Wolfram|Alpha Localization

Noriko Yasui 
Senior Developer, Data and Semantics Engineering

Eunwoo Choi
Technical Korean Translator, Wolfram|Alpha Quality Analysis

Join the Conversation #WolframTechConf

Outline

Introduction to Wolfram|Alpha

Wolfram|Alpha Localization project - overview, challenges, current status

Localized Wolfram|Alpha features

Japanese Wolfram|Alpha - demo

Summary

Introduction to Wolfram|Alpha

What is Wolfram|Alpha??

A unique system for computing answers and providing knowledge 
— Computational Knowledge Engine

Goal : make the world’s knowledge computable

Wolfram|Alpha products... beyond Wolfram|Alpha Public website

Wolfram|Alpha for Mobile

Web apps powered by Wolfram|Alpha

Wolfram|Alpha Pro (step-by-step solutions, problem generator, etc.)

Wolfram|Alpha-Powered Apps

Wolfram|Alpha Appliance

Wolfram Problem Generator

Wolfram|Alpha in Wolfram Language

Developer Products (API, Widgets)

Japanese Wolfram|Alpha

Wolfram|Alpha Localization Project : overview

Overview

Goal : Make computational knowledge more accessible and useful internationally

Roughly two+ years project. The project team consists of translators, data curators, developers, testers that are language natives. Dozens of people are involved to different degrees.

Localized W|A is built on top of the regular English-language W|A.

1.0 release goal: making all math-related features in W|A localized to 日本語 (Japanese), español (Spanish), 中文 (Chinese), 한국어 (Korean), français (French) and русский (Russian).

Input: localized features can be queried in both the localization language and English. The rest features can still be queried normally in English.
Output: features fully localized will generally show a completely localized output, others may show up as a mixture of localization language and English.

Current status

Japanese Wolfram|Alpha Ver.1.0 was released on June 2018

Chinese and Spanish are the next, and Korean, French, Russian are following

Wolfram|Alpha Localization Project : beyond translations...

Huge amount of data, linguistic pattern and code to localize

Language specific issues

・word variations (grammatical categories): inflections; plural vs. singular
・grammatical genders: masculine/feminine/neuter
・grammatical cases: nominative/accusative/genitive/dative, honorific
・classifiers or measure/counter words
・definite/indefinite articles, etc.

・sentence structures different, orderings of parts differ, partitions of a sentence differ

・math operator can have different meaning each language :
   - `~` is used Boolean “not” operator, but it is used as “to” when it’s used in between numbers in Korean, Japanese. 
   - ambiguity between 1,234 vs 1.234 (decimal point? digit splitter? or comma?)

Localized Wolfram|Alpha : Comparison between English and localized version

Same mathematical output

Localized Wolfram|Alpha : Comparison between English and localized version

Output in localized language

Localized Wolfram|Alpha : how does it look?

Type in English and get localized output

Different Default Unit System

Localized Date Format

Localized Number format

Which number would be more familiar to English speaker?

Localized Number format

Names of Large Numbers

Localized Number format

Different number representation depending on language

Localized Decimal separator

Dot is used as decimal separator in Chinese, Japanese and Korean version.
Comma is used as decimal separator in Spanish, French and Russian version for input and output as well.

MouseOver

Example page for different math curriculum

Japanese Wolfram|Alpha : overview

Japanese Wolfram|Alpha (https://ja.wolframalpha.com/)  Ver.1.0 was released on June 2018

Overall design is similar to original site (input form window, links to example queries)

Localized categories (= math related categories) are written in JA

High school math test examples category

List for example queries collected from university entrance exams, national center test for university admissions in the past

Sub-categorized based on Japanese math curriculum

High schoolers can get quick understanding to what they should ask and how they should ask for their study

Japanese Wolfram|Alpha : demonstrations

xが0からπの範囲でsinxを積分　(integrate sinx from x=0 to Pi)

連立方程式 2x+3y=2, 4x+2y=4の解を求めよ (solve 2x+3y=2, 4x+2y=4)

x^3 - 3 x^2 + 1 の変曲点 (inflection points for x^3 - 3 x^2 + 1)

Japanese Wolfram|Alpha : future work

Continue to improve the support for math area
	input: minimize the rate that W|A cannot give any answers
	output: localize all the parts of the output

Expand support area to outside of math

Future challenges

improve accessibility from mobile devices

localize data itself (city data, school data, flight data, etc. etc.)

Summary

Localized Wolfram|Alpha

Japanese W|A was released on June this year and five more languages (Spanish, Chinese and ...) will be released the next

Continue to improve the math area support and expand supported area