The global economy expands every day. Companies large and small look to new markets to sell their products and services. Entering an international market often requires translating content into the local language. Businesses have two options to meet translation needs: human translation services or machine translation. But which method works best?
What are Translation Services?
Human translation services employ professional linguists to translate content from one language into another. Native speakers with subject matter expertise translate content accurately while preserving context and tone. Translation agencies provide these services by assigning appropriate linguists for each project. For example, you can get certified translation services from Rapid Translate or another trusted agency, and professionals will work diligently on the translation of your text.
The Translation Process
The translation process involves several key steps:
- Understanding source content: The translator analyzes the content to grasp the meaning and context fully. This allows for an accurate translation.
- Initial translation: The translator converts the content from the source to the target language, focusing on conveying the meaning.
- Editing and proofreading: One or more separate translators edit the translated content to ensure accuracy and refine the wording.
- Desktop publishing (optional): The agency formats the translated content for proper rendering. This includes text expansion and contraction between languages.
- Quality assurance: A reviewer compares the finished translation against the source to validate accuracy. The agency addresses any identified issues.
Translators may clarify questions with the client during the initial translation. Subject matter experts also proofread technical, legal, or medical translations. These steps result in the highest quality translations.
What is Machine Translation?
Machine translation (MT) uses software instead of humans to translate content. The software applies complex statistical and neural network machine learning models to translate text between languages automatically.
Popular machine translation services include:
- Google Translate
- Microsoft Translator
- Amazon Translate
- SYSTRAN
- DeepL
These services continue to improve translation quality through advancements in artificial intelligence. Machine translation provides a quick and inexpensive way to get the gist of foreign content. However, current AI still cannot match the skill of a bilingual human when accuracy is critical.
The Machine Translation Process
Machine translation services follow a simple process:
- The user enters or uploads the source content into the translation tool.
- The service instantly translates the content using its machine-learning models.
- The raw machine translation output is returned almost instantly.
Some services allow users to select terminology glossaries or tune models to improve results for a certain domain. Overall, machine translation provides a substantially faster turnaround compared to human translation—often delivering output in seconds rather than days. However, human intervention is still required to refine critical translations.
Key Differences
Below are some major differences between human translation services and machine translation:
| Comparison | Human Translation Services | Machine Translation |
| Quality | Very high (often equivalent to a bilingual human) | Modest in raw form, but improving |
| Accuracy | 95%+ conveying the exact meaning | ~90% conveying gist, but errors persist |
| Context | Preserves meaning, emotion, culture | Struggles with ambiguity and double meanings |
| Fluency | Professional, publication-ready | Choppy grammar and unnatural wording |
| Speed | Slow due to linguist involvement | Nearly instantaneous |
| Cost | Expensive | Free or inexpensive subscriptions |
| Usage | Critical communications | Casual understanding of foreign content |
As shown above, human services prioritize accuracy, context, and polish. Machine translation focuses more on speed and cost savings.
These differences come down to the limitations of artificial versus human intelligence. Machines struggle to comprehend nuanced language in the same way as humans.
However, machine translation quality continues to advance rapidly. As the above table shows, MT may sufficiently convey meaning for casual needs. It offers a starting point before final refinement by a professional linguist.
When Should You Use Human Translation Services?
Human translation services remain the gold standard for critical communications in international business and legal matters. The high accuracy and polish meet standards for public distribution and official records.
Types of Content Requiring Human Translation
Human linguists should translate any content where flaws could damage your brand, cause offense, create liability risks, or lead to financial loss or penalties.
Examples include:
- Marketing collateral: Brochures, websites, advertising, and campaigns
- Product Documentation: Instructions, safety warnings, manuals
- Contracts and legal documents: Avoid potential breach of agreements
- Regulated content: Clinical trials, patent applications
- Internal communications: Executive letters, HR policies
Professional services ensure your meaning comes across accurately in the local culture and language.
Where are Human Translations Most Important?
Accurate human translation plays a crucial role in reaching international audiences clearly and effectively. The level of cultural adaptation and localization required depends on your target market.
