The European Union has now 25 members -- and 20 official languages, a nightmare for translators. Anticipating this, the EU started three years ago a 4-million euro project, TransType2, which is currently under test with results exceeding the original goals. In this article, the EU's Information Society Technologies (IST) reports productivity gains in excess of 30% above traditional methods. The system mixes the advantages of both computer-assisted translation (CAT) and machine translation (MT). When you use the computer-assisted system, you start your translation, and several suggestions are offered to you while you're typing, reducing your number of keystrokes and saving you time. Today, TransType2 allows bidirectional translations between English, French, German, and Spanish. Other European languages could easily been added. The EU is now thinking to bring this tool to us either as a commercial product or a Web service. Read more...
Before going further, here are two screenshots illustrating the TransType2 concept (Credit: TransType2 project).
The first one comes from a page containing other screen captures while the second has been picked from this animated GIF image.
Now, let's look at the introduction of the IST Results article.
Due to end in February, the 36-month IST programme project has drawn on two of the most commonly used translation technologies developed to date: Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT), in which human translators work in unison with a computer; and Machine Translation (MT), in which the computer handles the entire process. While both techniques have advantages and drawbacks, TransType2 has “used the best of both worlds” says project manager José Esteban at Atos Origin in Spain.
And here is how the system works.
The system works by providing translators with suggestions to complete sentences as they type which can be incorporated simply and rapidly, reducing the number of keystrokes needed to complete a translation. The suggestions are created based on statistical models of translated texts, used by the MT engines to predict the words and phrases that will come next.
The question is: does this system help to produce high quality translations faster than other methods?
Based on the work of two previous projects TransType (Canadian government-funded) and EuTrans (EU-funded), TransType2 offers significant benefits over existing techniques. Trials currently underway with two translation agencies in Canada and Spain are showing results that could be better than the project partners first expected.
"We originally thought the system would increase productivity by between 15 or 20 per cent, but in some cases we’re seeing gains in excess of 20 per cent and as high as 25 or 30 per cent," Esteban says. "Once translators have familiarised themselves with the system the productivity increases start to become noticeable almost immediately."
Not surprisingly, TransType2 works well with structured documents, such as technical, political or legal ones and is not very good with literary works. Still, it looks like a promising tool for the people in charge of translating the huge amounts of texts produced by the EU.
Sources: IST Results, January 12, 2005; and various other websites
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