EU funds MOLTO - Will it work for Greek?

Τελευταία Ενημέρωση στις Πέμπτη, 21 Ιανουάριος 2010 06:54 Συντάχθηκε απο τον/την Administrator Τετάρτη, 20 Ιανουάριος 2010 16:05

I was reading Cordis and I saw that the EU is funding the "Multilingual on-line translation" tool (a.k.a. MOLTO). It is an ambitious tool but I am afraid that, at least for Greek, we won't see much of a development. "Why" you would ask? And I would answer, "Because it states that "The project partners will develop a system with precision and grammar rules in place". That is the Achilles' heel for our language. We have a complicated grammar system that, as far as I know, has not been rendered in some viable computational grammar parser. 

But then again they say that hope dies last. So here I am hoping that maybe they can ameliorate the Google Translate model (which so far has worked the best out of everything else) and will create something that will prove really useful for Greek. I am including the actual Cordis post along with the source URL in case you want to go to that page and share in Facebook or Twitter the article alone. 

EU funds effective translation tool

Source: http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=31680

[Date: 2010-01-20]

Europeans recognise the importance of communicating in other languages as well as their native tongue, and the availability of effective tools facilitating high-quality translation of texts between multiple languages is pivotal to this. Enter the MOLTO ('Multilingual on-line translation') project, which has received over EUR 2.3 million under the 'Information and communication technologies' Theme of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) to develop such a reliable translation tool.

The MOLTO project partners said the languages will function as separate and varied modules in the tool. The five-strong consortium, which is being coordinated by the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, will develop prototypes that cover most of the EU's 23 official languages.

In a statement, the university said the MOLTO project seeks to provide the same access to knowledge on the Internet for all EU citizens.

'It has so far been impossible to produce a translation tool that covers entire languages,' explained project leader Professor Aarne Ranta from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Gothenburg.

A number of online translation tools are currently available to the public. Google Translator, a programme that is used by many people worldwide, for example, gradually improves the quality of translations through machine learning: the system uses feedback to learn from its own mistakes. The disadvantage is that explicit grammatical rules are the exception rather than the rule.

This is where MOLTO comes in. The project partners will develop a system with precision and grammar rules in place. According to the consortium, wide coverage will follow.

'We wanted to work with a translation technique that is so accurate that people who produce texts can use our translations directly,' said Professor Ranta. 'We have now started to move from precision to increased coverage, meaning that we have started to add more languages to the tool and database.'

The consortium wants to develop a system that can suit various application areas. The translation of patent description is one such area; Europeans and people from other countries should be able to use this innovative technology without being fluent in the language in which the patent description is written, the researchers said. Another area is the translation of mathematical teaching material; the MOLTO partners will kick-start a sub-project that targets the translation needs of mathematicians. Also on their to-do list is the translation of descriptions of cultural heritage and museum objects. The researchers pointed out that everyone should have access to these descriptions regardless of linguistic scope.

'The purpose of the EU grant is to enable us to use the MOLTO technology to create a system that can be used for translation on the Internet,' Professor Ranta underlined.

'The plan is that producers of Web pages should be able to freely download the tool and translate texts into several languages simultaneously. Although the technology does exist already, it is quite cumbersome to use unless you are a computer scientist,' he added.

'In a nutshell, the EU gives us money to modify the tool and make it user-friendly for a large number of users'.

Scheduled to end in February 2013, MOLTO brings together researchers and industry partners from Bulgaria, Spain, Austria, Finland, and Sweden.

For more information, please visit:

MOLTO:
http://www.molto-project.eu/

University of Gothenburg:
http://www.gu.se/english

Related stories: 31187, 31382, 31546

Category: Projects
Data Source Provider: University of Gothenburg
Document Reference: Based on information from the University of Gothenburg.
Subject Index: Information and communication technology applications ; Information, Media; Innovation, Technology Transfer; Reference Materials; Social Aspects

RCN: 31680

ERP glossaries and English monolingual glossaries

Τελευταία Ενημέρωση στις Τετάρτη, 20 Ιανουάριος 2010 16:25 Συντάχθηκε απο τον/την Administrator Τρίτη, 19 Ιανουάριος 2010 15:00

So, alright, I will admit that it took me a TAD few more minutes to post the ERP links. Without further delay here they are:

• Search sites for white papers: http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/home/0,289692,sid26,00.html
• 'The Glossary of BPM Terminology' : http://scribd.com/doc/2307166
• 'ERP HRMS Glossary' : http://scribd.com/doc/20051803
• 'Oracle ERP Glossary' (Oracle Financials): http://scribd.com/doc/8480102
• 'Sap FI Glossary' (SAP Financials): http://scribd.com/doc/7862552
• 'Oracle Receivables User Guide' (very detailed, great definitions): http://scribd.com/doc/24134838
• 'The Glossary of BPM Terminology' : http://scribd.com/doc/2307166
• American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Glossary: http://scribd.com/doc/11575303
• ERP HRMS Implementation Guide' : http://scribd.com/doc/10877868

 Additionally, here is some more links to English monolingual glossaries. I do admit some are a bit weird but you never know when you would need them in a translation. Better have and need not than need and have not, eh?

