All citizens, regardless of native tongue, shall have the same access to knowledge on the Internet. The MOLTO project, coordinated by University of Gothenburg, Sweden, receives more than 2 million Euro in project support from the EU to create a reliable translation tool that covers a majority of the EU languages.
'It has so far been impossible to produce a translation tool that covers entire languages,' says Aarne Ranta, professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Google Translator is a widely spread translation programme that gradually improves the quality of translations through machine learning - the system learns from its own mistakes via system feedback, but tries to do without explicit grammatical rules.
In contrast, MOLTO is being developed in the opposite direction, meaning it begins with precision and grammar, while wide coverage comes later. We wanted to work with a translation technique that is so accurate that people who produce texts can use our translations directly. We have now started to move from precision to increased coverage, meaning that we have started to add more languages to the tool and database.
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The project aims at developing the system to suit different areas of applications. One area is translation of patent descriptions. Ultimately, people around the world should be able to take advantage of new technology immediately without having to master the language in which the patent description is written. A large number of translators have long had to be engaged in connection with new patents. Another sub-project aims at meeting the needs of mathematicians for a precise terminology for translation of mathematical teaching material, and then there is one sub-project that concerns descriptions of cultural heritage and museum objects, with a goal that anybody should be able to access these descriptions regardless of native tongue.
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