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What Is Needed To Get MT
Right?
Understanding ROI, Pitfalls and Best Practices
Kirti Vashee
Vice President
[email protected]
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
• What are the MT options available today?
• What are the most important determinants of
success with MT?
• Understanding customization from an overall
control and management viewpoint
• What are the ROI implications?
• What are other critical factors that determine
success?
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
• Free Online MT Systems
– Google Translate
– Bing Translate
– 250 – 500 Million Users/Day
• Open Source
– Moses / Apertium
• Instant Custom MT
– Upload & Pray
• Expert MT Systems
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
How may I help
you today?
• Real-Time Translation Model
– Translation must be immediate
– No editing
– Content Type Examples:
• Inter-Office Chat
• Multilingual Customer Support
• Immediate Document Translation
• Content Publishing
– Bulk Translation
• Knowledge Base
• Support Articles
– Specialist Translation
• Marketing
• Product Documentation
• Data Mining
– Sentiment Analysis
– Social Media Monitoring
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Adapting an MT engine to minimize the
amount of post editing required
Adapting an MT engine so that it
translates more in context
= The Highest Possible MT Output Quality
to get work done Faster and at Lower Cost
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
LP
Source
JA-EN なお, 以下の座標系の定義は
以下の通り。
JA-EN
JA-EN
EN-DE
EN-DE
EN-DE
Human Reference
Definitions pertaining to the
coordinate systems are given
below.
せん断試験の管理特性を規定 Are the control characteristics of
し判断基準は明確か
shearing test defined to specify
criteria for judgement clearly?
ベントチューブスポット溶接の Is the strength of spot-welds on
強度は確認しているか
vent tubes checked?
An alternate host can start the Alternative Gastgeber können das
meeting and act as the host.
Meeting starten und als Gastgeber
handeln.
You can publish a recorded
Sie können eine aufgezeichnete
training session that was
Schulungssitzung veröffentlichen,
created with WebEx Recorder. die mit dem WebEx-Rekorder
aufgezeichnet wurde.
Once customer approves your Wenn der Kunde Ihre Anforderung
request, the customer can select genehmigt, kann er eine
an application to share.
Applikation zum Teilen auswählen.
EN-ES Remove the steel ball from the
main oil gallery before cleaning.
EN-ES Continuously with the ignition
on and the propulsion system
active.
EN-ES The average response time goal
is assigned a specific time goal.
Customized
Furthermore, the definition of
the coordinate systems are as
follows.
Are the control characteristics of
shear test defined to specify
criteria for judgement clearly?
Is the strength of spot-welds on
vent tubes checked?
Alternative Gastgeber können
das Meeting starten und als
Gastgeber handeln.
Sie können eine aufgezeichnete
schulungssitzung veröffentlichen,
die mit dem WebEx-Rekorder
erstellt wurde.
Wenn der Kunde Ihre
Anforderung genehmigt, kann
der Kunde eine Applikation zum
Teilen auswählen.
Retire la bola de acero de la
Retire la bola de acero de la
canalización de aceite principal
canalización de aceite principal
antes de limpiar.
antes de la limpieza.
Continuamente con el encendido Continuamente con el encendido
conectado y el sistema de
en posición on y el sistema de
propulsión activo.
propulsión activo.
El objetivo del tiempo de respuesta El objetivo del tiempo de
medio se asigna a un objetivo de respuesta medio se asigna a un
tiempo específico.
objetivo de tiempo específico.
Foundation
Furthermore, the following
coordinate system as defined.
Shear test criterion for defining
characteristics of the clear?
It is the intensity of the welding
spot vent tubes?
Stellvertretendes Gastgeber
beginnen können und so zu tun, als
die Tagung des Aufnahmelandes.
Sie können eine namentliche
Fortbildungsveranstaltung
veröffentlichen, mit WebEx
Fahrtenschreiber.
Wenn Verbraucher stimmt ihrem
Antrag, der Kunde auswählen
können, einen Antrag zu teilen.
Eliminar la bola de acero de la
limpieza galería antes de petróleo.
Continuamente con la ignición en
activo y el sistema de propulsión.
