Translating from Complex to Simplified Sentences

We address the problem of simplifying Portuguese texts at the sentence level treating it as a "translation task". We use the Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) framework to learn how to translate complex into simplified sentences. Given a parallel corpus of original and simplified texts, aligned at the sentence level, we train a standard SMT system and evaluate the "translations" produced using both standard SMT metrics like BLEU and manual inspection. Results are promising according to both evaluations, showing that while the model is usually overcautious in producing simplifications, the overall quality of the sentences is not degraded and certain types of simplification operations, mainly lexical, are appropriately captured.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: PROPOR
• Authors: Lucia Specia
• Keywords: Languages, PROPOR 2010, Sentence Level, Standard Smt, Standard Smt Metrics