Improved neural machine translation for low-resource English–Assamese pair

Language translation is essential to bring the world closer and plays a significant part in building a community among people of different linguistic backgrounds. Machine translation dramatically helps in removing the language barrier and allows easier communication among linguistically diverse communities. Due to the unavailability of resources, major languages of the world are accounted as low-resource languages. This leads to a challenging task of automating translation among various such languages to benefit indigenous speakers. This article investigates neural machine translation for the English–Assamese resource-poor language pair by tackling insufficient data and out-of-vocabulary problems. We have also proposed an approach of data augmentation-based NMT, which exploits synthetic parallel data and shows significantly improved translation accuracy for English-to-Assamese and Assamese-to-English translation and obtained state-of-the-art results.

DIFFICULTIES IN STUDYING WRITING OF ENGLISH-MAJORED SOPHOMORES AT A UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM

<p>Writing plays an important role in studying a foreign language, especially English. However, students have faced a lot of difficulties in learning English writing. This study aimed to find out and analyze the students’ difficulties in learning English writing skills. The participants of this research were fifty students who were English majored sophomores at Tay Do University. The instruments used in the present study were two questionnaires and an interview. The results showed that the students had seven difficulties in learning English writing such as difficulties with vocabulary, problems with grammar, problems with prior knowledge, troubles with organizing ideas, problems with allotted time, difficulties with teacher and difficulties with mother tongue. Among these difficulties, “allotted time” caused the most difficulty to the students. Generally, the results of this thesis stated that all of participants had difficulties in learning English writing, especially problem with allotted time.</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0899/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

PROBLEMS IN VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF RELATIVE CLAUSES FOR ENGLISH-MAJORED JUNIORS AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY, VIETNAM

Realistically, Vietnamese-English translation is not easy for Vietnamese students to master, and relative clauses are not typical in Vietnamese. Therefore, learners cannot avoid mistakes in their translation practice. Concerned researchers carried out a study to identify common Vietnamese-English translation errors in terms of English relative clauses. The participants were 60 juniors from the Bachelor of English course at Tay Do University. Test papers and interviews were employed as the instruments. The collected data from the two instruments mentioned above were all analyzed carefully afterward. The results of the study showed that the students suffered from a variety of grammar and vocabulary problems hindering them from translating Vietnamese into English correctly. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0887/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Problematika Pengajaran Bahasa Arab Di Madrasah Aliyah

This study aimed to analyze the problematics of teaching Arabic students in Islamic Senior High School. The method in this research was qualitative with a case study approach. This research was conducted at Islamic Senior High School Raudlatul Hidayah Ma'arif Nahdlatul Ulama 03 Mengandungsari. Research samples were 30 students of grade XI. Data collection methods in this study were observation and interviews. Data analysis techniques used descriptive qualitative analysis. The results showed that teaching Arabic in Islamic Senior High School included two main problems: linguistic and nonlinguistic problems. Linguistic problems were problems experienced by students during the learning process, and these problems were still related to parts of the language component. Linguistic problems included three main issues that became problematic in Arabic teaching, and they were phoneme problems (ashwat), vocabulary problems (mufrodat), and grammatical problems (qowaid/ nahwu/ tarkib). At the same time, nonlinguistic problems were problems which were not part of the language element. Such as teacher taught students, lack of motivation towards students, learning media, facilities and infrastructure that were still inadequate during the Arabic learning process.

Multimodal displays of understanding in vocabulary-oriented sequences

How do participants use multimodal means to display joint understanding after dealing with vocabulary problems in second language interactions? In this article, we investigate the resolution phase of vocabulary-oriented sequences, more specifically word searches, word explanation sequences and vocabulary checks. We argue that understanding is displayed not only by change-of-state tokens, but typically by a more encompassing multimodal gestalt involving facial expression, gestures, and torso movements. A central feature of this gestalt is what we propose to call the change-of-state face, which consists in raised eyebrows and widened eyes and is produced while the head and/or the torso is raised upwards. Typically, this display of a change-of-state is followed by further demonstrations of understanding, such as verbal and gestural repeats. Finally, the solution of the problem is often ‘celebrated’ by means of reciprocal smiling. Not all vocabulary-oriented sequences are equally successful. Facial expression and gesture may also be used to resist and question a proposal of a candidate solution to a word search or a request for an explanation. In this way, multimodal means are crucial to establishing the success of vocabulary-oriented sequences and returning to the main business of the talk.

