Google to enhance its translation system for eight languages

LONDON

Internet search giant Google is planning to enhance its translation system for eight languages, including Turkish. The “Neural Machine Translation” will present results as closest to daily speaking as possible, daily Habertürk reported on Nov. 16.

The languages were listed as English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanize, Korean and Turkish. 

“All of these languages are the native tongues of a third of world’s population. They also constitute 35 percent of the questions asked to Google Translate,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said, adding that the results of “Neural Machine Translation” are exciting. 

Pichai said the system does not translate a text sentence by sentence, but rather finds the translation of a whole text closest to speaking language. That makes the translated text easier to read. 

He also said the system “improves itself,” allowing it to achieve more accurate and natural results akin to “literary translation.” 

During his speech, Pichai said Google Translate had developed remarkably with recent efforts, but “it’s just the beginning.”

“We want the Neural Machine Translation to work for 103 languages,” he said. 

Noting that Google Translate is particularly helpful for refugees, Pichai said Arabic to German translations topped the list of most used services in 2015.