Putting English To Work Unit 1: Fill & Download for Free

TALKING FINGERS: An app that converts Spoken English to Indian Sign Language in near-real time.TL,DR: Created an app using NLP that can convert Spoken/Written English to Indian Sign Language in near-time.Source Code: yuvi17/talking_fingersBackground:Recently, my company VMware under its Foundation and Pro Bono activities conducted a training for the hearing-impaired people to skill them in Digital Marketing thus enabling them to get better jobs in the technology field. I was fortunate enough to be assigned a few classes.During those classes, we had an interpreter(Susan) to help us communicate with them, who was a retired IT employee herself and was co-incidentally an alumnus of my college. While talking to her, I learnt that there was a dearth of interpreters in India and this greatly impairs learning and communication among the hearing-impaired people.I thought of making an app which can do this translation for them. My initial thought was that why can’t we use a simple Speech to Text conversion software (Google has them built-in into all Android phones). However, when I further interacted with the hearing impaired people and thought about this, the conclusion that I reached (and confirmed from Susan) was an eye-opener.Basics of Communication:When we learn to communicate, we learn to talk first (in our mother tongue) and then to read. This means that sound is the basic unit of understanding for us. However, since there is NO CONCEPT OF SOUND among the hearing impaired people, it makes reading very very non-intuitive for them. For them, the signs are basic unit of understanding. Thus, I felt the need to make the app.The next step was to find out if something similar existed. It did, but not for Indian Sign Language, which is different from American Sign Language(which had a lot of translation apps). Thus, I went on to make one for Indian Sign Language.Indian Sign LanguageBefore the discussion of the solution, it is important to understand about the Indian Sign Language. Here are some features of ISL:1.The vocabulary of English words is used. (Signs are mapped to English words).2.There are no helping verbs, articles, fillers etc. (e.g. is, are, a, an, be, etc.).3.The grammar is similar to Indian Languages like Hindi.4.Sentence follow the structure of(SUBJECT PHRASE) (OBJECT PHRASE) (VERB) (QUESTION) (NEGATION)5. All verbs are used in base form (e.g. running -> run).6. There are no plurals. Numbers are words like "many" are used to denote plurals.7. There is no temporal inflection among words. Words like "before","after" and "now" are used to put the context of time.8. Sentences are short, simple and generally consist of a single argument.E.g. What is your name ? => Your name what?E.g. My name is Yuvraj. => me name Yuvraj.The App:An android app which translates Spoken English to Indian Sign Language in real time. Google Speech to Text APIs are used to convert spoken English to text. The text is then sent to a backend server which sends it to a parser. The parser then converts text to a text with vocabulary of English and grammar of Indian Sign Language. This modified text (called Intermediate Sign Language English by me) is sent back to the device where the respective videos are pulled up from the local storage.Screenshots:I’m looking to expand this app to include WordNet lookups, complex and compound sentence support, pronoun resolution etc. Any and all help is appreciated.Also, criticism is also welcome with open arms which can help me learn, since I know this is very basic right now.I was able to communicate with a hearing-impaired person using this app, ask him about his day, his work etc. (and understand him a bit using little sign language that I know), which gave me a sense of satisfaction beyond words.Hope I can make it production ready one day and release it for the general public.

