Good Article on Language Translation by Computer

[Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- FS -dot- COM -dot- AU>]

This weeks issue of The Economist (18/10/97) has a good article on the
current state of language translation by computer. It starts (p101):

        Early attempts to translate human languages by computer made
        the subject a laughing stock. A little humility and a lot more
        processing power have, however, done the trick.

And ends:

        Do they produce perfect translations at the click of a mouse?
        Not by a long shot. But they do come up with surprisingly good
        first drafts for expert translators to get their teeth into.
        One mistake that the early researchers made was to imagine that
        nothing less than flawless, fully automated machine translation
        would suffice. With more realistic expectations, machine
        translation is, at last, beginning to thrive.

This article and others from the current issue can also be found at:
        http://www.economist.com

Regards
---
Stuart Burnfield                "When the final deadline came to pass
Functional Software Pty Ltd     A style guide was no good. . ."
mailto:slb -at- fs -dot- com -dot- au                    -- Gene Pitney
                                        'The Man Who Certified Liberty Valance'

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