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French paper uses computer for global translation

A leading French business newspaper is launching a multi-lingual version of its website using automatic translation, dispensing with journalists and translators but often producing bizarre and comic results. "Ryanair loan to make travel of the passengers upright," read a typically hello hello style headline on La Tribune's site this week above a story in equally mangled English on the low-cost airline's plans to make people fly standing up.

Many headlines and texts are cryptic at the best with "The Chinese car in ambush," "Internet Explorer: mistrust!" and "Assets of the continental right in management of the crisis" were some headlines from the same day on the site, which is still in an experimental phase.

The paper's editors are confident that the project will, once the software is refined and a human hired to tweak the texts, open La Tribune to a potentially huge international audience.

The project involves the French website being translated in real time by computer software into English, German, Spanish and Italian, with Japanese and Chinese to come.

Most of the English articles on La Tribune's site were, with a little effort, understandable despite their many linguistic oddities.

It is generally accepted that translation software cannot compare with the skills of a professional translator. But with the software being continually updated, it is hoped that within a few months it would achieve almost perfect news articles.

The BBC has an entirely different model for the news website it provides in 30 different languages, staffed by hundreds of journalists, and says it has no plans to cut costs by following La Tribune's lead. Compared with La Tribune who currently employs one person dealing with the foreign language sites and plans to soon hire another person to tweak the English-language articles

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