Computer Language Translation

I have been a fan of machine translation for over twenty years. Back in 1980, I applied for a job with ALPS, a company that was working on language translation programs. At the time, I had only studied Greek, Russian, Spanish, a little Italian, a little Lithuanian and was just working on a minor in Computer Science. Although I took a different job, I have followed the translation business off and on since then. An article in the Economist states,

SINCE its earliest days, machine translation—the use of computers to translate documents from one language to another automatically—has suffered from exaggerated claims and impossible expectations.

That is certainly true. Five or six years ago, when I was an Altavista devotee, I used babelfish on a regular basis. I found (and still find) their translations to be just what the Economist claims, not perfect, but helpful. If I have a quick job, I can use the tool for a quick and dirty translation and spend a few minutes fixing it up.