Is machine translation the future of translation?
The whole world is automating, and translation is no exception. We all know Google Translate, probably the most famous machine translation tool. But it’s not alone. Today’s article will explore whether machine translation is really the future of translation.
WHAT IS MACHINE TRANSLATION?
Machine translation is a fully automated process that produces translations without human intervention. The machine translation tool produces the target text entirely on its own. There are freely available machine translation tools, such as Google Translate, and those that are subscription-based, sometimes translation agencies and companies even train their own machine translation engines to make them as efficient as possible. But beware! Machine translation is not the same as computer-assisted translation. In the latter case, a human translator translates the text using programs, online terminology sources, online dictionaries, and the like as help.
USE IN THE TRANSLATION INDUSTRY
Human intervention is still required despite the rapid progress, especially for more complex languages. Also, machine translation quality depends on the size of the translation corpus. The larger the corpus, the better the translation. Furthermore, machine translation is not suitable for all types of texts. A prime example is creative texts that contain a lot of figurative meaning.
IS IT THE END OF THE LINE FOR TRANSLATORS?
Machine translation works very well with some language combinations, e.g. French to English, and standardised texts. That said, it lacks the ability to produce a perfectly acceptable final text without polishing by a translator. Translators are set to keep their jobs for the foreseeable future. ?
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