Human vs. Machine Translation

Will the translation, which is still done by people today, be performed entirely by Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tools in the future? 

In order to proceed quickly in the translation process, the usage of a program is called machine translation. Through these softwares, the translator can get the job done faster and perform the delivery on time. It has been consistently voiced that people will somehow be pacified and people will be replaced by machines since the industrial revolution. A lorry load of novels have been written on this subject, films have been made and in these books and films humanity has been enslaved to machines. Of course, no one desires this to happen. With the time period passed, the human factor has come out of some points at production stage and has been replaced by machines. However, dysfunction of the human has never occured.

For the translation industry, machines or programs have been produced and occasionally the same questions have been asked for our profession too. Often bad scenarios are voiced; translators are said to come to a point where they cannot find jobs after a while and humans are said to be replaced by machines. Together with technology, the developments to date have brought various facilities in the translation sector. However, it is not possible that translatorship, as a profession, to disappear completely.

Let's explain the situation with an example. Google Translate, which was generated by Google, is the biggest artificial intelligence translation software. Today, it can do translations in many languages. Let's say you wanted to use this site to translate from Russian to English. You marked firstly the source language and  then the target language and entered your articles. If you are a little familiar with the two languages, it will not be difficult to see that it is not translated correctly or clearly.

In fact, the human factor is the main focus in the translation industry. Of course, we use software from time to time, but this doesn't mean that humans don't have to exist in this business. On the contrary, humans must exist. So, Why?

-Machines don't have feelings. Google Translate, that we exemplified above, does word to word translation. But the translation is communication. The first step of the inter-cultural communication is translation. Therefore, the integrity of emotion and intention of the person who writes the original subject in the source text, is transferred to the other language through the translator. Contrary to common belief, the translator does not do word to word translation. When translating words or sentences, the translator selects the most appropriate word in the target language. However, the machine can not perform this process correctly. It offers choices or completes the sentence by choosing the words that suit best.

-Machines do not have fields of expertise. Translators may have at least one or even several fields of expertise. But machines don't have any expertise in any specific fields. From this point of view, one may face the same problem. Let us consider two texts, and let one of them be a literary work and the other be a prose i.e. a plain text. Although the two texts share the same source language, thus having plenty of word similarities, an expert translator is easily able to detect the difference between the two words, since the meaning of both forms will be different. Finally, the expert translator will perform the translation accordingly. On the other hand, according to the machine, there is no difference between the two words and it will try to finish the translation with the sometimes incorrectly chosen words and phrases.

-The computer cannot know the cultures and its borders. While performing translation from the source language to the target language, the translator takes into consideration of cultural differences. However, in addition that machines do not have emotions and they are designed to be unaware of cultural features as well. Also, the concept what we call as culture is alive. It undergoes change continuously. Even if we load culture into programs, we may have to constantly update it. From this point of view, software is not able to provide us reliable translation, unfortunately.

Even if machines can not translate in full, they are used by the translation industry. We can never deny their help. If we consider the relationship between the software generated for the translation sector and the actual translator;

-          Thanks to their wide memory, the softwares helps the translator finding various meanings of the words.

-          Also, programs put an end to the search for the translator to complete the projects timely. If a translator is confronted with a project showing similarities with a prior project, the program warns and identifies word similarities. But, they do not intervene.

We, as İvogsan International Language Services Provider, follow the latest advancements in technology and continue to benefit from the latest software available in our field. CAT programs, which are used by our expert translators to provide fast, accurate and reliable translations, deliver highly secure and fast results. By this means, we have the chance to provide the best service to you, the translation agencies, and your customers.