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Current Affairs 2nd semester 2018 Unit 10

1. Read the text carefully and note interesting vocabulary
2. Translate #2-3 into Portuguese
3. Do the exercises on page 2

The Economist Apr 29th 2017

Translation platforms cannot replace humans
But they are still astonishingly useful
1. ARAB newspapers have a reputation, partly deserved, for tamely taking the official line. On any given day, for example,
you might read that “a source close to the Iranian Foreign Ministry told Al-Hayat that ‘Tehran will continue to abide by
the terms of the nuclear agreement as long as the other side does the same.’” But the exceptional thing about this
unexceptional story is that, thanks to Google, English-speaking readers can now read this in the Arab papers
themselves.
2. In the past few months free online translators have suddenly got much better. This may come as a surprise to
those who have tried to make use of them in the past. But in November Google unveiled a new version of
Translate. The old version, called “phrase-based” machine translation, worked on hunks of a sentence separately,
with an output that was usually choppy and often inaccurate.
3. The new system still makes mistakes, but these are now relatively rare, where once they were ubiquitous. It uses
an artificial neural network, linking digital “neurons” in several layers, each one feeding its output to the next layer,
in an approach that is loosely modelled on the human brain. Neural-translation systems, like the phrase-based
systems before them, are first “trained” by huge volumes of text translated by humans. But the neural version takes
each word, and uses the surrounding context to turn it into a kind of abstract digital representation. It then tries to
find the closest matching representation in the target language, based on what it has learned before. Neural
translation handles long sentences much better than previous versions did.
4. The new Google Translate began by translating eight languages to and from English, most of them European. It is much
easier for machines (and humans) to translate between closely related languages. But Google has also extended its
neural engine to languages like Chinese (included in the first batch) and, more recently, to Arabic, Hebrew, Russian and
Vietnamese, an exciting leap forward for these languages that are both important and difficult. On April 25th Google
extended neural translation to nine Indian languages. Microsoft also has a neural system for several hard languages.
5. Google Translate does still occasionally garble sentences. The introduction to a Haaretz story in Hebrew had text that
Google translated as: “According to the results of the truth in the first round of the presidential elections, Macaron and
Le Pen went to the second round on May 7. In third place are Francois Peyon of the Right and Jean-Luc of Lanschon
on the far left.” If you don’t know what this is about, it is nigh on useless. But if you know that it is about the French
election, you can see that the engine has badly translated “samples of the official results” as “results of the truth”. It has
also given odd transliterations for (Emmanuel) Macron and (François) Fillon (P and F can be the same letter in Hebrew).
And it has done something particularly funny with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s surname. “Me-” can mean “of” in Hebrew. The
system is “dumb”, having no way of knowing that Mr Mélenchon is a French politician. It has merely been trained on lots
of text previously translated from Hebrew to English.
6. Such fairly predictable errors should gradually be winnowed out as the programmers improve the system. But some
“mistakes” from neural-translation systems can seem mysterious. Users have found that typing in random characters in
languages such as Thai, for example, results in Google producing oddly surreal “translations” like: “There are six sparks
in the sky, each with six spheres. The sphere of the sphere is the sphere of the sphere.”
7. Although this might put a few postmodern poets out of work, neural-translation systems aren’t ready to replace humans
any time soon. Literature requires far too supple an understanding of the author’s intentions and culture for machines to
do the job. And for critical work—technical, financial or legal, say—small mistakes (of which even the best systems still
produce plenty) are unacceptable; a human will at the very least have to be at the wheel to vet and edit the output of
automatic systems.
8. Online translating is of great benefit to the globally curious. Many people long to see what other cultures are reading
and talking about, but have no time to learn the languages. Though still finding its feet, the new generation of translation
software dangles the promise of being able to do just that.
Exercise A
1. The headlines and #1 translated by Google.translate.com Analyse the translation and see what [if
anything] you would need to change to use the translation in a professional context.
Plataformas de tradução não podem substituir os seres humanos, mas eles são ainda surpreendentemente
útil
1. árabes jornais têm uma reputação, parcialmente merecida, para tomar mansamente a linha oficial. Em
qualquer dia, por exemplo, você poderia ler que "uma fonte próxima do Ministério dos negócios
estrangeiros iraniano disse Al-Hayat que 'Teerã continuará a cumprir os termos do acordo nuclear,
enquanto o outro lado faz o mesmo.'" Mas a coisa excepcional sobre esta história corriqueiro é que,
graças ao Google, leitores de língua inglesa podem agora ler isso nos jornais árabes próprios.

2. Translate #2-3 into Portuguese

Exercise B Summary-writing
Make a list of the main points and put them together in a brief summary

Exercise C Adverbs in the text Spelling and position

The text contains a very large number of adverbs of manner. Complete the spelling chart, adding the adverb or
the adjective in the appropriate column. What observations can you make on the spelling of adverbs?

Adjective Adverb Adjective Adverb

astonishingly particularly
partly merely
tamely previously
suddenly fairly
separately gradually
usually oddly
relatively globally
loosely ready
closely predictable
relatively unacceptable
occasionally automatic
badly specific

What spelling rules can you formulate for adverb formation?

Adverb use: what are the main uses of adverbs? Can you find examples in the text?
What is the normal position of the adverb in each of these uses?

a. What is the position of the adverb when the sentence has subject/verb/direct object

 [much better] Neural translation handles long sentences than previous versions did.

b. What is the position of the adverb in a compound verb form e.g.

 [merely previously] The system has been trained on lots of text translated from Hebrew to English.

 [fairly /gradually] Such predictable errors should be winnowed out as the programmers improve the system.
[check the text to see if you are correct]

For discussion/planning a composition outline: The relationship between humans and machines in this and other areas.
How does technology affect diplomacy and foreign policy?