TechGist05

This is a summary of what I think are some interesting recent articles on the web on subjects relating to MT. The Big Wave , an Italian initiative that focuses on the changes happening in language technology released details and proceeding papers from their conference held in Rome in the summer of 2011. There are many interesting papers related to MT, controlled language and collaborative translation related issues. These papers provide a balance of practitioner, academic and user perspectives on these subjects and are worth a close examination. Some highlights include: Linguistic resources and MT trends for the Italian language by Isabella Chiari discusses the implications of various kinds of data and their value for building data-driven MT systems and provides some specifics for EN <> IT MT systems. The paper is a great overview on the kinds of data that can be used and also provides insight on what data to use and where to use it with summary implications. It also makes a gre...

This is an article from the Asia Online November 2011 Newsletter that provides useful advice for meaningful comparisons of  MT engines and is authored by Dion Wiggins, CEO of Asia Online. So the next time somebody promises you a BLEU of 60, be skeptical, and make sure you get the proper context and assurances that it was properly done. And if they say they have a BLEU score of 90 you know that you are clearly in the bullshit zone. “What is your BLEU score?” This is the single most irrelevant question relating to translation quality, yet one of the most frequently asked. BLEU scores and other translation quality metrics greatly depend on many factors that must be understood in order for a score to be meaningful. A BLEU score of 20 in some cases can be better than a BLEU score of...

“ Blogs are about sharing with authenticity. A good blog can help you really connect deeply with your audience in a meaningful way because the content is not only relevant but insightful and personal. I think most enterprises miss that point. When you do it right, your customers will walk away not only having learned something new but will also feel much more connected to your brand . ”       David Armano EVP, Global Innovation & Integration at Edelman Digital Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t want plastered on a billboard with your face on it . -- Erin Bury   One of the things that I enjoy about blogging is the feedback that one gets, and the continuing and evolving  discussion that sometimes comes forth from these posts. I find it helps to clarify my thinking on what really matters, and the critical feedback one gets, on assumptions that may previously go unquestioned is very useful in just evolving my own thinking on these iss...

Machine translation technology has an unfortunate history of overpromising and under delivering. At least 50 years of doing this and sometimes it seems that the torture will never stop. MT enthusiasts continue to make promises that often greatly exceed the realistic possibilities. Recently, in various conversations, I have seen that the level of unwarranted exuberance around the possibilities with the Moses Open Source SMT technology is rising to peak levels. This is especially true in the LSP community. While most technologies go through a single hype cycle, MT seems destined to go through several of these cycles with each new approach and the latest of these is what I call Moses Madness. It has become fashionable of late to build instant DIY MT engines, using tools that help you with the mechanics of running the software that is “Moses” .   While some of these tools greatly simplify the mechanical process of running the Moses software, they do not give you any insight into what ...