The Problems With Computer-Assisted Translation.docVIP

The Problems With Computer-Assisted Translation 　　Abstract: For how long? Yes, the output from any Machine Translation (MT) software is still laughable. MT software is still in infancy. Most of what MT software does is word-for-word translation followed by some grooming based on a set of rules. No surprise, the result is barely readable. Still, the output may not be good enough for public display, so the question turns into: will the future of human translation be... proofreading computer output? 　　Key words: translation skills source text Computer-Assisted Machine Translation 　　1.Current Situation: 　　Computers can help with the translation process in many ways. There is software available to give you the gist of a document, as well as translation tools used by professional translators to help reduce translation time. However, language is a highly complex subject which does not always follow logical or set rules. To achieve usable, quality translations, it is essential to involve a human translator, ideally living in, and a native of, the country of the target language. 　　2.The Evolution of Machine Translation 　　Languages are perhaps the most elusive element of the human culture: no one knows the creator, but still they survived through the centuries in hybrid forms, dashing out the ambitions of those, like some structuralists, who wanted to confine them to a strict domain of logical rules and signs. It isnt that languages do not have rules. But those rules (or at least some of them) are only learnt after years of human interaction. Such a dictionary that would allow the user to find every single occurrence of every word in any language would be no more than a chimera. But it was such a chimera that presided the first feasibility trial of a translation machine that was carried out in 1954, as a joint project between IBM and the University of Georgetown. The first versions of machine translation software were based on detailed bilingual dictionaries that of