Good news for diplomats. This new machine will give them respite from interpreters
THE days of pointing at a phrase book
and loudly asking the way to the railway
station in a foreign city - hoping someone would know your language -
could soon be over, thanks to a translating computer that Siemens of Germany
is set to unveil next month.
The Siemens' prototype will sit
between two people speaking different
languages and translate their conversation, states a report in Pc WoHd
(September '96). Rather than translating verbatim, its database of phrases is
scanned to sense the essence. So, 11 the
spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,"
will not translate into Russian as, "the
Vodka is fine, but the meat has gone
sour." Siemens claims to have produced
a software that can tell the difference
in meaning when words are reused in
various contexts.
After the words have been processed,
the computer rates several options of
what the speaker is trying to say. The
highest scorer is selected and then a
sentence in the foreign language is
sought from its database. The translating PC is not fast enough to be used in
the commercial world, but will offer
real-time translations within five years.
There is currently a time lag of about
10 seconds. Work will continue in
the next few years on widening, the
software's vocabulary as well as teaching
it colloquial sayings. The speech-
recognition programme will also be
worked on to enable it to cope with
regional accents.
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