Undoubtedly, any phase involved in the translation process requires a thorough knowledge of the general subject to be translated as well as an intimate familiarity with both cultures, together with extensive knowledge of syntactic and semantic aspects of both languages while preserving the stylistic features of the target language.
Some recent papers claim that MT now is almost human-like or that it gets closer to that of average human translators. On the other hand, Some Linguists and scholars have argued that MT will never reach the quality of a professional human translation. The present article seeks to investigate the issue of human translation as opposed to the machine translation challenge, by comparing and contrasting the pros and cons of the two different types of translation.
Machine Translation Pros and Cons
Since the first idea of using computers to translate natural language, which was proposed in the 1940s, translation technology has made major improvements. Still, even today software can only translate individual words or rather simple sentences correctly.
The results of pure machine translation contain many errors and are often more amusing than useful. A pure machine translation can only be used or understood with the correction of a professional translator. Certainly, machine translation can be a solution for a mass production perspective as a result of technological development and the global world’s demands for knowledge transfer from one language to the other.
Nevertheless, machine translation can be useful in catching the meaning of a text or getting a general idea about the meaning of the overall context. It can be used only for easy sentences or with the correction of a translator. However, machine translation can be very helpful in many cases. For instance, machine translation is less expensive and faster. Machine translation is also useful when coping with the vast amounts of audiovisual material, both commercial and user-generated, that needs to be translated quickly.
Human Translation Pros and Cons
The profession of translator dates back many centuries. However, translators today have a completely new set of skills and tasks and meet completely new challenges than the translators of the early days.
Translation today needs not only proficiency in the languages themselves, but also in the new technologies designed to manage and facilitate the translation process. As human translation requires an understanding of the text before getting started, the translator needs to have knowledge of words as used both in their semantic and syntactic levels as well as the pragmatic one given the fact that words acquire a different load of meaning according to the context in which they are used.
While the translator goes through these cognitive processes, the machine simply operates mechanically by breaking down translatable elements using the same structure in the target language, even though languages do not generally have the same structures. However, human translators may require a higher budget and a little more time than machine translation.
Choosing the Right Translation Method
Our team of professional translators and linguists in Alsun Translation services in Dubai is ideally positioned to collaborate with their clients in Dubai as well as the rest of the UAE. And demonstrate that they can provide solutions with both human and machine translation services, helping our clients decide which method best fits their translating needs.
