Machine translators are technologies developed by software engineers and developers. Machine translators are tools used by wide range of people, from ordinary people to translation professionals. All these stakeholders have different goals and wishes for the technology. Despite all the technical difficulties, these conflicting goals might just be the biggest challenge of the industry. Continue reading The Conflicting Goals for Machine Translation
Category: Machine translation
Machine vs. Human: Translators Put to the Test
This is a guest post by Verbal Ink.
In contemporary culture, we are used to computers being able to shock us. The idea of a computer doing something that a previous generation thought was impossible is, to us, the norm. That’s why what paradoxically shocks those of us well-versed in technology and the power of machines is the areas where they still fail to match us mere humans. Continue reading Machine vs. Human: Translators Put to the Test
Is Machine Translation Popular?
Automatic translation is becoming more popular all the time. In this context the word ‘popular’ refers to the fact that it is widely used in many situations and for many purposes. The users of Google Translate write and paste unbelievable amounts of texts to the machine every day. Skype introduced the feature of automatic translation for calls. Twitter is developing some kind of machine translation possibility for tweets. The list goes on and on. Continue reading Is Machine Translation Popular?
3 Reasons Why Knowing Machine Translation Quality Is Important
Machine translation can be fast and cheap. It is a valuable resource when a quick translation is needed. Billions of words have been translated automatically and the pace continues to accelerate. Many professional translators are afraid of losing their jobs to machines. The fear is oversized though. Man made translation with a real person taking responsibility of the quality doesn’t compete in the same league with a raw machine translation with unknown quality. Continue reading 3 Reasons Why Knowing Machine Translation Quality Is Important
Machine Translation Quality Differs Between Languages
Machine translation can be very good, very bad or anything between. Most popular machine translation services tend to produce slightly different translations but the quality level is still quite the same. More variance can be found when you look at the translation quality between languages. English–Finnish is still far from English–Spanish in terms of machine translation quality. Continue reading Machine Translation Quality Differs Between Languages
Context Is Machine Translator’s Weak Point
Words form sentences and sentences build stories. The story creates a context to the individual words. Words are only details. This concept is easy to understand for us human beings. For machines it is too complicated. Machine translators know which words mean the same thing in different languages but they still aren’t able to understand whole stories. They have difficulties in seeing the forest for the trees. Continue reading Context Is Machine Translator’s Weak Point