As you may have seen online, or on some of our other blog posts, people like to talk about how machine translation (MT) will never live up to human translation. But with the cost of human translation being so much higher, is it worth the investment?
Context is King
One of the biggest reasons to choose human translators is that they can interpret context in translations far better than machines. But just how important is context in translation?
If you imagine that one day you turned on the television to watch a crime documentary. But then realised that it was written in the tone and style of Peppa Pig – suited for young children. You would probably be very confused (and probably also a little bit amused).
This is where MT often makes errors: it doesn’t know the context that the translated text will be used in. It simply sees the words, and connects them with the correlating, often dictionary, term in the new language.
Another good example of this comes from the German language. Das Haus is used to mean both home and house in German. But to an English speaker, these are not often interchangeable terms. A human translator would have the ability to read into the context clues in the text and decide which term to use based on the way that the writing was being used. After all, in English we wouldn’t say “I’m going house.”
Knowing Your Audience
Going back to Peppa Pig for a moment – did you know that the episodes even have to be localised between different English-speaking countries? Some episodes have been removed from Australian television after problems were noticed. In this case, season 4, episode 22, “Spider’s Web,” was removed from Australian TV for depicting spiders as harmless and friendly. This is the truth in the UK – in Australia? Not so much!
A translator adapts texts or programmes for their audience, using their insight and knowledge. You have to know your audience to produce a successful translation.
Often, Machine Translation can’t do this – you can’t tell it who will be looking at the end-product. A human, however, can translate with this in mind.
So is Machine Translation Ever Useful?
Machine Translation does have a time and a place. For example, in translating a company’s internal documents where the aim of the translation is to convey the gist of the message, rather than the nuances.
Choosing the best approach for your business needs ultimately comes down to what the purpose of the translation is and the budget available. Contact us for advice and answers to your translation request queries!
31 July 2024 14:50