Japanese working on translating languages

Press, 28 July 1987, Page 30

Japanese working on translating languages

By

GARETH POWELL

Easy to joke about the Japanese problems with the English language, but at least they are doing something about it. Far more than we are doing about Australian and New Zealand illiteracy in other languages. The Japanese are working on faster, more accurate and efficient computer translation systems which they hope will bridge the formidable language gap between Japan and the rest of the world.

(Small practical tip. If you are ever communicating with a Japanese in business, put it in writing. All Japanese business people read and write English infinitely better than they understand the spoken word.) Building on breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, Japanese firms developed and marketed the first generation of Japanese-to-English translation machines about two years ago. But having tried to test these machines at the Tskuba Science Show two years

ago and having been escorted forcibly from the scene by two large security gentlemen, I was and am very dubious about their efficiency. This is generally acknowledged. The problems that have to be solved are not easy. For example: when it was thought that after World War 11, General Douglas MacArthur would run for presidency after being given the big A by Truman, a central hotel in Tokyo carried the sign, “We support MacArthur’s erection."

A few years ago, a researcher recently fed into a machine the English sentence “I am feeling fine” and got back in Japanese “I am very sensitive to blue skies.”

I once asked such a machine to translate the then slogan „ of Cathay

Pacific “From the heart of Asia.” I got back “From Asia’s blood pump.” The Mitsubishi model that followed the Colt is called the Starion — because that is how “stallion” is pronounced in Japanese. Plainly, it is a large problem. Plainly, the solutions will not come easily. But researchers are gradually getting there.

“As a translation specialist, five years ago, I would not have thought computer translation possible. But now, in another five years, it may even be economically practical,” says John Mackin of Fujitsu.

The complex and often vague nature of the Japanese language requires considerable pre and post-editing by professionals, depending on

the material being translated, so that the machines are more translation aids than total translating units.

Fujitsu has a system that runs on large mainframe computers and can translate a page of text in about 40 to 50 minutes, including putting the text into the computer and then being re-edited. A year ago, the same, process took an hour and a half.

IBM Japan has begun a two-year joint study on machine translation with Carnegie-Mellon University in Pennsylvania. A spokesman, Mr Mac Jeffery, said IBM Japan would initially focus on machine translation of computer manuals “because they are more structured than Shakespeare.” This is a quotation

which undoubtedly deserves more widespread publicity than it has so far received.