Every Dog Has His Say

KIMIKO Fukuda always wondered what her dog was trying to say. Whenever she put on makeup, it would pull at her sleeve. (1) When the dog barks, she glances at a small electronic gadget. The following "human" translation appears on its screen: "Please take me with you." "I realized that's how he was feeling," says Fukuda.

The gadget is called Bowlingual, and it translates dog barks into feelings. People laughed when the Japanese toymaker Takara Company made the world's first dog-human translation machine in 2002. But 300,000 Japanese dog owners bought it.(2)

"Nobody else had thought about it," said Masahiko Kajita, who works for Takara, "We spend so much time training dogs to understand our orders; what would it be like if we could understand dogs?"Bowlingual has two parts. (3) The translation is done in the gadget using a database containing every kind of bark.

Based on animal behaviour research, these noises are divided into six categories: happiness, sadness, frustration, anger, declaration and desire. (4) In this way, the database scientifically matches a bark to an emotion, which is then translated into one of 200 phrases.

When a visitor went to Fukuda's house recently, the dog barked a loud "bow wow" (5). It was followed by "I'm stronger than you" as the dog growled and sniffed at the visitor.

The product will be available in US pet stores this summer for about US$120. It can store up to 100 barks, even recording the dog's emotions when the owner is away.

A A wireless microphone is attached to the dog's collar, which sends information to the gadget held by the owner.

B Nobody really knows how a dog feels.

C This translated as "Don't come this way".

D More customers are expected when the English version is launched this summer.

E Now, the Japanese girl thinks she knows.

F Each one of these emotions is then linked to a phrase like "Let's play," "Look at me," or "Spend more time with me."

答案：1. E 2. D 3. A 4. F 5. C

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