Google uses stats for translation
Jun 17th, 2007 by Julia
Google dreams of a world where hundreds of languages can be simultaneously translated by machines which compare texts using statistics rather than applying grammatical rules.
Statistical machine translation uses a computer to compare two documents - one in the original language and one translated by a human. It finds patterns and links between the two and uses them to create its own future translations.
Google has used documents from the European Commission and United Nations to feed its machines.
Franz Och, who runs Google’s translation team, told Reuters that early efforts impressed people with experience of machine-run translation systems. Och said: “The more we feed into the system the better it gets.”
Google already offers statistical translation of Arabic, Chinese and Russian. Other language translations are provided by third parties. Och repeated the Google mantra that the focus was on improving the software and that once it was working well they would look at making money from it.
The development was important for Google because documents on the web are increasingly in languages other than English. To continue to improve its core search engine, Google would need translation software.
Read the entire article by John Oates