Account: Machine

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Tuesday, 7 February 2012

Pizza in 90 seconds -- from a vending machine

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from the L.A. TimesPizza in 90 seconds -- from a vending machineOctober 5, 2011 | 10:42am

Need a pizza, stat? A new vending machine in testing stages can bake a white, cheese or pepperoni pie in 90 seconds.

With a formula that makes fast food sound slow, the mechanical pizza producer can dispense a pie -– complete with vented box, disposable pizza cutter, napkin and spices -- in 3.5 minutes from order to pick-up.

Developed by immigrant-turned-jeweler Puzant Katchadourian, the five Pizzametry machines in market testing each hold enough ingredients for 150 pizzas, according to the New York Daily News.

The machine allows customers to watch through a window as it presses a dough ball into an 8-inch round, squeezes out pizza sauce from a nozzle and then distributes cheese and sauce. Or buyers can stare at an attached flat-screen television.

As some traditional quick service chains such as Domino’s go gourmet with Artisan Pizzas, other forms of fast food are becoming increasingly automated, with some laboratories now able to produce fine cuisine using printers.

RELATED:

Domino's launches a line of artisan pizzas

Cornell lab prints food, says digital cuisine could change restaurants

-- Tiffany Hsu

twitter.com/tiffhsulatimes

Video: A prototype from Pizzametry.com

Twitter: @latimestechFacebook: TechTimesMore in: Consumer electronics, Food and Drink, Tiffany Hsu.entry {border-bottom:0px; padding-bottom:0px;}#sponsored1 {margin-bottom:15px;}

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Wednesday, 17 August 2011

Why Machine Translation Matters

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison

After more than fifty years of empty promises and repeated failures, amazingly, interest in machine translation continues to grow. It is still something that almost everybody hopes will work someday. We just won't give up. Why? How can an industry that fails to deliver for 50 years still be around? Clearly, MT is a difficult problem, but I think the main reason that we persist is that there is a huge thirst for information, data and knowledge that exists across language barriers. The growing volume of valuable information on the internet only makes this thirst more urgent.

Is automated translation finally ready to deliver on its promise? What are the issues with this technology and what will it take to make it work? I would like to provide my perspective on why it matters and why it is important that we continue in our quest to make it work better.

In the professional translation world there is much skepticism about MT and we see MT regularly being trashed in Translator and LSP blogs, forums and conversations at conferences. Many dismiss it entirely, as a foolish and pointless quest, based on what they see on Google and other free online translation portals. Very few understand or have ever seen the potential that carefully tuned and customized MT systems suggest. There are a few who have begun to understand that MT is an imperative that will not go away and step tentatively forward. I am happy to see some wholeheartedly embrace it and try and learn how to use it skillfully to develop long term competitive advantage.

For some professionals there is a debate about whether Rule-based MT (RbMT) or Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) is better and of late it has become very fashionable to claim that the "right" approach is hybrid. Industry giants (Google, Microsoft, IBM) are all very focused on SMT with increasingly greater linguistic variations, and there is a healthy open source movement also underlying this (SMT) technology that is spawning innovative, new companies. My company, Asia Online, I think is one of the bright lights on the horizon.

My personal interest in MT is driven by a conviction that it can truly be an instrument to bring positive change in the world. It is possible that, using MT to ease access to critical knowledge could revolutionize and rapidly accelerate the development of much of the world's poorest communities. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that "good" MT could help to improve the lives of millions in the coming years. And thus I feel that improving the quality of MT is a problem worthy of the attention of the best minds on the planet. I also think that getting the professional industry engaged with the technology is key to rapidly driving the quality of MT systems higher and perhaps to reach a tipping point where it enables all kinds of valuable information to rapidly become multilingual. My sense is that MT needs to earn the respect of professionals to really build a quality momentum and make the breakthroughs that so many us yearn for.

The Increasing Velocity of Information Creation

We live in a world where knowledge is power and information access, many say has become a human right. In 2006, the amount of digital information created, captured, and replicated was 1,288 x 1018 bits. In computer parlance, that's 161 exabytes or 161 billion gigabytes...

This is about 3 million times the information in all the books ever written!

