Dangers of doing it yourself or using machine translation
Machine Translation (MT) - What is it? Should it be used?
Machine translation involves the use of computers to automatically translate text into a different language.
Machine translation tools are useful for translating text from a foreign language when the user needs to get an approximate idea of the content of the text.
While the concept of machine translation sounds appealing, it cannot be fully depended on for exact or reliable translation. Machine translation tools are limited in their ability to produce a quality translation for many reasons.
Machine translation is still very much under development. A computer can be provided with dictionaries of both the source and target languages, and can use these to try to find matches.
It can also be given a set of grammar rules to assist in the attempt of recreating the sentence in a grammatically correct way.
It can even go to the extent of using statistics to ascertain the preferable choice of translation. However, a computer cannot be programmed to understand language in the same way a human can. Human input is imperative.
There are aspects of the human translation process that cannot be replicated in machine translation. Here are some examples of the elements that human translators will consider and that machine translation cannot handle:
- Aspects of society can play a part in the way a language is used.
- A translator's pragmatic competence is the ability to understand the intended meaning of a text.
- In the case of ambiguous words (words with more than one meaning), humans can intelligently choose the appropriate translation of a word or phrase by examining the context in which it occurs and by understanding the intended meaning of the text.
- Idioms and expressions cannot be literally translated. For example; in English we say "To call a spade a spade". In Italian the equivalent is "To call bread bread and wine wine". A machine translation system would provide Italian text that refers to spades, which would totally confuse Italian readers!
How can a computer understand expressions used in the current market? Do you want your text to read like a translation or like a native piece of text?
While machine translation can be useful for speeding up the translation process, it cannot ensure quality or accuracy of translation.
Example of inaccurate translations by machine translation tools:
We plugged the following sentence into a machine translation tool, translated it into French and then back to English again.
Original sentence: Do you want your text to read like a translation or like a native piece of text?
Interpreted sentence: Do you want that your text reads like a translation or likes an indigenous piece of text?
Computer Assisted Translation (CAT)
In an age of technology, the significance of employing computers in translation must not be overlooked. Computer Assisted Translation is the use of technology in assisting the translator in their work. Contrary to the mechanisms of machine translation, the translator has more control over the translations selected. As the translator works through a text, CAT tools are used to reference glossaries or previous translations in order to speed up the translation process.
One such example of CAT software is the use Translation Memory Tools. This type of software consists of a database-type set of records of previous translations. The records are structured in such a way that a source language segment of text is aligned with segment(s) of the target language (sometimes a sentence can be translated in a few different ways). If the source language segment appears again in a future translation project, the tool will provide a set of one or more previously used translations that the translator can choose from. At this stage, the translator can decide if the tool's suggestion is appropriate in that context.
Even if that exact segment was not translated in the past, the software will find similar segments and provide their matching translations to the translator for editing. Each time a new segment is translated, it will be saved in the database for future re-use or reference.
The advantage of using Translation Memory Tools means that your translations will be faster and more consistent. If you employ different translators to do your translations, how can you ensure that they will use the same terminology or style? These tools will ensure that translators will have complete access to any relevant previous translation work. In this way you can REDUCE your costs by re-using translations.
