4 Myths About Machine Translation

Machine translation technology has come a long way in recent years, making it an indispensable tool for global communication and collaboration. However, there are still several myths and misconceptions about machine translation that can cause confusion and hinder its adoption. In this blog post, we’ll give you the need-to-know information and debunk four common myths about machine translations.

Myth #1: Machine Translation Is Always Inaccurate

While it’s true that machine translation is not perfect, it has come a long way in recent years. Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning have made machine translations much more accurate than they used to be. In fact, for many types of content, including standardised documents like certificates, machine translation can be a more cost effective solution for customers. Any project that undergoes machine translation will always be proofread by a human linguist.

Myth #2: Machine Translation Will Replace Human Translators

While machine translation can handle a large volume of text quickly and accurately, it cannot replace human translators entirely. Human translators bring cultural context and nuanced understanding to a translation that a machine cannot replicate, including a level of creativity required for services like transcreation. Moreover, machines are not currently a reliable substitute for human linguists for interpreting services. These services are often required in instances where absolute accuracy is paramount, where lack of understand and linguistic error could cause risk to human health in medical scenarios and cost legal professionals a case for court interpreting.

Myth #3: Machine Translation Is Only Good For Simple Texts

Machine translation can handle a wide range of texts, from simple phrases to complex technical documents. With the right training data and machine learning models, machine translation can produce accurate translations for many industries, especially those with repetitive terminology as machine translation will retain your data and produce consistent results. Again, machine translated documents should always be proofread by at least one linguist for optimum quality.

Myth #4: Machine Translation Is A One-Time Solution

Machine translation is not a one-time solution, but rather an ongoing process that requires continuous refinement and improvement. Like any other AI-based technology, machine translation models need to be regularly updated and trained on new data to maintain their accuracy and relevance. Machine translation used by professional translation providers is entirely incomparable to the free tools accessible via our favourite search engines. Professional technology is regularly refined to adhere to a companies’ standards and clients’ linguistic needs.

Customers can benefit from integration of machine translation into the translation process. Machine translation can handle large volumes of text quickly and accurately, freeing up valuable time for linguists to focus on more complex, nuanced translations, as well as creative transformations like transcreation and voiceover. This can significantly improve productivity and reduce the turnaround time for your language projects. It also helps to standardise content across all translations produced for one company, ensuring consistency and continuity of the message you wish to convey. Machine translation can also be utilised for post-editing, where a human translator reviews and refines the machine-generated output, further saving on cost for your clients.

While it is not perfect, machine translation can produce accurate translations for a wide range of texts when used appropriately. However, it is important to understand its limitations, and use it in conjunction with human translators. Machine translation should be seen as a complementary technology that can improve the efficiency and productivity of human translators, rather than a replacement for them. With ongoing research and development, machine translation will continue to improve and play an increasingly important role in the work we do for our international clients.

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