How computers translate human language - Ioannis Papachimonas
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-computers-translate-human-language-ioannis-papachimonas Is a universal translator possible in real life? We already have many programs that...
========== How is it that so many
intergalactic species in movies and TV just happen to speak perfect English? The short answer is that no one
wants to watch a starship crew spend years compiling an alien dictionary. But to keep things consistent, the creators of Star Trek
and other science-fiction worlds have introduced the concept
of a universal translator, a portable device that can instantly
translate between any languages. So is a universal translator
possible in real life? We already have many programs
that claim to do just that, taking a word, sentence,
or entire book in one language and translating it into almost any other, whether it's modern English
or Ancient Sanskrit. And if translation were just a matter
of looking up words in a dictionary, these...