• 'Glossary of Astrological Terms' : http://scribd.com/doc/6433712
• 'culinary glossary terms' : http://scribd.com/doc/20523431
• 'GLOSSARY OF MEDICAL TERMS' : http://scribd.com/doc/12723591
•  'Dictionary-Glossary of Occult Terminology' : http://scribd.com/doc/16627220
• 'The British Medical Association Illustrated Medical Dictionary': http://scribd.com/doc/24049137

• Legal concepts and law terms by Duhaime Law Firm http://duhaime.org/LegalDictionary.aspx

• 'Cooking Glossary from Teflon (r)' : http://scribd.com/doc/19541175
• A Pagan Glossary of Terms' : http://scribd.com/doc/1013005

 As always, if any of the links is not working let me know. Keep in mind that none of these files are something I wrote hence I have no control over their quality, although for 99% of them I can say they are okay because I check them out before I suggest them to anyone else. Also if you would like to read a bit more on how to conduct better terminological searches, you can also visit my SlideShare profile and see my presentations there. For the time being I have 3 that would fall within the subject of my last two messages. These are:

• Best practices in terminology research
• Enhance your Google search, and,
• Terminology and translation searches (conducted as a workshop during the ELETO "Terminology & Translation" seminar). This last one is in Greek.

  Now I can finally move on to finalizing that list of conferences I have promised for such a long time :)

 On a personal note, I was ecstatic to have won the Artwiculate contest for the 18th of January. Here is my winner's certificate for the word "schlep". I can just hear my husband snickering from some remote corner in the house because I was dancing around the house when I saw it. 

Enjoy!

Useful resources - Greek/English bilingual and/or English monolingual

Τελευταία Ενημέρωση στις Τετάρτη, 20 Ιανουάριος 2010 06:30 Συντάχθηκε απο τον/την Administrator Σάββατο, 16 Ιανουάριος 2010 20:37

As I was doing some cleanup work I realized that I have quite a few URLs from sites like Scrbd that others can use as reference for their translation work. So I am listing there; if any of these no longer works please feel free to email me by using this Αυτή η διεύθυνση ηλεκτρονικού ταχυδρομείου προστατεύεται από κακόβουλη χρήση. Χρειάζεται να ενεργοποιήσετε την Javascript για να τη δείτε. . If you have something to add to this list, email me or contact me on Twitter (Leximaniac). Hope you find this as interesting and as useful as I did:

• This English > Greek linguistics' glossary was compiled by Dr. Ksidopoulos, of Unibersity of Patras. It's quite comprehensive: Aγγλοελληνικό γλωσσάρι γλωσσολογίας
• 'English-Greek dictionary of statistics' : http://scribd.com/doc/3139827
• 4-language medical dictionary: Elsevier s Dictionary of Medicine and Biology
  
• Ever wondered about stones and how these are translated into kilos? Look no further than this dictionary: A Dictionary of Units of Measurement
• Need I say more about this dictionary? :): Liddell & Scott-Greek-English Lexicon (here you will find the dictionary in all the formats available online).
• This is all written in English but it contains the ancient Greek terms also so it is really valuable for those obscure references we find sometimes in our projects: Greek dress : a study of the costumes worn in ancient Greece
• This an English monolingual literacy terms and literary theory dictionary by Penguin Reference: English Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory 
• Barron's Dictionary terms - English monolingual. A very good reference book; I have used it for years:  Dictionary of Computer Terms
• English monolingual dictionary. Very useful if you are translating texts with unfamiliar to your country architecture: Historical Dictionary of Architecture by Allison Lee Palmer' : http://scribd.com/doc/17431705
  
• Another English monolingual dictionary that requires no introduction: Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms' : http://scribd.com/doc/13971168
• Another English monolingual dictionary that requires no introduction: Dictionary of Philosophy' : http://scribd.com/doc/2916145
• A very refreshing approach to a dictionary. I think the subject inspired them. It’s Engliish monolingual: The Complete Rhyming Dictionary' : http://scribd.com/doc/8905159 
• Another English monolingual dictionary that requires no introduction: American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms' : http://scribd.com/doc/11328842

In a few minutes I will update this post with a list of ERP related glossaries. These will be solely English monolingual in their majority.

