FEED IN ENGLISH, PRINT OUT IN FRENCH

Once upon a according to a much told story, a computer was set a task of translating "traffic jam" into French and back into English. The machine buzzed, clicked, blinked its lights and eventually came up with "car-flavored marmalade". Machine translation has come a long way ... then. Computer translation systems are now in ... in many parts of the world.

Not surprisingly, the EEC is very.... With so many official languages, translating and interpreting take up... than 50% of the Community's administrative budget. But although the efficiency of machine translation is... rapidly, there's no question of... translators being made redundant. On the contrary, people and machines work together in harmony. Today's computers... of little value in translating literary works, where subtlety is vital, or the spoken word, which tends to be ungrammatical, or important texts, where absolute... is essential. But for routine technical reports, working papers and the like, which take up ... much of the translation workload of the international organizations, computers are likely to play an increasing... . The method of operation will probably be for the machines to... a rough version, which the translator will then edit, correcting obvious and where necessary referring... to the original.

If machines can translate languages, could they ... teach languages? Yes say enthusiasts, although they doubt that the teacher could ever be totally... by a machine in the classroom. Good old teachers know best!