Number crunching our way to understanding

Google dreams of a world where hundreds of languages can be simultaneously translated by machines which compare texts using statistics rather than applying grammatical rules.

Statistical machine translation uses a computer to compare two documents - one in the original language and one translated by a human. It finds patterns and links between the two and uses them to create its own future translations.

Google has used documents from the European Commission and United Nations to feed its machines.

Full article: The Register