Between 2006 and 2010, the information added annually to the digital universe will increase more than six fold from 161 exabytes to 988 exabytes. In 2007 it was already 281 exabytes. It is likely that the bulk of this new information will originate in just a few key languages of the digitally privileged knowledge driven economies. So are we heading into a global digital divide in the not so distant future? The famous Berkeley study on How Much Information testifies to this huge momentum. A recent update to the study suggests that US households consumed approximately 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008. Access to information is closely linked to prosperity and economic well being as shown below.

Peter Brantley at Berkeley in a personal blog quotes Zuckerman's wonderful essay:

"For the Internet to fulfill it's most ambitious promises, we need to recognize translation as one of the core challenges to an open, shared and collectively governed internet. Many of us share a vision of the Internet as a place where the good ideas of any person, in any country, can influence thought and opinion around the world. This vision can only be realized if we accept the challenge of a polyglot internet and build tools and systems to bridge and translate between the hundreds of languages represented online."

Brantley goes on to say:

"Mass machine translation is not a translation of a work, per se, but it is rather, a liberation of the constraints of language in the discovery of knowledge."

Today, the world faces a new kind poverty. While, we in the West face a glut of information, much of the world faces information poverty. The cost for this can be high. "80% of the premature deaths in the developing world are due to lack of information" according to the University of Limerick President Prof. Don Barry. Much of the world's knowledge is created and remains in a handful of languages, inaccessible to most who don't speak these languages. Asia Online conducted a survey of local content available in SE Asian languages, and found that China and Japan each had 120X more content, and English speakers have perhaps 600X more content available to them than the billion people in the SEA region. Access to knowledge is one the keys to economic prosperity. Automated translation is one of those technologies that offers a way to reduce the digital divide and raise living standards across the world. As imperfect as it is, this technology may even be the key to real people-to-people contact across the globe.

The seminal essay The Polyglot Internet by Ethan Zuckerman has got to be the most eloquent justification for why translation technology and collaborative processes must and will improve. It has become the inspiration and manifesto for the Open Translation Tools Summit.

While there is profound need to continue improving machine translation, we also need to focus on enabling and empowering human translators.Professional translation continues to be the gold standard for the translation of critical documents. But these methods are too expensive to be used by web surfers simply interested in understanding what peers in China or Colombia are discussing and participating in these discussions.

The polyglot internet demands that we explore the possibility and power of distributed human translation.

We are at the very early stages of the emergence of a new model for translation of online content - "peer production" models of translation.

Visionaries like Vint Cerf also points this out in a recent interview. Ray Kurzweil has spoken on the transformational potential that this technology could have on the world. Bill Gates has commented many times on the potential of MT to help unlock knowledge, both for emerging countries and those who do not speak English. The Asia Online project is focused on breaking the language barriers for knowledge content using a combination of automated translation and crowdsourcing. Much of the English Wikipedia is intended to be translated into several Asian languages that are content starved using hybrid SMT and crowdsourcing. Meedan is yet another example of how SMT and a community can work together to translate interesting content quickly at high quality levels to share information. There are many more.

While stories of MT mishaps and mistranslations abound, (we all know how easy it is to make MT look bad), it is becoming increasingly apparent to many, that it is important to learn how to use and extend the capabilities of this technology successfully. While MT is unlikely to replace human beings in any application where quality is really important, there are a growing number of cases that show that MT is suitable for:

· Highly repetitive content where productivity gains with MT can dramatically exceed what is possible with just using TM alone

· Content that would just not get translated otherwise

· Content that cannot afford human translation

· High value content that is changing every hour and every day

· Knowledge content that facilitates and enhances the global spread of critical knowledge

· Content that is created to enhance and accelerate communication with global customers who prefer a self-service model

· Content that does not need to be perfect but just approximately understandable

The forces that drive the interest in this technology continue to build momentum. Disruption is coming and much of the momentum is from outside the professional industry. I believe there is an opportunity for the professional translation industry to lead, and to develop and demonstrate best practice models that others will follow and emulate. Some may even learn to build competitive advantage from their use and superior understanding of how to leverage MT in professional projects.

I invite those interested in a productive professional dialogue to join the Automated Language Translation group in LinkedIn to come and explore how to learn to use this technology to professional advantage. I think we will continue to see more companies learn to use MT technology and I look forward to changing the archaic translation model that rules today for large and massive scale translation projects.