I am still planning on publishing a list of conferences that will take place during 2010 but this popped up and I thought it would be nice to share. So stay tuned, there will be more posting in 2010 :)

The Greek geek,

Leximaniac

Misc tidbits - First post for 2010

Τελευταία Ενημέρωση στις Τετάρτη, 20 Ιανουάριος 2010 16:36 Συντάχθηκε απο τον/την Administrator Παρασκευή, 08 Ιανουάριος 2010 22:09

I have many things to cram into this one posting so I will be brief on everything. The next posting will be fairly lengthy as well:

 1. 2009 Jelly Donut 5 worst translation errors

      I really enjoyed the Jackson Township - New Jersey newspaper's "2009 Jelly Donut Awards". You can find the whole article here, but for your enjoyment, I will post one of the award winners (I am hoping these awards keep on coming every year):"During a foreign policy meeting between American and Russian leaders in March, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a “reset button,” representing the erasure of past tension between the two countries. But the English word “reset” had been translated to the Russian “peregruzka” – meaning “overcharged” or “overloaded.” The photo op of the two politicians pressing the button lost its international significance – and instead became a global joke thanks to the translation error"

 2. Pascal Casing vs Camel Casing

 A lot of the people I work with in localization tend to forget that in Greek we follow two rules: We do NOT follow the Pascal casing  and in the case of Camel casing we do NOT even translate the word(s) (in most cases Camel casing=concatenation, so stay away from the temptation of translation)

For those who do not remember which is which, here is the definition for both: "Pascal Casing convention capitalizes the first character of each word (including acronyms over two letters in length) as in the following examples: PropertyDescriptor, HtmlTag" & "Camel Casing convention capitalizes the first character of each word except the first word, as in the following examples: propertyDescriptor, ioStream, htmlTag" - Definition source: Brad Adam's blog

3. Nominees for ADS Word of the Year (and Decade)

          The American Dialect Society selected the final nominees for Word of the Year (2009) and Word of the Decade (2000-09). The finalists for the word of the year are:

• -er A suffix used in such words as birther, someone who questions whether Obama was born in the United States; deather, someone who believes the government has death panels in its healthcare reform plan; Tenther, someone who believes the Federal government is mostly illegal because it usurps rights which belong to the States, in violation of the 10th Amendment; and truther, someone who doubts the official account of the 9/11 attacks.
• fail A noun or interjection describing something egregiously unsuccessful. Usually used as an interjection: “FAIL!”
• H1N1 The virus that causes swine flu.
• public option A government-run healthcare program, desired by some to be part of the country’s healthcare reform

           The finalists for the word of the decade are:

• 9/11 The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Pronounced “nine eleven.”
• blog A web site for publishing a chronological and ongoing series of related entries, especially when they are all by the same person(s) or on the same topic. Also a productive combining form: blogosphere, blogerati, milblog, blogola.
• google Verb meaning “to search the Internet.” Generic form of the trademarked “Google,” the world’s dominant Internet search engine.
• green Related to ecological or environmental conservation or protection. Also a productive combining form: greenwashing, green collar, etc.
• text Verb: to send a text message via a mobile phone. Noun: such a message.
• war on terror A global effort to prevent terror and terrorists.

           The final votes in all categories will have taken place by the time these lines are written (It's supposed to take place on Friday January 8th at 5:30 pm in the Ruth Room of the Baltimore Hilton). You can read the whole PDF that sparked this commentary, by clicking on this link.

Personal note: Interesting how the words of the year are so influenced by neologisms and technology. I find it fascinating that technology terms jump from our computers to our everyday life. I only wish that was something as easily done for Greek as it is for English. It seems that in order for us to use a technology word we have to go through  thorough investigation in dictionaries and then go through the debate of whether we should simply add some a Greek suffix, or find a proper Greek word; in the latter case we have people dusting even their LJS or their Dimitrakos for suitable entries, like ancient Greeks should be the all powerful solution provider for something appropriate for terms like "Googling" or "Tweeting"; I mean, come on people, open up your horizons, listen to the everyday people using these terms, consult the subject matter experts and don't go creating words on your own.

Coming up: 2010 Conferences list for translation, interpreting, writing, machine translation etc.