What are the benefits of a machine translation solution?
Machine translation is often used to understand more quickly or to publish content in foreign languages. But it can also be used in conjunction with translator tools, accelerating the review process. Save time, speed, cost-effectiveness… Let’s talk about the benefits of such a solution, depending on your business and the content to be processed.
Sharp translation depending on your business environment
The meaning of words depends on the context in a sentence, so professionals need a solution that uses machine learning and provides intelligent, not literal, translation of content. Especially when the vocabulary is technical, the specific terms and the semantic field specific to the activity.
Translation models
Start from scratch
Translation models (based on past translations and memorizing specific vocabulary) provide a suitable and enriched vocabulary in a specific professional field:
- finance,
- health,
- legal…
Having access to trained templates increases the efficiency and accuracy of translations provided by the translation solution. For example, SYSTRAN Translate PRO offers 14 business lines. The automatic translator thus covers different precise translations for various fields (agriculture, news, legal, etc.).
In total, the tool offers more than 300 models for optimal results in real time.
Building your translation memory
Translation memory, which exists within your company, is a perfect tool for potential model training.
It can also allow you to customize your template with, for example, features dedicated to adding sentences that have already been translated and replayed by human translators. The goal? Improve the quality of translations.
Business Terminology
A solution that manages your business terminology
Terminology in a few words According to the Ministry of Culture’s website, a term is defined as “the set of specific terms falling within the same field of activity that has developed its own vocabulary, such as in medicine or computer science.” In a professional context, it therefore refers to the entire vocabulary, whether specific or not, of an undertaking. |
Your terminology can include many specific terms:
- the acronyms used for the company’s internal bodies;
- words associated with a specific technology, particularly in the context of a production chain (sometimes with a single spelling for certain technical terms);
- specific lexicons, such as CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) or environmental criteria (ESG), for which it is useful to use their glossary;
- words in the internal vocabulary that convey the company’s culture (i.e. its values and beliefs).
Good to know: Having business terminology identified and specific to your company will allow you to ensure the consistency of your content and better localization during your translations. It will also facilitate the work of your employees in an international context.
How terminology management works
Depending on the solution chosen, you can customize your translations by adding your own technical terms, vocabulary, abbreviations, acronyms… Within the SYSTRAN Translate Pro solution, this feature is called the “user dictionary”.
Once implemented with your terminology, this feature will:
- identify specific terms from your text sources (reporting, actions, documentation…);
- organize these terms in a glossary including a definition and context of use (by linguists, the translation project manager, etc.);
- update this glossary from time to time to maintain the quality of the translation results obtained.
- integrate the glossary with the tool that automatically takes it into account (the user dictionary is therefore used every time, depending on the solutions and their settings).
The benefits of good terminology management
Managing your terminology properly helps you ensure consistent vocabulary across your organization and maintain consistent messaging with your internal and external targets. This is all the more important when the vocabulary is technical, to avoid human errors and strengthen the image of the company.
Good terminology management also improves the quality of your content: translation is more accurate and qualitative, which harmonizes the knowledge of your topics throughout the company. It also saves time: using terminology management in your translation solution reduces search and helps you understand faster.
Translating large volumes instantly
Centralized access to translation solutions
Whether in the cloud or in an enterprise’s IT, digital access (unlimited and non-disruptive) is essential for global groups with multiple subsidiaries. This creates as much access as desired and facilitates internal data transmission.
It also enables the pooling of language resources and uses, which can contribute to the learning of artificial intelligence through machine learning of a machine translation solution such as SYSTRAN Translate Pro. All this in a fully secure space, with technical infrastructure designed to address security issues related to GDPR and professional secrecy.
Snapshot of large volumes
A human translator translates an average of 2,000 words per day. In comparison, an instant translation solution has no daily limit.
Machine translation therefore allows large volumes of data to be processed in a short time: an ideal tool for website localization, web platform translation or client documentation translation.
Match formatting of standard documents Machine translation allows all types of formats to be translated, including in the context of highly regulated translations where documents must comply with the original format, as they follow strict presentation and ergonomic standards. An instant translation solution will simply translate the words and put them back in the same layout, in the same format. It is therefore a versatile tool that can handle different types of translation. |
A limited cost
Traditionally, a translator is priced at the word. For example, the average cost of a specialist translation is €50 (about 250 words per page).
The price of a machine translation is based on a monthly fee that is not counted by words. Subscription can be charged per page per user, ranging from €5 for 150 pages per month to €30 for 2,000 pages.
We also talk about prices per million characters, which is the billing for the use of an API, where the average price is about 0.000 002 € for a page (or about 9 € for a million characters).
What use for human translation?
Translators can use machine translation in different situations, including post-editing (i.e. proofreading a translated text). This automated solution allows for a first translation pass, simplifying the human work.
What is post-editing? As an essential step in the process of translating a document, post-editing involves reviewing translated text using an automatic translation engine. The translator only works on high-value tasks and focuses on his or her language expertise, leaving the easy-to-translate content in the machine’s “hands” and only verifying it. |
The benefits of machine translation for translators
The use of an instant translation engine by translators and linguists enables them to simplify and optimize their workload. They can even combine their translation software with a CAT tool or a TMS (such as Across, MemoQ, SDL Trados Studio, XTM…).
Good to know: the solutions offered by SYSTRAN can be easily plugged into your CAT software.
There is no doubt that machine translation has many advantages, regardless of the format of the document to be processed. The goal is to increase productivity, reduce translation time, and reduce deliverable costs. With trained translation engines tailored to your professional terminology, achieve quality translations and focus on your true added value.
Want to optimize your daily life and streamline your internal and external relationships? Here’s everything you need to know about professional translation.