Learn English with the News – Amazon Engineer Unveils App to Translate Your Cat’s Meow

Are you a cat lover who has always wanted to be able to decipher what your cat is saying? Well, A former Amazon engineer’s app is changing the way we interact with pets with this innovative, cutting-edge technology. We don’t know how accurate “Meowtalk” will be, but it will certainly be a fun trick to test on your cat!

Watch the video and then do the accompanying English language exercises.

The news is a consistent source of entertainment, knowledge and discovery that never ceases to exist and always comes out with more and more material each day. Because it plays such a vital part in our lives and is so important to keep up with, it is without a doubt a piece of your everyday routine that can’t go ignored.

Whether it is to understand the ramifications of recent legislation passed, to hear about recent events and grasp the potential consequences to your country, or simply hear about what is happening in other countries in order to compare them to what’s happening in yours, the news is certainly a staple in our lives and the most consistent way to get information.

This is why Scrambled Eggs has decided to unite two of your biggest worlds: learning English and keeping up with what is happening in the world. We hope our challenging daily exercises, composed of listening, vocabulary and comprehension exercises in English, will satisfy both of those above worlds in a satisfactory and also entertaining way.

So enough about introductions, let’s get to today’s Learn English with the News topic:

Adapted from this article.

Now that you’ve had a listen, let’s put your knowledge to the test with some of our vocabulary and comprehension exercises:

Full Text:

“A former Amazon Alexa engineer has developed a brand-new app which aims to translate what your cat is saying. The app, ‘MeowTalk’, asks you to record the sound of your cat meowing and then attempts to understand the meaning.

As of now, there are 13 different phrases built-in to the app, including ‘feed me!’ and ‘I’m angry!’.

Researchers have found that cats do not actually speak in one common language, instead each meow is individual to its owner, and some cats ‘speak’ more than others. Due to this fact, the app does not rely on a database of sounds, but instead uses an AI which changes with every cat’s profile.

The cat owner will help the app by labelling each translation, meaning the AI will learn quicker.

For example, if your cat is meowing in the morning because it is hungry, you can record the sound in the app and label it ‘I’m hungry!’. The more people who use the app and the more often it is used, the better and more accurate it will become.

Eventually, the developers would like to create a smart-collar for your cat, which would instantly translate the meow, and a human voice would come out of the speaker.

Javier Sanchez, the program manager at the app developer (Akvelon) said:

“I think this is especially important now because, with all the social distancing that’s happening, you have people that are confined at home with … a significant other – this feline. This will enable them to communicate with their cat, or at least understand their cat’s intent, and build a very important connection.”

The app is available now for free, but some users are complaining of bugs. One user is receiving the translation ‘I’m in love!’ 90% of the time, and others are not able to access the service at all due to connection issues, but the app has an overall rating of 4.3/5 on the Google Play store, so it can’t be all bad!

Anita Kelsey, cat behaviourist and author of ‘Let’s Talk About Cats’, said:

“We will probably never be able to convert a cat’s meow into human words, but the app seems like fun and there’s no harm in having fun with your cat.”

Would you like to know what your cat is thinking?!”