Remember watching movies from the 70’s and the 80’s of what they thought “the future” would look like? Well folks, it is 2020 and the robots have in fact, taken over the world! OK, perhaps not quite. But a quick internet search will result in AI’s outdoing each other, as program after program promises to translate accurately and for free. Both of which, by the way, are promises doomed to be broken.
Is There a Quality Guarantee if I Don’t Use a Proofreader for a Machine Translation?
Just like doctors and nurses work together to achieve the best physical care, a project team also works to make sure that a job is done correctly from different angles.
One such instance was a story in 2008 of some officials who wanted an English sign to be translated into Welsh. They sent in the English phrase “No entry for heavy good vehicles. Residential site only” to be translated.
They got a reply from the translators which they took to be what they wished and went right along with it. They proceeded to post the e-mail response on to a road sign. The problem? The response they had gotten was an automatic away message from the translator’s office. They had a sign that instead of reading the intended message cautioning Welsh truck drivers to not take the road, it read “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”
While this may sound funny at best or perhaps even embarrassing, the issue here is that it is actually dangerous and could have been avoided had there been someone to communicate with them not to take it literally, such as an editor.
No matter the language, there tend to be nuances that simply get lost in translation.
Language is an art, and you need the right artist to see the subtleties to make sure meaning is not lost. However, just like a building needs engineers and not just the architect, translation takes a team of experts to correctly pull through with the design.
Whether you are thinking of translating a website online for your own understanding or for that of others, do not do yourself a disservice by not hiring professional translators. Just like someone who has read hundreds of medicine books would not be apt to conduct surgery, neither can an app nor someone with a general grasp of the language accurately do the job that is usually done by a team.
A better example of this might be when people do not know the difference between avocat in French when the same words means both avocado and lawyer.
What Are the Basic Mistakes of Machine Translations?
Translating projects also have nuanced perspectives that need to be considered. For example, if the website being translated has some kind of program on it, then internationalization must be a factor that is considered that will in the long run, save the company money, while making the program accessible to a wider audience. Even if a website is going to be looked at by only one language, localization is crucial. For example Spanish has many different dialects and renditions depending on where you are. Asking someone for a jacket in Venezuela might get you a coat, while asking someone for a jacket in Mexico might get you a sexual favor.
If you rely strictly on machine translation for all different languages, there are bound to be moments of humiliation. Another great example of how language can get lost is putting a well-known song into a machine app translation, having it be translated into another language (say, Russian) and then translated back into English. This is a great way to see not only the limits in non-nuanced translation, but also in machine translation.
Should I Use Machine Translations?
So, while free translation apps may seem like the thing to go for, it just so happens that they are actually great fodder for hilarity. You always need someone to double check the translation.
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