TedTest

From the Ted Talk by Ioannis Papachimonas: How computers translate human language

Unscramble the Blue Letters

How is it that so many intergalactic spciees in movies and TV just happen to sapek perfect English? The short asnewr is that no one wants to watch a starship crew snepd years compiling an alien dictionary. But to keep things consistent, the creators of Star Trek and other science-fiction worlds have introduced the concept of a universal translator, a portable device that can instantly tatnlsrae between any languages. So is a universal tsrlanator possible in real life? We already have many pogrmras that claim to do just that, taking a word, sentence, or eirtne book in one language and translating it into almost any other, whether it's modern esngilh or Ancient Sanskrit. And if tlnsotiaran were just a matter of looking up words in a dictionary, these programs would run circles around humans. The reality, however, is a bit more complicated. A rule-based translation program uses a lexical database, which inledcus all the words you'd find in a dictionary and all grammatical forms they can take, and set of rules to recognize the basic linguistic elements in the input language. For a seemingly simple sentence like, "The children eat the muffins," the program first parses its syntax, or grammatical sctrtuure, by iynidfniteg the children as the subject, and the rest of the sentence as the predicate consisting of a verb "eat," and a direct ojbcet "the muffins." It then needs to recognize English molorhpgoy, or how the language can be broken down into its smallest meaningful units, such as the word mfufin and the suffix "s," used to indicate plural. Finally, it needs to understand the semantics, what the different parts of the sentence actually mean. To translate this sentence properly, the program would refer to a different set of vocabulary and rules for each enmleet of the target language. But this is where it gets tricky. The syntax of some languages allows words to be arranged in any oredr, while in others, doing so could make the muffin eat the chlid. Morphology can also pose a problem. Slovene dusnitighesis between two children and three or more using a dual suffix absent in many other languages, while Russian's lack of definite articles might leave you wondering whether the children are eating some particular muffins, or just eat muffins in gearenl. fnalily, even when the semantics are tlenclahicy crcreot, the program might miss their finer points, such as whether the children "mangiano" the mfnfius, or "divorano" them. Another method is siiatscttal machine translation, which analyzes a database of books, articles, and documents that have already been translated by humans. By finding matches between source and translated text that are unlikely to occur by chance, the program can identify corresponding phrases and patterns, and use them for fuutre tnanaiotlsrs. However, the quality of this type of translation depends on the size of the initial database and the availability of samples for certain languages or styles of writing. The difficulty that computers have with the exceptions, irregularities and shades of meaning that seem to come instinctively to hmanus has led some researchers to believe that our uiensaddtnrng of language is a uniuqe product of our blocoiigal brain structure. In fact, one of the most famous fictional universal translators, the Babel fish from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", is not a machine at all but a small creature that telntsaars the brain waves and nerve signals of sentient species through a form of telepathy. For now, learning a lagngaue the old fashioned way will still give you better results than any currently available computer program. But this is no easy task, and the sheer number of languages in the world, as well as the inacrsnieg interaction between the people who speak them, will only continue to spur greater aadcvnes in automatic translation. Perhaps by the time we encounter intergalactic life forms, we'll be able to cmmnuaiotce with them through a tiny gizmo, or we might have to start compiling that dictionary, after all.

Open Cloze

How is it that so many intergalactic _______ in movies and TV just happen to _____ perfect English? The short ______ is that no one wants to watch a starship crew _____ years compiling an alien dictionary. But to keep things consistent, the creators of Star Trek and other science-fiction worlds have introduced the concept of a universal translator, a portable device that can instantly _________ between any languages. So is a universal __________ possible in real life? We already have many ________ that claim to do just that, taking a word, sentence, or ______ book in one language and translating it into almost any other, whether it's modern _______ or Ancient Sanskrit. And if ___________ were just a matter of looking up words in a dictionary, these programs would run circles around humans. The reality, however, is a bit more complicated. A rule-based translation program uses a lexical database, which ________ all the words you'd find in a dictionary and all grammatical forms they can take, and set of rules to recognize the basic linguistic elements in the input language. For a seemingly simple sentence like, "The children eat the muffins," the program first parses its syntax, or grammatical _________, by ___________ the children as the subject, and the rest of the sentence as the predicate consisting of a verb "eat," and a direct ______ "the muffins." It then needs to recognize English __________, or how the language can be broken down into its smallest meaningful units, such as the word ______ and the suffix "s," used to indicate plural. Finally, it needs to understand the semantics, what the different parts of the sentence actually mean. To translate this sentence properly, the program would refer to a different set of vocabulary and rules for each _______ of the target language. But this is where it gets tricky. The syntax of some languages allows words to be arranged in any _____, while in others, doing so could make the muffin eat the _____. Morphology can also pose a problem. Slovene _____________ between two children and three or more using a dual suffix absent in many other languages, while Russian's lack of definite articles might leave you wondering whether the children are eating some particular muffins, or just eat muffins in _______. _______, even when the semantics are ___________ _______, the program might miss their finer points, such as whether the children "mangiano" the _______, or "divorano" them. Another method is ___________ machine translation, which analyzes a database of books, articles, and documents that have already been translated by humans. By finding matches between source and translated text that are unlikely to occur by chance, the program can identify corresponding phrases and patterns, and use them for ______ ____________. However, the quality of this type of translation depends on the size of the initial database and the availability of samples for certain languages or styles of writing. The difficulty that computers have with the exceptions, irregularities and shades of meaning that seem to come instinctively to ______ has led some researchers to believe that our _____________ of language is a ______ product of our __________ brain structure. In fact, one of the most famous fictional universal translators, the Babel fish from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", is not a machine at all but a small creature that __________ the brain waves and nerve signals of sentient species through a form of telepathy. For now, learning a ________ the old fashioned way will still give you better results than any currently available computer program. But this is no easy task, and the sheer number of languages in the world, as well as the __________ interaction between the people who speak them, will only continue to spur greater ________ in automatic translation. Perhaps by the time we encounter intergalactic life forms, we'll be able to ___________ with them through a tiny gizmo, or we might have to start compiling that dictionary, after all.

