Could it be any easier now to chat with international friends? MSN Messenger and Google Talk have live translation robots that make online bilingual dictionaries seem antiquated. After adding a particular translation “bot” to your contact list, it poses as an intermediary between you and a friend who speaks another language.

On Google Talk, your bot is named for a two-letter abbreviation of the languages you want translated, plus ‘bot.talk.google.com.’ Your English to Spanish bot, for example, is en2es@bot.talk.google.com. For a complete list of languages available (there are 24), check the details on this Google post. Whatever you type to your friend is instantly translated to his language, and vice versa.

Like any machine generated translation, the conversions aren’t perfect, but a few tests of mine proved the translations better than functional, with syntax intact and contextual word choice. Google comments, “…while machine translation isn’t perfect, we hope these bots can be helpful in bridging language barriers.”

Similar bots are available on MSN Messenger and Twitter, among others. This article from the Microsoft Research Machine Translation Team Blog explains the feature, and shows screenshots of a live translated chat.

As of Monday, Oprah began broadcasting her show in Spanish via Secondary Audio Programming and closed captioning. Spanish-speaking viewers in the country’s six largest Hispanic TV markets (Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Dallas, and Miami) can now reap the benefits of the talk show queen’s “consejos de expertos en salud, belleza, relaciones y dinero,” as her website spouts.

A Harpo Productions, Inc. spokesperson said their aim is to serve the country’s fastest growing segment of the population. “With Spanish subtitles, Hispanic viewers will a have a more direct experience with Oprah.”

While some might argue Oprah is opening her arms to a once neglected demographic, Huffington Post columnist Esther J. Cepeda has a less than optimistic opinion of the show’s change.

Oprah gave Spanish-only speakers yet one more reason to not have to learn English to “get along” in this country.

But Oprah’s crack market-research team didn’t do their homework. The fastest-growing segment of the population is overwhelmingly U.S.- born and fluent in English.

And guess what? Despite the breathless banner ads on Oprah.com exclaiming “Finally! Oprah in Spanish!” the kind of women living in the U.S. who don’t speak Spanish are probably not the type who are going to be able to afford the $60 LeMystere bras or $30 Yves Saint Laurent lipsticks that the Queen of Consumerism shills on her show, in her magazine and on her website.

No, that would be me: Young, female, affluent, English-speaking, U.S.-born Latinas.

Click here to read the full editorial. Or here for Oprah en Español… “Vea… y siéntase inspirado.”

This presidential election continues to see international relations in the spotlight. In the midst of both a war and a widespread economic crisis, the U.S. has been confronted with the reality that we must open our eyes more than ever to the international community.

Even President Bush realized this, when at a State Department conference in 2006 he proposed to spend $114 million in language programs teaching Farsi, Arabic and Chinese; this was called the National Security Language Initiative. While it might have reflected a drought of translators more than a new wave of tolerance, Mr. Bush did recognize the importance of cultural inclusion: “In order to convince people we care about them, we’ve got to understand their culture and show them we care about their culture. You know, when somebody comes to me and speaks Texan, I know they appreciate Texas culture.”

These days we’re more worried about the presidential candidates’ foreign policy experience, particularly after the advent of a surprise selection for the Republican VP slot, a novice Alaskan governor notable for some befuddling quotes about her home state’s proximity to Russia.

Apparently, U.S. candidates have it easy—in Canada, presidential hopefuls debate in both French and English. So, how would our candidates fare in a bi-lingual debate? Buzzflash’s Chad Rubel takes a look:

In today’s Canadian federal election, speakers of both major languages have heard from their potential leaders in their native tongue. And they are sufficiently bilingual, then they know if the leaders say different things in different languages.

Yes, Canadians do wrestle with language issues, but there is the confidence that the leaders can speak to them in their native language. Despite what the current occupant thinks of his Spanish language abilities, our leaders don’t work in terms of conveying to this segment of the population in their native language.

But it would help if our leaders knew enough of a language used in quite a significant bit of the population. I’ve heard Obama speak in Spanish with Bill Richardson, but often these are learned phrases to convey some knowledge.

Most world leaders find it necessary to communicate in their own language(s) as well as English. Since we are part of the world, it might be nice to blend in better.

Rubel poignantly concludes:

The ability for a U.S. president to speak more than one language in an ever-shrinking world would make us more viable in diplomacy and understanding of the peoples that make up this planet. Imagine if we had a U.S. president who spoke Russian in 1972 or Arabic in 2002. Or even a Spanish-language speaking president anytime.

A translator’s job can reach a terrifying height of pressure during wartime. As a couple of recent examples show, a simple translation issue can undermine an entire agreement or add confusion to an already messy conflict.

During the negotiation of a peace plan between Russia and Georgia, a “translation problem” contributed to difficulties in its interpretation. Parties signed a French document that was then translated into English and Russian. Among other small discrepancies, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was vexed over the replacement of “for” with “in” in one passage. He called it “a direct forgery.”

The main linguistic glitch was in a passage in the Russian version that spoke of security “for South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” whereas the English version spoke of security “in” the two areas.

