ISCA Archive IWSLT 2010
ISCA Archive IWSLT 2010

Is machine translation ripe for EU translators?

Josep Bonet

Or, conversely, are EU translators ready for MT? MT has been in use in the EU for almost 20 years. Among the 28 language pairs available around a dozen can be utilised to one or another extent. But the rapid increase in the number of official languages excluded MT as an option ... until new data-drive systems made surface. The Google effect has generated enormous interest among (an increasing number of) translators. End-users of translations are even more excited about MT at times when translation needs grow exponentially and provision of high-quality human translation is capped by budgetary constraints. How can translators help the end-user get a better service while helping themselves is a challenge to be addressed. Can translators accept good enough as the result of their work? Is it possible to move from computer-assisted human translation to human-assisted computer translation? In this presentation, such questions will be debated and the roadmap chosen by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation to re-introduce MT to cover all official languages will be described.


Cite as: Bonet, J. (2010) Is machine translation ripe for EU translators? Proc. International Workshop on Spoken Language Translation (IWSLT 2010)

@inproceedings{bonet10_iwslt,
  author={Josep Bonet},
  title={{Is machine translation ripe for EU translators?}},
  year=2010,
  booktitle={Proc. International Workshop on Spoken Language Translation (IWSLT 2010)}
}