Machine translation

Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the acronym MT, is part of computational linguistics. It is the use of computer software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another.

At its basic level, MT changes words words in one natural language for words in another. That is literal translation.

Present machine translation software adapts the translation to the subject. For example, weather reports improve output by limiting the substitutions. This technique is very effective in domains where specialised formal language is used. It follows then that machine translation of government and legal documents more often produces usable output than conversation or less standardised text.