Global Translations Weblog

Google launches free online Hebrew translation

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 11:44:13 GMT

Google has added Hebrew translation to its online translation tool (http://translate.google.com/translate_t#), supporting both translations from and into Hebrew. After doing some testing on some news websites and legal material, it would appear that the quality of Google's translation is very poor, and not even sufficient for gisting in most cases. But having said this, Hebrew is one of the toughest languages for machine translation due to its unique morphology and grammar.

Translation startup promises big bucks to bloggers

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:39:32 GMT

Israeli startup company Alfabetic (http://www.alfabetic.net) has developed an integrated statistical machine translation engine and publishing platform for blog publishers. All a blog publisher needs to do is submit an RSS feed of their blog to Alfabetic. Alfabetic will translate the blog and syndicate it using a worldwide network of regional aggregators and publishers. And the service is free. All costs will be offset by the revenue from the translated content. In fact, according to Alfabetic, blog publishers can expect to rake in big bucks by monetizing their content to readers worldwide. Watch Alfabetic CEO Oded Broshi present the new system on http://www.techcrunch50.com/2008/conference/presenter.php?presenter=74#video. Will it work? The idea is great and should be a no brainer for many blog publishers: a free service which may add revenue without needing to create new content. However, when two prominent blog publishers were asked if they would be interested in the service, they said "no," stating that mere translation of content can not be a substitute for a true local presence and that they would prefer to set up a dedicated blog domain in each target country (see these responses at the end of the video presentation). And the quality of the system remains to be tested, since Alfabetic does not provide any demos or live results of their tool on their website. Alfabetic says that selected blogs will be post-edited by human translators after the content is machine translated. But normally, blogs will not be post edited. Will the quality of non-edited content be reasonable? No serious blog has yet to rely on machine translation as the quality has always proven to be insufficient.

GTS MT tool tops Google in German-English test

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:19:59 GMT

GTS is developing state-of-the-art machine translation tools with integrated translation memories and proprietary e-dictionaries. The result? Near perfect translation of technical texts such as in the fields of electronics and telecommunications. How does it work? We start with our leading rule-based MT engine which supports customized e-dictionaries and translation memories (TM). Using advanced term extraction techniques, our linguists enhance the e-dictionaries using the large corpora of human-translated text which we have amassed over the years. Once a translation is sent to the translation engine, it first tries to match the text with the translation memory. If no match is found, it inserts the machine translation. This results in very high quality translated texts which can be reviewed minimally by an editor for perfect results. But at a small fraction of the time and cost associated with human translation. The following is a real example of this application. We first translate a paragraph using Google's translation tool (http://www.google.com/translate_t), then translate the same paragraph using our tool, and then present the same paragraph when translated by a professional human translator. ORIGINAL GERMAN PARAGRAPH ODER-Verknüpfung Der ODER-Objekt-Eingang und der Ausgang der Zeitfunktion bilden die beiden Eingänge der ODER-Verknüpfung. Bei freigegebener ODER-Verknüpfung werden die beiden Eingänge über eine logische ODER-Funktion verknüpft. Das Verknüpfungs-Ergebnis steht an dem internen Ausgang der ODER-Verknüpfung zur Verfügung. Bei gesperrter ODER-Verknüpfung steht der Ausgang der Zeitfunktion direkt an dem internen Ausgang der ODER-Verknüpfung zur Verfügung. TRANSLATION USING GOOGLE TOOL OR link The OR-object entrance and the exit of the time function, the two inputs of the OR link. For shared OR linking the two entrances of a logical OR function. The result is linked to the outcome of the internal OR link available. When locked OR link is the starting time of the function directly on the outcome of the internal OR link available. TRANSLATION USING GTS TOOL WITH CUSTOM E-DICTIONARY OR link The OR object inputs and the output of the time function form the two inputs of the OR link. With approved OR link the two inputs are linked over a logical OR function. The linkage result is available at the internal output of the OR link. With disabled OR link the output of the time function is available directly at the internal output of the OR link. HUMAN TRANSLATION OR link The OR object input and the output of the time function form the two inputs of the OR link. If an OR link is enabled, both inputs are linked via a logical OR function. The link result is available at the internal output of the OR link. If OR link is disabled, the output of the time function is available directly at the internal output of the OR link. CONCLUSION As you can see, the result of the Google translation is pretty much useless. Google, which uses a statistical based model that has been widely touted as being the industry best, does not provide the expected quality when presented with a complex, specialized type of text. The GTS tool excels, with its rule-based engine and ability to customize e-dictionaries for specific clients and industry terminology.

GTS Enters Cooperation with Babylon

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:08:33 GMT

GTS has entered a cooperation with Babylon in which GTS will include Babylon's free, online dictionary translation tool on its website. The dictionary tool allows you to find translations of words in 16 languages including French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbian, Hebrew, Chinese and Japanese. Find out more about Babylon by going to www.babylon.com.

Google Translation Center Launch Delayed

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:06:28 GMT

In somewhat of a botched launch which was observed by some bloggers, Google signaled its intention of opening a Google Translation Center in which users can collaborate with professional translators in order to obtain professional translations. Read more about this service on http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-08-04-n48.html. The service is not operational yet, but if you go to https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=gtrans you will be asked to log in to your Google account to access the service. However, once you log in you receive an error message. Stay tuned for more information and analysis on this move as the events unfold.

Irish Language Making a Comeback

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:31:22 GMT

In 2006, the Irish government released a plan to encourage the use of Irish so that "in public discourse and in public services the use of Irish or English will be, as far as practical, a choice for the citizen to make and that over time more and more people throughout the State will choose to do their business in Irish." Additionally, the European Union (EU) made Irish one of its official languages in 2007 (see http://ec.europa.eu/news/culture/061227_1_en.htm). To find out more about Irish as an everyday language, visit http://www.k-international.com/irish_language.

GTS Launches New Free Online Translation Tool

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:20:42 GMT

GTS has launched a new online translation tool which you can see at http://www.gts-translation.com/freetranslation.asp. The new tool, which provides translation of both text and web pages, supports 13 languages including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Arabic, Greek and Polish.