人机翻译比赛结果显示机器翻译将能很快赶上人工翻译

The first open translation competition between a software program and human revealed tremendous potential for software as future translators. Chungshin Soft, a translation software developer, show cased its Japanese-Korean, Korean-Japanese translation software “ezTrans” at the Korea Press Center Tuesday, challenging two Japanese translators to compete with it. The two translators were holders of a first class translation licence acknowledged by the Korea Translators Association. For the sake of fairness, four professors of the Japanese Language assessed the quality of the translations on the basis of accuracy and comprehension.

EzTrans scored 94 points in its ability to divide sentences according to parts of speech, and the average score of the two translators was 98 points. The translators scored 95 in comprehension, far exceeding the software”s 80 points. All in all, the screening board members evaluated that the software lack comprehensive ability when it comes to words that have multiple meanings.

However, the software”s speed of translation was overwhelming, although this wasn”t included in the evaluation list. It took the computer 3.1 seconds to translate eight pages and send the information to the printer, when the translators took 27 minutes for the same job.

Professor Lee Deok-bong of Dongdeok Women”s University who led the screening board commented that software will soon catch up with humans in translation.

(Baek Gang-nyong young100@chosun.com)