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Machine Translation of Indian Languages - The Present Status and Future

Machine translation is usually referred to by the famous abbreviation MT. It is known as a sub-field of computational linguistics which investigates the use of computer software to regularly translate text of any Indian translation of language to another. At its first level, MT performs a very simple substitution of common words in one Indian language for words in another Indian translation of language as part of the Indian translation. Using present version of corpus techniques, a very more complex translations may be successfully attempted, allowing for good handling of differences in phrase recognition, linguistic typology and translation of idioms, as well as the isolation of anomalies.

The Current machine translation software frequently allows for customization by domain or profession. It really helps in improving output by limiting the suitability of allowable substitutions. This unique technique is effective in domains where formal or formulaic language is used. It follows then that machine translation of government and legal documents more readily produces usable output than conversation or less standardized text.

The Improved usual output quality can also be readily achieved by human intervention. For example, few systems are able to absolutely translate more accurately if the client has unambiguously identified which particular words in the text are names. With the assistance of these better techniques, Machine Translation has proven very useful as a tool that assist human translators and, in a very limited number of cases, it can even produce small output that can be used. e.g., weather reports.

It is highly advisable not to indulge in machine translation when there is a need for Indian translation. The framing of sentence in Indian language is a bit complex. Each Indian language has its own set of rules and regulations which doesn't match with other Indian languages. The use of right word and alternative words make the sentence meaningful and romantic in its own language. This cannot be achieved in machine translation. There may be plenty of errors such as grammatical, punctuation marks, very short sentence without expressing the right meanings etc. so those translators who are experienced in Indian translation can provide a meaningful text which is error free.

Indian translation service providers are there in plenty in all leading cities and towns of India. They charge moderate fees for the Indian translation. The translators try to deliver in time and they don't drag the project to a greater time extend. They understand the importance of the client and try to make things available so that the projects are not delayed. The translators employed by the Indian translation service providers are highly qualified. They do have vast experience in their native language and the other Indian language. They try to earn goodwill in the Indian translation market so that they can retain in the translation business. The translators are loaded with more work load when their quality and timely deliver is maintained. This actively generates good clients too.

The author is a professional Indian languages translator who loves Indian languages and has vast experience in Indian language translation. He deals with translation, linguistic brand analysis and other language related services. He writes on varied topics too. For other language translation by native translators contact French Translator

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Sunday, 14 August 2011

An Overview on Machine Translation

The Translation Industry has come a long way and is looking apprehensively at the present scenario as business is getting more competitive. The impact of technology is affecting this industry to a large extent. Today the concept of "Machine Translation" or MT is gaining popularity and globalization has really affected the lives and the working style of many translators.

Globalization has always been one of the most important aspects of translation and if we carefully look at the present scenario see that competition is tough when establishing new businesses. There is no easy business, and companies need to grow to take advantage of the scale economy, for this, different countries that speak different languages need to be accessed. The translators play an important role here, where their large work output in a short period of time and accurate results are in high demand. This can not be achieved without the help of modern technology. The Computer Aided Translation Software eliminates the toil, the monotonous and repetitive work to boost productivity. Dictating software is also becoming popular, where the translator speaks to the machine and the text is transcribed onto the text editor or even DTP programs. Productivity is the key to stay competitive.

Here comes a new type of translation known as Machine Translation, where the entire process of translation is carried out by machines. It is a form where a computer program analysis the source text in one language and creates the corresponding text known as target text in another language without human intervention. Today, MT is rising as a fresh discipline in the ground of studies. It gives an edge over human version as it saves time and money. With machine version you can easily translate a large quantity of documents easily in a much shorter time.

In the entire conversion process, initially the main task is assigned to the machine and it analyzes each sentence within the source text. After that it breaks this formation into elements that can be easily translated, and finally replaces the words in the target language to complete the puzzle correctly. The entire procedure completed by machine, can be summed up in the act of breaking the structural components of the source text and then creating the same elements into the target language. There are two main techniques for machine version; Statistics Based Machine Translation (SBMT) and Rules Based Machine Translation (RBMT).

Statistical Machine Translation: This method examines a body of pre-existing translations to find if a it exists or not. Based upon word frequency, it also analyzes a huge ratio of formerly created bilingual sentence pairs to find which words in any particular language are most frequently matched with words in the other.