Indian.1. I was shocked to find out that most of my American friends have been working since they were 16 year old. In India,parents would never leave their 16 year olds to thrive on their own.2. American culture of greeting strangers on sidewalks is something that I can never get on board with. And the small talk, oh the small talk. Everyone you go to,for work,be it a bank receptionist or a cleaner in your gym,you will first have to do some small talk. I am sure a lot of people thought me to be super rude because I used to get so confused when a stranger asked me how I was doing.3. Americans are very respectful of other's personal spaces which is not the case in India.4. Socializing in the US usually means drinking. For someone like me who is trying really hard to cut down on drinking, it is very difficult to attend social events and mingle with people like I used to.5. A LOT and I mean a LOT of my American friends have childhood where their parents got divorced or ran away from their responsibilities. In India, these cases are very rare and I think that marks a major cultural difference.6. Americans neither consider women as lower or higher to men. In some parts of India, women are considered lesser than their male counterparts whereas in the others, women are put up at a pedestal. In the U.S., women are considered just as equals in every aspect, which, in my opinion, is the correct way of treating every human being.7. American's obsession with a fit body is simply incredible. I don't know if it's just in California or everywhere in the U.S.8. Indians give a lot of importance to their families. For a lot of my American friends, it takes a toll on them when they have to go to meet their families on christmas/easter . And that is why most of my American friends cannot understand my obsession with being with my family.9. I remembered a point. Thanks to some comments on my answer. Living with parents, specially when you are older and have a family is not seen in the best way in America. When I told my American friends that my grandmother lived with my parents, they were like, "what! your dad lived with his mother even after he got married and had kids." I then, had to explain to them that it is very common in India.10. Arranged marriages in India are very common. I think, it is a culture shock for Americans to know about marriages that are "arranged" by parents instead of other way around.11. Update : I actually remembered a conversation I had with one of my American friends. He offered to drop me home from my college in his car. I just sat in the front seat of the car and did not put the seat belt. He asked me to put it on. I told him that in India people do not obey traffic rules or for that matter most of the rules related to different things. He said, "Ah ! Yeah. In the U.S people obey rules. But I wonder what impact it has on the psyche of Americans when they are just so used to follow rules." I think this is included as a cultural difference. It's funny how such small habits form a culture. I would love to hear some views about this one though.12. Update 3: I remembered 1 more point. I have observed that Americans are super appreciative of every profession unlike Indians. I was working as a part time in a cafe in my university. Often, people would smile and just say a 'thank you'. I have seen people thanking bus drivers when getting down from buses. This attitude is so unlike Indians. I loved that.Update : A lot of people in the comment section have been apparently offended from my points. Please understand that these are just my observations. Nowhere, did I write my opinions about if I like 1 culture more than the other and I took care not to demean any of the 2 cultures. My English is not that great. If you feel offended ,it is mostly because of my choice of words. Take a deep breath!Update 2: As for some other comments and just to clarify, I am not boasting about not following traffic rules in my last point. I am just pointing out a cultural difference that I felt was there between the 2 countries. I am well aware of the fact that following rules is a good practice and I am a law abiding citizen in the U.S. and in India too. Again,I did not,even for once voice out my opinion on anything. Except in point no. 6.Thanks to Bhavna Rath for putting my 1st point in perspective. By my first point I did not consider child labor. Here's what Bhavna Rath said that echoes my sentiments:"Yes you are right. Child labor does exist. But that people hiring children to work. These kid work to feed themselves. In India the parents generally take care of college expenses and even wedding expenses to a certain extent. So the need to work for pocket money is limited. Child labor however is a different story.The 16 y.o american cleaning the neighbor's car is very different from the 16 y.o Indian doing the same thing. Even the poor do not send their children to work unless they absolutely cannot help it.The children in this case add to the family's income. The kids are underpaid and usually exploited. Hope it helps you understand the scenario."I will keep updating this post as and when I remember more points.

