Posts by efish

efish

Mar 25, 2013

Writing Feedback / IETLS; Machine Translation Vs Human Translation [5]

First of all: Thank you very much for your inputs!

Well, your essay is way too short.

In the task it is written I should write at least 250 words..I wrote 267 words, I think that is enough. Generally in IELTS exams you should write between 250 and 300 words, it's actually not possible to write a lot more since you only have 40 minutes time.

what is MT???

I used this term because it is also used in the task. Of course I wouldn't use it if it was not already written there.

high-resolution, handwriting recognition

hmm...thought terms like these are commonly known, next time I will elaborate a little bit more on that.

Hope I helped :) :) :)

you did, thanks!

efish

Mar 24, 2013

Writing Feedback / IETLS; Machine Translation Vs Human Translation [5]

Hi all

Could someone please have a look at my essay? I will take the test in about 3 month from now and would be glad to have a feedback. It would be great if someone could make a band score estimation.

IELTS Writing Task 2: Essay

Machine translation (MT) is slower and less accurate than human translation and there is no immediate or predictable likelihood of machines taking over this role from humans.

Do you agree or disagree?

Write at least 250 words.
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Machine translation nowadays might not be as accurate as human translation, but the MT has made a huge step forward in the past years. I strongly disagree to the statement, that documents will not be translated by machines soon.

Firstly, if you compare a machine translated document from the late 90s to a document translated today, you will see that the algorithms have been refined and further developed. A case in point are phrasal verbs which couldn't be translated reliably a decade ago. Todays' algorithms can figure out the nature of a word and translate it correctly. This was made possible by large computer servers and the increased computational power integrated in a modern microcontroller.

Secondly, the speed of translation has increased drastically in the past few years, so that lenghty waiting times are not an issue anymore. For example, the combination of smart phones with high resolution photo cameras and handwriting recognition open new possibiliets. It makes it possible to take a picture of a hand written letter, send it wirelessly to a MT service and have it translated within seconds.

A last point is that it has always been difficult to predict the future. We do not know what new technology will come up in five or ten years from now. This has been shown many times in the history of human beings.

To sum it up, I believe, with the increased computational power and advanced algorithms it will soon be possible to translate large documents within a reasonable time. With more sophisticated technology, MT will serve us as a tool which we use on a daily basis.

(267 words)
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