Rules-Based Machine Translation: Now as the name suggests this method relies on using linguistic rules for the source and target languages. This method delivers improved outputs in comparison to word-by-word transfer, because it makes the best use of sentence context and can offer translations that follow the grammar of the target language. In this process, once the sentence has been parsed, a series of set standard regulations are used to rearrange words or in other words modify the formation of the sentence to create a conversion that is grammatically correct for the target language.

Currently there are many researches and investigations on machine translations going on and as per recent studies it is estimated that the demand for it will increase in coming years. As per Systran, one of the oldest machine translation companies, MT has the ability to reduce the amount of extra work load for human translators by taking over translations in some restricted subject matters. Machine translation has the ability to deliver better translations results when the domain of disclosure is highly restricted. Though many still consider MT not more than a tool, a useful tool for translating words from one language into another, but as we are living in a technology driven world the call for machine translation will increase.

For language translation services in Europe, visit Goihata. Goihata provides one of the best professional and technical Japanese Translator and Spanish Translation Services.

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Friday, 12 August 2011

Machine Translation of your Website - What to Expect from It

There is an old classroom joke that writing in a foreign language is easy -- you should just put words in this language instead of English ones. It is only a joke, but when it comes to applying machine translation, surprisingly many people seem to believe it's true.

In fact, substituting words and word-combinations in one languages for those in another - that's precisely what software for machine translation (MT) does. The result often is ...hm... to put it mildly, far from perfect. WHY?

The Difference Between Human Translation and MT

A computer program, however complex, is not a human brain. It doesn't care for meanings of words, word combinations, sentences, paragraphs, or the whole text. It knows nothing about rhetoric and style. It diligently substitutes words and expressions taken from a dictionary (system of dictionaries) for those in another language. These dictionaries plus an algorithm to compose a sentence according to grammar rules of another language -- that's all what an MT engine consists of.

Every good translator (human, of course) will agree that words are only the means of expressing a thought; they are "tools" we use to convey some message. A good human translator has good

intuition, can pick the right synonym; will consult an expert if he doesn't know something or in doubt. Being able to guess is also a purely human quality. Any professional translator is expected to be a good writer, because the translation should be as easy-to-read as the original, without "foreign touch" in its style. It is the thought that should be translated, not a phrase, not words. Everybody knows it...except a computer program.

So, the basic difference between a translator and translation software is that human translator deals with the meaning, MT sticks to the words.

To Apply or Not to Apply MT: Two Points of View

"Translation from English into Nonsense"

That's how some highbrow translators dubbed MT (these perfectionists look down upon anything less than brilliant). After MT most of the text turns into a mess which only an English-speaker can sort out, they say. So, why use MT if one should be good at English (!) to guess what the original text was

about? What about credibility, they ask sarcastically, if the visitors' reaction varies from "ha-ha, what a mess" to "can't they afford decent translation?"

"It's Cheap -- and Better than Nothing, Anyway"

Webmasters and e-businessmen are practical, pragmatic people. They apply MT because they consider human translation too expensive and time-consuming. Besides, if you are not a bilingual, you can't evaluate the quality -- so is there any guarantee that human translation will be better? A general idea is enough to get interested, and MT gives rough understanding of what it is all about - that's their point of view.

Who is right then? Like in most arguments, both -- and neither. To apply or not to apply MT depends on what you expect from your website translation in the first place. For example, ADVERTISING,

when machine translated, suffers badly; often most of it turns into meaningless word-mash. So, if you are an e-businessman and expect a machine-translated ad or website to bring you lots of customers, you can be bitterly disappointed.

Sometimes I doubt whether many of machine-translated Web pages are supposed to be read at all. After all, a neat row of flags looks so cool...

Will It Work?

Much depends on a language pair -- the more similar the languages are, the more intelligible MT will be to the reader. That is why MT will be understandable only if two languages are very closely related. For example Russian and Ukrainian, or Swedish and Norwegian. If their grammars are similar and there are a lot of words with corresponding meanings in their lexicons, MT will do its job pretty well.

Translation between less related languages will be funny; the less related they are, the funnier the translation. If we machine-translate the same English text into different languages, it will be more or less understandable in German; a bit less -- in French or Italian; Russian translation will be barely

understandable (at best). As for languages from other language families (like Hebrew, Chinese or Japanese) be prepared that most of the text will turn into something meaningless, and visitors will have to solve a linguistic puzzle, trying to guess what you meant.

