Columbus Sat Nav spoken directions are strange phrases like poor translations

[SwissRob]

Hello everybody

 

In my Superb 3 Combi 'Style' I have the new-style Columbus satellite navigation system. My whole car language, including Columbus is set to English. 

I use Columbus spoken directions so I don't have to take my eyes off the road which is useful on congested Swiss motorways. 

 

Here's my issue: 

 

Columbus' spoken directions often seem like very poor translations into English

 

The voice I have selected is female, pleasant and originally a native English speaker, so her accent is perfect.

Often the spoken directions however are often not real English phrases, but appear to be poor translations. Perhaps poor translations from German?

 

For example "Prepare to drive to the left" is very common. This really means "Prepare to (or get ready to) bear left (or stay left)" - often used when it really means "ignore the motorway exit to the right" 

 

My problem is that "Drive to the left" doesn't mean anything in English - it specifically does not mean turn to the left (the message for that is correct) - but as a German speaker I understand drive to the left is a poor translation of "Links fahren". which can be "stay left", "bear left", or very rarely "drive on the left" (instead of right like when changing from France to England!)

 

There are quite a few occurrences of these strange phrases which irritate me since the voice has a perfect accent but is saying something that an English-speaker would never say. 

 

"In 100 meters drive to the first lane to the left" - (not sure if I have remembered this correctly)  but it means In 100 meters take the first lane on the left or even In 100 meters bear left. 

 

So the reason I have started this thread is to ask, 

Is anyone else irritated by strange Columbus spoken direction phrases? What about the other languages in the forum, French, Swedish, Finnish, Slovakian, Serbian etc etc.? 

 

Moderators - if there is already a topic on poor Sat Nav spoken directions, please relocate this post there. I have searched for such a thread but didn't find one. 

 

 

Separate issue - handling of words and names which don't belong to the chosen system language. 

Naturally because of the fact that I am in a non-English-speaking country (Switzerland) the voice has difficulty with the pronunciation of local names (places, streets, directions on signs etc.) which are usually Swiss-German or German.

The issue of pronunciation of the handling of phonemes not belonging to the chosen language for spoken messages is a separate topic. 

Some of my previous after-market satellite navigation devices have handled this quite well with passable German pronunciation of local names, some have handled it not so well. 

Columbus is not very good at it, but I don't expect a system set to English to handle foreign words and names well. 

There is often a clue that the system could use, since "locale" (for default weights & measures, currency symbols, numbering conventions etc. ) in my case is set to Switzerland (perhaps even Swiss German) so it could use this as an optional scheme for the non-system language phonemes. 

 

 

 

[Fatso]

I have never got voice activation of any sort to work in my Superb.

 

My car settings are all set to English as I am English, living in England and speaking English.

 

Maybe it's my Yorkshire accent?

 

 

[xman]

37 minutes ago, Fatso said:

I have never got voice activation of any sort to work in my Superb.

 

My car settings are all set to English as I am English, living in England and speaking English.

 

Maybe it's my Yorkshire accent?

 

 

 

Aye lad, flippin eck, reight bobar! 

[SwissRob]

Hi all

 

I am talking about the Navigation System giving me directions by voice, not its understanding my voice commands to it (or not). 

 

I didn't try giving mine any voice commands for the moment, maybe some time in the future. 

 

Ayup! Champion!   (Despite Yorkshire roots, I've lived abroad so long, I can't remember anything). 

[CheshireBumpkin]

That's interesting - I've been aware of the slightly odd turn of phrase for a while, but I can't say it's irritated me as such. Having said that, I don't really rate the Columbus Nav particularly highly and tend to rely more on Apple Maps via Carplay - not because I think it's better as as a sat-nav, just because it's generally more up to date and has access to live traffic conditions. 

 

I'm sure you're right - it'll be a poor source translation.

[BriskodaJeff]

Mine tells me to drive to Arrrrksford. It means Oxford. 