Solution

object
statistical
identifying
language
morphology
finally
english
answer
advances
understanding
humans
translates
structure
future
programs
element
technically
correct
order
muffins
increasing
entire
distinguishes
translate
translation
unique
translations
speak
translator
species
includes
spend
communicate
muffin
biological
child
general

Original Text

How is it that so many intergalactic species in movies and TV just happen to speak perfect English? The short answer is that no one wants to watch a starship crew spend years compiling an alien dictionary. But to keep things consistent, the creators of Star Trek and other science-fiction worlds have introduced the concept of a universal translator, a portable device that can instantly translate between any languages. So is a universal translator possible in real life? We already have many programs that claim to do just that, taking a word, sentence, or entire book in one language and translating it into almost any other, whether it's modern English or Ancient Sanskrit. And if translation were just a matter of looking up words in a dictionary, these programs would run circles around humans. The reality, however, is a bit more complicated. A rule-based translation program uses a lexical database, which includes all the words you'd find in a dictionary and all grammatical forms they can take, and set of rules to recognize the basic linguistic elements in the input language. For a seemingly simple sentence like, "The children eat the muffins," the program first parses its syntax, or grammatical structure, by identifying the children as the subject, and the rest of the sentence as the predicate consisting of a verb "eat," and a direct object "the muffins." It then needs to recognize English morphology, or how the language can be broken down into its smallest meaningful units, such as the word muffin and the suffix "s," used to indicate plural. Finally, it needs to understand the semantics, what the different parts of the sentence actually mean. To translate this sentence properly, the program would refer to a different set of vocabulary and rules for each element of the target language. But this is where it gets tricky. The syntax of some languages allows words to be arranged in any order, while in others, doing so could make the muffin eat the child. Morphology can also pose a problem. Slovene distinguishes between two children and three or more using a dual suffix absent in many other languages, while Russian's lack of definite articles might leave you wondering whether the children are eating some particular muffins, or just eat muffins in general. Finally, even when the semantics are technically correct, the program might miss their finer points, such as whether the children "mangiano" the muffins, or "divorano" them. Another method is statistical machine translation, which analyzes a database of books, articles, and documents that have already been translated by humans. By finding matches between source and translated text that are unlikely to occur by chance, the program can identify corresponding phrases and patterns, and use them for future translations. However, the quality of this type of translation depends on the size of the initial database and the availability of samples for certain languages or styles of writing. The difficulty that computers have with the exceptions, irregularities and shades of meaning that seem to come instinctively to humans has led some researchers to believe that our understanding of language is a unique product of our biological brain structure. In fact, one of the most famous fictional universal translators, the Babel fish from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", is not a machine at all but a small creature that translates the brain waves and nerve signals of sentient species through a form of telepathy. For now, learning a language the old fashioned way will still give you better results than any currently available computer program. But this is no easy task, and the sheer number of languages in the world, as well as the increasing interaction between the people who speak them, will only continue to spur greater advances in automatic translation. Perhaps by the time we encounter intergalactic life forms, we'll be able to communicate with them through a tiny gizmo, or we might have to start compiling that dictionary, after all.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

Important Words

absent
advances
alien
analyzes
ancient
answer
arranged
articles
automatic
availability
babel
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bit
book
books
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sanskrit
seemingly
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signals
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slovene
small
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speak
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star
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