Babelfish is rather state of the art, actually

...mmmm not really. Babelfish/Systran may be the biggest fish in the pond commerically, but they are hardly state of the art. The big splashes technically are being made by people looking at statistical techniques such as Language Weaver (the company I work for), ISI, and Google.

As for the original topic. I will just echo some of the other posters and warn you that you are taking some tiny first (mis?)steps on a journey whose destination is a long ways off. This is an intensely complex and interesting topic you could spend your entire life on if you are sufficiently interested/motivated/compensated.