Natural language interfaces enable the user to communicate with the

computer in French, English, German, or any human language. Some 【M1】________

applications of such interfaces are database queries, information

retrieval from texts, so-called expert systems, and robot control.

Current advances in recognition of spoken language improve the usability 【M2】________

of many types of natural language systems. Communication with

computers using spoken language will have a lasted impact upon the work 【M3】________

environment; completely new areas of application for information

technology will open up. However, spoken language needs to be

combined to other modes of communication such as pointing with mouse 【M4】________

or finger. Because such multimodal communication is finally embedded 【M5】________

in an effective general model of cooperation, we have succeeded in

turning the machine to a partner. Much older than communication 【M6】_________

problems between human beings and machines are these between people 【M7】_________

with different mother tongues. One of the original aims of language

technology has always been fully automatic translation between human

languages. From bitter experience scientists have realized that they are

still far away from getting the ambitious goal of translating unrestricted 【M8】_________

texts. Nevertheless, they have been able to create software systems that

simplify the work of human translators and clearly improve their

productivity. Less-than-perfect automatic translations can also be of a 【M9】_________

great help to information seekers who have to search for large amounts 【M10】________

of texts in foreign languages.

【M3】