| Pages in topic: [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10] > | What's your opinion on machine translation and quality? Thread poster: Daniela Zambrini
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Dear colleagues,
Next June 29th, Federico Gaspari will be presenting on the topic of machine translation, quality and post-editing at the ProZ.com international conference in Pisa, Italy.
Do you use machine translation? If so, how? If not, why not?
Looking forward to your co... See more Dear colleagues,
Next June 29th, Federico Gaspari will be presenting on the topic of machine translation, quality and post-editing at the ProZ.com international conference in Pisa, Italy.
Do you use machine translation? If so, how? If not, why not?
Looking forward to your comments,
Daniela ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:12
Member (2008)
Italian to English
I don't use machine translation because it's wrong 99% of the time, and correcting it is more work than just translating from scratch. Not to be taken seriously at my end of the translation market, although I imagine it might be serviceable for automatic, repetitive documents such as spreadsheets, standard wording in technical documents etc.
| | | | | I don't use it, and I am not planning to use it. | May 23, 2014 |
Why? It is totally inaccurate, which is not anybody's fault--it is just physically impossible for it to be accurate. It is hard enough for very experienced human translators to figure out what some authors meant, not to say a machine. I don't think it should be used for professional translation purposes.
I am sorry--I use it sometimes, but only for fun--to translate some newspaper articles, or food recipes from the languages I don't know at all--just to have a vague idea what the ar... See more Why? It is totally inaccurate, which is not anybody's fault--it is just physically impossible for it to be accurate. It is hard enough for very experienced human translators to figure out what some authors meant, not to say a machine. I don't think it should be used for professional translation purposes.
I am sorry--I use it sometimes, but only for fun--to translate some newspaper articles, or food recipes from the languages I don't know at all--just to have a vague idea what the articles are about. It might have some use in language learning, but you still have to be careful and use it with discretion.
[Edited at 2014-05-23 15:13 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Phil Hand 
China
Local time: 17:12
Chinese to English
| No value in my pair | May 23, 2014 |
I don't use it in my professional practice, and I don't see much benefit in using it for casual purposes in my pair. I occasionally stick French or German into Google Translate and can get the gist, but it doesn't really work for Chinese yet.
I'm quite optimistic about it, I think AI is going to burst on the scene relatively soon and change the world. But that "relatively soon" is still a few decades away.
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| Not me. I ma totally sceptical about it. | May 23, 2014 |
The way it is now, may be as good as it gets. Just like with robots--almost the same for the last 60 years.
| | | | Chié_JP
Japan
Local time: 18:12
Member (2013)
English to Japanese
+ ...
It is unrealistic that an MT system that works is affordable at all for any terrestrial existence - may take fortune and it is far more easy to educate and train human workforce for linguistic services than building up huge and complete set of system(remember, it takes a great number of brightest human engineers and linguistic staff, who have to be good at both, to create MT system- can any entity afford it?).
Even if it is not impossible to develop an MT system that "almost work",
... See more It is unrealistic that an MT system that works is affordable at all for any terrestrial existence - may take fortune and it is far more easy to educate and train human workforce for linguistic services than building up huge and complete set of system(remember, it takes a great number of brightest human engineers and linguistic staff, who have to be good at both, to create MT system- can any entity afford it?).
Even if it is not impossible to develop an MT system that "almost work",
you would rather get human service from point of view of cost they incur.
Trying to do just the revision of documentation with MT may seem like a good idea (come to think of it, this does not make much difference from CAT Tool), but the server will be deemed to get terribly heavy and I do not think it is plausible UNLESS YOU POSSESS PLENTY OF HUMAN RESOURCES anyway. Even if it should work for simple localization like "turn back, left, go to previous page"etc., and you can try placing 5 technical terms instead of looking each of them up total of five times in dictionary (this usage may be good for technical translators who always have to search new words)
complex phrases will never be translated right and human service will never be replaced for the next century to come.
[Edited at 2014-05-23 15:54 GMT]
[Edited at 2014-05-23 15:56 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | finnword1
United States
Local time: 04:12
English to Finnish
+ ...
| quite helpful | May 23, 2014 |
... if you connect MT to data mining in your translation tool, especially in "assembly" option (but yours might not have it).
| | | | felicij
Local time: 10:12
German to Slovenian
+ ...
| Don't use it and | May 23, 2014 |
never will. It can't even translate simple sentences or translates them using words that really don't fit into the context.
A friend of mine who doesn't speak German recently used it on a simple sentence:
Achtung, bitte Änderungen direkt mit der Notizfunktion in den Dokumenten
vornehmen. Bitte aber in nachvollziehbaren Sätzen Korrigieren und nicht nur
einzelne Begriffe
put that in GT and see what you get and tell me if you know, what they want![]() ... See more never will. It can't even translate simple sentences or translates them using words that really don't fit into the context.
A friend of mine who doesn't speak German recently used it on a simple sentence:
Achtung, bitte Änderungen direkt mit der Notizfunktion in den Dokumenten
vornehmen. Bitte aber in nachvollziehbaren Sätzen Korrigieren und nicht nur
einzelne Begriffe
put that in GT and see what you get and tell me if you know, what they want ▲ Collapse
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Irshad Muhammad
Pakistan
Local time: 14:12
Member (2007)
English to Urdu
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Most of the time it is funny | May 23, 2014 |
The main reason for the machine translation being not acceptable is that machine does not know the context. I personally think that machine translation would never be able to replace human translation mainly because of this factor.
