Language Technology

When in 1999, as a translation student, I agreed to review a machine translation on HP servers, I was convinced that machine translation would never be able to come close to human translation . For 3 years now, I can no longer say the same . Surely you have heard about " deep learning " and " big data ”. These two concepts are related and are undoubtedly the main characters of the greatest technological advances of this century . This new...

In a world where the Internet has become the main driver of economic exchanges, it is essential to broaden your horizons in order to increase your company's turnover abroad. Localization and translation of websites and mobile applications into the most commonly used languages is therefore of utmost importance. The most spoken languages , which are mainly three, do not necessarily have the same weight on the Internet. [TOC] 1. The three...

Any 21st century translator would prefer to be dead than to translate the way it was done in the 1970s. New generations of translators don't think of having to go to a library to consult encyclopaedias or dictionaries that have become filthy from years of use! The typewriter , the professional tool of the library translator, was discontinued in 2011 . It was in this year that the last factory that stubbornly insisted on producing this relic of...

These days, machine translation tools are everywhere, from instantaneous translators or voiceover translators to context dictionaries. However, since its existence, its reliability has been the subject of controversy. Where are they today, in 2020? Can we trust an automatic translation tool in 2020? What are your limits? How have they progressed? [TOC] 1. The advances are more than admirable In its early days, machine translation made many...

The medical translator is a specialized professional translator with an essential role: to translate medical content for health professionals or for patients. In both cases, the profession is very demanding and requires many skills such as rigour and confidentiality , apart from the 4 requirements indicated below. [TOC] 1. Knowing the medical language This first competition may seem obvious. However, beyond knowing the medical and scientific...

The automatic translators, including Google's, are constantly trying to improve by making significant improvements. Still, Google is always lagging behind, sometimes offering catastrophic translations. Here are 5 reasons why you should not use it for professional translations . [TOC] 1. Inaccurate translations Google's translations are quite well known for often giving very inaccurate results. It's very easy to check: Take a text in any language...

Yesterday, changing the dial of the radio fleeing from advertising, I arrived at BBC Radio 2 where they argued that we live in a world of constant and rapid change, where nothing remains stable and where things arrive and then leave. This reflection was made in relation to music, but is directly transferable to many professional areas. I am sure that if you think about your own profession and sector you will feel immediately identified, even...

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018 closed its doors in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. Over 3,900 exhibitors displayed the global trends in the field of innovation at the largest technological fair of the year. The development of artificial intelligence in the field of languages and wearable technology particularly caught our attention. One of the latest developments is about to become a phenomenon: smart headsets. They are wireless headsets...

In the majority of cases, websites are managed by Content Management Systems (CMS). There are Content Management Systems, such as Magento , which offer the distinctive feature of exporting text for translation along with part of the HTML code. [TOC] One of the technical challenges associated with translating a website is the management of HTML codes. Generally, websites can be designed and managed exclusively in HTML (or with HTML templates) or...

Advances made in artificial intelligence and their application to the field of machine translation never cease to amaze us. Although we tend to dwell on the errors produced by machine translation, the truth is that the results obtained are getting better and better over time. Initially, the software used simply substituted one word for another, without taking the context into account. This system was only valid to search for vocabulary or very...