Machine translation vs

Machine translation vs. translation memory

As part of an initiative to implement a multilingual web site, companies should closely evaluate machine-translation and translation-memory technologies. While these technologies will not eliminate the need for the translation and localization of web content, they are appropriate in some instances.

Following is a brief overview of the two technologies and an assessment of their usefulness in multilingual web-support systems.

Translation Memory (TM)

TM software is designed to enhance the human translation effort. The software stores matching source and target language segments that were translated by translator in a database for future reuse. As the translation effort progresses, the translation memory grows. Newly encountered segments are compared to the database content, and the resulting output (exact, fuzzy or no match) is reviewed and completed by the translator.

Machine Translation (MT)

MT software aims to replace the human translator. The algorithm analyzes the grammar and syntax of source segments according to previously defined rules. It then queries a dictionary to produce a translated segment without human intervention. MT output is generally not good enough to be published without extensive human post-editing.

The primary reasons for implementing either technology are speed, cost savings, and consistency:

Speed—Machine translation and, to a lesser extent, translation-memory technology can significantly reduce the time required to translate large volumes of text.
Cost savings—By reducing the need for human involvement, both technologies can reduce overall translation costs from 5 to 50%.
Consistency—Because the systems draw on pretranslated dictionaries and databases, respectively, both technologies allow for significant gains in translation consistency.

Depending on the languages, content volume, type of source text and publishing timeframes, either one or both of these technologies may improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of publishing multilingual support content.

Andres Heuberger is an editor at multilingualwebmaster.com. He frequently writes on issues related to technology, translation, and regulations. Rants and raves can be sent to aheuberger@multilingualwebmaster.com.