The music-loving Baltic countries are a multilingual hotspot in Europe, with the majority of citizens speaking (and singing) three languages on a daily basis. At the same time, the melodious Baltic languages are famously complex and morphologically rich, containing lots of ambiguity and intricate word agreements. Taken together, these factors make the region a prime spot for driving innovation in language technologies. Tilde, a language technology company specializing in custom MT and terminology services, has leveraged its extensive linguistic experience in the Baltic region to create custom MT systems for a wide variety of languages and domains, helping EU and global companies to boost translation productivity and make their applications multilingual. Tilde recently embarked on the challenging task of building a large-scale MT service for the Latvian government, Hugo.lv. This service was adapted to create a communication tool for the 2015 EU Presidency. The presentation will introduce the audience to languages and MT in the Baltic region and highlight these two case studies, which showcased the crucial role of language technology in enabling multilingual communication in the digital age.

1. Welcome to the Baltics: A Prime
Region for Driving Innovation in
Language Technology
Rihards Kalniņš
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2. tilde.com/mt
‘Multilingualism...is an important element in
Europe’s competitiveness. One of the
objectives of the EU’s language policy is
therefore that every European citizen should
master two other languages in addition to their
mother tongue.’
EU Language Policy

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‘Mother tongue + two’
objective
Barcelona Summit, 2002

4. tilde.com/mt
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Estonia (52%)
Latvia (54%)
Lithuania (52%)
Slovenia
Malta
Denmark

5. tilde.com/mt
Estonia (1.2M)
Latvia (2M)
Lithuania (2.9M)

8. Baltic languages =
morphologically rich languages
with large vocabulary, lots of
ambiguity, and complex word
agreement

13. Translation quality scores

15. Tilde is a leading
European language
technology company,
specializing in custom
machine translation and
cloud terminology tools
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16. • 140 employees at
offices in 3 countries
• Leading research +
innovation team
• Clients: LSPs, EU
governments, major
multinationals
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17. Tilde MT is a full-service platform
for custom MT – robust, mature,
and highly scalable.
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18. Convert your raw data into
fully customized MT engines for
high-demand applications.
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19. Cleaning and alignment
of data in multiple file
formats, preparation for
engine training
Data processing
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20. Gathering and
extraction of parallel
corpora from the web,
using automatic
extraction methods
Automatic corpora collection
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21. Training and tuning of
MT systems with
parallel data (TMs),
monolingual data,
terminology sets
(glossaries)
MT training and tuning
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22. Custom development of
linguistic components
for boosting translation
quality, particularly for
complex languages
Linguistic components
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23. Correct processing of
formatting tags, such as
HTML code and various
placeholders.
Accurately deals with
tags in CAT tools.
Tag processing
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24. Automatic conversions
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Automatically localize
units (punctuation,
number formatting,
etc.) from source- to
target language style.

25. Automatic conversions
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• Distance (60 mph ➝
96,56 km/h)
• Currency (USD 1,200.43
➝ EUR 1 064,31)
• Time (4 PM ➝ 16:00)
• Spacing (60% ➝ 60 %)
• Temperature (86°F ➝
30°C)

26. Evaluate MT quality for
each sentence
individually, providing
deeper insight into the
performance of MT
engines.
Interactive quality scoring
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29. Set a unique QE
threshold for filtering
MT results, saving you
time in the post-editing
process
Quality Estimation
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31. Dynamically tailor MT
engines with terms in the
right inflectional forms –
particularly important for
morphologically rich
languages
Runtime terminology integration
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34. Dynamic Learning
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User post-edits are
instantly returned to
the engine, helping
translators to
improve their MT
engines through use

35. • Custom interfaces
• Corporate intranet
• Customer services
• Internal messaging
• Mobile and desktop apps
Full integration via API
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36. Cloud or on-premise hosting
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37. MT for Latvian e-Gov
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38. 36% of the Latvian population speaks
Russian at home.
Challenge: Enable residents to use e-
services in their native language.
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39. The Latvian language has
less than 2 million native speakers.
Challenge: Empower access to
information for all residents and
visitors.
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40. Solution: Comprehensive, large-scale
machine translation service for the
public sector, fully integrated into
government platforms
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41. • Novel methods of corpora
collection
• Balanced various types of texts
and language models to get the
optimal results
• Over 100 million sentences of
training data (in multiple
languages)
• Addition of public sector
specific terminology
Building a MT service for the public sector
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42. HUGO.LV
LATVIA
TRANSLATES WITH
• MT service for the Latvian public sector
• Securely translates texts, documents, websites
• Adapted for the Latvian language and public sector
texts
• Integrated into e-services and government websites
• Languages
• Latvian-English
• English-Latvian
• Latvian-Russian
Developed by
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48. Hugo.lv enables
multilingual communication in the
public sector and empowers access
to information and e-services.
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50. • 1 680 Presidency
events
• 25 300 participants
• 800+ journalists from
40 countries
• 197 EU policy meetings
2015 Presidency of the Council of the EU
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51. • Analyzed specific EU Presidency
terminology, added these terms
to the system
• “Taught” MT to use the right
terms in the right inflectional
forms – a challenge for SMT and
morphologically rich languages
Adapting Hugo.lv for EU Presidency texts
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52. EU Presidency Translator
• Desktop application providing
translation of texts,
documents, websites
• Mobile app for journalists,
delegates, and Presidency
visitors
• Translation kiosk at the
official headquarters of the
EU Presidency
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54. hugo.lv/translate2015

59. Mobile MT kiosk for the EU
Presidency headquarters at the
Latvian National Library –
translation as a utility
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65. “There will be no digital single
market without multilingualism,
as few people feel comfortable
operating in their second or third
language. ”
Robert Madelin
Chief Innovation Officer,
European Commission

66. Four elements are necessary for the
take-up of an inclusive Digital Single
Market:
1. Focus on digital skills
2. Special attention to gender and age
balance
3. Local involvement and local
outreach actions
4. Increased considerations for
language diversity
Robert Madelin
Chief Innovation Officer,
European Commission

68. eamt2016.tilde.com

69. Thank you!Rihards.kalnins@tilde.com
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