Growing MNC’s presence in overseas markets does require paying high attention to communication skills, within departments, offices, divisions and branches. It is not a surprise to see the situation when large number of locals, sometimes low skilled personal been hired in order to perform a certain task within local market. As you may assume in the situation when the language skills are limited people prefer to use any kind of tools in order to meet a company requirements (writing language efficiency) and the most “easy” accessible/available dictionary is Online translators.
But this story is about something different and highlights some of the pitfalls of using online translating tools. This particular situation occured when a local motor-vehicle distributor prepared to participate in a trade exhibition and made an order for brochures. The original material for the brochure comes from Japan and the text is supposed to be translated into the local knowledge before printing.
The printing house had been supplied with materials and the translation software, but unfortunately among listed languages Japanese not has been found. Printing house decided to use Online translation tools and finally translated the text but result was not that been expected…
Online translation does not take into account the context
There are many instant translation tools on the web - but they are best used for individual words and short phrases, rather than for brochures, books or anything complex. Anyone who has ever read a translation produced by software or any online tool will have noticed a big difference between the unrivalled quality of a professionally produced translation and the relatively low quality produced by automatic translation. It's not hard to understand why a professional translator can offer results which are greatly superior to any automatic translation tool. Natural language is complex, so in many cases Online translation is impracticable and human creativity becomes indispensable.
Generally, words of any language are polysemantic, meaning they can be translated differently depending on subject area, grammar structure, or context. The dictionary structure allows viewing the variety of word meanings (1). A human being understands the context in which a word or phrase must operate, and is familiar with idioms and colloquialisms specific to the destination culture, thereby avoiding errors which can sometimes be extremely embarrassing.
(1) http://french.about.com/library/bl-onlinetranslators.htm
Generally, words of any language are polysemantic, meaning they can be translated differently depending on subject area, grammar structure, or context. The dictionary structure allows viewing the variety of word meanings (1). A human being understands the context in which a word or phrase must operate, and is familiar with idioms and colloquialisms specific to the destination culture, thereby avoiding errors which can sometimes be extremely embarrassing.
(1) http://french.about.com/library/bl-onlinetranslators.htm
Difficulties with machine translations
Generally machine translations use a method based on linguistic rules, which means that words will be translated in a linguistic way — the most suitable (orally speaking) words of the target language will replace the ones in the source language. However, the users can also make some efforts for reaching acceptable results because first of all the quality of machine translation directly depends on the quality of the delivered source text.
Translation theory suggests that it should be possible to move from the source language's surface level (words, grammatical structures) down to the semantic "deep meaning" and then transfer that deep meaning into the target language using the appropriate words and structures of that target language.
The translation program itself cannot always define which one of grammatically equivalent translation set in the dictionary is most appropriate for each case. It is only you who can help solve the problem!
Translation theory suggests that it should be possible to move from the source language's surface level (words, grammatical structures) down to the semantic "deep meaning" and then transfer that deep meaning into the target language using the appropriate words and structures of that target language.
The translation program itself cannot always define which one of grammatically equivalent translation set in the dictionary is most appropriate for each case. It is only you who can help solve the problem!
Best results are achieved from one natural language family
Translators of the high quality are only obtainable from first-class raw materials and constant and disciplined training. They can deal with:
• Translating from one natural language into another;
• Problems of ambiguity in the source text;
• Problems to select the most appropriate word or phrase in the target language;
• Problems of lexical and structural mismatches;
• Multiword’s Units: Idioms and collocations;
Of course the best results could be achieved only from one natural language family. A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. An accurately identified family is a phylogenetic unit; that is, all its members derive from a common ancestor. Many languages are known to belong to language families; for many others, however, family relationships are not known and only tentatively proposed (2).
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Languengl.gif
• Translating from one natural language into another;
• Problems of ambiguity in the source text;
• Problems to select the most appropriate word or phrase in the target language;
• Problems of lexical and structural mismatches;
• Multiword’s Units: Idioms and collocations;
Of course the best results could be achieved only from one natural language family. A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. An accurately identified family is a phylogenetic unit; that is, all its members derive from a common ancestor. Many languages are known to belong to language families; for many others, however, family relationships are not known and only tentatively proposed (2).
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Languengl.gif
Conclusion: when it comes to translations, a machine can not replace a human being
Unfortunately many people still believe in using automatic translation programs and insist that these programs are the solution to all translation needs. Some of the companies behind these programs publicly state that their software (which is often, by the way, very expensive) produces high quality translations which you can use to build multilingual versions of your documents or Web site, for public presentation.
Language is simply too complicated for machines to understand all of the vocabulary, grammar, context, and nuances in the source and target languages. The technology is improving, but the fact is that machine translation will never offer more than a general idea about the meaning of a text. When it comes to translation, a machine simply cannot replace a human being (3).
(3) http://www.online-translator.com/references_about.asp?lang=en
Language is simply too complicated for machines to understand all of the vocabulary, grammar, context, and nuances in the source and target languages. The technology is improving, but the fact is that machine translation will never offer more than a general idea about the meaning of a text. When it comes to translation, a machine simply cannot replace a human being (3).
(3) http://www.online-translator.com/references_about.asp?lang=en
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