Regions where accurate human translation is essential include:
- Asia: Adaptation to cultures in China, Japan, and Korea requires meticulous translation and localization. Some languages feature lexical, syntactic, and tonal challenges for machine translation.
- Middle East: Complex literary forms like those used in Modern Standard Arabic challenge MT software.
- Western Europe: German, French, Italian, and Spanish documents need to convey nuanced legal and regulatory terminology accurately while respecting local culture.
- Latin America: Variants of Spanish and Portuguese may utilize different vocabulary.
For most critical communications, professional human translation remains vital for global success.
When Can You Use Machine Translation?
Machine translation works best to get the gist of informal foreign materials. The speed and price point allow MT to scale to large volumes of content quickly.
Types of Content for Machine Translation
Machine translation may sufficiently handle more casual content where minor errors do not cause harm.
Examples include:
- Social media postings
- Travel directions
- Internal chat conversations
- Basic email correspondence
- Mapping software localization
- Video subtitles
Machine translation provides good enough quality for basic understanding. The convenience allows for faster consumption of foreign content to promote cultural awareness.
Where is Machine Translation Practical?
Machine translation quality varies by language. In general, MT works moderately well between languages that utilize the Roman alphabet and share Germanic or Romantic roots.
Language pairs where MT provides adequate practical usage include:
English ⇔ Spanish
English ⇔ French
English ⇔ Italian
English ⇔ German
English ⇔ Portuguese
The most advanced services like DeepL and Google Translate can translate between these pairs with ~90% accuracy. This allows an understanding of the overall meaning fairly well.
However, for communications targeting Asian languages, right-to-left scripts like Arabic and Hebrew, or other language pairs, machine translation still falls short. Human translation remains the better option for clear communication and building trust across cultures.
Combining Human and Machine Translation
With their complementary strengths and weaknesses, human and machine translation can work together to optimize global content workflows.
Professional linguists translate the high-value content required for compliance, regulations, safety, and brand integrity. Machine translation handles high-volume social media, support forums, and internal communications.
Benefits of a Hybrid Approach
Blending human and machine translation provides the best of both worlds:
Productivity
- Machine translation rapidly covers vast amounts of informal content
- Human effort focuses on refinement, not a full translation
Cost Savings
- Reduce expenses on casual content
- Invest in mission-critical human translation
Quality
- Ensure critical content meets global standards
- Convenience in grasping the meaning of non-vital foreign content
A hybrid model allows organizations to scale content for global audiences faster and more affordably.
Translation Technology Trends
Advancements in artificial intelligence continue expanding machine translation capabilities every year. However, experts feel that human-level fluency that fully accounts for culture, tone, and context remains out of reach for the foreseeable future.
Instead, the industry moves toward augmentation. The best translation workflows combine linguistic expertise with technology efficiency:
- Adaptive machine translation: Humans train systems with previous translations tailored to an organization’s voice and terminology. This improves consistency.
- Translation memory technology: Stores previously translated segments for linguists to reuse, increasing speed and accuracy.
- Remote collaboration: Cloud-based tools allow translators, editors, clients, and other stakeholders to review and provide feedback in real time during translation projects.
- Automated quality evaluation: Software tools evaluate machine translation output and flag segments requiring additional human editing to meet publication standards.
Integrating human talent with smart technology provides the most practical path to make content globally accessible.
Key Takeaways
- Human translation services still provide the best quality and accuracy for critical communications, especially complex legal and technical content.
- Machine translation works moderately well for casual usage, getting the gist of foreign social media, marketing content, support forums, and internal chats.
- Combining professional human translation with machine translation maximizes productivity for global content workflows. Humans handle what matters most. Machines translate the high volume.
- As artificial intelligence advances, adaptive machine translation trained on human linguist work continues improving. But human expertise remains essential where nuance, culture, and context are paramount.
- Organizations must weigh cost, risk tolerance, target languages, and use cases when defining policies for human versus machine translation.
The most successful global programs utilize human talent, technology accelerators, and quality assurance for end-to-end translation solutions tailored to each company’s needs.
