Translation is an art that involves converting a text from one language to another. Seemingly, this appears fairly straightforward. However, it is an intricate and quite complex process which, to produce a meaningful result, must consider some variables. The variables include linguistic style, tone, and structure, fluency, and cultural context.

Machine Translation (MT) is simply the use of computers for translation. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI), MT is practically instant and continues to improve daily. However, this doesn’t imply that it’s always applicable. Human Translation (HT) is perfect for projects that need extra nuance and care. Professional translators produce a higher quality outcome on your content by bringing out the original meaning in a new body of work.

As with any business decision, there are pros and cons. This article aims to highlight the best option for your document translation services.

Pros and Cons of Machine Translation vs Human Translation

Accuracy
MT is insufficient for high-priority content. It is important to be contextually accurate and clear when making marketing efforts with high sales potential. Any inaccuracy in your copy might discourage a prospective customer from following through with a sale.

Ability to Investigate
Automated translation can’t replace HTs and their ability to investigate. When not verified by a human, or appropriately paired with translation projects, MT can be sloppy. Humans however can make informed decisions before translating by digging deeper to understand the actual meaning of the content.

Context
Machines don’t understand context. MT is not good at picking up intricate contextual details. For instance, when translating words such as cut, write/right, run, etc. there is a big margin for error. Humans leverage linguistic assets and visual context to translate accurately and consistently convey the content of the message.

Collaboration
Compared to machine translation, you can collaborate with a human translator to talk about the more intricate details of a project. This implies that you have fewer revisions and reduced chances of missing the required objective of your translation project. Your conversions are more likely to climb when you use human translation. It is recommended that you go with human translators if your project requirements include a high conversion rate.

Creativity
To ensure a job is well done, humans can implement their gut feelings and personal experiences into translation. They can inject some fun into your content by creatively accessing and breaking down a language.

Conclusion

A major issue with human translation is the time spent in producing an accurate translation, especially when compared with machine translation. However, time lost is gained multiple-fold in reliability and quality. The inadequacies and limitations in the quality and capability of machine translations imply that they may only be reasonably used in understanding the general meaning of emails and texts. But of what use is that?
The only genuine way of achieving reliability, accuracy, and quality in translation is not via shortcuts, but only through the skill, experience, technique, and knowledge that comes with a professional human translator with a deep understanding of the intricacies of language. To this end, there is no replacement for human intervention.
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