Why Relying on Machine Translation For Documents Can Be Disastrous
You just got engaged to the love of your life. Both of you agreed to get married in a foreign country and settled for Mexico. You find a wedding planner to guide you on the requirements to have a successful wedding overseas.
She tells you your documents need to be in Spanish or else you can’t get married in Mexico.
The situation above describes one of many scenarios where we would need our documents translated into another language.
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of document translation, this post will tell you:
● What document translation is all about
● Why it’s important
● And the reason you absolutely shouldn’t rely on translation software to do it for you
What is Document Translation?
Simply put, it’s the process of converting your document from one language to another. It could be English to Spanish, French to Japanese or any other language pair.
You might not know the situations that would need you to have your documents translated so we’ll share some with you.
● Getting married in a foreign country: countries like Mexico and Bulgaria need you to translate your documents to their native language to legally marry in their registry
● Expanding your business across the globe: if you’re trying to reach out to the rest of the world about your products, your marketing campaigns have to be in each countries respective language
● Applying for housing, credit or even a driver’s license in a foreign country
Documents that can be translated into different languages include:
● Passports
● Certificates and licenses
● School or University degrees
● Legal documents
● Communications
● Tests, assessments and study material
● And much more
Why is Document Translation Important?
The process of translating your documents to different languages is important for three reasons:
● It breaks language barriers
● It connects you to a wider audience
● It might be legally required
If you own a business and you’re thinking of placing new branches in different parts of the world, chances are they won’t speak the same language as you. To tell locals how they can benefit from your products/services, you need to overcome the language barrier.
Overcoming that barrier allows you to connect with a wider audience. By making it possible for a new group of people who need your products/service to learn about them.
Why Using Translation Software is a big NO
To translate your documents some of you might think “there’s an app for that” or “the internet can handle it” but that’s a wrong approach to follow.
Yes, they certainly have their advantages. They’re a fast and easy way to translate pages on your website or a simple document. Most of them are free and can translate many file formats such as text and audio.
You can read about some of them here.
But their shortcomings surpass their benefits. Here are problems you’ll face with machine-translated documents
● Risk of false translations/mistranslations are high: any errors made when programming the software can’t be fixed until it’s discovered. Those errors put your documents at high risk of mistranslation.
● They don’t take context into account: unlike humans who can understand the general idea of a document, machines can only translate files word for word.
● Accuracy level is inconsistent across languages: this is a result of languages that have many variations. When translation to a language with no variation is compared with one that has as many as three, inconsistencies arise.
● Sometimes translation is impossible: when it comes to industry jargons, phrases or slangs machines are unable to translate them.
● The translations tend to be more literal. Translating idioms or sarcasm accurately is very difficult.
● They don’t take locales into consideration- eg. There is no option to distinguish between Canadian French and European French.
These problems result in a final document that sounds robotic and is not culturally aligned with its intended audience. The only way to use it efficiently is to use on simple documents or short sentences void of slangs, industry-specific terms, and any contextual meaning.
They also pose a major threat to the accuracy of your document. This is detrimental to your brand image because of the evident lack of cultural awareness.
For documents such as contracts, certificates, medical records and visa applications, where 100% accuracy is required, machine translation is just not an option.
Conclusion
Some agencies offer professional document translation services by human translators for all types of documents. It’s best to consult them and be certain of receiving high-quality results for all your translation projects.
If you want to save costs, you can always opt for Machine translation + human editing services, called MTPE.
Check out our range of human translation services here.
