Re: [tlug] Free program translates Euro languages to/from English

[Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>]

On 11/2/05, Jim <jep200404@example.com> wrote:

> I wonder about expanding it for CJK. In spite of the writing system,
> my guess is that Chinese would be easier to translate to the Euro
> languages because its grammar is not so terribly different from
> the Euro languages.
>
> I would expect that Japanese and Korean would be much much more
> difficult, since their grammars are just so completely different.

Machine translation of Japanese (and, I would assume, Korean) is
considered by some linguists to be an impossible problem. I disagree,
but at the same time admit that the problem is decidedly non-trivial.
It will take some serious AI-style shit to solve.

I am of the opinion that anything can be modelled, provided you have a
dense enough set of rules. These rules might be grammar-based, or they
might be heuristics. In the case of Japanese (and probably Korean as
well, though maybe to a slightly lesser degree), you also have to
model a shit-tonne of context. And this is what current machine
translation programs *do not* do well.

Maybe the other linguistics chaps on this list (note that I consider
myself a hobbyist linguist who happens to be married to an actual
Japanese linguist) would like to weigh in?

Cheers,
Josh