By Jun Ji-hye
Kakao will launch a translation service using a chatbot system in February.
The service will help users, for example, to chat with foreign friends more easily, the firm said.
Since September, the country’s leading chat platform operator has been beta testing its in-house translation tool based on its artificial intelligence (AI) platform Kakao I.
Through the beta version, the firm has improved the quality of its translation service.
Kakao I is a unified AI platform comprised of five engines _ voice recognition, visual recognition, natural language processing, big data-based recommendation and translation.
The Korean company said, beginning with the release of the chatbot translation service, it will add translation-related features to its various services such as Kakao TV.
Its translation service highlights “neural machine translation,” providing further greater results than those of existing services based on statistical analysis.
Currently, Kakao I supports English translation only, but Chinese and Japanese translation will be added by the end of this month.
“Our self-test showed our translation service produced the best results in Chinese-Korean and Korea-Chinese translation compared to other translation engines in Korea,” an official said. “Tests of Japanese-Korean and Korea-Japanese translation proved their quality as well.”
The company stressed its translation service is capable of recognizing honorific and casual forms of languages as well as written and spoken styles. Kakao is the only domestic firm offering such translation functions, it added.
The company plans to release a Kakao I translation app by the end of the year that will offer an even higher level of service.
It is also working to expand its translation engine to other services.
“We plan to add our translation engine to Media Daum, which will enable users to translate content in different languages, and to Kakao TV that will automatically create subtitles or translate subtitles into difference languages,” the official said.
The firm added it aims at an open source platform, so individuals and other companies can utilize Kakao’s various AI technologies and services.
“Likewise, we will disclose our translation engine to individuals and other companies that need translation services,” the official said.