I found out that a man I had married was a fictional character. Everything he told me about himself turned out to be a lie. However, it was not until after he passed away a few years ago that I found out the extent of those lies.I met Issam in 1986. I was a trainer at Denny’s restaurant, and he was the roommate of my boss. He also worked as a cook at one of the other Denny’s locations in town.Issam would come into the location I worked at, would sit and drink coffee and read the newspaper. Roy (my boss) would often go sit and talk with him. Issam was always soft-spoken, very polite, and seemed to have a good sense of humor. Issam was 25… though he did look a bit older. I was 24.Issam usually came in on weekends. He spent his weekdays in Lawrence, KS going to K-State University. He came back to Tulsa on the weekends to work.About a year after meeting, Issam and I began to date. My boss had begun dating one of my closest friends, and we often would double date.Issam began staying in town. He said he’d decided to take a break from schooling. At first, he said he’d gone to part-time student status instead of full-time. He said that he needed to work in order to pay for further classes. This made perfect sense… and none of us ever questioned it.After a year and a half of dating… Issam and I began living together.My family wanted me to move back to KC, so we decided to move back. In July of 1988, we got married.I worked full-time. Issam worked about 30–35 hrs. per week. He said he was going to go back to school on a part-time basis. I was fine with that. He was paying for his own schooling… and I made enough to pay all of our bills, so it made sense to me for him to continue his education.Small things would pop up… Issam always had an answer. He wrote a check at a store once when we were out. His name was spelled differently. I asked about it. The last name was Abou-Sraje. His license was not hyphenated. I asked him why he hadn’t fixed it. He said it wasn’t a big deal. In truth… no one spelled the last name right, so I didn’t think much. However, according to his license… he was 5 years older than he’d told me. Again… he put this down to a paperwork error and said it just wasn’t a big deal to him and he didn’t want to go through the hassle of fixing it.I would come home from work to find Issam sitting at the table with books open, working on papers, etc.Things were going well. I became pregnant and continued to work. Issam said he was happy about the pregnancy.His family would call… and he never wanted to take their calls. That too made no sense. Anytime I tried to get him to talk to his family… he’d become angry. He had been married once before. He said when he divorced, his family began to attempt to arrange a marriage for him. He said they were upset that he’d refused the arranged marriage and had married me.In my 6th month of pregnancy, I was spotting. I went to the dr. They did some tests… found I was a gestational diabetic, had hypertension, and with the type of work I did… told me I needed to stop working, and ordered bed rest.In the blink of an eye… things changed. Issam realized that for a few months, he would have to cover the bills. He was angry… and he began to drink. His drink of choice was gin. He was a mean drunk. To this day… I avoid gin… and I avoid being around people while they are drinking gin.Issam began bouncing around from job to job…. often staying only a week or 2 before quitting.His family called one day. I answered the phone and his uncle… that spoke English… begged me to have Issam talk to them. He said they were worried and said, “If he treats this family like this… how do you think he will treat you and your children?”I didn’t tell Issam who it was and handed him the phone. He pulled the phone off the wall and threw it and broke it. I was reaching into a drawer for silverware as I was setting the table. He slammed the drawer on my hand… hard. I thought he’d broken my hand. He began screaming and yelling that I had no right to try to make him talk to his family.The drinking and fighting became much worse.Now that I was home… I noticed that he was no longer studying. Without saying anything… I called K-State. They had no record of him being enrolled. I confronted him and he said that they likely had his name spelled wrong. He said he’d dropped out since he was working full time.Two weeks after our son was born… I was fed up. I gave him the option to either knock it off and behave like a husband and father or to leave.He decided to put me in my place and leave. He was determined to show me how much I needed him.I found someone to come babysit and in a couple of days had a job back in restaurant management. Within a week I was back to work. I bought a new car as Issam had taken off with ours.I did not hear a peep from Issam.It was hard, and I was exhausted with working long hours and then dealing with a newborn.I moved into a larger apartment in the same complex we had lived in. Issam's name was no longer on the lease.A month later, Issam showed up at the door. He wanted to move back in. I just looked at him and said, “I gave you a choice to be a husband and father or to leave. You made the choice to leave. I do not have a revolving door.”He said he’d left to teach me a lesson.side note: You cannot teach someone how much they need you when that person is the main provider of the house. Issam had gotten used to living a lifestyle that he did not have to support. He found that he was the one that needed me.When I refused to let him move back in…. then I became his enemy.I found out through hours and hours of phone calls that he had never been a student at K-State University. I have never known where he was going, but he’d never been enrolled at the university… under any name spelling. I gave them a photo of him and they looked through their yearbooks and never found him.I’ve written previously about some of the things that happened after our divorce. The new car I purchased was destroyed… the brake lines were cut and the brake fluid drained. My father saw him by my car and went out to check it out before I got back in the car. He broke into my home and took everything I owned. I returned home and the only thing left was my son’s crib. He took clothes, diapers, food… everything. I had police from 5 different police departments tell me to get a gun, etc. I moved 11 times in 2 years to get away from him. It was constant harassment until stalking laws were passed.Fast forward to Feb. 2014… I got a call from my son. He wanted to know why I had not told him that Issam had passed away. I had no idea what