[juux]

I must've had a dozen satnavs, plus used various Android and iOS guidance evolutions going back to 2010, and none of them have ever been 100% perfect. There's always the odd turn of phrase, awkward pronunciation or stilted cadence, and in that respect I'd say the Columbus is no better or worse than average.

[xman]

If Columbus maps are based on or related to Here maps, then this does not surprise me. Here maps is usually very good provided you ignore the spoken directions, which often are at odds with the visual directions. It has many awkward phrases when you have to bear left/right or move to a certain lane and sometimes is completely wrong. If I have a choice ahead of me, a quick glance is much better than listening to the gobbledygook it sometimes spits out.

[Warmonkry]

I like the my Columbus phrase....'continue on this road for a long time' 

 

Pete

[BriskodaJeff]

They've fixed that one! Though I'm not sure whether being told to stay on the M4 for 87 miles is more depressing than just being told  it will be a long time...

Edited 6 February, 2018 by BriskodaJeff

[millerhouse]

I'm new to the Columbus having just got a Skoda but initially I was a bit confused by being asked to turn "half-left" when what it meant was take the slip road! Incidentally, I'm not that keen on the breathy woman's voice but can't find any option to change to any other voices, Am I missing something?

John M

[freelunch]

According to my infotainment manual, you can select a male voice (device settings, page 15).

 

I like the woman. I call her Susan, but best not say why...

 

I've heard of people buying voices for their sat nav, like Jeremy Clarkson or Homer Simpson, etc. I don't know if that's possible on the Columbus, or how it would be installed?

[facet edge]

I had John Cleese on my  Tom Tom. He used to say "Bear right, Beaver left"

The instructions for turning round were hilarious and he wouldn't carry your bags at the end of the journey.

[SwissRob]

21 hours ago, millerhouse said:

turn "half-left"

Ah yes, I had forgotten that!  I sincerely believe it is a poor translation of another language. 

 

In a previous life I worked in a startup that did voice recognition, voice synthesis ('computer speaking') and voice recognition (voice "fingerprinting" to identify an individual). 

In computer-managed interactions, the grammar of the designated phrases was pre-defined and the appropriate words are a list of phonemes, most or all of which may have been gathered from a recording of a real person recording an appropriate vocabulary.  

In making such recordings, the position of the word in a phrase leads to intonation which may be different if at the beginning, middle or end. 

We had our subjects record for example

 

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 -- 1 at beginning, 2, 3, 4 in the middle, 5 at the end. 

2, 3, 4, 5, 1 -- 2 at beginning, 3, 3, 5 in the middle 1 at the end. 

2, 1, 3, 4, 5 -- 2 at beginning, 1, 3, 4 in the middle 5 at the end. 

 

etc. so you got 3 samples of "1" intonation - at the beginning, middle and end of a sentence (list). Define and do this for all relevant vocabulary: eg. drive, stop, road, lane, motorway, sliproad, exitroad, roundabout, junction, turn, reverse, make, bear, left, right, park, destination ... etc.

 

So to go back to my original gripe: I know how it's done and if the grammar is not right, this is something that can (and should) be fixed. Also Intonation can be defined correctly, and pronunciation depends on the voice of the original subject (or talent). 

 

So it is possible to get completely natural sounding announcements driven by computer. The Swiss in-train announcements are a good example. The German language announcements sound perfect to me. (But there is a translation error in the English where it says "Welcome in the inter-regio train to Berne" instead of "Welcome aboard the inter-regio train to Berne" or "Welcome to the inter-regio train to Berne")  

 

Non-main-language words belonging to other languages is more of a lottery situation and it depends on several things including rules of precedence (if this sound comes before that, then the second sound is different, etc. like kj in Swedish is "sh" instead of the sound of k followed by the sound of j. )  So Linkjöping pronounced by  Swedish text to speech would say Linshöping (because that's the definition in Swedish pronunciation rules)  but not if the system thinks it's getting English text - in which case it might say Link-Joe-Ping" because that obeys the pronunciation rules in English.

 

But I am getting out of my depth. time to stop...

