Pedagogical translation: grammar translation and the reform movement
The grammar-translation method was introduced in the mid-nineteenth century in the Gymnasia of Prussia, and soon became the European standard method of language teaching and –assessment. It entails students being presented with parallel vocabulary items (in their native [L1] and…
Machine translation – Future oriented or a thing of the past?
Machine translation (MT) refers to computerised systems responsible for the production of translations from one natural language into another, with or without human assistance. These systems have been developed since the 1960s following rule-based (RBMT) and statistical (SMT) approaches. In…
Ancient translation – the Rosetta stone
After the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, the country was governed by Greek-speaking rulers who neither spoke Egyptian nor could read or write hieroglyphs. In 196 BC, Egypt’s current ruler Ptolemy V, of Greek descent,…