Machine Translation

SideLines, March 2006

In the March 2006 issue of Scientific American (pp. 70-73), Gary Stix has reviewed the history of machine translation and recent attempts by varous online services to use statistical methods and rule-based systems to translate between many different languages. Kevin Hendzel, a spokesman for the American Translators Asssociation is quoted on the subject. He does not seem overly concerned with the competition...

As an instant test, and for the amusement of our readers, we have submitted the phrase

"Machine Translation"

to a rule-based Google/Systran translation from English to Portugese and from Portugese back to English.

Here is the result:

"Translation De Máquina"

Perhaps the real value of machine translation in the future will be the creation a universal hybrid language (??)

Contact The Research Cooperative (NZ): info (at) researchco-op (dot) co.nz )