What should I do to make machine-translated pages more usable?

Take a close look at your MT software. Study how you can use it more effectively: for example, most of such programs offer various specialized dictionaries, and picking the right one can help a bit. Make sure that the program doesn't translate names like Brown, Wood, etc.

Pictures can be also very helpful. If your website is for selling goods, you'd better let the merchandise advertise themselves. Make the site navigation as simple as possible and less dependent on words -- it can be crucial for your customers who visit machine-translated pages of your website.

Alexandra Gamanenko is a senior translator and editor of the Literary Translation Department, which is a part of a Web design studio. It offers localization and translation of websites into Russian and Ukrainian, as well as lots of other useful services.

Learn more -- visit the website http://www.clever-crayon.com.

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Modern Machine Translation Technology Enables Translation Quality Estimating

The technology behind machine translation is being constantly developed and improved. Nowadays many people have translated something automatically. The best things about machine translators are wide availability and fast translation. There are many kinds of translators available in the Internet. Some of those can be purchased and some are totally free. Likewise those tools differ in supported file formats and technical features. Without too much generalization, it can be said that in some cases the price indicates the versatility of the tool.

One of the latest machine translator innovations are translator gadgets, which are desktop gadgets for PC desktops. Translator gadgets are usually very simple tools to use: After you have downloaded the gadget you can start using it. First select the language of the original language and the target language. Then just start typing or just copy and paste pieces of text from a document or from the Internet. These gadgets will automatically write the text in the other language for you.

This technology can be very useful because machine translator produces quality which is of "good enough". However it is reasonable to highlight that the quality of automatically produced text cannot yet reach the quality level of a professional human translator. As mentioned, the risk in using machine translation is commonly related to the quality. Most of the time the quality is good but sometimes machine translators can make mistakes when choosing between words that seems to be synonyms. It is mission impossible to know which translations are mistaken if you don't speak that language yourself.

Today's technology enables new innovations in the area of machine translation quality. While more and more information about languages are collected to translation memories, the quality itself is improving. However there is still a lot to do if the target is the quality of a professional human translation. Another way to improve the quality is to perform automatic translation quality checking. This means that one will receive an estimation of how good the translation is. Technically speaking these estimations are usually based on some kind of comparison and match calculation because that is something a computer can do easily.

The way how the quality estimation is presented to the user can vary a lot. For example Translator Gadget use colour codes. Green color means that the translation is probably good, yellow will instruct you to be cautious and red color indicates that you should have a professional human translator to check the translation before using it in public. Also percentages or numbers or other coding methods can be used. No matter how the estimation is presented, it is still important to keep in mind that estimation is based on technology which is possible for a computer; it is an estimation and not the ultimate truth. Even people can have different opinions about the writing and spelling rules!

The key in machine translation is to know whether you can trust that the translation is good or not. This has been a problem which has led to the slightly negative reputation over the automatic, computer aided translators. There have been too many examples of automatically translated texts which have been used publicly without any proofreading. The fear of making mistakes has impacted the public attitude towards this technology. Automatic quality estimation is still being developed but already it is trying to fade this fear away by giving an estimation of the translation quality.

Use the fast, free and good translations and forget the bad translations. Multilizer Translator Gadget is free for you to use. Read more here: http://www.translator-gadget.com.

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Wednesday, 10 August 2011

Machine Translation - How To Get A Good Machine Translation (2)

A machine translator produces the translation, using rules that transfer the grammatical structure from the origin language to the destination language. A good translation depends on the quality of the analysis of the translation and of the size of the used dictionary.

The most important factors that define a professional translator are:
Wide vocabulary : possess the biggest quantity possible of words of a language.
Powerful analysis : possess the biggest quantity possible of semantic and grammatical rules.

These are the two fundamental elements of a machine translator. Better they are implemented, better the translation.

Vocabulary:

If a machine translator doesn't recognize the words, the grammatical structure of the sentence won't be understood. Let us see an example of Spanish to English:

Original sentence in Spanish:

Aunque esta definición es muy simplista, es conveniente al propósito que se persigue.

Correctly translated sentence:

Although this definition is very simplistic, it is convenient to the purpose that is pursued.

Translated sentence using the on-line most popular translator:

Although this definition is very simplista, is advisable to the intention that is persecuted.