Mr. Kouchner’s remarks confirmed comments by an unnamed Russian official earlier in the day who said the two versions were “not the same.”

“In the Moscow version, the text refers to security ‘for’ Abkhazia and ‘for’ South Ossetia,” said the official, speaking to Agence France-Presse on the condition of anonymity.

“In the document given to the Georgian leaders, it was presented as ‘in’ Abkhazia and ‘in’ South Ossetia. It is not the same,” he added.

The wording is significant because it refers to the “buffer zones” that Russia has created in undisputed Georgian territory and that Moscow says are necessary to prevent Georgian forces from threatening the two breakaway provinces.

At the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Saudi Arabian prisoner’s criminal trial was put on hold due to issues with the simultaneous interpretation among the defendant, his lawyers and court reporter.

[Army Col. James] Pohl tried to question al Darbi on whether he wanted a U.S. military or civilian lawyer but the exchange was difficult to follow because the translators’ voices competed with the judge’s.

The translators worked in a booth outside the courtroom and their voices were broadcast simultaneously via earphones so the defendant could listen in Arabic and into the courtroom so his answers could be repeated in English.

The lawyers, the defendant and the court reporter could not keep up, so Pohl recessed the hearing until the problems could be fixed.

Translation issues have interrupted the hearings since 2004, when the U.S. military first convened the special court to try foreign captives on terrorism charges at the naval base, rather than in the regular U.S. civilian or military courts.

Speech Technology Magazine writes that an acute care hospital in New Jersey is the first to use a one of a kind machine translator to communicate with their patients. For those who have (very reasonable) doubts about automatic translators, the “Converser” is almost hard to believe: its user simply types into, writes on, or talks to the translation-bot, and an instant native-speaking voice responds. Are the translations accurate? Its method claims to be…

Translations can be verified by Converser’s Reliable Retranslation technology—which provides a translation of the translation—and, if a word is mistranslated, Converser allows for fast correction by providing a list of alternative meanings.

Converser says the machine, much cheaper than hiring a live interpreter, will cut down on waiting room time and “free up interpreters to concentrate on the most critical cases.” Here’s Bayshore Community Hospital’s opinion:

“It’s been a very good tool to add to our services,” says Chris Domalewski, vice president of marketing and community relations. “It is extremely helpful to patients and also to our staff.”

According to Domalewski, staff at Bayshore successfully utilized Converser recently when asking a Latino patient—who didn’t speak English—to use a wheelchair.

“He simply didn’t understand it in English,” Domalewski says of the patient who initially refused the request. “But once we wrote it on the screen…[Converser] spoke [in Spanish] back out at him, ‘please get into the wheelchair.’ So it was very simple…. It was very helpful.”

This may be one case where a machine translator isn’t that bad after all—a sort of refined medical Babelfish that could potentially save lives. And for interminably short-staffed hospitals, the Converser may be a welcomed helping hand. It would be interesting, however, to take another look after the hospital has used the machine for a while. Do patients prefer a robot over a human, for example? Can the Converser deal with more complex conversations?

Converser’s company says it’s working to develop a similar program in Chinese, and will grow from there.

This election has seen a lot of firsts. Among other exciting historic advances, our nation’s cultural diversity—and by extension, our multilingualism—has taken center stage. Back in September, Democratic candidates were immersed in the first ever simultaneously-interpreted forum during a live national broadcast. Candidates confronted issues such as immigration reform and Mexican-U.S. border fence. The Washington Post reports:

The most remarkable part of the 90-minute forum, held at the University of Miami, proved to be not the responses but the format: Questions were posed in Spanish by two moderators from the Spanish-language television network Univision, which broadcast the event nationally; interpreters immediately translated the questions into English for the candidates, while a written English translation was beamed onto a screen in the arena for the crowd of more than 3,000.

Univision required candidates to answer in English, because only New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) speak Spanish fluently. That prompted Richardson to criticize the network from the stage Sunday night.

“I’m disappointed today that 43 million Latinos in this country—for them not to hear one of their own speak Spanish, is unfortunate,” Richardson said. “In other words, Univision is promoting English-only in this debate.”

He then switched to Spanish but was cut off by moderators Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas.

Salinas and Ramos, meanwhile, delivered challenges of their own. Dodd, Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) were called to account for their votes to build a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border. All three noted their support for broader rights for Latino immigrants, both legal and illegal, but they said tighter border security is important. “That has to be part of comprehensive immigration reform,” Clinton said, adding that in some points she supported “even a physical barrier.”

Richardson called the fence “a horrendous example of misguided Washington policy.”

“If you’re going to build a 12-foot wall, you know what’s going to happen,” he said. “A lot of 13-foot ladders. This is a terrible symbol of America.

Tomorrow night’s presidential debate between candidates Barack Obama and John McCain will also be broadcast to viewers in Chinese (Mandarin) on Southern California’s number one Asian television station, LA 18 KSCI-TV. The broadcast is part of the station’s election series that includes coverage in Korean, Vietnamese and Tagalog, in addition to Chinese. Click here to see the full press release.