In my main language pair (EN>PT-Br), I have found PROMT to be by far the most reliable and flexible MT program I ever worked with. It's a pity they only have it available for the general public in their online translation site. And, to my knowledge, it only works in one direction (there's no PT-Br > EN translation available).
Also, their dictionary for EN >PT-Br has been developed for a specific client, so sometimes you get very funny translations for some terms, because this client does have a weird terminology. However, even taking these limitations into account, PROMT's output in this specific language pair is generally ready for a relatively simple post-editing process. Many problems are solved via search-and-replace, and, as the most frequent errors relate to the use of the subjunctive mode in Portuguese (it insists in using the past tense when it should use the future -- but at least it *does* use the subjunctive), looking for relative pronouns solve a big chunk of them. In general, PROMT still needs a lot of fine-tuning for EN > PT-Br, but even in its rough version its output is incomparably better than that of all other major MT programs. Greetings from Brazil, Tom�s Tom�s Rosa Bueno +++++++++++++++ Piren�polis, Brazil(*) Buenos Aires, Argentina Translation, Translation Quality Assurance Translation Methods Consulting Machine Translation Systems Evaluation and Deployment Terminology Management ______ Phones: Brazil +55 62 331 3654(*) Argentina +54 11 4782 4042 (*) Current Location +++++++++++++++ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff Allen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 7:01 PM Subject: [Mt-list] Software review of @promt Professional 2003, Expert 2003 > ALLEN, Jeffrey and Thomas WASSMER. 2004. Software review of @promt Professional > 2003, Expert 2003. In MultiLingual Computing & Technology, #62 Volume 15, Issue > 2. > Available online: > Go to http://www.geocities.com/jeffallenpubs/ > Go to the "Machine Translation (MT) software reviews" section and click on the > URL link for this review. > > Regards, > > Jeff > > ********************************************************** > Jeff Allen > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Jeff's publications page > http://www.geocities.com/jeffallenpubs/ > (Controlled Language, Translation Software, Speech systems, > Minority Language Engineering, Language Resources, etc) > ********************************************************** > > _______________________________________________ > MT-List mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.computing.dcu.ie/mailman/listinfo/mt-list > _______________________________________________ MT-List mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.computing.dcu.ie/mailman/listinfo/mt-list
