Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions we have been asked about MOLTO, with our answers. If you do not find what you are looking for, you are welcome to contact us.

  • How will you combine rules and statistics?

    This is perhaps the most speculative research topic in MOLTO. We will, first of all, attach to the increasing efforts on hybrid systems, where statistics is used as fall-back of rule-based translation, and there are many yet-to-be-explored technical ideas around this. We will also use statistics to automatically extract translation rules, and to resolve ambiguities. But we want to maintain the control of the quality of the translation; thus we won't blindly return uncertain fall-back translations without warning the user about the uncertainty.

  • What tools will you build?

    The main generic tools are extensions of GF with new user interfaces: a grammar engineer's tool for building systems for new domains, and a translator's tool for using a given translation system. On top of these generic tools, we will build tools tailored to the domains of our case studies. Thus, while the generic translator's tool will be usable in the mathematics domain as well, the users will appreciate its integration with computer algebra systems; the museum object tools will be integrated with existing tools for browsing the

  • What platforms will the tools run on?

    Our code will run on all major operating systems: Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. So users can download and install MOLTO tools on their own computers. But we will also make them available as web services. The translator's tool, in particular, should be usable within a web browser without any software downloading required. Some kinds of translators, e.g. tourist phrasebooks, will also be natural to run on mobile phones, e.g. on the iPhone and Android platforms. We will provide user interfaces adapted to these platforms, for both on-line and off-line use.

  • How is a new translation domain defined?

    Here is a concrete example of how it can go on. Let's say you want to build a translator for arithmetic propositions. Then you build first of all an abstract syntax, which defines basic concepts such as the set of natural numbers, the properties "even" and "odd", and the relation "greater than"; properties and relations are functions from expressions to propositions. This is how the abstract syntax looks like in GF:



    Nat : Set
    Even : Exp -> Prop
    Odd : Exp -> Prop
    Gt : Exp -> Exp -> Prop
    Sum : Exp -> Exp


  • How do you relate to Google's tools?

    You cannot ignore Google when working on machine translation: for most people, it is the state of the art for translation on the web. We see MOLTO translation as an approach diametrically opposed to Google's (precision rather than coverage) and also with different application (producer's rather than consumer's tool). The underlying technology is different: Google translation is based on statistics, MOLTO on grammars. Despite all these differences, hybrid systems might well combine MOLTO with Google translate. In hybrid systems, it is

  • How will you evaluate your results?

    We will collect feedback from our web-based demos. We will also use standard machine translation evaluation tools, BLEU and TAUS, and make comparisons with other translation tools. In addition to translation quality, we will measure the productivity and usability of our tools in user studies. And like many other European projects, we will have a scientific board with independent experts to monitor our progress.

  • How do I submit a deliverable?

    To submit a deliverable you need to have access to the biblio and to the administrative type for deliverables (site leaders and work-package leaders).

    In general your deliverable will be a PDF (even if it is a prototype, it must be accompanied by a cover document) with the cover page conforming the MOLTO style, including logo and summary table for the metadata.

    1. Create a biblio item of type deliverable, the more information you enter, the better the search engines will be able to index and retrieve your work. Attach the PDF to the item.

  • What is considered a publication or dissemination item?

    Dissemination includes content that can be used to promote and describe the work done in the project.

  • The review dates are beyond the end of the project. What review costs can be budgeted to MOLTO?

    The answer from Brussels:

    • travel and all other costs for the final review are eligible if they occur maximum 2 months after the project has ended
    • all the costs which will occur for the final review could be foreseen in final report

    Furthermore, the personnel costs are eligible costs.