> There are lots of translation programs and services, but none are
> infallable - just try translating into a different language and back
> again (ie English-to-French-to-English) and note the differences!
I am not sure this is a fair method to assess machine translation quality. It is
obvious that any errors would multiply exponentially and throw off the analysis of all
but the most robust MT systems. Try this with a couple of human translators who are
not up to standard and the result will certainly be similar.
> Machine translation works best through the use of a controlled language
> set (for example, AECMA Simplified English) which introduces the use of
> a restricted vocabulary set, with single defined meanings for each word
> together with controlled grammar usage.
While this is certainly true, a high-level MT system can do a lot more than that. At
the European Commission we use EC-Systran, our own "flavour" of Systran, which we have
optimised for the types of documents we deal with. Sometimes in presentations I
jokingly confuse the originals with the translations --and often the audience cannot
even tell which is which! A well-written text will ceertainly translate very well even
with MT.
The fact that MT can be of real help to a mixed type of audience reflects in our usage
figures: 260000 pages in 1997, 385000 in 1998 and we are set to hit the 600000 page
mark at the end of 1999. Of these 60% are used by administrators in our organisation
for information browsing but also as a basis for post-edition. Most importantly, 40%
of those pages are requested by translators some of whom feel that it is easier to
translate using a raw MT draft than to start from scratch.
> The only 'foolproof' translation is (so far)
> through human error correction of the final document
Thankfully for us humans, this (still) holds true. To add something: Actually we found
that the best method is a combination of translation memory technology and MT. That
way the translation is a "human" one for any parts of text translated before --and
that is frequently the case in what one could call "corporate translation"-- and the
machine only fills in the unknown bits.
Best
Dimitri Theologitis
Computer Aids for Translation
European Commission Translation Service
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