Photo from Unsplash

Originally Posted On: https://jrlanguage.com/blog/human-translations-vs-machine-translations/

Human Translation Services

Why Human Translations Are The Superior Choice Over Machine Translations

Machine translation tools have advanced a lot in the past few years. However, they are still no replacement for the expertise and nuance of human translators. When you need translation services for healthcare, legal proceedings, higher education, or personal documents, you must know that your translation is 100% grammatically correct—not just mostly accurate.

Human translation services are often superior to machine translation. These provide accurate, clear, and culturally informed translations. Combining human and machine translation will optimize the translation process. This allows businesses to save time and costs while maintaining high-quality content.

How You Can Use Human Translation Services

Human translation services are the best option when you need to deliver a culturally sensitive message or be absolutely certain of the accuracy and reliability of your translated document.

• Expand Your Brand Across Borders. Translate your marketing materials to expand the reach of your existing messages in a culturally appropriate way while retaining a consistent brand voice with marketing translation services.
• Ensure Accuracy in Legal Documents. Complete accuracy and faithfulness to the original document are paramount in legal translations, as is knowledge of formatting and legal terms. Trust your legal translations to human translators with legal industry experience.
• Localizing Technical Manuals for a Global Audience. Complex technical translations should never be left to chance – especially with international safety and compliance standards. Human translation providers assure complete accuracy with your technical translation services.
• Build Personal Connections with Customers. Localizing your website content, product descriptions, social media, and users to speak directly to local audiences makes your message feel custom and personalized, the foundation for a good relationship.

Machine Translation vs Human Translation

Many automatic translation tools produce nearly grammatically accurate translations that sound off-clunky, stilted, awkward, or simply wrong. These systems cannot still analyze the context and tone of the text and include this reference in the translated version.

Machine translation services also cannot consider cultural references necessary for translations. Language shapes culture, and cultural expectations also shift as you move across language lines in your audience. Human translations consider these changes, so your message always resonates positively. Combining human and machine translation can create a balanced approach, saving time and costs while maintaining high-quality content.

When to Choose Human Translation

If you’re translating a document (or many documents) where accuracy, tone, or cultural relevance are critically important, you need a professional human translation. In critical communication scenarios, you must know you can rely on your translated documents to be accurate and appropriate. Working with professional human translators ensures that your documents are consistent and accurate.

When Quality Matters Over Meeting Deadlines

Free machine translation can be tempting because it is cost-efficient and fast—and it has its uses from time to time. Free translation tools like Google Translate are best left for short, straightforward messages that are not technical or need to meet legal or governmental standards. Since AI translation tools also have data privacy concerns, it’s best not to translate sensitive information into these tools.

When AI and Machine Translation Post-Editing Might Fit

Machine translation services can make the job of a professional human translator easier and more efficient. Translation Memory tools capture words, phrases, and terms specific to your documents, making future translation projects more efficient. Machine translation can translate short, straightforward messages with a high accuracy rate, but a translator must still proofread these translations to ensure accuracy.

The Role of Technology in Human Translation

Human translators are essential for high-quality translations. However, technology plays a crucial role in enhancing efficiency in the translation process. Integrating technology with human expertise will create a more streamlined workflow.

Enhancing Efficiency and Accuracy with Technology

Technology helps human translators in several ways. To make the translation process more efficient and accurate, a professional translation agency can use some of these tools:

• Translation Memory Tools: These tools help translators reuse previously translated content. This reduces the time and effort required to complete a project. By storing and recalling past translations, these tools ensure consistency and save valuable time.
• Terminology Management Tools: These enable translators to manage and maintain consistent terminology across different projects and languages. This is crucial for maintaining the quality and coherence of translations, especially in technical and specialized fields.
• Machine Translation Post-Editing: This involves using machine translation tools to generate a draft translation, which is then reviewed and edited by a human translator to ensure accuracy and quality. This process combines the speed of machine translation with the precision of human editing.
• Neural Machine Translation: This type of machine translation uses artificial intelligence to learn the patterns and structures of language and can be used to generate high-quality translations. While NMT tools are continually improving, they still require human oversight to ensure the highest level of accuracy.

Professional human translators can leverage these technologies. These will streamline their workflow, improve accuracy, and deliver high-quality translations. As the client, your requirements will also be met. Combine the human translators’ expertise with technology’s power. And your translation projects can be completed more efficiently, accurately, and cost-effectively.

The Unique Benefits of Working with Human Translators

Human translation services still set the gold standard for the translation industry. They provide an unmatched depth of understanding and personalization, essential for ensuring high-quality translations that speak directly to your global audience.

Preserve Cultural Nuances

Human translators understand the context—the context in the tone, message, and cultural context—essential for communicating well with a global audience. Professional translators know when a phrase needs to be changed to avoid offense and that the local customs must be respected. Cultural sensitivity is vital for success, whether expanding into a new market or leaning more into an existing one.

Achieve Precision in Specialized Fields

Accuracy is paramount for translations in specialized fields. Some examples include the industries of medicine, law, engineering, and manufacturing. With professional translation services, you’ll work with a specialized human translator specializing in translating your field with a deep understanding of industry standards, specific jargon, acronyms, and terms. This allows your complex technical content to be always accurate.

Maintain Brand Voice and Tone

A global brand voice needs to be consistent. Human translators can adapt the text to a specific voice or tone, so your content always feels authentic and engaging. Creative content, like marketing and branding, requires both personalization for your audience and consistency worldwide, and only human translators can do this.

Quality Control and Consistency

Machine translation tools spit out results in seconds. But with human translation, your translation project is carefully done, reviewed, and passed through an established quality control process that involves editing and proofreading and specialized linguists in your industry to catch any errors that slip through and ensure that your translations are always consistent.

Elevate Your Communication with a Human Translator at JR Language

As the world becomes more connected, translation services become more critical. Balancing efficiency and cost with accuracy is necessary for global businesses. Don’t let the pursuit of lower costs decrease the quality of your communications. JR Language provides clear, creative, and culturally accurate translations at an affordable price and on your timeline.

Whether you’re localizing a website, launching a global marketing campaign, or translating sensitive documents, JR Language is here to help with professional human translators who help you overcome language barriers and reach global success. Reach out to our team today for a free quote or with questions to get the process started.