Machine translation does not accurately translate cultural semantics that belong to certain concepts such as medicine, sports, business, music, law, etc. This is one of the many reasons people should limit their use of Google and Bing translator. Machine translation produces a rough, literal conversion that under favorable circumstances gives the individual a general idea of the source text. Since machine translation uses computer databases, it has no understanding of the original author’s intent and context which often results in machine translation products being humorous and confusing.
Language evolves every day and you want your the message in which you are sharing to be understood and accurate for your audience who is listening. A human can process meaning, inference, and context to take words of two or more languages and convert them into information others can digest in their native tongue in a manner that is linguistically and culturally understood. While you may save some money and time, the risk of producing a flawed final product is extremely high when involving a machine in the process. Hire a professional language service provider to ensure that your final translation is accurate and precise allowing your message to be understood in the manner it was intended.
There are certain times and places in which it is great to use a machine translator but not with your company slogan or critical advertising content. A poor translation of any promotional content could potentially harm your business or offend a client and that type of embarrassment is not needed for any business, especially when it can be avoided by hiring a language service provider such as Niki’s Int’l Ltd., who can ensure accuracy with all of your translation projects. There are a few other concepts machine translation misses that humans would be able to pick up in an instant, which in turn solidifies the fact that humans will beat a machine any day when it comes to translating. Let’s review the pros and cons of machine translation:
Advantages
- Machine translators are often times free online. They are cost effective when you only have a few words that you need translated such as when closing an e-mail or if you want to say a word or two in your client’s language on your next call. These are times in which it may be appropriate for you to use.
- Machine translators are time efficient. You see your results instantaneously and the translation is immediately ready for use with just a click of a button.
- Machine translation memory banks contain many different languages that you can access immediately. Having access to so many language is really a neat concept and can allow you to make general conversation in the languages offered.
Disadvantages
- Machine translation memory databases can be limited in certain cases. In many languages, words exist that are unique that language and only that language. There are also items such as slang or colloquialisms, idioms or nuances that are not always found in a dictionary, as well as specialized industry terminology. Machine translation databanks are not designed to account for these types of words, thus not being able to produce translations for all words or subject fields.
- A machine translator doesn’t understand context. The meanings of certain words can change depending on the surrounding words in a statement. Machines provide literal word-for-word translation and do not take into account the meaning and context as the machine cannot actually “read” the statement.
- Machine translation doesn’t account for grammar or punctuation. A machine cannot proofread your results, it simply generates a word-for-word translation in the language pair you have selected, based on the words it hosts in its database.
Niki’s Int’l Ltd. is a WBENC-Certified Women Business Enterprise with 20 years of language service experience. Let us handle all of your language needs with our professional team of translators and project managers. We will walk you through every step and ensure quality, compliant medical document translation. Call us at 1-877-567-8449 or e-mail us at [email protected] for more information!