04 Feb Proofreading Machine Translations is Hard Work

Processing translation materials for individuals and business needs entail huge responsibilities that underline the industry of machine translations. The amount of work needed to finish a translation project varies depending on the nature, scale and time element of the content to be translated. Often, translation work can take a few days or weeks, or even months with large-scale work that often integrate content, design and software programs into a single project.

The process of translation can be summed up in three basic steps: making the translation, editing the material, and proofreading the translated copy. Translation of contents is done by skilled professionals who are equipped with the right expertise to translate languages into meaningful, appealing and accurate content with cultural sensitivity and relevancy. Alongside this, the content should also be localized in that it should provide the content with the right tone and context that is not different from the original material.

Once translated, contents go to editors for checking grammar and structure, as well as form and punctuation. Content, after this process, is then given to the proofreader. In most cases, language companies hire native speakers to proofread the translated content. This is one way to guarantee that the content is accurate and relevant in terms of culture and value. When a document is proofread, errors in context and grammar are eliminated, lexical gaps are filled and nuances are differentiated to give the content a solid and substantial finish that mirrors accuracy and quality.

However, with the onset of translation tools such as machine translations, proofreading translated content is twice as hard. Machine-translated contents are often full to grammatical and contextual errors that may totally result into a different content from the original material. Because automated translation lacks the ability to identify and correct contextual meaning in words and phrases, the actual translated sentence may have a different connotation. Correcting these errors may prove difficult and time-consuming because the human proofreader would have to go through the entire document several times to check for differences in meaning and cultural relevance.

Limitations in machine translations

Because these programs are not equipped with differentiating contextual meaning to literal translation, the proofreading process may be more rigorous than usual. It would take proofreaders double the effort to check for flaws and errors in the translated content. Often, when materials for proofreading are received, the task of checking for mistakes is minimal. This is because proofreaders only have to check for issues in grammar, style, punctuation and other little details. With machine-translated content, he would have to go through the entire article because possibilities of contextual and appeal issues may be rampant and too obvious. A proofreader cannot be more than strict in extracting language translation blunders which may affect the agency’s credibility and reputation.

The proofreading phase is often the final stage of the translation process. When proofreaders are not careful with polishing the translated content, it could affect the agency in so many ways. Of course, machine translations could be a boon in this industry. This is not to say, of course, that such tools are totally negated. The key to eliminating mistakes in translation work is to employ the best automated translation tools to produce high quality content, in collaboration with an excellent proofreader with a penchant and passion for cleaning up translation blunders.

You can always come to us for the best translation and proofreading needs for your content. We have the best translation tools and experienced and highly-qualified proofreaders. We are simply committed to giving your business the best translation quality in this most opportune time.