On 13 Dec, 18:35, TequilaKid <[email protected]> wrote:
> In its apologia for its automatic translator Google
> quoth:http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/faq_translation.html#quality
>
> “Automatic translation is very difficult, as the meaning of words
> depends on the context in which they're used. While we are working on
> the problem, it may be some time before anyone can offer human quality
> translations.”
>
> My reply:
>
> Well, you can make a start at improving translation outcomes by
> disambiguating some terms in English. Ambiguity of English terms seems
> TERM 2:
>
> Indonesian: ditinggalkan:
> German: verliess:
> English: left (verb “to leave”)
> French: abandonna
>
> Indonesian: kiri
> German: links
> English: left
> French: (la main) gauche
Verlassen (past tense verlieren) is a verb. "links" is a noun/
adjective. You will say "am links" - on the left. Google resolutely
refuses to parse even in Arabic a language which is strongly
inflected. The latest version of CLAWS is 97% accurate. To me the
simple use of CLAWS wouls avoid "links" without any further analysis.
In French you would have to choose between "partir" and "quitter" but
an error of that sort would be acceptable.
In Arabic adjectives come after the noun (as they do as a rule in
French and Spanish). In English, German and Russian they come before.
I have seen translation in which adjectives come after the noun.
Statistical translation will resolve ambiguity. A Hydraulic Ram is NOT
Wasserwidder. In fact best is "Oeldruckramme" 3 words Oel, druck and
Ramme strung together. This was a famous translation error in the
early days of machine translation. Google resolves this by using an n-
gram technique. Google is in fact quite good on a statistical basis.
It does not seem to apply Latent Semantic Analysis yet. Translation
wrt the mass of CERN's protons translated "rest mass" as "messe de
répos".
- Ian Parker
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