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Ambassador Bremer Discusses Language Translation on Federal News Radio 

Ambassador Bremer Outlines the Benefits of Machine Translation to Bridge Language Barriers 

MCLEAN, Va. (January 28, 2010) – Ambassador L. Paul Bremer was a featured speaker during Federal News Radio’s Federal Drive radio show, on January 28th, 2009. The Ambassador discussed the use of Machine Translation (MT) and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) to bridge the language gap and enhance the capabilities and effectiveness of human translators.

“We need to pay attention to how language technology can leverage our existing capabilities and assist human translators in being more efficient,” explained Ambassador Bremer when asked if the inability to process information in a timely manner was an issue when dealing with different dialects. “All throughout the government we have the problem of dealing with masses of information coming in the forms of written, audio and video communications, which is a major problem largely because the government is not taking full advantage of existing language technology,” he added. 

Ambassador Bremer who has more than 40 years of public and private sector service in diplomacy and international affairs, discussed the critical importance of overcoming language challenges and the role of Machine Translation and Automatic Speech Recognition in facilitating timely and accurate communications.