La meta media del tiempo de
respuesta se asigna una meta del
momento específico.
Customization teaches an engine how to translate using YOUR style and vocabulary
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Just Add Water Upload Data
If it was really this easy, don’t
you think custom MT success
stories would be
everywhere?
Time, Effort, Skill and Investment are Mandatory
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
• One Button Custom MT
• Simply upload your data and magic
happens to create a custom MT
engine in hours/minutes.
• A new phase of MT over promising?
Flaws in the Instant Instant MT Approach
• Instant MT cannot not read your mind.
• Instant MT cannot determine which
writing style, target audience, formats,
vocabulary or capitalization you want.
• Instant MT cannot determine what is
missing and whether your data is
suitable for your goal.
• You don’t know what the right data is.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
• Ease of use hides complexity and lack of key
functionality
• Perception of control, but almost all controls are
missing.
– The ability to upload data does not give you control
• An inherent issue with DIY MT, whether Moses based
or from a commercial service – it implies that the
user knows how to do-it-themselves.
The DIY Model enables users to create low
quality MT engines very easily
Detailed DIY and Language Studio™ comparison http://www.asiaonline.net/EN/Resources/Articles
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
MT System
Quality
Characteristics – Productivity Implications
Free Online Engines
Can be useful in some languages but often lower productivity than
using TM alone and impossible to adapt to specific needs
1,000 to 3,000 Words/ Day per human editor
Average segment quality = ~25 to 40% TM Fuzzy Match
Human TEP Process
Typically produce 2,500 Words / Day per translator
Low Quality - Moses Less than 5% of these systems can outperform free online MT and
best case productivity may be in the 3,000 Words/Day range
Average segment quality = 50% - 60% TM Fuzzy Match
Average Expert
System
These systems can provide 5,000 to 7,000 Words/Day per editor
Average segment quality = 60% - 75% TM Fuzzy Match
Superior Expert
These systems can provide 9,000 to 12,000 Words/Day per editor
Average segment quality = 70% - 85% TM Fuzzy Match
Exceptional MT
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
These systems can provide 12,000+ Words/Day per editor
Average segment quality = 80% - 90% TM Fuzzy Match
MT learns from post editing feedback and quality of
translation constantly improves.
Cost of post editing progressively reduces as MT quality
increases after each engine learning iteration.
Cost Per Word
Post Editing Cost
6
5
4
3
2
1
Post Editing (Human Translation)
MT Post Editing
1
2
3
4
5
6
Engine Learning Iteration
Post Editing Effort Reduces Over Time
Publication Quality Target
Quality
The post editing and cleanup effort gets easier as the
MT engine improves.
Initial efforts should focus on error analysis and
correction of a representative sample data set.
Each successive project should get easier and more
efficient.
Post Editing Effort
Raw MT Quality
1
2
3
4
5
Engine Learning Iteration
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
6
Standard TEP
Excellent
Moses
Average
Expert
Excellent
Expert
2,500
3,000
6,000
9,000
Hourly Rate
$45
$45
$45
$45
Word Rate
15 cents
12 cents
10 cents
7.5 cents
Daily Cost at Hourly Rate
$360
$360
$360
$360
Daily Cost at Word Rate
$375
$360
$600
$675
$72,000.00
$ 60,000.00
$30,000.00
$20,000.00
$75,000.00
$ 60,000.00
$50,000.00
200.00
166.67
83.33
$37,500.00
55.56
Translated Words /
Day
500,000 Word Project
Hourly Cost
Word Rate Cost
Man Days
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
On MT Customization
Copyright © 2012,
2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
• There are many factors that impact machine translation
output quality of a custom engine. These include:
– The complexity of the language pair and complexity of the subject
domain
– The quality of the source content
– The amount and quality of translation memories available for training
– The amount and quality of bilingual dictionaries and glossaries available
for training
– The domain suitability of the translation memories
– The amount of effort put in to the initial customization for normalization
and rule refinement
– The amount of effort put in by the customer to work with Language
Studio™ Linguist to identify and resolve issues
– The amount of post edited data fed back into the engine for incremental
quality improvement
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Data Preparation
Data Cleaning
Translate
Training
Data
Collections
Diagnostics and
Fine Tuning
Quality
Assurance
Language Pair Foundation Data
Original Translation Sources
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Domain Foundation Data
Sub-Domain Specific Data
+
Client Data
Manufactured Data
Asia Online Foundation Data
+
Language Pair Foundation
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=
Custom Engine
Domain Foundation
A high quality engine is as much about
what data is not in the engine as it is
about what data is in the engine
• High quality data from general domains that is
used a as a base to build upon
• Data has had extensive cleaning and validation
• Data is from trusted sources
• Data is balanced and normalized
• Data that might negatively influence an engine is
removed
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Basic Client Data
Bilingual Translation Memories
In domain historical translations in source and target language.