Here we find two vocabulary problems:
it doesn't recognize the word: simplista.
the meanings of the words: conveniente and persigue, are erroneous in the context.

Analysis:

If a machine translator doesn't understand the grammatical structure of the sentence, the words won't be located correctly, altering the meaning of the original sentence.

Original sentence in Spanish:

Sintaxis: El orden y la relación entre palabras y otros elementos estructurales en las oraciones.

Correctly translated sentence:

Syntax: The order and the relationship between words and other structural elements in the sentences.

Translated sentence using the on-line most popular translator:

Syntax: The order and the relation between structural words and other elements in the orations.

Locating a word incorrectly, the structure of the sentence is modified.

In the two analyzed cases, the sentence lacks sense.

How to recognize a professional translator.

The test of the inverse translation is the best way to know if a translator is good, that is to say to check that the translation of the translation maintains the main idea. The vocabulary errors and analysis errors, will appear clearly in the inverse translation. Let us see a good example:

Original sentence in Spanish:

Un traductor automático produce la traducción, usando reglas que transfieren la estructura gramatical del lenguaje de origen al lenguaje de destino.

Correctly translated sentence:

A machine translator produces the translation, using rules that transfer the grammatical structure from the origin language to the destination language.

Translation of the translation:

Un traductor de máquina produce la traducción, usando reglas que transfieren la estructura gramatical de la lengua de origen a la lengua de destino.

Although the produced sentence is not exactly similar to the original one, it maintains the concept.

To get a good machine translation:
Avoid the informal language.
Avoid long and complex sentences.
Use the active voice.
Don't use capital letter unnecessarily.
Make sure that the original document is grammatically correct.
Use a spelling checker.

The most common errors:
Incorrect use of the accents. (Spanish to English).
Incorrect use of the commas.
Incorrect use of the punctuation that separates sentences
Words incorrectly spelled.

Conclusion:

Following the suggestions and avoiding the errors, the best satisfaction that gives a good translation is obtained: the test of the inverse translation.

Don't translate the complete document, translate paragraphs carrying out the inverse validation. If is necessary, change some word or invert the order of the sentence. The final result will surprise you.

To proof it, this article was written in Spanish and it was translated with a professional machine translator.

Author is a freelance writer. If you want to see the original text in Spanish and to learn more about machine translators, visit this page

Machine Translation - How To Get A Good Machine Translation

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Monday, 8 August 2011

Choosing a Translation Services Company Or Machine Translation

As we are all aware the translation industry is awash with translation tools such Spell checkers, translation memories and automated glossaries. But is the feasibility of machine translation a reality in this day and age? By explaining the doubts and limitations of machine translation I hope to clarify to clarify some of the preconceived notions that the general public may have about the field and aid them in deciding on Machine translation or a translation services company.

The notion of computer translation is not new. In fact shortly after World War II the American Government had already began investing considerable resources in the field without the slightest doubt that the concept was not a reality.

Some common terms in this field indicate the some of the difficulties that those pioneers of machine translation were to encounter, for example the difference between machine translation (MT) which is the translation of text by a machine and Computer Aided translation (CAT) which is the translation of texts by a translator with the aid of translation tools. Under Machine translation there are three types of system namely Batch, Interactive, and Interlingual Approaches. A Batch method has coded rules to "decide" on the best translation. There is no need for a translator.

With an Interactive system the translator is present and decides on the translation options provided by the translation system. With an Interlingual approach the source translation is translated to an intermediate language that is used to translate back and forth between the source and target languages.

CAT and MT software these days use either the Batch or interlingual approach.

With MT translation most texts tend to have a 70% accuracy e.g Google translate. Most experts now concede that 100% accuracy is not possible. Three terms that crop up are Fully Automatic High Quality Translation which is in my view is impossible to achieve, Fully Automatic Low Quality Translation and Partly Automatic Medium Quality Translation. The percentage accuracy claims of Machine translation is open to debate as there is no universal standard to measure this and accuracy claims tend to be very subjective.

When to use Machine Translation or Translation Services companies

There are five important criteria when choosing whether to use machine translation or translation Service companies

1. Subject matter. Here the computer can have an immense advantage especially in regard to technical texts. In the case of a field like Life sciences where the vocabulary is very specific and comprehensive, the Machine Translation system can have a terminology Database built up over years which is impossible for a Translation Service company to compete with. Of course the quality depends on the amount of work and quality of the work put into the Machine translation's dictionary.

