Japanese translation and the computer
the past, the present and the future

Jim Breen

June 20, 2007

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerMachine Translation - The Beginnings

I Postulation on a Universal Language (Pascal, Leibnitz,Wilkins)
I Early Patents (Artsouni, 1933; Troyanskii, 1933,1937)
I The Weaver Memo (1949)
I First Full-time Researcher (Bar-Hillel, MIT, 1951)
I First MT Conference (1952)
I Demonstration of a Simple Russian-English System (1954)
I First Japanese System (Kuno, Harvard, 1960)

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerGrowing Disappointment

I Early work in MT was actually pioneering CL, AI, etc.
I Formal linguistic theory and analysis was lagging
I Conflicts: brute-force vs perfectionist; high-quality vspragmatism
I Optimism faded - could quality translation be achieved?

(FAHQT)
I US Government appoints Automatic Language Processing

Advisory Committee (1964)
I ALPAC reports: ”there is no immediate or practicableprospect of useful Machine Translation” (1966)
I MT research declines in the US; continues in Europe, Canada,etc.

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerMT Varieties (1)I Direct Translation
I Transfer
I Interlingual
I Example-based
I Statistical

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerMT Varieties (2)Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerDirect Translation

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerTransfer (Simple)

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerTransfer (Complex)

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerInterlingual

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerExample-based

I First proposed by Nagao (1984)
I uses a large collection of phrase/sentence templates
I system trained with a bilingual corpus
I used by many low-cost Japanese systems

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerExample-based (example)

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Statistical MT

I First suggested by Weaver in 1949
I Based on information theory, uses calculated probability that atarget string is the translation of a source string
I Serious work begun by IBM in 1991
I Relies on large quantities of parallel bilingual texts, andsignificant computing power
I Language-independent
I Can be word, phrase, sentence-based
I Major focus of current research

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Commercial Systems
Metéo:I Used to translate weather report/forecasts in Canada (1976)
I Special ”sub-language”Systran:
I Descended from early Russian-English systems of the 1960s
I Adopted by the EEC (EU) in 1976
I Now has many language pairs
I Many WWW-based systems (Babelfish, Yahoo, etc.)

Atlas:I Developed by Fujitsu (late 70s)
I Well-regarded for E-J.
I Very large lexicon

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerTranslator Survey - Questionnaire & Responses

Goal: to find out:
I what translators of Japanese were doing with computers
I what their views were of current and future impacts of ICT ontranslation
Questionnaire:
I WWW-based questionnaire (CGI program & templates)
I Open for 3 weeks in May 2007
I 171 useable responses

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Nationality & Residence

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Years Translating

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Working Mode

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerOther Details

I From Japanese: 75.6%, into Japanese 4.5%, Mix: 19.9%
I Sole occupation: 65.3%, main occupation: 22.7%, secondoccupation: 11.9%
I Windows: 80.7%; Macintosh: 19.3%

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

The Honyaku Archive

The Honyaku archive of postings (1994-present) provides
interesting insights into the evolution of use of computers bytranslators.
I EmailI Word-processing and document types
I The WWWI Translation Memories

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Email - the changing discourse.

I 1994: The days of TWICS. Almost everything in romaji.

Kanji by Nelson numbers.
I 1995: Occasional kanji/kana (usually mojibake). Mentions ofWin/V etc.
I 1996: Many kanji/kana postings - almost always repeated inromaji.
I 1998: Most postings using kanji/kana; occasional romaji
I 2000: Most postings using kanji/kana; romaji is rare
I Document exchange with clients went from rare to common

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerWord-processing and document types

I Early emphasis on JWP, NJStar, Ichitaro, etc.
I Growing concentration on Word. Dominant by 2000.
I 1996: First mention of PDFs. Rapid increase from there.
I PowerPoint translations appearing by 2000.
I Steady expansion of role from text translation to documenttranslation

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

The arrival of the WWW

Adam Rice (July 1994)
I ... Some of you may be acquainted with the World Wide Web(WWW) ...
I The amount and diversity of information available on the Web

is staggering....
I I also believe it is going to become the primary form ofdealing with the Internet in the near future....
I I am considering creating a ”Honyaku Home Page” on theWeb ...

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

The Rise of WWW use
Honyaku and the WWW
I 1995: First mention of search engines
I 1996: Alta Vista, Lycos, etc. being used. Problems withJapanese
I 1999: First mention of Google
I 1999: Honyaku moves to Onelist, which merges with eGroupI 2001: Yahoo takes over eGroupI 2002: First mention of ”St. Google”; James Sparks coins”Googits”
I 2006: Honyaku moves to Google groups
I WWW searching topics have become a common part of thediscussion

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

The Rise of Google

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

The Arrival of Translation Memories

TradosI Nov. 1996 first mentioned on Honyaku
I Jun. 1997 E-J demonstration at IJET 8I Feb. 1998 Trados Tokyo Office, hiring programmers, JE ”inbeta”
I Jul. 1998 Minoru Mochizuki uses Trados for E-J.
I Nov. 1998 Presentation to JAT
I 2001 - rising numbers of users, many price concerns