Target Language Monolingual Data
Monolingual target language text and URLs of in-domain websites.
Extra Data (If Available)
Bilingual Dictionaries and Glossaries
In domain and client specific glossaries and dictionaries.
Source Language Non-Translatable Terms
Source language terms such as product names and place names that should not be
translated.
Source Material To Be Translated
Source material can be analyzed and processed to further improve quality.
Style Guides
Rules can be added to match client style guide requirements.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Human Feedback
Key
Correct Raw MT
Mistranslation
Syntax/Grammar
Terminology
Spelling
Punctuation
Targeted Corrections
of Bad Learning
Spelling and
Terminology
Correct
Correct
Initial System
Correct
Correct
Human Feedback can raise the raw
output to previously unseen quality levels
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Sub-Domain Specific Data
RECAP
+
Client Data
Manufactured Data
Asia Online Foundation Data
+
Language Pair Foundation
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
=
Custom Engine
Domain Foundation
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Gap analysis
Unknown word analysis
Inflected form creation
Grammatical structure creation
Syntactic clause creation
Terminology normalization
Automated rule generation
Over 150 tools and processes
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
The quick brown fox over jumps the lazy dog
Additional corrective data generated
by Language Studio™ Pro
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Buddha jumps over the wall
Siemens Wind Power CEO jumps over to Repower
Judge jumps over bench in courtroom melee
Military surveillance bot jumps over 25 foot walls
Robbie Maddison jumps over Tower Bridge on motorbike
Man jumps over Grand Canyon
Cow jumps over Moon
With IE9 in sight, Firefox jumps over 50% market share mark
Long jumper Brian Thomas jumps over a car to raise money
Rally car jumps over a crazy fan!
Kobe jumps over a speeding Aston Martin
A deer jumps over a motorcycle
A woman jogging in a California state park jumps over a 100-foot cliff to get away from attacker
An Afghan Army soldier jumps over a irrigation canal while conducting a foot patrol
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
LP
Source
Human Reference
Customized
Foundation
JA-EN なお, 以下の座標系の定義は
以下の通り。
Furthermore, the definition of the Furthermore, the following
coordinate systems are as follows. coordinate system as defined.
JA-EN
Are the control characteristics of Shear test criterion for defining
shear test defined to specify
characteristics of the clear?
criteria for judgement clearly?
Is the strength of spot-welds on It is the intensity of the welding
vent tubes checked?
spot vent tubes?
Alternative Gastgeber können das Stellvertretendes Gastgeber
Meeting starten und als Gastgeber beginnen können und so zu tun, als
handeln.
die Tagung des Aufnahmelandes.
Sie können eine aufgezeichnete Sie können eine namentliche
schulungssitzung veröffentlichen, Fortbildungsveranstaltung
die mit dem WebEx-Rekorder
veröffentlichen, mit WebEx
erstellt wurde.
Fahrtenschreiber.
Wenn der Kunde Ihre Anforderung Wenn Verbraucher stimmt ihrem
genehmigt, kann der Kunde eine Antrag, der Kunde auswählen
Applikation zum Teilen auswählen. können, einen Antrag zu teilen.
Retire la bola de acero de la
Eliminar la bola de acero de la
canalización de aceite principal
limpieza galería antes de petróleo.
antes de la limpieza.
Continuamente con el encendido Continuamente con la ignición en
en posición on y el sistema de
activo y el sistema de propulsión.
propulsión activo.
