Meta Builds Hokkien-To-English Speech Translator, Have Fluent Convos With Ah Gong & Ah Ma

Facebook Parent Group Meta Develops AI Speech Translator For Hokkien

Most Chinese folks in Singapore would be familiar with common Hokkien expressions like ‘bojio’, ‘paiseh’, and ‘huat’.

However, most of the younger generation might not be fluent enough to have proper conversations in the dialect.

That could change with the help of Meta, Facebook’s parent company.

Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that the tech company has developed a speech-to-speech translation system for Hokkien.

Through this, they hope to “break down language barriers in both the physical world and the metaverse to encourage connection and mutual understanding”.

Mark Zuckerberg introduces Hokkien AI speech translator by Meta

On Wednesday (19 Oct), Mr Zuckerberg posted a video introducing a speech-to-speech artificial intelligence (AI) translation system built for languages that are primarily spoken, not written.

This includes Hokkien, a language that’s used by millions of people around the world, including Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and China.

Source: Meta

To demonstrate, Mr Zuckerberg invited Peng-Jen Chen – one of the researchers on the project – to converse with him in two different languages.

After Mr Chen spoke a sentence in Hokkien, the translator repeated the phrase in English.

Source: Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook

It works the other way around too.

Mr Zuckerberg responded in English, and the system translated everything he said into Hokkien.

Source: Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook

Even though millions of people speak Hokkien, Mr Zuckerberg said that it was a challenge to build such a translation system because there’s no standard writing system for the dialect.

Mr Chen agreed, noting that Hokkien is usually not taught in schools. Instead, it is passed down orally from generation to generation.

Still a work in progress

In a news release, Meta shared that the Hokkien translation model can only translate one full sentence at a time as it’s still a work in progress.

However, it’s still a step forward towards a future “where simultaneous translation between languages is possible”.

“We’re open sourcing this so people can use it for more languages,” Mr Zuckerberg wrote in his post.

The translation system, Meta explained, is part of their Universal Speech Translator (UST) project.

UST is developing AI methods that aim to allow real-time speech-to-speech translation across all existing languages.

We believe spoken communication can help break down barriers and bring people together wherever they are located.

Have better conversations with your grandparents

Of course, you don’t actually have to travel far and wide to put the translator to good use.

Even at home, those who aren’t fluent in Hokkien can finally have a proper conversation with relatives who are more comfortable speaking the dialect.

If you would like to give the translator a go with Ah Gong and Ah Ma, check out the demo version here.

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Featured image adapted from Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook.