Machine translation, or MT, uses a computer program to automatically translate a text from one language to another without human intervention. It’s actually more accurate to talk about pre-translation because this is just a first draft completed by the machine and not a finished translation. That’s where post-editing comes in.
Post-editing, or PE, is completed by a trained professional linguist who proofreads and corrects the automatically pre-translated text to make it more intelligible based on the level of quality the client expects.
Before recommending machine translation services, we always review the quality of the raw translation output. If it’s not satisfactory, we’ll suggest you go with professional human translation.
In addition, we’ll always ask you about the final quality you want. Your expectations will determine the degree of post-editing that is applied to the pre-translation. No matter what level of post-editing you choose, we always take into account any existing translation memories or glossaries.
▸ Exact, comprehensible content (identical meaning to the source text)
▸ Questionable stylistic form
▸ Unnatural text
▸ Imperfect syntax and grammar
▸ Exact, comprehensible content (identical meaning to the source text)
▸ Correct stylistic form but less natural than the style of a human translator
▸ Normal syntax
▸ Correct grammar, punctuation and hyphenation
▸ The same layout
There are several reasons to choose post-editing of machine translation over human translation, such as managing large volumes of text, reducing timelines, optimizing costs or simply needing to get the gist of a message.
But, be careful. The quality of MT results varies based on the language combination and sector. For example, literature, marketing or very creative content are not good candidates for machine translation.
In contrast, it can often be used for technical and legal texts because they usually contain repetitive phrases and leave little room for creative interpretation.
In every case, ITC Translations can advise the best methodology to select for your project based on your expectations.
Are you looking for a specialized agency offering machine translation and post-editing? Contact us today to discuss your project.
Looking for the right partner offering machine translation and post-editing? We’re here to help!
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