translation or written translation Secondly, further studies can be conducted and explored by using another language pair, from Vietnamese to English This language pair study can be very effective for foreigners and greatly contribute to the development of several translations or interpreting tools such as Google Translate, iTranslate… Additionally, as the participants of the research are middle-aged adults, there is most of the concern and interest over the use of translation software and applications when going to the hospital As medical is often regarded as a scientific and specialized field, a further study on the use of Google Translate or other translation applications can be quite important for future use if machine translation tools can replace the use of humans in specialized knowledge Another suggestion which can be considered for future studies is the expanding of age range Different age group can be asked and interviewed to analyze more data about the limitations and effectiveness of Google Translate Diverse opinions can then be gained to create a comprehensive knowledge about this matter Moreover, the scope of further studies can be expanded in upcoming studies Specifically, further studies can use participants from foreign countries other than English-speaking countries Those studies can also enable people to gain more cultural knowledge and differences Similarly, this topic can be conducted in several 32 other languages and the researcher expects it can become a foundation in the development of translation/interpreting tools Last but not least, the researcher also recommends analyzing the efficiencies and limitations of translation applications as a further study from the stance of translation and interpreting professionals Although understanding the experience of customers when using translation software is insightful, further knowledge based on theoretical knowledge from the professionals can help to form a relationship between practical situations and theoretical knowledge in the translation industry 33 CHAPTER 6: REFERENCES Aiken, M & Ghosh, K (2009) Automatic translation in multilingual business meetings Industrial Management & Data Systems, 109(7), 916-925 Çakır, S (2013) A study on the efficiency of “Google Translate” translation program The Translation Journal, 55, 179-188 Casacuberta, F., Civera, J., Cubel E., Lagarda, A L., Lapalme, G., Macklovitch, E., and Vidal, E (2009) Human interaction for high-quality machine translation Communications of the ACM, 52(10) 135-138 Gravetter, F.J & Forzano, L.B (2011) Research Methods for the Behavioural Sciences: Cengage Learning p.146 Gu (2019) “Google Translate’s instant camera translation gets an upgrade” Google Blog Retrieved from November 4, 2019 Huang, H.J (2011) Intermediality and human vs machine translation Comparative Literature and Culture, 13(3), 1-11 Irfan, Muhammad (2017) Machine Translation Retrieved November 4, 2019 Jia,Weiss (2015).Introducing Translatotron: An End-to-End Speech-to-Speech Translation Model: International Journal of Translation Retrieved from November 4, 2019 Kerr (2012) “Google Translate boasts 64 languages and 200M users” Android Authority Retrieved November 4, 2019 10 McGuire, Nick (July 26, 2018) "How accurate is Google Translate in 2018?" ARGO Translation Retrieved November 29, 2018 11 MD Okpor Machine translation approaches: issues and challenges: International Journal of Computer Science Issues (IJCSI), 11(5):159,2014 12 Orch, Franz (April 28, 2006) "Statistical machine translation live" Google Research Blog Google Retrieved November 4, 2019.) 34 13 Petrovan, Bogdan (January 14, 2015) Google Translate just got smarter: Word Lens and instant voice translations in latest update Android Authority Retrieved November 28, 2018 14 Sommerlad, Joe (June 19, 2018) Google Translate: How does the search giant's multilingual interpreter actually work?: Google Blog Retrieved November 4, 2019 15 Turovsky, Barak (November 15, 2016) Found in translation: More accurate, fluent sentences in Google Translate The Keyword Google Blog Retrieved November 4, 2019 16 TNK Travel.(Mar 8, 2017) Best Free Smartphone Apps for Vietnamese Software Blog Retrieved November 4, 2019 35 APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE HABITS AND PERSPECTIVES OF MIDDLE-AGED HANOI’S TOURIST WHEN USING GOOGLE TRANSLATE FOR TRAVELLING Hi! My name is Doan Huyen Trang and I am currently conducting research about the efficiency and limitation of Google Translate while traveling Through this questionnaire, your answers will be helpful in enhancing the understanding of this matter Your response will only be used for survey purposes and kept confidential Thank you very much for your time and dedication PART 1: In this part, a few questions will be posed in order to get to know the participants’ habit of traveling and using Google Translate when traveling How many times have you traveled abroad? A 1-3 times B - times C More than times Have you ever used Google Translate when traveling? A Yes B No C I used other translation applications (Please specify: _) How many features of Google Translate you know? A Written Words Translation B Speech Translation C Mobile App Translation D Image Translation E Handwritten Translation PART 2: In this part, the questions will dig deeper into the process of using Google Translate as well as the participants’ perspective towards Google Translate’s performance 36 When you travel, how often you use Google Translate? Rate from to (1: Never, 2: Seldom, 3: Sometimes, 4: Often, 5: Always): What you use Google Translate for? (You can choose more than 1) A To bargain for