Machine translation has been around for a while. The Google Translator is one of the best examples we have. Almost every one of us, with even little to no knowledge, has tried Google Translator at least once. Based on that trivial experience, ask yourself: Can you translate a full-fledged document containing sensitive information about your business? You won’t, right? Because you are familiar with the basic translation, it provides. Although it is free, it is still not worth it to translate your business documents, especially if you want to translate them from or to a tough language with an analytical structure, such as French.
Moreover, there are paid tools available claiming to provide accurate machine translation, but for real, they cannot touch the 100-maximum percentage without human touch. It means the need for human translation is endless.
To be precise, in this article, we’ll try to figure out the significance of human touch in French document translation services. However, we’ll primarily discover the difference between human and machine translation.
Human Vs. Machine Translation
Human translation is the conversion of text from one language to another. The process is done by professional translators who are experts in both the source and target languages. Not only that, the translators also know different dialects of a language. For example, if you want to translate your documents from English to Canadian French, you can easily get human English to French Canadian translation services for your documents.
Machine translation is the word-to-word translation of your documents from the source language to the target language. This translation medium is based on algorithms programmed to perform specific functions and generate translation results on the primarily adopted data sets. Well, you can also translate multiple language pairs through MT, but the results are not 100% accurate. However, machine translation is faster than human translation. For those who want to translate a large number of documents within a short time, machine translation is the solution.
But not every time. With your documents containing sensitive information, you cannot count on machine translation. If you need linguistically and culturally accurate translations, there is no better bet than human translation. Even if you get the best machine translation in town, there is still a need for human touch. Want to know why? Keep reading.
The Importance of Human Touch in French Document Translation Services
French is a language with an analytical structure that makes it unique yet difficult to translate as well. The language is so tricky with some of the letters. Each of them has different functionality depending on the position they have in a word or a sentence.
Machine translation isn’t capable of differentiating the purpose of the French letters in the documents. In simple words, machine translation is unable to deliver the right translation of double-meaning utterances. Moreover, the tonal difference is also a challenge for MT.
Human translators are language experts. They know the target language, such as French, from the inside out. Their familiarity with the tone, structure, and, most importantly, the right use of letters helps them provide 100% accuracy. Here are some reasons that define the importance of human involvement in French document translation services.
Localization
Localization is the process of translating a language into another with the right delivery of idiomatic expressions, sarcasm, irony, and humor. In machine translation, you often lose these things just because they are highly human-based and no one other than humans can deliver an accurate translation of them. Human translators are familiar with the language expressions. It eliminates the chances of misinterpretation.
Linguistic and Cultural Nuances
Every language has a different grammatical structure. Translating two languages with different structures usually causes mistranslation. For example, in an English-to-French translation, the French texts are 10% longer than English. Moreover, both languages have almost the same grammatical structure, but there is a difference in the handling of adjectives. In French, the placement of adjectives varies around the noun. Some adjectives are placed before nouns, while others are placed after. Whereas, in English, adjectives are strictly placed before nouns. Well, rules are rules.
Recreating Style and Tone
From font size to colons and semi-colons, French has a unique writing style. However, it varies along with the nature of the documents. As such, there is a difference between formal and informal writing. It is unlikely for machine translation to completely understand the difference between formal and informal writing styles. Even if you translate your documents from MT, you still need a proofreader and editors to identify the errors and fix them.
Cost-Effective
Well, machine translation is indeed a cost-effective method, but only at first. If you consider proofreading and editing after machine translation to ensure accuracy, it costs you more than the original cost of human translation. Here are the reasons why human translation proves to be a profitable investment:
- Minimized revisions
- Increased brand reputation
- Less chances of misinterpretation
Conclusion
Machine translation is indeed taking the world by storm; however, the need for human translation is perpetual. MT is a mechanism based on data sets, which means machine translation has its limitations. Whereas, human translation is the more efficient method, as the translators are experts with hands-on experience and industry-relevant knowledge. Now, the decision is up to you: which method would you prefer?
