Inadequacy of machine translation

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine translation (MT) and use of Computer Assisted Translation tools (CAT tools)

Translation technologies have been developing constantly. There are some arguments that those technologies will replace humans, however we suggest otherwise. Translation technologies can be a friend to a human translator, but not a replacement.

Even though translation technologies are a game-changer in the industry, translators work with them and use them as long as they can help them. For instance, if CAT tools are considered, as they memorise words and concepts, they evolve with the language specialist’s work and provide terminological consistency in translations for repeat clients, or same type sectors. However, AI and MT are not the same way. Think about Google translate. It has increased its quality to great extent, but its translations cannot be trusted especially in some certain languages like Turkish. Google translate even has linguistic gender problems like attributing cleaning jobs to women and scientific jobs to men in Turkish. If you are not a capable human translator, how could you fix this awful mistake?

Translation technologies play by the rules and can provide consistency, solve your needs quickly but it is still too risky to depend on them. An experienced human translator will listen to you, understand what you need, detect details and provide work based on well-researched cultural and contextual insights. If you are not listened to and understood thoroughly, how can your text, image, or even whole brand be understood in the target culture?