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Romancing The Rosetta Stone

Roland Piquepaille writes "Not only this news release from the University of Southern California has a fantastic title, it also has a great content. This story is about one of their scientists, Franz Josef Och, whose software ranks very high among translation systems. "Give me enough parallel data, and you can have a translation system for any two languages in a matter of hours," said Dr. Och, paraphrasing Archimedes. His approach relies on two concepts, gathering huge amounts of data, and applying statistical models to this data. It completely ignores grammar rules and dictionaries. "Och's method uses matched bilingual texts, the computer-encoded equivalents of the famous Rosetta Stone inscriptions. Or, rather, gigabytes and gigabytes of Rosetta Stones." Read my summary for more details."

11 of 486 comments (clear)

  1. Let me know by gazuga · · Score: 5, Funny

    when it's in the form of a fish, and can fit in my ear...

    --
    "I turn away with fright and horror from the lamentable evil of functions which do not have derivatives."
  2. Oh god... by gerf · · Score: 4, Funny

    The uber-geeks are going to have a field day with Klingon...

    1. Re:Oh god... by Jeremi · · Score: 4, Funny
      I'm pretty sure you can have your throat slit for saying "Yay!" near a Klingon. Do be careful. ;)


      Having your throat slit is nothing compared to what Klingons do to people who put smiley-faces in their text messages...

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    2. Re:Oh god... by daeley · · Score: 4, Funny

      Having your throat slit is nothing compared to what Klingons do to people who put smiley-faces in their text messages...

      You're telling me! My emoticons used to have noses! Now look:

      :(

      Such a tragedy.

      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  3. Re:Obsolete? by DG · · Score: 5, Funny

    A man who speaks three languages is trilingual.

    A man who speaks two languages is bilingual.

    A man who speaks one language is American.

    DG

    --
    Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
  4. Damn Babelfish! by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 5, Funny
    "Most the bay only of news of the college of southern extremity California it knows an all big contents all there is this emission annular subject, it also there is a RolandPiquepaille and it writes. The Franz taxes where his software height one lyel with lines up between the translation system quite phu the Och and this history are the summary thing their scientist. The Och "it gave the data which is parallel is sufficient in me, it spread out," inside questioning the hour 2 specialties the language which it does not do of the multi Archimedes which is the possibility which there will be a hazard translation system the doctor repulsively it talked. It approach collects the sheep which data is enormous, apply the statistical model in this data a foundation in 2 concepts which it puts. It is complete and the wool of rule lu the dictionary of grammar "the m3ethode of the Och the duplex language original and the Rosetta which agree one equivalent with computer password of noble and wise pebble epitaph adopts. Or, rather, the gigaoctets and pebble gigaoctets of the Rosetta." Detail fact compared to read the hazard my synopsis.

    English --> French --> English --> Korean --> English. Of course, it helps that the first sentence is munged anyway ;-)

    --
    When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
  5. "The vodka is strong, but the meat is rotten" by quantum+bit · · Score: 5, Funny

    You know, that actually does sound like something that would be a Russian aphorism...

  6. What about C++? by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, can I train this program with a bunch of requirements documents, and a bunch of implementations, and have it learn how to code? :-) If so, I think I am obsolete. *poof*

  7. Give me enough Slashdot antries... by Pac · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and I will make pseudo-insightful comments based on the headline text without reading any of the source articles, until my karma is excellent?

  8. How dare you ask by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
    But Can It Do Klingon?
    How dare you question the honor of this program! I should kill you where you stand!
  9. Article text (in Babel-German-back-to-English) by Wraithlyn · · Score: 4, Funny

    I just had to. Besides, I think it's proving a point, or something.

    --

    Romancing of the Rosetta stone

    ' you give me sufficient parallel data, and you can have translation a system in the hours '

    University southern California of the computer scientist Franz Josef, which Och of most famous against-resounded, praises itself in the history of the technology, after its software counted the Arab strongly under 23 and Chinese English translatio systems, commercially and experimentally, examined inside in recently concluded Ministry of Trade of attempts.

    "you indicate a place to me to the location, and I shift the world,", after to to order a mathematical explanation for the lever said the large Greek scientist Archimedes place.

    "you give me sufficient parallel data, and you can have translation a system for all possible two languages in an affair of hours,", said Dr. Och, a computer scientist in the USC school of the institute for information science of the technology.

    Och spoke after the benchmark tests 2003 for the machine translation, which was accomplished in the May and June of this yearly by the National Institute of Standards and Technology United States of the trade department.

    Translations Ochs examined well into the 2003 head ton head tests against 7 Arab systems (5 research and 2 commercial away dregal products) and 14 Chinese systems (9 research and 5 from stock). In preceding 2002 evaluations had examined it similarly superior.

    The researcher discussed his methods held at a NIST Postmortemseminar over the Benchmarking July 22-23 of John Hopkins at the university in Baltimore, Maryland.

    Och is an outstanding exponent of a newer method of using the computers to touch in order to translate a language into other one, which became more successful in the last years, while the ability of the computers grew, large bodies of the information, and the volume of the text and the brought together translations in the digital form has, on (for example) multilingual newspaper or government net places of assembly explodes.

    Method Ochs uses brought together bilingual texts, the computer-coded equivalents of the famous Rosetta descriptions of stone. Or rather gigabytes and gigabyte Rosetta of stones.

    "our approximation uses statistic models, in order to find the most probable translation for a given entrance," Och avowedly

    "it is rather different to the older, symbolic approximations for the machine translation, which in most existing the commercial systems is used, which try, to code the grammar and the encyclopedia of a foreign language in a computer program the grammatical structure of the strange text analyzed, and produced then English, which on hard guidelines," it is based, continued.

    "employs, explaining from the computer, how one, we left it it out explains translated. First we draw the system it with a parallel korpus i.e. an accumulation of texts in the foreign language and their translations into English.

    "the computer uses these information, in order to co-ordinate the parameters of a statistic model translation of the process. During the translation of the new text, the system tries to find English sentence which is the most probable translation strange entrance of the sentence, be based in these statistic models."

    This method ignores or rolls over rather, finds express grammatical guidelines and even traditional dictionary lists of the vocabulary in favor of leaving the computer matchup samples between given Chinese or Arab (or any another language) texts and English translations.

    Such abilities grew, while computers improved, by making possible for them, from using the individual words as the fundamental unit on using the groups of words to move -- cliches.

    Versions of the different human translators of the same text change frequently considerably. Another key improvement was the use of repeated English human translations to permit the computer too its transmission by an ana

    --
    "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson