That is where machine translation (MT) comes in. More than just an electronic dictionary, MT can facilitate multilingual written communication by offering a fast and cost-effective means of obtaining raw translations of texts such as reports, minutes and e-mails. As a result, not only can it benefit administrators in their day-to-day exchanges of information, but it can also be useful to professional translators as a basis for producing high-quality translations.
Last update: 10/2005
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What is machine translation?
Objectives
How does it work?
Achievements
The role of IDABC
Who benefits?
How to register
Technical Information
Documentation
What is machine translation?
A machine translation (MT) system can be defined as a computer translation tool that works by breaking down sentences or other text segments in a given source language, analyses them in context and then attempts to recreate their meaning in a given target language, taking into account inflection, idioms and word order.
The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation offers a machine translation service for 28 language combinations:
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Source Language
(translation from)
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Target Language
(translation into)
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Danish
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English*
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Dutch
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English*, French*
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English
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Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
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French
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Dutch, English, German, Greek*, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
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German
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English, French
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Italian
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English*, French*
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Portuguese
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English*, French*
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Spanish
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English, French
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Greek
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English*, French
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Swedish
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English*
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* = prototype
Hundreds of thousands of pages are submitted for machine translation every year, around 80% of which come from the Commission itself. The remaining 20% is accounted for by other EU bodies and the Member States. Spanish and German authorities (at both national and regional level) are the main national users, but demand is also increasing in France.
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Objectives
IDABC-MT covers a series of projects aimed at providing more effective and user-friendly access to the European Commission's machine translation service for the interchange of multilingual data between European public administrations.
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How does it work?
So far, six projects have been carried out. These range from assessment of user needs and identification of MT products to terminology integration and improvement of access. All the projects described below were funded by IDA.
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Achievements
(1) Feasibility Study (2002 IDA Work Programme)
It was assumed that widespread access to a common tool such as the Commission's MT service would help the European administrative world - Member State public administrations and EU institutions and bodies - overcome language barriers when exchanging data. It was also assumed that this would reduce the overall costs associated with multilingual communication.
Consequently, IDABC-MT was launched in 2002 with a feasibility study, the purpose of which was to:
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collect information on the principal MT needs of European public administrations by means of a survey; and
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define the most appropriate and cost-effective ways of satisfying those needs in terms of access, language and terminology coverage, and translation quality.
Moreover, many national administrators were unaware that such technology was at their disposal. Indeed, only a third of survey respondents had used MT before. The remaining two thirds nevertheless stated that they were willing to give MT a try. The most important factors for an MT system were: quality, user-friendliness, speed, terminology, and formats supported.
The Final Report is available.
(2) Integration of terminology (2002 IDA Revised Work Programme)
Following on from the study, almost 6 700 terms provided by national administrations were added to the MT dictionaries. This was done on a trial basis for translation between French, German and English.
In parallel, work commenced on upgrading the MT architecture. Improvements were carried out in two stages.
(3) Improvement of access (2002 IDA Revised Work Programme)
Firstly, a common access procedure was developed so that all users could request machine translation via the Web, regardless of whether they worked for EU or Member State administrations. The user interface was also completely overhauled, and new functions were added: for example, real-time translation (results are displayed on the user's screen) was added to the traditional batch mode (results are sent to the user's mail-box) .
(4) Web services (2003 IDA Work Programme)
Secondly, the new interface was placed on a Web services platform so that national administrations could integrate it with their own Web sites and adapt it to the “look and feel” of their informatics environment.
The new service is accessible to all European public administrations through the TESTA network and the Internet (for administrations not connected to TESTA).
(5) Study on MT products for the "new" EU languages, Bulgarian and Romanian (2004 IDA Work Programme)
Purpose: to identify and assess products and services available in terms of machine translation for official languages of the most recent EU Member States - Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak, and Slovenian. With future accessions in mind, Bulgarian and Romanian have also been included.
In addition to a market survey, the study involves a linguistic and technical evaluation of products (quality for browsing purposes, adaptability, user options, etc.) and a cost/benefit analysis.
The Final Report will be available for the end of 2005.
(6) Study on MT products for Finnish (2004 IDA Work Programme)
Purpose: to identify and assess products and services available in terms of machine translation for Finnish. This study involves the same stages as described in (5).
The Final Report will be available for the end of 2005.
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The study highlighted a number of weaknesses in the Commission’s MT service, such as a lack of user-friendliness and poor access for external users: EU staff requested MT by means of an internal Web interface, but Member State administrators had to use their standard e-mail software, a method which was less user-friendly.
Who benefits?
Public Administrations: Machine-produced translations are less reliable than human translations, but they can be of great help to administrators for understanding the gist of texts (such as e-mails, reports, and minutes) written in languages they have not mastered. Moreover, some officials use MT as a drafting tool, writing a text in their own language first, then requesting a machine translation and correcting the output.
Professionals: MT results can also be useful to translators as a rough basis for providing formal translations, although careful editing is then required.
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The role of IDABC
Originally developed and funded under the IDA programme, IDABC-MT was previously known as IDA-MT. It will continue as an infrastructure service under IDABC Horizontal Measures.
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How to register
For access via TESTA, please go to: https://webgate.cec.eu-admin.net/mt/ecmt. For non-TESTA users: https://webgate.cec.eu.int/mt/ecmt/.
As they are already recognised, Commission officials can access the service with their normal Internet username and password. National administrators, however, must first register as a user (click on "Register" in the top right-hand corner of the Login page). Confirmation of registration will be sent within 24 hours.
If you have any problems, please contact the Commission’s MT Help Desk: DGT-ECMT-HELPDESK@ec.europa.eu.
Users are welcome to send feedback on translation errors they discover.
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Technical information
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Project start date
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2002
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Project completion date
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2005
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Project status
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Feasibility
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IDA budget
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2001 € 0
2002 € 318,000
2003 € 110,000
2004 € 170,000
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Responsible service
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DG Enterprise - IDABC Unit
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Project coordinator
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Francine Braun-Chen
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Contact
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idabc@ec.europa.eu
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Countries involved
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All EU Member States
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Documentation on Machine Translation
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