TRADU O ELETR NICA: DO RISO IR NICO AO INTERESSE CIENTíFICO

The present work discusses both critically and scientifically some aspects of the machine translation, such as: historical considerings, its current situation in the world of translation in general, its cultural, economic and, political implications etc. In its first part, the article presents an informative configuration, as a way to introduce the subject of machine translation for the students of foreign languages from free language courses and courses of under-graduation of languages and similar areas. In the second part, an analysis of the performance of the translator Babel Fish is made, both in its English-Portuguese and English-Spanish versions. Finally, it analyzes, comparatively, the performance of the English-Portuguese and English-Spanish versions of Babel Fish and then the Babel Fish translator is compared with the machine translator Power Translator, the machine translation software of Microsoft, when a better performance of this last one is observed. Finally, the nature of the electronic translation is commented, its technical perspectives in the short run, its insertion in the contemporary world and its importance as an invention capable to influence in the preservation of the natural languages.