IN THE NEAR FUTURE an attempt to translate from a foreign language by machine will be made at the computational laboratory of Birkbeck College. It will differ from previous experiments in that the sentences or passages of French to be translated will not have been specially chosen or "doctored" in any way beforehand: on the contrary, they will be constructed by French scholars, who will be invited to do their best to fault the machine. What follows is an account of the method, or program, which makes such an experiment possible. .