Instale la palanca de cambios con Instalar el una Nueva palanca de
una nueva "torx" tornillo.
cambios con tornillo "torx".
JA-EN
EN-DE
EN-DE
EN-DE
EN-ES
EN-ES
EN-ES
Definitions pertaining to the
coordinate systems are given
below.
せん断試験の管理特性を規定 Are the control characteristics of
し判断基準は明確か
shearing test defined to specify
criteria for judgement clearly?
ベントチューブスポット溶接の Is the strength of spot-welds on
強度は確認しているか
vent tubes checked?
An alternate host can start the Alternative Gastgeber können das
meeting and act as the host.
Meeting starten und als Gastgeber
handeln.
You can publish a recorded
Sie können eine aufgezeichnete
training session that was
Schulungssitzung veröffentlichen,
created with WebEx Recorder. die mit dem WebEx-Rekorder
aufgezeichnet wurde.
Once customer approves your Wenn der Kunde Ihre Anforderung
request, the customer can select genehmigt, kann er eine
an application to share.
Applikation zum Teilen auswählen.
Remove the steel ball from the Retire la bola de acero de la
main oil gallery before cleaning. canalización de aceite principal
antes de limpiar.
Continuously with the ignition Continuamente con el encendido
on and the propulsion system conectado y el sistema de
active.
propulsión activo.
Install the shift lever with a new Instale la palanca de cambios con
"torx" screw.
un tornillo "torx" nuevo.
Customization teaches an engine how to translate using YOUR style and vocabulary
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Copyright © 2012,
2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
1. When customizing an MT engine, the user must be
able to define and refine the writing style,
preferred terminology, target audience and purpose
of the custom engine.
2. All the data used within the custom MT engine must
be able to be refined to match the needs and
purpose of each individual engine.
3. High quality in domain data should be the primary
data that is used to build statistical models.
4. Cleaning data requires human cognition and
understanding of the data ≠ automatic.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
When customizing an MT engine, the user must be able to define
and refine the writing style, preferred terminology, target audience
and purpose of the custom engine.
• Clean Data SMT requires a more granular
definition mapped to the actual use of the engine
than just a generic Top-Level Domain.
• Granular sub-domains provide considerably more
accurate translations and post editing
productivity.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Language Top-Level
Pair
Domain
EN-ES
Engines/Sub-Domains
Honda
Automotive
Google/Bing or
Dirty Data SMT
Cars
User Manuals
Engineering Service Manuals
Motorbikes
User Manuals
Engineering Service Manuals
Dirty Data SMT +
In Domain Data
Toyota
Cars
Marketing
Service Reports
Customization Level: 1 Generic
2 Domain
3
Client
4 Product
5 Target Audience / Purpose
• Defining a custom engine at a high level (Top-Level Domain) such as
"Automotive" or "Information Technology" is not sufficient and will result in
inconsistent terminology and writing style.
• The minimum starting level for a Clean Data Model is level 3, with terminology
defined and normalized for consistency.
• To be considered as utilizing the Clean Data SMT model, a plan to reach at least
level 4 must be defined where data is further refined from level 3 to level 4 or 5.
• True Clean Data SMT models have definition to at least level 4 and usually to
level 5.
• SMT systems that only define level 2 cannot be considered Clean Data SMT as a
Top-Level Domain is too generic to deliver accurate and consistent context and
terminology.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
All the data used within the custom MT engine must be able to be
refined to match the needs and purpose of each individual engine.
• You should always have control of your own data
• What about the other data that is used within the
engine
• Many MT vendors offer baseline data
–
–
–
–
Is your data included in the vendors baseline?
Can you take data you want out of the vendors baseline?
Can you normalize the vendors baseline?
Can you verify the quality of the vendors baseline?
• Language Studio™ enables full control and
transparency of all data in a custom engine
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
High quality in domain data should be the primary data that is used
to build statistical models.
Dirty Data SMT Model
• Data
–
–
–
–
Gathered from as many sources as possible.
Domain of knowledge does not matter.
Data quality is not important.
