There has been a great deal of hype of late about machine translation and other language technology What is often not noticed is that the hype usually originates from the owners or producers of these tools. The reality is a bit less exciting.
Many translation providers has been using automatic language translation. However, it is common knowledge that automatic language translation services are usually poor, which may lead to embarrassment and substantial financial losses for the people who have used such a service.
Machine translation is automated translation, where computer software used to translate a text from one natural language to a foreign one. Linguistically speaking, to process any translation, human or machine translators should fully restore the meaning of the original text in a foreign language. This is because translating languages should be translating text from one language to another accurately, which includes the idea that the full meaning of the text should be faithfully transferred from the original language.
The problem is that translating languages is not just a straightforward process of substitution of a foreign text for another language. Hence, it is very much obvious that machine translation software is not capable of handling complex translation and interpreting tasks.
Machines are helpful in almost all translation processes. However, machine translation software is not ideal for translating information or documents that need proper and accurate knowledge, especially documents about legal cases, technical and medical documents. There are numerous documents that cannot be simply translated by machine software, but that instead require the extensive knowledge that only human professional translators have, who can effectively translate not only the words or meaning of the text but who can also make sure that the culture of the target language is being recognized and included in translating the language.
Machine translations are effective in making the entire translation language process quick and easy, however, they don’t guarantee that it can produce an accurate translation of your document, and thus, professional human translators are still significant in producing accurate and high-quality language translation of your document.
When you need a a translation of your document, it is necessary to hire the most professional linguist and has a deep understanding of your language document. Otherwise, hiring a linguist who is not knowledgeable enough in that field of translation may lead to disaster, which may not be only embarrassing to the translator itself, but also it could have serious effect for the reputation of the translation client.
Language translation is not simply converting a text from one language to another, but the meaning of each particular word and the cultural context are essential to be transmitted as well. These important details cannot be simply translated by a machine; and thus
, human touch and knowledge are vital in order to catch the proper nuances of the target language.
This was a guest article from Charlene Lacandazo.
The author works for Rosetta Translation, a full-service translation services provider in London.