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

The Arrival of Translation Memories

Déja Vu
I Nov. 1998 First mentioned in a job advert
I Sep. 1999 J-E capability ”in a month or two”
I 2003 J-E capability ”next release”

Wordfast
I 2001 First mention (Gururaj Rao tried it)
I 2002 More people trying it

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerTranslator Survey

The results from the Translator Survey provide information on thepresent state of computer usage, and expectations for the future:
I Document Delivery
I Document Types
I Dictionary UsageI WWW SearchingI Translation Memories
I Machine Translation
I Mail Archives

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerDocument Delivery by TypeJim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Electronic Document Types

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerDictionary Usage by TypeJim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerOverall Dictionary Use

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerWWW Searching & Mail Archives - Usage

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerWWW Searching & Mail Archives - Importance

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerTranslation Memory Usage

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerTranslation Memory - period of use

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerTranslation Memory Systems Used

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Reasons for Translation Memory Use

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Productivity Improvement with Translation Memory

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerMachine Translation Usage

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerMachine Translation Quality

Current Quality
I 57.3% very poor
I 12.9% marginal

Any recent improvement?
I 27.5% no sign
I 27.5% slight improvement

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerMT - Awareness of Systems

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerTechnology having Impact

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerTechnology That Disappointed

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

General Observations

I Clearly significant changes in the way translators work
I Dramatic changes in the ”tools of the trade”
I Translators of Japanese appear to be ”light” users of TM

systems
I Translators now heavily involved in the ”presentation” of text

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

The Future - Introductory Comments

I Predictions about IT developments are usually wrong
I – we tend to extrapolate from the present situation
I – we tend to focus on improving currents systems/techniques
I – IT is very susceptible to paradigm shifts, e.g.

the PC: effectively destroyed the ”mainframe” industry
the Internet: totally overturned traditional networking
I the WWW: revolutionized the interaction between people,
computers and information sources

II

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerIntroductory Comments (2)I Underlying technology usually develop incrementally, BUT ....
I – the movement can be rapid (Moore’s Law)
I – development/production lead times are relatively shortI – economies of scale in manufacture can be huge
I – end-user capitalization is relatively light
I Developments are largely market-driven, BUT ....
I – translation has been a relatively small market

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerSurvey - Technology with Future Impact

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerMachine Translation

I MT IS getting a lot of use worldwide
IIdraft preparation using controlled language (EU, etc.)
WWW (Translate this page)

I the smart money is going into statistical translation
I – parallel texts for training is an issue
I a lot of activity in application-specific systems (eg travelindustry)
I Google and Microsoft becoming major players

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerMachine Translation - Predictions
I Steady improvement in Statistical MT quality
I – will probably never reach a ”high” quality
I – main application will be in the WWW and restricteddomains
I – may even be a ”standard” option with Windows, etc.
I Increase of controlled language in business documentation
I – widely used in the EU, and a few multinationals
I – can dramatically improve the quality of MT output
I Arrival of MT-based travel guides
I – already working well in the lab.
I – speech recog. and synthesis

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerDictionaries
I The last decade has seen major computerization ofdictionaries
handheldCDROM/file
I onlineIII – still often mirroring the paper originals
I Scope for significant rethink of the dictionary concept (Atkins,1997)
I – internal hyperlinking
I – customization of user view
I – less language distortion, etc.
I Not a lot of progress
I EPWING/JIS X 4081 good for its day, but book-oriented

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computerDictionaries - Predictions

I Continued trend from paper to electronic and online
I New more flexible and useful structures
I Integration into other systems:
I – the Desktop
I – TM/CAT systems
I Potential interworking of multiple dictionaries

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

TM/CAT Systems

I Continued movement to overall CAT systems of which TM ispart
I Increase in ”2nd gen” TM, using advanced NLP techniques(e.g. Similis)
I Movement to more server-based systems with sharedmemories and glossaries
I Pressure to share/sell memories and glossaries
I – potential/threat(?) to interwork with Statistical MT

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Communications and Mobility

I Expect an even more ”networked” future - it hasn’t plateauedI – continued blurring of the voice/data/video boundaries
I – buzzwords: convergence, pervasive, ubiquitous, embedded,

seamless, smart devices
I Work-from-anywhere potential even stronger
I Expect the PDA to morph into a powerful multimedia

comms/processing tool
I Expect greater integration into clients’ systems
I – change in the concept of ”freelance”

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer

Envoi

I Computers and related technologies have had a massive

impact on translationI – dictionaries: paper to electronic forms
I – new tools: TM, glossary systems, WWW searching, etc.
I – greater involvement with client documents
I Expect just as massive changes in the future
I Watch out for the next paradigm shift ....
I – and the one after that ....
I – and the one after that ....

Jim Breen

Japanese translation and the computer