THE LEVEL OF METACOGNITIVE STRATEGY(SM) IN READING ARABIC TEXT AMONG STUDENTS OF SMKA SEREMBAN

This article is about the level of Metacognitive Strategy (SM) regarding reading Arabic text among SMKA Students in Seremban. This study is a mixed-method that considered as an explanatory study that focuses on the reaction of students of SMKA at the district of Seremban on the reading of Arabic texts. The reaction of students is including their reaction after received treatment of the Metacognitive Strategy (SM) such as planning, monitoring, and evaluation strategies. This study begins with collecting quantitative data through 60 respondents to investigate the first objective in supporting the second objective and third objective which is a quantitative study. There are three respondents were selected to answer qualitative study which consists second objective and third objective. The first finding indicates the mean for planning strategy 3.5 at a high level. While the second position is the monitoring strategy, mean at 3.66 indicates high level as well. The strategy of evaluating indicates mean 3.47 at the third position at a moderate level. The total amount is 3.54 which indicate high level. The second finding indicates that every respondent faced vocabulary problems. They used SM to assist their reading skills to comprehend Arabic text. The third finding indicates that one respondent faced a problem during undergoing SM training. Therefore he failed to master the evaluation strategy in a short time. Meanwhile, all respondents confessed that they did not face any problems during the Training of SM. The implication of this study is to contribute and suggest to Arabic teachers to implement Training of SM to boost students’ ability in comprehending Arabic text

Information search by applying VDL-based iconic tags: an experimental study

Purpose Visual Distinctive Language (VDL)-based iconic tags are structured visual information annotation. They explicate the content and organization of tagged information by graphical and symbolic features in order to improve the vocabulary problems of textual tags. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how these special icons help in tagged-based user information searching. Design/methodology/approach A two-stage experiment was designed and conducted so as to follow and quantify the searching process in specific searching target case and no specific searching target case when using VDL-based iconic tags. Findings The experimental results manifested that VDL-based iconic tags enhanced the role of tag in information searching. They could make user better understand tag clusters, which, in turn, provide global structure of involved topics. Also, VDL-based iconic tags helped user to find out searching target more quickly with higher accuracy by taking advantages of visual representation of tag categories and symbolic signification of tag content. Originality/value This study is one of the first to verify how structured icons work in information searching and how user’s graphical cognition impacts on tag-based information searching process. The research findings are dedicated to the theory of VDL-based iconic tags, as well as to a new visualization method for search user interface design.

Vocabulary Fluency and Writing Skill: A Case Study on Kurdish Students in Learning English Vocabulary

Currently, a wide range of papers have been conducted in the field of L2 learners’ vocabulary problems and difficulty in academic written texts; commonly, L1 processing routine over L2 learning brought problems in maintaining vocabulary fluency in academic writing for non-native speakers of English. The establishment of an initial form-meaning link should be regarded as early steps of vocabulary learning. The study investigates major problems of Kurdish learners of English Language in homogenous classes regarding the fluency use of vocabulary in their writings. Besides all those studies which have been carried out in the specified field; however, still, less progress can be seen, and still, students face obstacles when it comes to vocabulary fluency in English taught program.The study was conducted on Kurdish university students (n=33). English department of Charmo University was selected as the setting for the study. Moreover, 30 students who participated in the questionnaire were equally divided on both genders. Later, few students, in the range of 3, were tested from the same department. Though tests were considered as the main criteria for finding out students’ major problems in writing and especially vocabulary fluency, whenever the students were put in the position of the test, outer factors will take the bigger slice and main piece of the puzzle. Several essay writings were collected from them and different problems were carried out through those feedbacks that were given by the assigned program.As it can be seen in the discussion section personal desires and interest on the aforementioned language is not to the degree that they can improve their abilities; besides, each of culture, society, and family awareness plays a crucial part in common sense. Moreover, Sociology and psychology of the student, as each of culture, religion, gender differences, male dominance, and family motivation, have vital roles and effects on their use of low efficiency and contextually low frequent vocabulary when they compose in English.

Some lexical translation problems

The article considers some vocabulary problems of translation, to understand the meaning of vocabulary correctly. To master foreign language, to speak and to comprehend oral and written speech in foreign language, it is necessary to compile stock of words, using in all style of speech widely. It is necessary to understand the main peculiarity of English vocabulary from Russian vocabulary. Key words: translation, text, verb, vocabulary, language, science, sentence, literature, form, number, foreign. Аннотация: В данной статье рассматриваются некоторые лексические проблемы перевода, значение лексики для правильного понимания текста. Для того чтобы овладеть иностранным языком, говорить и понимать устную и письменную речь на иностранном языке необходимо систематически накапливать запас слов, широко употребляющихся во всех стилях речи, необходимо понимать основные особенности английской лексики, отличающей от лексики русского языка. Ключевые слова: перевод, текст, глагол, лексика, язык, наука, литература, форма, число, иностранный. Аннотация: Бул макалада кээ бир лексикалык котормо маселелерин, тексти туура түшүнүү үчүн сөздөрдүн маанилүүлүгү талкууланат. Чет тилинде түшүнүү, сүйлөшүү жана жазуу үчүн, тынымсыз сөз байлыгын жогорулатуу зарыл. Англис тилинин лексикасынын негизги өзгөчөлүктөрүн, орус тилинин лексикалык айырмаларын анализге алдык. Түйүндүү сөздөр: котормо, текст, этиш, сөз, тил, илим, сүйлөм, адабият, форма, тур.