Besides, the machine translation becomes odd when the source language is Left to write and the translation is done in Right to Left languages such as Urdu, Arabic, Persian etc. I guess, it might deliver better results when source and target languages are ... See more The main reason for the machine translation being not acceptable is that machine does not know the context. I personally think that machine translation would never be able to replace human translation mainly because of this factor.
Besides, the machine translation becomes odd when the source language is Left to write and the translation is done in Right to Left languages such as Urdu, Arabic, Persian etc. I guess, it might deliver better results when source and target languages are written in the same direction.
Anyway, many companies are investing a lot of money to make us jobless ▲ Collapse
| | | | John Fossey
Canada
Local time: 04:12
Member (2008)
French to English
+ ...
| Marginally useful | May 23, 2014 |
There are two uses for MT:
1) To get the gist of a document in a language that you don't know. I have obtained translation work from clients who translated a document using GT, found it interesting or useful to them, and then paid for a proper translation. Let's just say that the job may not have existed if the client had no clue what the document said. But it doesn't substitute for a real translation and no one should ever go into a contract or commitment on the basis of MT.
... See more There are two uses for MT:
1) To get the gist of a document in a language that you don't know. I have obtained translation work from clients who translated a document using GT, found it interesting or useful to them, and then paid for a proper translation. Let's just say that the job may not have existed if the client had no clue what the document said. But it doesn't substitute for a real translation and no one should ever go into a contract or commitment on the basis of MT.
2) I will sometimes have a MT window running off to one side as I work. It's marginally useful for suggesting turns of phrase in my target language that I might not think of, or that I might eventually think of but it's quicker for this purpose. If I get momentarily stuck and wonder what's the best way to put something, I might glance at the window and see a useful suggestion. But it can never be relied on for the meaning; it's just a sort of sophisticated dictionary which still requires understanding on the part of the user. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Andrea Diaz
Mexico
Local time: 03:12
English to Spanish
+ ...
| Dear God, no. | May 23, 2014 |
My view on MT is a big NOPE. Unless it were managed by a highly efficient AI, I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. I mostly deal with clinical trial translations, and I doubt that google translate has the proper terminology stored in its database.
However, the subject mertis debate and analysis. I would love to attend the conference, or at least read what the other professionals have to say in this regard.
| | | | | debate annd analysis | May 23, 2014 |
Thank you all for your interesting points of view. This seems to be a hot topic!
There don't seem to be any posts openly in favour of MT yet.
I look forward to further debate
D.
slighty o.t.:
@ Andrea Diaz: you are still in time to join us in Pisa!
Or, if you can't make it in person, follow the #PisaConf hashtag on Twitter! There will be more shared i... See more Thank you all for your interesting points of view. This seems to be a hot topic!
There don't seem to be any posts openly in favour of MT yet.
I look forward to further debate
D.
slighty o.t.:
@ Andrea Diaz: you are still in time to join us in Pisa!
Or, if you can't make it in person, follow the #PisaConf hashtag on Twitter! There will be more shared insight during the conference days. Live coverage will also be available on http://www.proz.com/conference/586?page=live_coverage ▲ Collapse
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| In favor of MT... to get a good laugh | May 23, 2014 |
Daniela Zambrini wrote:
There don't seem to be any posts openly in favour of MT yet.
The translations you get from MT are usually wrong, but sometimes can be really funny.
| | | | Dušan Ján Hlísta (X)
Slovakia
Local time: 10:12
English to Slovak
+ ...
No problem at all, simply because it saves time and work with your writing - you only need to correct grammatical errors and some special terms or sequence of words. As far as I know from my elder IT son it is very (Google cloud) fine technology and I believe that it belongs to the "bright" future (of course not to the world but only to the translation :=)). It is very suucessfully developing part of translation industry. Of course it depends on the language combination and the quality of your p... See more No problem at all, simply because it saves time and work with your writing - you only need to correct grammatical errors and some special terms or sequence of words. As far as I know from my elder IT son it is very (Google cloud) fine technology and I believe that it belongs to the "bright" future (of course not to the world but only to the translation :=)). It is very suucessfully developing part of translation industry. Of course it depends on the language combination and the quality of your private paper or PC vocabularies. But definitely yes! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Jeff Whittaker
United States
Local time: 04:12
Spanish to English
+ ...
| My thesis statement is that... | May 23, 2014 |
if you find MT useful, then
1) You are working on a back translation; or
2) You are unaware of how many important details you are missing.
The sad part about MT is that it often looks soooooo good on the surface. It's only when you start looking at the details that you find that things were translated wrong or sometimes not at all (and we are not talking about grammar mistakes either). By the time you read the source, read the MT target, fix all the mistakes, you ... See more if you find MT useful, then
1) You are working on a back translation; or
2) You are unaware of how many important details you are missing.
The sad part about MT is that it often looks soooooo good on the surface. It's only when you start looking at the details that you find that things were translated wrong or sometimes not at all (and we are not talking about grammar mistakes either). By the time you read the source, read the MT target, fix all the mistakes, you may as well just have typed it yourself.
[Edited at 2014-05-23 20:41 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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