Data quantity is important.
• Theory
– Good data will be more statistically relevant.
Clean Data SMT Model
• Data
– Gathered from a small number of trusted
quality sources.
– Domain of knowledge must match target
– Data quality is very important.
– Data quantity is less important.
• Theory
– Bad or undesirable patterns cannot be learned if
they don’t exist in the data.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Language Top-Level
Pair
Domain
EN-ES
Automotive
Engines/Sub-Domains
Honda
Google/Bing
Quality Level
Cars
User Manuals
Engineering Service Manuals
Motorbikes
User Manuals
Engineering Service Manuals
Typical Competitor
Quality Level
Toyota
Cars
Marketing
Service Reports
Customization Level:
Generic
Domain
Productivity Gain: ???? < 20-40%
Client
50%+
Product
90%+
Target Audience / Purpose
150-300%+
• Generic MT from Google, Bing, etc. offers unknown productivity gains
and sometimes productivity loss due to lack of control.
• Instant MT offer < 20-40% productivity gains due to top domain only
centric and “dirty data SMT” customization model.
• Language Studio™ :
– Targets of 150-300%+ productivity gains with granular sub-domain “clean data SMT”
approach.
– Provides complete control of writing style, terminology and is mapped to target audience
reducing editing effort.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
1 Customize
22. Measure
Measure
Create a new custom engine
using foundation data and
your own language assets
Measure the quality of the
engine for rating and future
improvement comparisons
4 Manage
3 Improve
Manage translation projects
while generating corrective
data for quality improvement.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Provide corrective feedback
removing potential for
translation errors.
Additional Training Data
Runtime Improvements
Fine tuning to specific formats and
style guide requirements can be
performed at runtime without
retraining the engine.
Each custom engine is a living engine and constantly
improves with use. There are many sources of data that
can improve an engine’s translation quality.
Posted Edited Machine Translations
Post editing of raw MT rapidly improves translation quality.
Data Manufacturing
Language Studio™ will analyze edits and other data and
manufacture new data to improve quality.
Bilingual Translation Memories
Additional in domain historical translations in source and
target language that were not included in earlier training.
Target Language Monolingual Data
Additional monolingual target language text and URLs of
in-domain websites that were not included in earlier training.
Bilingual Dictionaries and Glossaries
Additional in domain and client specific glossaries and
dictionaries that were not included in earlier training.
Source Language Non-Translatable Terms
Additional source language terms that should not be
translated that were not included in earlier training.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pre-Translation Javascript
Pre-Translation Corrections
Non-Translatable Terms
Runtime Glossary
Post-Translation Adjustments
Post-Translation Javascript
These features enable:
• Normalization of terms
• Control of preferred terminology
• Mapping of complex rules as specified
in the style guide
Before Machine Translation
Source text is processed and modified.
Pre-Translation JavaScript (JS)
- Complex pre-processing can
be customized via JavaScript.
Pre-Translation Corrections (PTC)
- A list of terms that adjust the source
text fixing common issues and
making it more suitable for translation.
Non-Translatable Terms (NTT)
- A list of monolingual terms that are
used to ensure key terms are not
translated.
Runtime Glossary (GLO)
- A list of bilingual terms that are used to
ensure terminology is translated a
specific way.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
After Machine Translation
Target text is processed and modified.
Post Translation Adjustment (PTA)
- A list of terms in the target language that
modify the translated output. This is very
useful for normalization of target terms.
Post Translation JavaScript (JS)
- Complex post-processing can
be customized via JavaScript.
Runtime customizations can be applied in 2 forms:
Default: Applied to all jobs.
Job Specific: A different set of customizations can be applied for
different clients.
Productivity is the
Best Quality Metric
Metrics That Really Count
• Productivity – Words per day per human resource
• Margin – 2-3 times the profit margin is commonplace
•
•
Raw MT often has a greater number of errors than
first pass human translation. However:
Consistency – Writing style and terminology
1.
 MT + Human delivers higher quality than a human only
2.
approach
New Business
 New business not accessible with a human only approach
 Competitive production advantages
3.
