Machine Translations Services

Need a Quick Translation Solution? Try Machine Translation Services

If you have large volumes of content in need of translating—and you must find the fastest, most affordable way to get it done—JR Language’s machine translation (MT) services are a smart solution. They give you the best of both worlds: automatic translation technologies and human post-editing. Together, these approaches can provide the ideal balance of cost, speed, and quality.

What is Machine Translation?

With machine translation (MT), artificial intelligence software and tools are used to translate content from one language to another. It’s all done without human translators. Other names for MT are automated translation, automatic translation, AI translation, and computer translation.

The primary purpose of machine translation is to translate very large swathes of content in a very short span of time. With MT, the accuracy and fluency of the translated content are not the biggest priorities.

JR Language is pleased to be able to offer MT services as a convenient solution to reduce your cost and turnaround time for sizeable translations. Once your machine translation is complete, you can use our human post-editing services to make any final refinements to your text. This flexible process allows you to achieve the level of translation quality you’re looking for.

4 Major Benefits of Machine Translation Software

Machine translation services from JR Language provide several key advantages. With our MT solutions, you can:

Get your translations faster: If you have a deadline to meet, there’s no time to wait for a professional translator to work their magic. That’s where automatic translation shines! Our language translation technology can deliver translated texts much more quickly than a human translator. You’ll get a solid overall understanding of the original text. Then, if you feel your translation needs a bit more refining, our professional translators can step in with post-editing services. This combination can provide a perfectly polished and professional translation that meets your quality expectations.
Stay within your budget: While professional human translation services yield the best results, it’s not always in the budget. Machine translation is the next best thing, giving you a practical alternative for reaching multilingual audiences. MT works well if you are managing a large volume of ever-changing content. You can use this approach with most language pairs.
Beat your competition: Machine translation services give you the advantages of low cost and fast turnaround. Get to market before your competitors do
Try it without risk: Wondering if MT is right for your project? There’s no need to commit upfront. We’ll give you a sample of your machine-translated text so that you can evaluate it. Then you can decide, after analyzing the results, if a raw machine translation output is sufficient—or if a round of editing will get the translation just right.

Types of Machine Translation Technology

There are several different kinds of machine translation, each powered by a unique kind of technology.
These include:

Statistical Machine Translation (SMT)

With this type of automated translation, the software actually “learns” how to translate by analyzing texts that have already been translated by humans. Statistical machine translation systems are fine for very basic translations. However, since they don’t take language context into consideration, they often result in translations that are less than accurate.

Rule-Based Machine Translation (RBMT)

Using linguistic rules and built-in bilingual dictionaries, RBMT performs a grammatical analysis of the source text and the target language. This rules-based system often produces translated texts that are “mechanical-sounding.” Fortunately, a bit of human post-editing work is often all it takes to ensure better accuracy and fluency.

Hybrid Machine Translation (HMT)

HMT uses the best aspects of SMT and RBMT technology to produce accurate, natural-sounding translated texts. Human post-editing may still be required to smooth out and finalize HMT-translated documents.

Neural Machine Translation (NMT)

Introduced in 2016, NMT creates statistical models that are referenced during the translation process. It does so by using neural network models, very similar to how the human brain works. In essence, neural machine translation “trains” software on how to make translations better over time. This groundbreaking innovation has quickly become the most widely used form of machine translation technology today.

What is the Best Machine Translation?

When it comes to how we deliver machine translation services to our clients, JR Language prefers and uses state-of-the-art neural machine translation technology. Since the first days of Google Translate, machine translation has improved considerably. Today, we can create content-specific glossaries and use these to enhance the translation process. In our experience, NMT produces natural-sounding translations with much better accuracy and fluency than other MT methods. Let us help you determine the right machine translation solution for your project’s subject matter and language pair.

How Accurate is Automatic Translation?

In just the last few years, machine translation technology has made significant advances. Our automated translation services are the optimal solution if you need a general understanding of a content. Neural machine translation technology—the approach used by our translation company—really excels at capturing the gist of a document and producing good translations.

The quality of machine translation output must be evaluated in every project to decide if it can be used. This is because the quality might vary and depends on several elements within the project. For example, compound words and slangs do not translate well, and short sentences produce better results than complex sentence structures.

MT quality depends on several factors, such as:

A translation between common languages such as Spanish and English provides more data for the AI engine to work with, and therefore produces a better translation than translating Spanish into Russian. A document with technical terminology or plays on words will produce a lower-quality translation.