goods B To ask for help when going to the hospital C To purchase tickets D To ask for help when traveling on the roads E To order food F Others: _3 How would you rate the overall performance of Google Translate? Very poor Poor Average Good Excellent _ Do you think that Google Translate served your demand by translating the following text types? Please rate from to by ticking X in the box to match your opinion Very poor Poor Average Good Excellent Text types N/ A Road signs Transport guidelines 37 Basic conversation Food menu Products description Tourist spot description Conversation A specialized talk Brochures/leaflets In your opinion, what are the efficiencies of Google translation? With the following statements, rate from to by ticking X to match your opinion Totally disagree Partly disagree Neutral Statements Partly agree The lexical items in the translation are easy to understand The lexical items in the translation are related to the situation The sentence structures in the translation sound natural The translation has an appropriate tone The translation provides additional information 38 Totally agree Among the text types that you have used Google to translate, which text type has the poorest translation provided by Google Translate? A Road signs B Transport guidelines C Basic conversation D Food menu E Products description F Tourist spot description G Conversation H A specialized talk I Brochures/leaflets J Others: What are the problems of the poorest translation that you have chosen? With the following statements, rate from to by ticking X to match your opinion Totally disagree Partly disagree Neutral Statements Partly agree The lexical items in the translation are very complicated The lexical items in the translation are not related to the situation The sentence structures in the translation sound unnatural The translation has an inappropriate tone 39 Totally agree The message of translation is not welldelivered The translation is not very informative Will you recommend Google Translate to a new user? A Yes, I will recommend other people to use Google Translate B No, I won’t recommend other people to use Google Translate If yes, please give a short answer with your reason(s) _ If no, please give a short answer with your reason(s) _ THANK YOU FOR YOUR ANSWERS! _ THE END _ 40 APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS How did you know about Google Translate? Do your friends or relatives use Google Translate? What are the settings/situations when you used Google Translate? Can you specify? In those situations, which features did you use? Can you retell at least one situation that Google Translate provided a helpful translation? After finishing the questionnaire, you want to add any other advantages of Google translation? Can you retell at least one situation that Google Translate provided an unhelpful translation? After finishing the questionnaire, you want to add any other problems of translation? Did the problems of translation affect your traveling experience? 10 Overall, are you satisfied with the translation Google Translate provided? Why and why not? 11 Which situation you think Google Translate can be a helpful translation tool? 12 Will you recommend other people to use Google Translate? 13 Demographic questions (Name, age, gender….) 41 APPENDIX 3: CONSENT FORM FOR INTERVIEWS Title of the Research: An evaluation of middle-aged Hanoi tourists’ experience when using Google Translate for travelling I confirm that I have understood the information about the study and have had the opportunity to ask questions I understand that my participation in the study is voluntary, and at any point should I not want to answer any question or questions, or even withdraw from the project, there will not be consequences of any kind I understand that my identity and responses in the interview will be kept strictly confidential and will not be linked with the research materials, as well as identified or identifiable in the report that results from the research I understand that I hold the right to contact any of the people involved in the research to seek further clarification and information I agree for this interview to be recorded I understand that the audio recording from this interview will be used only for analysis and that extracts from the interview, from which I would not be personally identified, may be used in any conference presentation, report or journal article developed as a result of the research I understand that no other use will be made of the recording without my permission and that no one besides the researcher and his supervisor will be allowed access to the original recording I agree that my anonymized data will be kept for future research purposes such as publications related to this study after the completion of the study I agree to take part in this interview Name: _ Thank you for your kind consideration If you are happy to participate in the interview for this study, please carefully read the form below and indicate your consent by signing 42 ... Title of the Research: An evaluation of middle- aged Hanoi tourists’ experience when using Google Translate for travelling I confirm that I have understood the information about the study and have... problems of some translation softwares like Google Translate Furthermore, the understanding of the strength and weakness of Google Translate from the observation of middle- aged participants can be... level of satisfaction among middle- aged participants for the performance of Google Translate From the chart above, about 50% of participants have had a great experience using Google Translate