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PlainTranslate Statistical Machine Translation
AppTek has set the goal of improving the performance of electronic
translation through
innovative technology. AppTek is the only company worldwide that uses a
self-learning flexible
system based on a statistical approach.
PlainTranslate uses this technology to translate
individual words as well as complete HTML pages
and other documents. The functionality is
presented in a user friendly interface.
The key advantage of PlainTranslate is an
integrated interactive process that allows the user
to make corrections which the system learns,
thereby continually improving the quality of
translation.
PlainTranslate offers Unicode support and is, in
principle, language independent. PlainTranslate can
be optimized according to specific customer needs.
 How does PlainTranslate learn
a language?
PlainTranslate is a self-learning system that through a brief learning phase
can be optimized for
any particular area of application (domain) such as medicine, sports, or
computer science.
The training phase uses several domain specific example texts
that are available in the input and output language. With this pairing of
data the system is able to generate a complete translation system following
a short training period.
The quality of the translation is continually improved through interactive
work with the system.
How do I translate with PlainTranslate?
Besides being able to translate single WebPages (e.g., from an Intranet)
PlainTranslate also offers the possibility to translate entire webpage
hierarchies (e.g., from the Internet). Moreover,
PlainTranslate can translate Microsoft Word documents as well as files with
any commonly used document format. The software also offers a dictionary
function that allows users to enter individual words that are automatically
translated.
PlainTranslate separates the pages that are to be processed into individual
text blocks (phrases) that are presented in a table overview for
translation. Using these phrases a translation server calculates the
translation. These results are used to create the desired translation that
has the same characteristics as the source text. The user-friendly interface
offers different navigation choices: Through simple mouse functions the user
can move from a phrase in the table to the corresponding position in the
source or output text.
What are the advantages of interactive translation?
The interactive process of PlainTranslate allows the user to integrate
otherwise separate steps
in the work environment. A user can enter corrections while using the system
that fits his
individual needs. The program automatically learns these and uses them for
further
translations.
Example:
For each word or phrase the system offers alternatives (synonyms) from which
the user can choose. Further, for each word or phrase the user can enter his
own translation. This translation is transmitted to the server and through
this interaction the server learns the optimal translation for this text
block. If this text block appears in another context, the system already
knows the best possible translation. This process allows the user to
individually train the system and continually improve the translation
quality.
What are the advantages of the PlainTranslate technology?
The continuous use of a self-learning translation system such as
PlainTranslate offers a number of advantages over a traditional rule based
approach. The statistical approach used by PlainTranslate increases the
quality of translation continually through interactive learning. The
PlainTranslate Client is written in JAVA™ and can hence be used on any
platform that supports JAVA™ version 2 or has the runtime environment 1.4 of
Sun Microsystems.
Through the ability to work with multiple servers the system is always
available even if a single
server goes down. The variable infrastructure allows larger companies to
connect multiple servers in the Intranet.
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