What is Machine Translation?
Machine translation (MT) is automated translation or “translation carried out by a computer”, as defined in the Oxford English dictionary. It is a process, sometimes referred to as Natural Language Processing which uses a bilingual data set and other language assets to build language and phrase models used to translate text. As computational activities become more mainstream and the internet opens up the wider multilingual and global community, research and development in Machine Translation continues to grow at a rapid rate.
A few different types of Machine Translation are available in the market today, the most widely use being Statistical Machine Translation (SMT), Rule-Based Machine Translation (RBMT), and Hybrid Systems, which combine RBMT and SMT.
Human vs. Machine Translation
In any translation, whether human or automated, the meaning of a text in the source (original) language must be fully transferred to its equivalent meaning in the target language’s translation. While on the surface this seems straightforward, it is often far more complex. Translation is never a mere word-for-word substitution.
A human translator must interpret and analyse all of the elements within the text and understand how each word may influence the context of the text. This requires extensive expertise in grammar, syntax (sentence structure), semantics (meanings), etc., in the source and target languages, as well as expertise in the domain.
The benefits of Machine Translation?
Machine translation gives you a quick and comprehensive understanding of a document. If you specially train the machine to your needs, machine translation provides the perfect combination of quick and cost-effective translations. With a specially trained machine, MT can capture the context of full sentences before translating them, which provides you with a high quality and human-sounding output. With our machine translation tool, the layout of the text will be retained, and the translation is returned almost immediately.
Saves time
Machine language translation can save significant time as it is capable of translating entire text documents in seconds. However, please bear in mind that human translators should always post-edit translations done by MTs.
Reduces costs
Machine Translation can substantially lower your costs, as it requires less human involvement.
Memorizes terms
Another benefit of machine language translation is its ability to memorize key terms and reuse them wherever they might fit.
Application of Machine Translation?
It use in different areas:
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Language Service Providers
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Multinational Enterprises and Content Publishers
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Data Mining and Data Processing Enterprises
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Government and Intelligence Services
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eDiscovery and Litigation Support
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Social Media, Mobile Apps, CRM and User Generated Content
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Consulting Services
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etc