A time-honored pursuit
Machine translation (MT) is the application of computers to the task of translating texts from one natural language to another. One of the very earliest pursuits in computer science, MT has proved to be an elusive goal, but today a number of systems are available which produce output which, if not perfect, is of sufficient quality to be useful in a number of specific domains.

Nomenclature
The archaic-sounding term MT is — for historical reasons — nowadays primarily associated with standalone translation programs, whereas the translation software now available runs the gamut from simple dictionary lookup programs used as word-processor a add-ons to sophsticated batch-translation systems based on relational databases running under Unix. The EAMT maintains an inclusive point of view.

Computer-aided translation
In recent years, translation software packages which are designed primarily as an aid the human translator in the production of translations, rather than a standalone “black box”, have become popular within professional translation

The Internet has proven to be a huge stimulus for MT, with hundreds of millions of pages of text and an increasingly global — and linguistically diverse — public. What role will MT play in bridging languages barriers in cyberspace? Stay tuned…

organizations. These programs, referred to as computer-aided translation (CAT), use a variety of linguistic tools to improve the productivity of translators, particularly when translating highly repetitive texts, such as technical documentation.

Content scanning
Another viable application for MT is content scanning, that is, using a translation system simply to obtain a rough draft so as to be able to get the general gist of a text. MT is widely used in the European Commission for this purpose, for example.

Software manuals, not literature
Comprehending the enormous complexity of translating human language and the inherent limitations of the current generation of translation programs is essential to understanding MT today.