Examples of other “Useful” Quality Indicators
Automated Metrics (Good indicators, but not absolute)
• BLEU (Bilingual Evaluation Understudy)
• NIST
• F-Measure (F1 Score or F-Score)
• METEOR (Metric for Evaluation of Translation with Explicit Ordering)
Manual Quality Metrics (Most not designed for MT, more for HT)
• Edit Distance (Does not take into account complexity of edit)
• SAE-J2450 (Industry specific)
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
MT errors are easy to see and easy to fix
(i.e. simple grammar).
MT provides more accurate and
consistent terminology than human
translators, especially when more than 1
human works on a project.
Human errors may be fewer, but harder
to see and harder to fix.
Counting the number of errors only, offers no value as
a metric as the complexity of the error is not taken
into account.
MT with more errors is often faster to
edit and fix than first pass human
translations with “fewer” errors.
Margin
Time
• A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of
an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of
different investments.
• To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is
divided by the Cost of the Investment; the result is
expressed as a percentage or a ratio.
The Return On Investment formula:
(Gain from Investment - Cost of Investment)
ROI =
Cost of Investment
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
There will always be someone who will do it cheaper.
But at what cost?
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
• Understanding of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) essential
and a means for businesses to assess both direct and
indirect costs and benefits related to any purchase.
• The intention is to arrive at a final figure that will reflect
the effective cost of purchase, all things considered.
• There is no specific formula for TCO, it is unique to each
organization and requirement.
• TCO should include ALL costs over the entire lifetime of
the investment, not just the initial costs.
– Initial costs, recurring costs, replacement costs, end of
life costs…
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Human Resources
Technical Resources
Operational Resources
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Productivity The increase in productivity for all human tasks
Gains: within the translation production process and
workflow.
Profit Margins: The increase in profit margin for each project and
progressive improvements in profit margin as
custom machine translation engines mature.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
There are also a number of other less obvious ROI benefits such as greater consistency in
translations which increases customer satisfaction. Other business benefits relate more to sales
and ongoing business flow. These include:
New Business: • New projects that would not be possible without machine translation
such as: New deals where machine translation was a component.
• New projects that are machine translation only.
• New projects where time was a critical factor that would not have been
possible with a human only approach.
Competitive • Time, quality and price are all factors that impact the competitiveness of
Projects:
a project bid: Projects where you could offer a more competitive bid
that your competitors due to the use of machine translation.
• Projects that would have been lost to a competitor without the
advantages such as speed, terminology accuracy and writing style
consistency that good machine translation offers.
• Projects where the ability to be more flexible on pricing during
negotiations due to higher profit margins help to win the project.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
• Directly linked to time to improve quality
• Faster improvement delivers faster ROI
• Many customers
recovers costs on
their first project
• Projects progressively
become lower cost
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
IOLAR – From DIY Moses to Language Studio™
Copyright © 2012,
2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
• German -> Slovenian
• Technical Engineering
• Project of ~1 million words
• Encouraged by TAUS and other DIY MT advocates tried their own
DIY MT engine
– Hired a computational linguist
– Spent 6 months trying to build a quality system
– Result:
• Inconsistent and unusable results
• Google was better quality (although also unusable)
• Considerable time, effort and cost spent
• Built a Expert Customized Engine with Asia Online
– Worked with Language Studio™ Linguists who created a custom engine plan to deliver high
quality output and address issues
– Result:
• In a very short period had an engine that was delivering high quality output
• Some output was as good as their human translators were producing
• Cost and time was greatly reduced compared to human only or DIY approach
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
http://www.asiaonline.net/EN/Resources/CaseStudies/IOLAR1.aspx
Issue: As Slovenian is a heavily inflected language, one of the very
common issues was that the correct term was being
translated, but in the incorrect inflected form. In many
cases, the correct inflected form was not in the translation
memories provided by IOLAR.
