Alternatives to Professional Translation?

Current business trends greatly favor globalization; however, many companies are not prepared to tackle the communication issues that come with expanding internationally. Each business has specific translation and interpreting needs, and considering all the different types of translation services, as well as time and budget constraints, what is the best option because we all value professional translation?

There are many different types of translation services – the more traditional being professional translation (human). However, with advances in technology, online machine translation platforms have become increasingly popular as they are convenient. Online translators also happen to be much less expensive, as is the act of enlisting a bilingual individual without linguistic training  – but are either of these options really that much better than professional translation?

Professional Translation | Free Online Machine Translation

More and more companies are going global, thereby increasing the need for translation, internationalization and interpreting services exponentially. Many new apps are being created to overcome language barriers for travelers, others offer training regarding cultural etiquette when conducting intercultural business, and many businesses go to machine translation with the idea of saving money and time. Although there are constant improvements in this area, there are times when machine translation is just not enough.

Professional Translation | Pros and Cons

On the one hand, it only seems logical for the world to move towards using free machine translation software as a default option to perform any relevant work. A company in the United States looking to branch out into China will want to have access to language translation at minimal cost to them, in which case they may choose to use free software such as Google Translate or Babylon.  On the other hand, there are pitfalls to using these free services. For example, here is a well-written sentence in Spanish that needs to be translated into English:

A pesar de lo que ha logrado la tecnología con respecto a la traducción, ninguna página web consigue pensar – ni mucho menos, escribir – como si fuera un lector, redactor, o traductor humano.

After a human translator is given the text, the English equivalent comes out as:

“Despite what technology has achieved regarding translation, no website can think – much less write – as if it was a human reader, writer or translator.”

After inputting the text into a free machine translation software, this is the result:

Despite what it has achieved the technology to the translation, no website gets thinking – or, much less, write – as if it were a reader, editor or translator humans.

The discrepancies are extremely noticeable, and on a larger scale, can cause issues for complex projects where even the slightest mistake in translation can result in significant problems (such is the case with translation for clinical research organizations). While machine translation alone might not be the best option when looking at different types of translation, what about machine translation with human editing?

Machine Translation In Combination with Humans

As you can see, there are still many online machine translation problems, even with technological updates. Online translation services are ideal for grasping the general idea contained on a website, or in an email or document. However, for an intelligently written and publishable text that will make you and your organization look good, using free machine translation services may not be your best bet.

Investing a little more to have accurate and precise translations tailored to your individual needs can be more advantageous in the long run. As machine translation software improves, there is another option available which combines more accurate machine translation with professional human translation. Text is initially translated using machine translation software (for a fee) which is later revised by a professional editor who is familiar with the source and target languages. As more accurate translation databases for specific industries are created, more and more companies may consider this as an option.

Who would benefit from services like this? Many eDiscovery translations for global compliance cases are done in part with machine translation – it is used to get the gist of documents (after they are identified through eDiscovery processes) to determine whether or not the full text needs to be translated by a human translator.

But if you aren’t looking for just the “gist” of a document, machine translation combined with human linguists may still not be the best option when considering different types of translation. When budget is still a large concern, many will turn to bilingual friends or employees to cover their linguistic needs.

Professional Translators vs Bilingual Speakers

Within your company, you may have bilingual employees that you consider competent to fulfill your translation needs. Thus, you most likely see no need to use a professional language translator. However, there is a big distinction between a bilingual employee and a professional translator.

A professional translator specializes in language switching, and knows correct terminology in both languages. Bilingual speakers instead tend to categorize aspects of life by language; they may be more comfortable in one language than the other depending on the topic.

The role of a translator is to create texts that read as well in the target language as in the original source language. An additional distinction is that many translators have advanced degrees from accredited translation programs and in their areas of expertise. Finally, a professional translator is also a professional writer, another important aspect in producing quality translation.

When it comes down to it, the ultimate choice when considering the different types of translation depends primarily on the needs of your project. For simply getting the gist of some text, machine translation or a bilingual speaker might do. However, for complicated projects that hold reputation, safety or monetary value to a company, there’s no competitor to a professional human translator.