Machine Translation

Machine translation services use specific software to translate text from one particular language to another language. The application of machine translation is quite limited, but is best utilized for informational purposes and unofficial documents, or when a document is perishable but is too large to allow human translation. For instance, when a large volume of text needs to be translated quickly, the material can be processed using machine translation to provide a rough translation. Following the machine translation, it would then be recommended that human translators review the product to determine which items are truly germane and relevant to its purpose and may therefore require more precise translation.

Machine translation may also prove to be useful for materials of a technical nature that are consistent in terms of writing styles and terminology. In this instance, a machine translation software program can be trained to actually recognize those consistencies and produce translations with a fair degree of accuracy.

It is our position not to recommend machine translation services for sensitive or nuanced information such as marketing materials, legal agreements, hand-written text or business correspondence. For these documents, human translation is far superior at determining the precise and appropriate translation for the subtleties of colloquialisms and jargon that are commonly found in such documents.

Overall, with machine translation the matter of speed versus accuracy must be considered. The primary advantage of machine translation is that it makes it possible to process large volumes of text at a rapid speed; however, machine translation is only able to achieve accuracy levels of around 70%, while human translation almost always produces accuracy levels that exceed 95%.

Please contact Akorbi Language Consulting to find out how we can help you with the deployment of machine translation technologies, or obtain a quote for machine translation services.