he was talking about.Issam had moved back to Tulsa. He had been living in a nursing home. The administrator had no idea why he was living there… he was able to take care of himself. He said Issam took 1 pill daily, but that was for a minor medical condition.Issam had gotten sick… a respiratory infection that became pneumonia. They had taken him to the hospital. While in the hospital, he simply worsened and passed away. The hospital had his son listed as next of kin, but the number was made-up.The woman at the funeral home he was transported to noticed he was of middle-eastern descent and wanted to make sure they honored his religious preference. She said the nursing home had no next of kin, though they told her that he talked about his son… saying he attended Oklahoma University. Our son never attended that school. She found our son’s name listed on his hospital records. She found our son on Facebook. That is how my son found out.This was 3 months after his passing. His body was still at the funeral home, waiting for a burial. Not knowing what to do, I reached out to one of the Muslim organizations there. The man I spoke with knew who Issam was. I explained what we had been told. He told me that he would contact the funeral home to instruct them on what needed to be done. He then later called me to let me know where he’d been buried.I then called the Lebanese Embassy in NYC. I explained to the receptionist what I was trying to do, and she placed me on hold. The Consul General got on the phone with me and asked me what I was trying to do. I told him I was Issam’s ex-wife and I was trying to find a way to contact his family in Beirut to let them know of his passing.He asked me why I would do this. I told him that our divorce was over 20 years ago and that I knew he had family. I told him that if it had been my son… my brother… or my family member, that I would hope someone would reach out to let me know they had passed away. He was quiet for a minute and said that it was a very kind thing to do. I told him that Issam’s family had nothing to do with my divorce or events after.He asked me what information I had. I told him what Issam had told me about his parents. The Consul General told me that was not correct. I said, “What?”Issam had told me that his name was hyphenated because his mother had kept her last name. The last name was never hyphenated… it was his father’s last name.He then explained that Issam was not Lebanese… he was Palestinian. I said, “WHAT?!?”He told me that while Issam had been born in Beirut, that they did not give citizenship based on where they were born as was done in the United States. He said Issam’s parents were Palestinian refugees so Issam was Palestinian… that he did not have a Lebanese passport, they simply provided him with travel documents.I said, “Oh my God… the information on my son’s birth certificate is a lie.”He said, “Wait… there is a son?” I said yes, and the information I had given him was the information that was on my son’s birth certificate. I then said, that my son had children now too… so their information was also incorrect.He told me that he would do anything he could to help make any changes we needed on my son’s birth certificate and that of his children.Over the next hour…I shared with him the information that I had. I told him about seeing a 5 year age difference on Issam’s driver's license from the age he told me. I found out that Issam was in fact 13 years older than he had told me.We spoke a few times over the next couple of days. Finally… he called to tell me that he’d found Issam’s sister in Beirut. He gave me their phone number.I spoke with a friend of mine from Jordan. He offered to call them for me to let them know. He did so. He gave them my phone number, and a few days later they called me. They spoke very little English, so it was a difficult call. They asked if they could call again. I said yes. A week later, I received a call from Issam’s uncle. He lives in the states. I spoke with him and his wife for a couple of hours.They had not spoken with him since the time Issam broke the phone. The did not know we’d divorced. They knew I was pregnant at the time, but knew nothing else.They said the only time they heard from Issam was when he needed money for school. I told them that he’d never attended college.Issam’s parents had both passed away, and he had not known as they no longer knew how to reach him.I still keep in touch with them via social media.My son and I went to Tulsa to the nursing home Issam was living in to get his personal belongings.As we pulled up to the building… we were shocked.It was a run-down building. There was a purple van in the driveway that had a wild mural painted on the side… like you would see on vans from the 70s.Inside… it had faded and dingy flocked wallpaper.We went into the office that was full of Wizard of Oz stuff… it was creepy.After a wait… they brought us a paper bag that held Issam’s belongings and we left.We found a bible that had notes written on pieces of paper that were folded and held in between pages. The notes were between he and someone he was meeting at a church. They were notes about rental trucks… and supplies to purchase. We passed the information on to authorities. We had no names, just those notes, but they were concerning.I found that if you want to live “off the grid” here in the states…. living in a nursing home is a great way to go about doing so. You have no information that tracks back to you. No utility bills… no rental leases… nothing. The nursing home sets up internal accounts to handle any money you have… so you don’t need a bank account. Even your medical records are held by the nursing home and your doctors are the ones that treat the residents.I have felt completely embarrassed to know that I was married to a fictional character… that everything I thought I knew about him… was a lie.