Teaching Machines to Translate

The universal translator is a prominent yet imaginary device commonly encountered in many science fiction novels, films, and TV series. Star Trek, for example, long ago included the device in its screenplay to accommodate the unhindered translation of alien languages into the native language of the user. But unfortunately, a Star Trek-like device doesn’t exist yet, and the vision of a universal translator has not been realized. This shortcoming comes as no surprise, given human languages’ fluidity, inherent ambiguity, and flexibility. Nevertheless, the effort to teach machines to work as efficient translators is constant, with fascinating results in recent years.

This chapter seeks to present the different methods for machine translation and, at the same time, enhance your skillset with many standard techniques for NLP. The differences in the methods presented are an excellent opportunity to contrast the design philosophy of top-down...