Data Operations and an Application for Translating Russian Speech to French Text

In 2006, the French government discretely asked for an assessment of the highest accuracy means available at the time to translate Russian speech into French text. One of us was working with the Grenoble HP site at the time, and so promptly assessed the possibilities using existing speech-to-text and translation software (Nuance and Speechworks). This article describes the surprisingly circuitous route to maximum accuracy (90.3%), and in so doing provides an unexpected insight into discerning the native language of software designed for speech-to-text and translation applications.