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MAchine translation for EU
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ISA
MT@ECSecure Machine Translation
for the European Union
Europe Direct is a service to help you find answers to your questions about the European Union
Freephone number (*):
00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11(*) Certain mobile telephone operators do not allow access to 00 800 numbers
or these calls may be billed.
More information on the European Union is available on the Internet (http://europa.eu).
Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2014
ISBN: 978-92-79-38933-7doi:10.2799/23526
Cover picture © European CommissionInside pictures © Thinkstock
© European Union, 2014Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.
Printed in Belgium
Printed on elemental chlorine-free bleached paper (ECF)
MT@ECSecure Machine Translation
for the European Union
European Commission
Directorate-General for TranslationDirectorate-General for Informatics
MT@EC is a service supported by the Interoperability solutions for European public administrations (ISA) programme
1 MT@EC: TACKLING THE LANGUAGE BARRIER
Public administrations in the European Union could benefit greatly by cooperating and exchanging know-how, experience and information. If officials can access and share information across European borders, there is also potential for better and more efficient public administration.
Yet language barriers still hinder communication between EU Member States. Only 39 % of citizens call on a language other than their mother tongue to communicate online and around 46 % of citizens do not read content in a foreign language.
Imagine you’re a busy employee in a public administration and receive a document in a foreign language. But you don’t understand that language, can’t wait for a human translator and aren’t allowed to seek translation help over the regular Internet, for security reasons.
▶ How can a document like this be deciphered quickly and efficiently?
▶ How do you get its gist or a rough draft on which to work?
▶ Is there any way to keep this information secure, given that public administrations must ensure confidentiality and security?
In today’s EU, the solution to these challenges lies in part with machine translation!
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2 THE MT@EC SERVICE
What is it?MT@EC is the machine translation service of the European Commission. Developed and run by the European Commission, the service is built on statistical machine translation (SMT), an emerging technology based on data rather than rules.
MT@EC calls on millions of official human translations of EU documents, after their comparison by computers. It builds on decades of European experience in machine translation and is based on the open-source machine translation software Moses enhanced by linguistic rules. Developed under EU research programmes, Moses is the world’s most widely used open-source SMT system. For MT@EC, the result is a better and more efficient machine translation service.
What does it do?MT@EC automatically translates from and into all EU official languages – some 552 language pairs. It also automatically translates full documents in different formats and/or free text.
AvailabilityMT@EC now offers:
▶ web-user interface: accessible for humans via a standard web browser
▶ machine-to-machine interface: accessible for machines via a web service protocol
The web service can be embedded in cross-border digital European services for public administrations. It is already running successfully at many European institutions and bodies, plus online services funded or supported by the European Commission, such as Internal Market Information System (IMI) and SOLVIT.
Who is it for?MT@EC is a service for officials in EU institutions and public administrations.
IMI is a flexible and multilingual platform helping over 6 400 EU public administrations to exchange information. It makes good use of the MT@EC service, especially for policy areas such as professional qualifications, services and the posting of workers.
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3 MT@EC AT YOUR SERVICE
MT@EC respects your content
▶ secure hosting and network transfers
▶ preserves document format and layout
MT@EC is built for the EU
▶ automatically translates from and into all 24 EU official languages
▶ trained on EU official documents
MT@EC is built for you
▶ translations delivered directly to your mailbox if you wish and/or accessible in the web interface
▶ indication of the quality level of each language pair
▶ simultaneous translation of many documents to many languages
▶ user interface in 24 languages
▶ user support by European Commission computational linguists
Two ways to securely access the service• Through sTESTA: this network
ensures the exchange of electronic data between public administrations in Europe in a secure and efficient way. sTESTA is operated by the European Commission separately from the Internet and it is supported by the ISA programme.
• On the Internet, over a secure https connection.
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4 TRY MT@EC FOR FREEWould you be interested in testing MT@EC for yourself, with colleagues or on behalf of your organisation? If so, please note that the European Commission is offering staff of public administrations a free real-life trial of the service, either over the sTESTA network or on the Internet, through a standard web browser until the end of 2019.
Getting access to MT@EC is simplicity itself. All you need to do is follow these two quick steps:
▶ Set up a European Commission Authentication Service (ECAS) account by registering with your official email address at https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/cas/eim/external/register.cgi
▶ Then send an email to [email protected] to request activation of your MT@EC access. You will receive confirmation of the activation by DG Translation, together with the link to enable you to start using the machine translation service.