2. Speed. Speed is an area where the computer reigns supreme considering that the average translator translates at a rate of 2,500 words per day.

3. Level of accuracy. We already discussed the levels of accuracy. If a text is solely for information then a fully automated translation is feasible but if we need 100% accurate translation the amount of time spent post-editing the MT system can often outweigh the benefits of using this system.

4. Consistency of vocabulary. Again the computer is excellent when it comes to consistency. One centralized MT system ensures consistency as opposed to a Translation vendor outsourcing a large job or different jobs over time to different translators. It is often the case that no two translators translate a sentence in the same way. Of course, the success of the MT depends on the preprogramming done beforehand.

5. Cost. Bearing in mind that the computer can tick all the right boxes for speed, consistency, level of accuracy and subject matter one has to bear in mind that successful Machine translation systems require substantial investment to populate them with high quality and a high volume of content which, of course, has to be passed onto to the client of a Translation Services company

It's pretty evident from the above points that the computer can yield impressive results but what we must realize is that current MT systems will not give 100% accurate translations. If this level of accuracy is required it's always best to hire the services of a translation company.

Mark Kieran is the director of a multiple language vendor in Madrid, Spain. In addition to translation services in over 141 languages, the company provides localization, globalization and interpreting services.

One Stop Shop Translations S.L.

http://www.onestopshoptranslations.com

(Madrid) 0034 91 365 9608

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Understanding Machine Translation

Translation is one of the most essential elements to attain international success. Whether in business, career, or personal growth, employing translation services has been a popular choice logically considering wide variety of benefits such as global market feasibility and international opportunities.

There are different means to in getting translation service. One can hire professional translators which are efficient but can be very costly, or through computer-aided translation also known as machine-aided human translation and interactive translation.

Machine translation is a form of translation wherein a human translator creates a target text with the assistance of a computer program. Computer-assisted translation includes standard dictionary and grammar software. However, the term normally refers to a range of highly specialized programs available to the translator, including translation memory, concordance, terminology management, and alignment programs.

With the aid of the internet, translation softwares can help non native speaking individuals understand web pages written in other languages. Whole page translation tools are of limited utility. Since they offer only a limited potential understanding of the original context, the translated pages tend to be more humorous and confusing than enlightening.

To fully understand machine generated translation, it is essential to know its advantages and disadvantages. Here are some:

Machine Translation Advantages

Quick translation. Translating large texts can take time especially when hiring translators to do it. Using the machine translation system enables one to save more time. Translation becomes one click away.

Affordable and low price. Hiring a professional translator to translate one's documents is expensive. It is necessary to pay enough money for each page. But in times that one only needs to translate a point of matter or general idea, machine translation system is reliable and effective to employ.

Confidentiality assurance. A lot of people use machine translation to translate their private emails. Why? Because no one would be willing to give his private correspondence to translator he doesn't know, or no one would entrust financial documents to other people. Confidentiality is assured in machine translation as its results are directly obtained.

Universality. Professional translators are often specialized in a definite field, but machine translation system can translate any a text about anything under the sun. Translation of special terminologies just requires switching on a corresponding setting.

Online translation and web page content. The advantage of online translation services is obvious. Online translation services are at hand and you can translate information quickly with this service. Furthermore you can translate any web page content and query of search engine by the use of machine translation systems.

Machine Translation Disadvantages

Lack of "exact" exactness. Machine translation system can't be entrusted with precise document translations. If one needs a superior exact translation of official documents, agreements and the likes, machine translations may not be sufficient.

Texts with ambiguous words and sentences

Machine translation is based on systematic rules. Sometimes it can't solve text ambiguity and other complex language rules. In this case, machine-aided translations are ineffective.

Translation is undoubtedly one tool that anyone can get benefit from. Whether employing machine translation or professional translators, having a good grasp of the advantages and disadvantages of the means to be utilized is significantly essential.

Being a consistent staffer in every official school organ she is in from elementary to college, Audrey is a certified grammar-conscious writer and professional translator. She can edit tons of articles in a snap. Aside from writing, language learning is her another field of interest. This 21-year-old OC also takes foreign language classes. Writing is her first love but learning new languages is her new love.

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