Palomaph

Dear translators,


I am a Translation and Interpretation student who needs to write a short essay about automatic translation and its programmes. I have to include some translators' opinions about automatic translation and programmes used for it such as Systran, Atlas, Logos, Language Assistant, etc. so I would like to ask you to write some experiences you've had or your opinions about them.

Thank you in advance for your help,


Paloma

* Please, write any e-mail to my account: palomaph@hotmail.com Thank you again!

Tienus

Hello

in your report, you could talk about the movie "the interpreter" with Nicole Kidman
in bonus track on the dvd, you have a great job and a comparison between translator and interpret...
one on the conclusion would be that never a good automatic translation program could replace an interpret

i hope it can help you
see you

frequency

In my opinion, the problem is that the automatic translation doesn't have flexibility at all. So we sometimes can find completely nonsence translations by automatics. But they make me laugh a lot.

chinoise

Where can I download free automatic translation softwares?

Nemesis 5.4

Ill give u my point of view as a (futur) programmer when i come back in new caledonia

So just wait two little weeks if u wanna know what I have to tell u :mysterious:

And search with google for your progs

__________________
The war doesn't determine who's right but who's left.

chinoise

Nemesis, glad to know you're back. Can you give us your professional opinion as a future programmer?

Nemesis 5.4

Here it is :


The problem with translation softwares is that a computer doesn't work like a human brain and will never do so. Programms only follow instructions, it is to say commands typed by the programmers in order to create them and "tell" them how to behave. But there's so many way a word can be used in a sentence, so many different topics it can be used in, that no translation software can actually manage to always translate it in the right way.
When a programm is created, the programmers give a translation for each word, kind of like any dictionnary. At least it's how a low-level translator soft works. I guess developers actually add things like the kind of word it is (adjective, noun, ...) in more developed progs. But anyway, the problem is that programms should consider the whole sentence, if not the whole text to make a correct translation, as any human does. But as said before, there's so many different things the text can be about that a prog couldn't behave this way.
The AI is based on mathematics, and works not too bad for games of any kind. But you can't use mathematics when it comes to translation. Unless a mathematic expert finds an algorithm that works with translation :D , the perfect automatic translator is still pure utopia.
Well, maybe will I reconsider the whole topic in a few years, when and if I graduate . I'm sure translation softwares will work better in seven years but won't be perfect yet.

__________________
The war doesn't determine who's right but who's left.