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Simply put, machine translation is the process of automatically translating text from one language (the source language) to another (the target language) using artificial intelligence (AI). When it comes to any translation, the consequences of potential errors is the most critical factor to consider. Medical equipment instructions, aircraft manuals, legal paperwork, and other content demand 100 percent accuracy. In such instances, errors can result in the loss of large sums of money and irreversible damage to your company's image. Hence, it is essential to understand both the pros and cons of machine translation before choosing it for your business. A discussion with a translation services company becomes paramount for you in such instances.
Advantages of machine translation
Some of the advantages of MT are:
Volume and speed: MT is quick, translating millions of words in a matter of seconds, and it improves as more information is translated. For really high-volume projects, MT can not only handle the volume quickly, but it can also organize and tag the content using content management systems. As a result, when the content is translated into multiple languages, the organization and context are preserved.
Machine translation serves as a starting point for human translation: A correctly taught machine translation engine might be a good starting point for a skilled industry linguist. MT is faster and less expensive and is a terrific option for large-scale business paperwork, manuals, and FAQs. It is feasible to push MT even further as quality improves.
Machine translation aids in lowering the overall translation cost: With a customized and secure engine, machine translation is 100 times less expensive than human translation. When the technology is combined with human post-editing, the total cost is reduced by 15-30 percent. The objective is to teach the MT engine to practically mimic your voice, tone, and style needs. In a secure and trained environment, such as the one we use for Volkswagen, a "raw MT" output, for example, costs a fraction of a cent per word, including continuing training and support. A fully trained system capable of translating commercial business data for S&P, which is subsequently sent to a translator for proofreading, on the other hand, takes much longer to train and perfect – but still saves more than 30% on total translation costs.
Machine translation allows you to strike a compromise between cost, quality, and time: MT is used as part of a comprehensive corporate solution; it unlocks the capacity to adjust the cost, quality, and time in ways that language solutions never could. Translators help with content for medical clinical trials that require translations of the highest human quality but with the most cost-effective price and turnaround time. It was almost impossible to meet the clients demands before AI-powered neural machine translation was integrated into the language solutions workflow. Therefore, it has become crucial to know how machine translation works and how it can be beneficial for your business.
Machine translation is more efficient: Working with machine translation software has several advantages, one of which is speed. MT can provide the necessary translation speed for real-time workplace communication when adequately designed. An MT program may translate hundreds of thousands of words per second with the correct server infrastructure (typically hosted in the cloud). When combined with one round of human post-editing, MT can reduce turnaround times by up to 35 percent, depending on the project's scope.
Disadvantages of machine translation
To translate the text provided by the user, machine translation substitutes a word from the source language with one from the target language. Due to the lack of phrase identification and increasing intelligence, the substitution of words cannot produce reliable translation results. Machine translation is usually good for single-word translation services. Still, it is not suited for text translation since accurate translation requires processing an entire text and its relevant components, which a machine cannot do. Some problems that appear frequently with machine translation are:
Correctness of Material: Whether it's a company proposal, product guide, job offer, medical reports, legal documents, memorandum of association, or other types of content, correctness is essential. Correctness is a necessary component of efficient communication in any language. As a result, it's critical to remember that while translating any text into another language, the content's accuracy should not be compromised. Machine translation is unable to retain the accuracy of the text during the translation process.
Concision of Content: Concise content can provide more information to its readers in a shorter amount of time. Machine translation by CAT tools dilutes the information's conciseness by employing an alternate word for each word in the source language and may in some cases lengthen the material (sometimes even longer than the source content), offend the reader, and divert their attention away from the text's primary goal.
Offensive to the reader: Any CAT translated software's material will always be objectionable due to ambiguous meanings. The machine-translated text has numerous grammatical faults, the primary source of reader offence.
Usage Limitations: Because machine translation follows some systematic principles, many custom solutions in this area cannot be processed. Machine translation is incapable of translating from various file formats, including PDF, DOC, and TXT. If someone needs to translate medical records but only has a JPEG or PDF file and cannot type such papers, machine language is worthless.
Poor Quality: A major drawback that machine translation might have is translated text's poor quality. Machine translations are unable to place the text in its proper context. Human translations are superior at solving cultural references, colloquial idioms, industrial jargon, and other specifics.
Lack of precision: Computer-aided translations (CAT) cannot match human translations in terms of accuracy when translating confusing terminology. Human translators with a high level of expertise can ensure that the translated documents are accurate, precise, and consistent.
The discussion about the pros and cons will help with determining the type of translation you should choose for your business. Discussing with a translation services company would help you and your business to select the best option. Also, we want to emphasize that both types of translation, machine and human, can be useful as per their distinct functions.
If you are looking forward to building a long-term working relationship with a reliable translation services company, contact us. For any translation requirement/queries, drop an e-mail at [email protected].
