Rapidly evolving technologies have had a tremendous impact on myriad industries, and the translation industry is no different. For example, machine translation (MT) has gained increasing popularity over the years and for numerous applications. What are the pros and cons of machine translation, and when does it come in handy?
What is machine translation?
Machine translation (MT) is a term that refers to the process of using artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically translate content from one source language (say, English) to a target language (like French). This takes place without human input.
There has been an ongoing debate over whether MT and AI can replace humans and put scores of translators out of work. Although machine translation is a tool that significantly streamlines communication and helps to translate texts efficiently and at scale, it definitely has disadvantages that raise controversy and concern among customers who hear that their translation agencies may use this option on their content.
Machine translation — pros and cons
Many specialists in the field debate whether MT should be applied in their daily workflow. Let’s analyze some major pros and cons of the technology and decide if computers can in fact replace human professionals entirely. Spoiler alert: the short answer is no.
Pros of machine translation:
- Machine translation is highly effective when it comes to lower tier texts. By that we mean that it’s good for documents that don’t require significant precision, and where localization isn’t needed. In this scenario, MT makes it possible to achieve satisfactory translation quality within seconds. MT is also effective at processing large volumes of content, where the reader is merely looking to understand the general meaning, or gist, of what’s written.
- MT facilitates interpersonal communication – translation is supposed to help people communicate with each other. It’s natural that different circumstances require different approaches. If someone wants a general understanding of an email written in a foreign language, machine translation is enough for this purpose (depending on the importance or sensitivity of the content). MT applications provide the underpinning for real-time translation (RTT) tools.
- Machine translation is cost-efficient. Advances in MT that rely on statistical and neural MT significantly reduce the cost of the translation process through greater automation, contextual language processing, and continuous learning. These methods lead to greater efficiencies and help to lower cost. The absence of translation or editing functions performed by humans also contributes to lower price points.
- MT quality is constantly improving. Continuous training of MT engines is resulting in higher quality returns that are improving all the time. Some MT technologies are even able to correctly translate metaphorical expressions like idioms or proverbs. MT has become so high-performing that engines are able to effectively handle even more specialized document corpora in verticals like legal and fintech.
Cons of machine translation
- MT can be inaccurate – if you outsource a translation project to professionals, they translate it even if some phrases in the source language are grammatically or stylistically incorrect. MT engines on the other hand, haven’t mastered nuances like contextual phrasing or sentiment analysis, and will only deliver higher quality output if the source content is structured in a way known to AI systems.
- Machine translation isn’t suitable for all types of texts. Although MT works great with technical documents or instructions, it’s not so effective when cultural elements, complex and specialized terminology, slang or literary language come into play.
- The quality of MT is determined by the language pair. It’s worth noting that machine translation enables obtaining satisfactory results only in certain language combinations. Generally, it works best when translating English and European languages. The quality of MT can be lower when compared to Japanese, Korean, and Chinese translations.
Benefits of machine translation – the takeaway
Machine translation has huge potential, as it provides affordable and instant access to resources necessary for effective international communication. However, MT also has enough disadvantages that it’s not ready to be fully let off the leash. The downsides are substantial enough that human expertise and a post–edit phase by human translations is still the way to go to maintain both quality and subtle nuances associated with the written word. AI solutions are clearly facilitating the work of human translations, however its place is still limited to offering a complement to the human translation process.
Do you want to find out how AI makes translation faster and more efficient? Check out our blog!