Interlingua: Linking textbooks across different languages

Abstract

Increasing numbers of students enrol in formal and informal courses taught in a foreign language. Studying a course from an unfamiliar university/program is difficult enough, but the difficulties multiply when the transition to new course requirements is exacerbated by the necessity to learn course material in a foreign language. This paper describes Interlingua a platform where students can study textbooks in a foreign language supported by on-demand access to relevant reading material in their mother tongue. Interlingua automatically recognises important terminology within textbooks content, extracts structural models of textbooks and links sections and subsections across textbooks in different languages covering the same academic subject. The interface and architecture of Interlingua as well as the technologies underlying the platform are described.