If you’re old enough to remember AltaVista in its heyday, you probably also remember their BabelFish translator. You’d type or paste some text into the BabelFish translator, select a translation language, and click. If you were familiar with the translated language, it was clear that the technology had not yet evolved into a truly usable replacement for human translation. AltaVista is gone now, but BabelFish lives on. It has changed hands in ownership numerous times and is currently part of the Yahoo Network. A visit to the translation site today will return a translation with the following caveat and accompanying sales pitch:
“Did you know machine translation is only 70% accurate? Get this translated by a certified human translator for only $1.20”
By comparison, Google’s translation service does not make any admission of fallibility, although their English to Spanish translation of: “Today is the first day or the rest of your life,” was slightly different.
BabelFish: Hoy es el primer día o el resto de su vida.
Google: Hoy es el primer día o en el resto de su vida.
70% Translation Accuracy
If AltaVista’s statistic is to be believed – machine translation is only 70% accurate – it’s difficult to think of a business situation where that level of accuracy would be acceptable. Imaging telling your boss that the sales report that you just handed him was, “only 70% accurate.”
It could be said that machine translation provides users with a gist of the translated content. Having some idea of what has been written in an unknown language is better than having no idea at all, but for reliable translations, human translators are still required – at least during the review stage of a translation process.
Translation Options Pros and Cons
Machine translations are fast. What is lost in accuracy is gained in speed. Because machine translation is fast, it’s also cost-effective. But are the time-and-cost savings enough to justify the risks involved with publishing a poorly translated document?
Machine translation algorithms have improved in recent years. This applies to the free translators that are found on the web, and also to the more advance machine translation tools and software that are used in professional situations.
In reality, a translation process that uses both the technology of machine translation and professional translators is often the best, and safest, option. The translation process involves selecting the documents that require translation, running them through a machine translation, and a review of the results by a professional translator before publishing.