As the innovation and advancements of technology continue to improve, change is necessary when working in the translation industry. Learning how to embrace developments can keep your translation business competitive.
The language service industry is a dynamic environment where people are always improving their standards for translation and localization services. Being to accept and adapt to change is the recipe for success for any translation business.
And this has been seen with Computer Assisted Translation tools (CAT) and Translation Memory (TM). These have saved translators hours of writing and checking, resulting in a faster turnaround with lower costs.
Machine Translation is next as it’s slowly taking over the translation industry.
What is Machine Translation
Machine translation systems is an application that uses machine learning to translate large amounts of text to your target language.
Machine learning is a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI). A computer software algorithm that can self learn and improve from experience without human help. Using statistics and models to find patterns in huge amounts of data, it can extrapolate the results to predict a result.
As there is a hyper-abundance of data available today, it’s easier to develop an automated system that is applicable for workable applications. And this can be seen through Google Translate, Siri, and Self-Driving Cars.
Technology will continue to improve, whether it’s faster computational power or more efficient in certain areas. Soon it will play an even more crucial role in our everyday life through automation, affecting across all sectors and industries.
How Does Text Translation Work
Two main technologies are used for translating text. Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) and Neural Machine Translation (NMT)
Statistical Machine Translation
Statistical Machine Translation that generates statistical models made from the analysis of bilingual text corpora. Using rules to translate between languages, it detects patterns from previously inputted data of source and target language and uses the results as a model for it’s translation.
As it does not rely on grammatical rules or dictionaries, depending on the data that the SMT learns, it can be modeled to provide generalized and comprehensible translations.
SMT’s were popular and mostly used until Neural Machine Translation was created
Neural Machine Translation
Neural Machine Translation is a single system that can be trained directly on the source and target text without the need for specialized systems in statistical machine learning.
NMT attempts to train and build a single, large neural network that reads a sentence and outputs the correct translation. Although there are different methods, this is the basic overview of how it works.
The framework begins with analyzing each word and its state. These states are understanding the word, and it’s meaning in the sentence structure.
Below is a simple recurrent neural network called encoder-decoder. It takes the source sentence and feeds each word into the neural network. The decoder predicts those words into the target language while taking into account the sentence structure.
How Does It Change Businesses
The Machine Translation software can provide a vague guideline of the translation message, saving you time on converting the text. However, it may take a while for other employees to begin adapting and using these new technologies. Here’s how machine translation will change the translation business
Developing Flexible Work Practices
Technology is constantly improving. Implementing a team that keeps up with the new trends will be crucial for your agency to develop an edge on your competitors.
As your translation business may have different specialists, including translators, proofreaders, editors, and project managers, it can be hard to communicate and train them on using the new technology. Not to mention that most come from different parts of the world, meaning different working hours, cultural barriers, and they may speak different languages.
Having a business tool that keeps everybody updated, scheduled training, and provides updates on requirements that need to be learned.
This ensures your whole translation business understands how to take advantage of the newest technology, resulting in your company developing an edge over your competitors.
We recommend using Smartling to solve all your workflow issues. A comprehensive centralized translation management solution that enables agencies to maximize their productivity, energy, and cost spend on localization and translation to deliver projects more efficiently.
Designed to simplify collaboration, faster turnaround times, centralized control, and improve the overall translation quality, more and more translation agencies are turning to these solutions to help improve their workflow as they move online.
Job Opportunity Increases
Translation machines will do most of the legwork, which naturally decreases the prices of translation services, but post-editing is always needed.
Job opportunities will increase as they will need an efficient way to make sure the translation is accurate and correct. This reduces the overall time translators need to translate and increases the jobs they can take.
Companies such as MemoQ have followed this shift and provided a quality assurance service to measure post-editing efforts and pay translators accordingly. Their quality assurance checks for machine-detectable errors while you translate in a translation management software.
More Competition
As translation tools become more reliable, there will be more competition for translation agencies to deliver better quality and faster turnaround translations.
This means marketing and sales will be needed to stay competitive in the market. Being able to sell your services will be crucial to convince clients to choose your agency instead of your competitors.
Why Translational Agencies Will Still Be Needed
Accuracy
Translation tools are limited to the amount of data it has learned. When data is limited on one or both languages, the accuracy of the translation suffers, leaving you guessing. Often words are translated in their literal translations where they substitute one word or group words for the translated word, instead of gaining the exact context of the sentence.
No Proofreading
Free translation tools can only provide you with the translation. They don’t check for errors, and there is no guarantee that you’ll be able to spot inaccuracies. Having a proofreading service for business purposes is crucial to make sure the intended message is correctly translated to the target audience.
Confidentiality
Free translation tools rely on available data to help perform its translation, meaning your confidential data can be found online if it’s used to translate these translators.
As they don’t sign NDA contracts, sensitive data, including medical documents, client personal information, and financial reports, can be searched and taken.
Transcreation
Transcreation preserves the context, intent, emotion, and tone of the original sentences. The goal is to duplicate the original message thoughtfully and seamlessly without realizing there was a translation, giving the audience an identical emotional experience as the original source message.
It provides an effective way for businesses and brands to authentically reach new markets in a meaningful and cultural way that achieves a greater brand recognition and engagement. This process comes from understanding the cultural aspect that needs to be curated to make your target audience buy your products and services.
Why Choose TranslateRight For Online Translation Services
Translated Right is a certified professional technical translation agency that provides online translations online in 50+ languages. Our translation services languages include English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil, Japanese, French, and more. Providing fast, accurate, and reliable, professional translation services for all types of documents, formats, and lengths.
With over 5000+ professional and experienced translators, we’ve filtered out the best translator using our stringent and detailed interviewing process, ensuring that you can hire only the best-qualified person for your specific translation document.
This has allowed us to simplify the whole entire technical translation process, resulting in a smooth application process.
This is seen by our 1000+ of satisfied customers from our competitive prices, friendly and efficient translation services.
If you’re looking for a translation service near me that can translate from a source language to the desired target language that conforms to the requirements of the technical side of your industry, Translated Right can help you today.
Providing a streamlined and hassle-free process, get your document translated by a professional service today.