A brief introduction to the history，present situation and developing trends of machine translation（MT）

【Abstract】：With the development of science and technology， computer technology has been widely applied to the modern translation industry. The emergence of diverse machine translation software in modern market reveals the promising future of machine translation. This paper mainly intends to make a brief introduction to the history， present situation of machine translation， including the principles， functions and its advantages and limitations from some case studies， and makes a reasonable prediction to the developing trend， which refers to the “Tele-translation Age”.

【Key words】 ： machine translation;present situation;developing trends;functions; "limitation

With the continuous development of network information age， how to use modern methods effectively to eliminate language barriers among people becomes a common problem that we meet. Translation is a powerful tool to overcome the language barrier. However， with China’s entry into WTO and the rapid development of the global market， industry and commerce function more than ever on an international scale， meanwhile， the nature and function of translation is inevitably affected by these changes with increasingly international exchange of products and service. The traditional way of translation cannot meet the market demand because of its high cost， low speed and other reasons. Therefore， machine translation came into being.

1.The definition of machine translation

MT， the abbreviation of machine translation， is a form of language translation in which a human translator uses computer software to support and facilitate the translation process.

2. The history of machine translation

In the 1950s Machine translation， （MT）， became a reality in research， although references to subject can be found as early as the 17th century. The Georgetown experiment， which successfully involved fully automatic translation of more than sixty Russian sentences into English in 1954 was one of the earliest recorded projects.

Research on MT in China can be traced back to the mid-1950s. The research of machine translation is severely affected and cause backwards by the ALPLC report in US. Until the mid-1970s， machine translation has moved towards gradually mature and become prosperous. Within 20 years， the methods of machine translation research were described as \"Hundred Flowers\" with rule-based， knowledge-based， based on statistical and corpus-based examples， based on dialogue， etc.

3. The Advantages of Machine Translation

3.1 Time-effectiveness

When time is a crucial factor， machine translation can save the day. You don't have to spend hours poring over dictionaries to translate the words. Instead， the software can translate the content quickly and provide a quality output to the user in no time at all.

3.2 Low-cost

The next benefit of machine translation is that it is comparatively cheap. Initially， it might look like a unnecessary investment but in the long run it is a very small cost considering the return it provides.

3.3 Confidentiality

Confidentiality is another matter which makes machine translation favorable. Giving sensitive data to a translator might be risky while with machine translation your information is protected.

3.4 Freeness

A machine translator usually translates text which is in any language so there is no such major concern while a professional translator specializes in one particular field.

4. The developing trends of machine translation

4.1MT is the need of the translation market

With the development of the economic globalization， the need of the translation market increases. China has a very large translation market and most of the translation items are the documents about engineering technology and commercial localization that are required to be finished in the limited time. So if we want to organize enough translators and finish the tasks on time and with a high quality， we must rely on computer technology to manage the translation process.

4.2 MT is the requirement of the translation organizations

As is said above， the present translation organizations must rely on translation technologies. More and more large and middle-sized translation organizations require their translators to master some Translation Memory softwares， such as Trados，Foreign Desk. Only if the translators have a good mastery of these softwares， can they access to the translation process and share the terminology database with other co-translators and ensuring the quality of their translation.

5. Conclusion

In the whole process， we have seen the rapid development of MT systems and translation tools in the sales and applications， while we also see that the use of computer for translation get into many other areas of communication and the handing of language， and the development of it is a new exciting start. These are the healthy growth signs in the process for machine translation research. However， we still can see a lot of limitations of MT and should make great efforts on the research work. With the high speed development of economic， the present MT is not able to satisfy the need of customer， and with the increasing influence of internet， the requirement of the off-hand translation is growing， so the users do expect better translation system to put out， MT is entering in a territory which human translators never set foot in. we should deal very well with the relationship of MT and human translation. At present， we look back on poles， for those substantial achievements—perhaps the development is not as rapid as we expect， but still worthy of expecting.

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