Machine translations aren’t a direct substitute for professional human translators. However, they’re a practical alternative for a variety of project types and scenarios.

If you’re looking for something better than the raw machine translation output, the combination of MT technology with post-editing will be a good combo for your translation venture.

When to Use Machine Translation?

If you’re seeking great linguistic quality at a much lower cost than traditional translation services, MT is a good choice. For example, use this method when you’re testing the waters of a brand-new customer market—to see the traffic before you invest heavily in professional translation services. Machine translation is also a good fit for informal content and support content such as:

The legal e-discovery process is another area in which machine translation is often used. E-discovery is usually associated with massive amounts of digital content. With MT, you have the ability to quickly figure out which of your foreign-language documents should be handled by a professional translator—and which are candidates for machine translation.

Bidding on a project in a foreign language and need to get started on your proposal right away? Use our automated translation services to quickly translate the RFP document into English. If further polishing is needed later, we can always have it worked on by our professional post-editing team.

Here’s the bottom line: If you’re short on time or have a limited budget—or if you just need a general understanding of a document’s content for internal use— machine translation is a great next step.

Post-Editing for the Perfect Finish

If you’re 90% satisfied with your machine-translated text, but it needs a little fine-tuning, our human post-editing services can fill the gap. This editing is performed by our meticulous and very experienced professional human translators. They’re talented linguists and have deep knowledge in a variety of industries to meet the needs of our clients.

During post-editing, our translators conduct a thorough review of your machine translations to check for accuracy, fluency, and consistency. We will tweak and/or rewrite portions of the text to improve flow and clarity. MT and post-editing (PEMT) make a powerful duo that’s useful in a variety of situations.

Machine Translation with Post-Editing: Some Examples

Countless clients use our machine translation plus post-editing services, from law firms and publishing companies to business organizations. A common scenario is that the original raw machine translation doesn’t quite meet the clients’ needs. JR Language prepares customized glossaries and performs extensive post-editing work to create a spot-on translation.

Some examples of high-volume projects our translations agency has worked on using MT with post-editing include:

Machine Translation Frequently Asked Questions

What is the process of machine translation?

Through algorithms and statistical models, machine translation analyzes the structure and meaning of the source text, then generates a new version in the target language. Some machine translation systems also use neural networks and deep learning techniques to improve accuracy.

What are the benefits of machine translation services?

The primary benefit of machine translation is efficiency and speed. Machine translation translates large volumes of content quickly and at a relatively low price compared to human translation.

Are there any limitations of automatic translation?

Accuracy is the main limitation of machine translation. Machine translation systems are much less effective than human translators in understanding and working with cultural nuances, idiomatic expressions, and other complexities of languages in general.

How accurate are machine translation services?

The effectiveness of machine translation output can differ based on multiple factors, including domain and complexity of the content, language pair, and the type of machine translation software used. Machine translation can be useful in translating simple or repetitive content but is much less effective for more complex content that contains technical information, cultural context, and double meaning.

What can I do to guarantee the accuracy of automatic translation?

You can take a few steps to boost the accuracy of automatic machine translation, including carefully reviewing the translated content and making necessary edits or corrections. In some cases, and for some applications, MT can be used independently. However, to ensure the correctness and clarity of the translation, MT must be used in conjunction with human translation review or post-editing services to improve the quality and accuracy of its results.

Are machine translation services suitable for all types of content?

Automatic translation for legal, technical, or healthcare content is generally discouraged due to the increased risk of errors and inaccuracies in those sensitive domains. Legal, medical, and technical documents require a high level of accuracy and exactness in the conversion from one language to another that only human translation services possess.

Is machine translation customizable for specific domains and industries?

Customization with automatic translation is possible for different industries or domains, including legal, healthcare, and finance sectors. Customization is necessary to improve output accuracy by generating industry-appropriate content that its intended audience will easily understand. A way to aid machine translation is by adding term bases with terminology specific to the industry.

Try Machine Translation for Your Project

JR Language is more than a language services company; we’re a valued partner that can help you find the best solution for your specific language translation needs. Based on the requirements of your project, we can help you decide if standalone MT will meet your goals—or if you need post-editing by a human translator as well. It may be that professional human translation, translation by humans, is the only way to get the results you desire.

Contact us today to find out if our machine translation services are right for you. We look forward to hearing about your project.