 

Edited 7 February, 2018 by SwissRob

[xman]

2 hours ago, SwissRob said:

 

But I am getting out of my depth. time to stop...

 

 

"You have reached your destination"

[nsfu]

We like "Destination Street". Odd how every town seems to have one of those and we're always going to it!

 

Near us, the small village of Bettws Cedewain results in an interesting pronunciation from the Columbus lady - "Bettws" is OK, but Cedewain, which in Welsh is pronounced "keh-DEH-wine" comes out, as if it were pure English, as "seed-wayne". You can see how the computer arrived at that ...

[xman]

[D402]

Bugs me that it says A-four-thousand-one-hundred-and-thirty-five instead of A-four-one-three-five

[xman]

26 minutes ago, D402 said:

Bugs me that it says A-four-thousand-one-hundred-and-thirty-five instead of A-four-one-three-five

 

Really?? Extremely poor programming.

[BriskodaJeff]

41 minutes ago, D402 said:

Bugs me that it says A-four-thousand-one-hundred-and-thirty-five instead of A-four-one-three-five

May be wrong but I think the UK is one of only a few countries that names roads in that way. I guess the programming is done for the many not the few. And what about the M25 for example. But I agree it does make the announcements too long.

[SwissRob]

37 minutes ago, D402 said:

Bugs me that it says A-four-thousand-one-hundred-and-thirty-five instead of A-four-one-three-five

 

Yes, I have a similar issue that it tells me to "Turn right on one" instead of "Turn right on national (road) one"
because the Swiss equivalent of the UK's A1 is just labelled "1"

(The Swiss equivalent of UK's M1 is called "A1").  

 

To return to the A4135 above, it would need to know that we just say "a four one three five" but obviously it just treats the number sequence like any other valid number, rather than a numeric sequence that should get special treatment. I mean, you wouldn't say "I get paid six zero one two one pounds per year" there the thousands and hundreds breakdown is valid. Telephone numbers are another special case because there is usually special grouping instead of all 11 digits being treated as one number.

 

So the significance of the number (semantics - telephone, general number, street designation etc.) determines how it is to be treated. 

 

 

[xman]

Its a sat nav, the programmer should know that road numbers are treated different to ordinary arithmetic numbers. Does any european country call their road number over 99 by hundreds or thousands? I don't think so. It already knows is a road identifier so its a simple two or three extra lines of code.

 

Bear in mind that Columbus is a really expensive unit over 2000 euros. You can get a phenomenal laptop and top quality software for that price.

Edited 9 February, 2018 by xman

[BriskodaJeff]

How would you pronounce Route 66?Do they sell the Superb in Murka? 

[xman]

12 minutes ago, BriskodaJeff said:

How would you pronounce Route 66?Do they sell the Superb in Murka? 

 

The Will Rogers Highway, the Main Street of America or the Mother Road apparently.

[mdpslm]

Hi SwissRob,

I agree with a lot of what you're saying above and it's good to link up with a fellow expat in CH!

A good while back I worked at Denso in Coventry for a good while where we looked after the SatNav & Infotainment systems that went into Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, Saab & some Ford vehicles. The time, effort & cost taken to eliminate problems including the phrasing and pronunciation mistakes was huge. The various SatNav systems cores software were based on the code from Japanese systems however the UK local team of Systems, Software, Voice and Test Engineers modified/tested the upper code levels to be compliant to the appropriate UK manufacturers vehicle specifications. We put massive effort into this both in the labs and in real & test vehicles on the road with generally good outcomes in English - not sure about how good the translations where in other languages but we did use foreign language natural speakers to do validation work - I think this step may have been missed when creating the VAG system.

I tend to drive the Superb with the sound off when using SatNav but have noticed issues when it was turned on.

 

As well as you question about how good it^s phrasing sounds/works in other languages I would also like to know if the same issues occur in Audi, VW & Seat with the same system fitted, if yes then VAG are being very lazy if no and specific to Skoda then maybe its Skoda being cheap :-)