Contact: [email protected]
5 HELP SHAPE MT@EC FOR YOU
The European Commission is testing the service by looking at five types of pilot projects. These cover various connections of information systems or the building of custom engines.
Are you a public administration eager to benefit from a machine translation service that is better suited to your needs (such as terminology) or constraints (environment)? If so DG Translation offers you a unique cooperation opportunity to customise MT@EC to your needs.
Based on your actual machine translation requirements, you are encouraged to test the MT@EC system and collaboration. The customisation pilot projects are open to all public administrations that may be interested in getting more from it.
Five types of customisation pilot projects have been identified so far:
A. Connect your information system to standard MT@EC service
B. DG Translation builds custom engines (with your data) available to all users through MT@EC
C. DG Translation builds custom engines (with your data): although hosted on an EC server, they are only available to your public administration
D. DG Translation builds custom engines (with your data) for you to run in your premises
E. DG Translation helps you (service, expertise) to build your own custom engines for you to run in your premises
EU RESOURCES
CUSTOMISATIONTYPE
DATABY
ACCESSBY
HOSTEDBY
DEVELOPEDBY
A EU all users EC EC
B customer all users EC EC
C customer customer EC EC
D customer customer customer EC
E customer customer customer customer
CUSTOMER RESOURCES
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5BIS HOW TO TAKE PART
Help MT@EC and help yourselves… join a customisation pilot!
Your input could result in better and more efficient machine translations for your organisation and many others across Europe.
All we ask in return is that you agree to the terms of the relevant pilot, as set out in the European Commission’s standard administrative agreement.
If you wish to participate in a customisation pilot involving the provision of your data to DG Translation, please ensure that:
▶ The data is free of intellectual property rights issues.
▶ The data consists of collections of parallel texts (source documents and their translations). This is important because it enables evaluation of the quality of MT@EC on typical documents, as well as the identification of problems, and detection of typical translation errors.
▶ The data is in specific formats, allowing for making translation memories.
Contact: [email protected]
6A SERVICE BROUGHT TO YOU BY DG TRANSLATION AND THE ISA PROGRAMME
With the emergence of eGovernment, public administrations can harness MT@EC to swiftly and efficiently process electronic information. The service can for example contribute to the smooth processing of documents, thus increasing interoperability between public administrations.
DG Translation has therefore developed MT@EC with the support of DG Informatics (DIGIT), under the Interoperability Solutions for Public Administrations (ISA) programme.
MT@EC has been assessed using the Interoperability maturity model developed by ISA. The service has achieved a good interoperability maturity level.
ISA in a nutshellISA supports common tools and services as well as reuse and sharing approaches that contribute to smooth and efficient electronic transactions between public administrations in Europe, across domains, levels and borders. Through more than 40 actions, the ISA programme provides solutions and building blocks and encourages public administrations to share and reuse their applications, in a cost-effective way.
MT@EC will also be used as a building block of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) to support an automated translation portal. CEF is an EU funding programme for building and deploying infrastructures, including pan-European Digital Services.
Find out more about MT@EC ▶ Contact DG Translation: [email protected]
▶ MT@EC on the ISA website: http://ec.europa.eu/isa/actions/02-interoperability-architecture/2-8action_en.htm
▶ The ISA programme: http://ec.europa.eu/isa/
▶ Contact the ISA programme unit: [email protected]
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HOW TO OBTAIN EU PUBLICATIONSFree publications:• one copy: via EU Bookshop (http://bookshop.europa.eu);• more than one copy or posters/maps:
from the European Union’s representations (http://ec.europa.eu/represent_en.htm); from the delegations in non-EU countries (http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/index_en.htm); by contacting the Europe Direct service (http://europa.eu/europedirect/index_en.htm) or calling 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 (freephone number from anywhere in the EU) (*).
(*) The information given is free, as are most calls (though some operators, phone boxes or hotels may charge you).
Priced publications:• via EU Bookshop (http://bookshop.europa.eu).
Priced subscriptions:• via one of the sales agents of the Publications Office of the European
Union (http://publications.europa.eu/others/agents/index_en.htm).
NO-01-14-688-EN
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