Solution: Language Studio™ Advanced Data Manufacturing tools
were used to manufacture appropriate inflected forms in
the correct context. This data would be used to ensure that
the correct inflected form was available in the training data
and thus reducing the number of incorrect inflections in
the output.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
•
•
•
•
•
IOLAR had a working engine in just a few weeks
The quality was immediately useable
Terminology was very consistent
Writing style was very consistent
Using blind test sets on initial engine:
– 32 BLEU points better than Google Translate
– 34 BLEU points better than Microsoft Translator
• On receipt of first round of
post edits quality improved an
additional 4 BLEU points
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Since our initial internal efforts did not progress with the desired speed
we turned to Asia Online to deal with the growing urgency being
communicated by our clients.
...
From a business perspective it was clear that outsourcing to an expert
was a better strategy than a DIY struggle, and I would say that our
investment in Asia Online’s Language Studio™ technology was one of
the best technology investments that we have made.
...
Some of the very technical segments were the
same quality as human translation.
– Simon Bratina,
Executive Technical Director, IOLAR
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
• English to ES, RU, JA, ID and FRCA
• Food Preparation
• Project of 1+ million words
• Very limited resources available for training MT engines
– ALT collaborated with Asia Online to develop a terminology-driven data manufacturing strategy
– Built up critical data resources very strategically to ensure success and demonstrated
productivity
• Built Several Customized Engines that Delivered on Productivity,
even in Japanese
– Worked with Language Studio™ Linguists who created a custom engine plan to
deliver high quality output and address issues
– Result:
• In a very short period had an engine that was delivering high quality output
• Resulted in improved relationship with customer and growing business
• Developed a collaoration model for including post-editors into compensation determination process
http://www.asiaonline.net/EN/Resources/CaseStudies/AdvancedLanguageTranslation1.aspx
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
“
There were far fewer errors produced by the Language Studio™ custom MT engine
than the competitor's legacy MT engine.
Notably there were fewer wrong meanings, structural errors and wrong terms in the
Language Studio™ custom MT engine, that were "typical SMT problems" in the
competitor's legacy MT engine.
“
”
The final translation quality after post-editing was better with the new Language
Studio™ custom MT engine than the competitor's legacy MT engine and also better
than a human only translation approach.
Terminology was more consistent with a combined Language Studio™ custom MT engine
plus human post editing approach.
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
”
Asia Online v.
Competing MT System
Factor
Total Raw J2450 Errors
2x Fewer
Raw J2450 Score
2x Better
Total PE J2450 Errors
5.3x Fewer
PE J2450 Score
4.8x Better
PE Rate
32% Faster
“
We found that 52% of the raw original output
from Asia Online had no errors at all
– which is great for an initial engine.
”
– Kevin Nelson,
Managing Director,
Omnilingua Worldwide
How do you pay post-editors
fairly if each engine is different?
Tools Needed:
• Effective Quality metrics
– Automated
– Human
• Confidence scores
– Scores on a 0-100 scale
– Can be mapped to fuzzy TM match
equivalents
• Post Edit Quality Analysis
– After editing is complete or even
while editing is in progress, effort
can be easily measured
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
 Manage Expectations of Key Players
 PMs, Editors, Translators
 Clients
 Provide Many Editing Examples
 Get MT Output to Acceptable Levels




Fix Dumb Errors early and quickly to minimize repetition
Cycle quickly through initial MT development cycles
Take feedback seriously and incorporate quickly
Retrain the engine frequently so edits get easier
 Establish Fair & Reasonable Compensation
 Based on benchmarks and real throughput
 Err on the side of overcompensation than under
 Community Management
 Train Editors
 Communicate & Collaborate
 Quality Management
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Human
Corporate
Products
User Interface
Existing Markets $36B
New Markets
Corporate Brochures
2,000
Product Brochures
10,000
Software Products
50,000
Manuals / Online Help 200,000
Enterprise Information
HR / Training / Reports 500,000
Support / Knowledge Base
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd
Words
User Documentation
Communications
Machine
Example
User Generated Content
Email / IM
10,000,000
Call Center / Help Desk 20,000,000+
Blogs / Reviews
50,000,000+
www.kv-emptypages.blogspot.com
Thank You
Kirti Vashee – [email protected]
Follow Me on Twitter: @kvashee
Join the Automated Language Translation
Group in LinkedIn
Copyright © 2013, Asia Online Pte Ltd