Transhorsa

Abstract: The present article discusses the definition of Machine Assisted Human Translation by making contrast with the technical terms: Computer- Assisted Translation and Machine-Assisted Translation. It puts forward that MAHT is concerned with computer tools which assist the human translators in the course of a translation process.

Nowadays, globalization has turned the earth into a village; as a result, translation has become a booming industry for frequent and massive information exchanges among the people from different countries. In translation industry, Machine-Assisted Human Translation, MAHT for short, is playing a more and more important role at present.

Before we introduce MAHT, it is needed for us to make clear another two terminologies. Specialists and translation practitioners are interested in mechanical aids for translation or translation automation is most frequently confronted with the somewhat misleading term “Computer Assisted (or Aided) Translation” and sometimes “Machine Assisted (or Aided) Translation”.

Over the years, there has been much confusion concerning the definition of the terms. In view of the scientific and popular interest in Machine Assisted Translation and Computer-Assisted Translation, the latter has become an umbrella term and is therefore no longer synonymous with MAHT. Considering Computer Assisted Translation as a generic term, Machine Translation and MAHT can be divided into two major subgroups. Today, Machine Translation is generally understood to be the process in which a “machine” (specifically a computer program is the pivotal component in the translation process while humans are in charge of developing the software (which includes, for instance, grammatical and lexical rules), updating the programs, pre- and post-editing texts, and sometimes interactively communicating with the machine to solve the translation problems in the text which is being translated. At the other end of the Computer-Assisted Translation spectrum we find MAHT tools, also known as “translation workbenches”, where humans are pivotal to the process. In the latter type, human translators prepare the target-language texts and the “machines”(computer programs) assist translators by offering terminological support(terms are retrieved automatically or semi-automatically from an appropriate database) and by building and employing translation databases (Translation Memories) to suggest identical (100% matches) and similar segments (fuzzy matches, which are less than 100%) that have been used in previous translations and stored in the database.

As hinted, MAHT is a budding discipline which has not been precisely defined. First, MAHT is defined as a discipline that is concerned with computer tools which assist human translators in the course of a translation process. By mentioning translation process, we does not mean mental processes that take place during translation, but surface processes that start when a translation assignment is accepted, which end with the delivery of a finished product. Such translation process has two major constituents parts: one is a creative part requiring human evaluation leading to the production of a translation for which a human translator remains solely responsible; the other is a technical part which includes all such tasks as receiving and sending documents, typing and formatting, scanning documents for identical or similar segments to reduce the number of words and phrases that must be left for translation by human translators, desktop publishing and terminological consistency, and other features which can be handled by mechanical tools. But what we have pay attention to is that it is humans who are responsible for the end product and its quality, whereas the strength of a MAHT system is that it ensures the terminological, phraseological, and segmental consistency which is crucial to e.g. scientific and technical translation.

It is often of great significance that we make clear of the definition of something which we would like to apply to.

Author Information:

Heyi

Project Manager of

Transhorsa Translation Co., LTD., Shanghai

http://www.transhorsa.org

Native translator & Proofreading

Theory Study huge project translation, language translation service, multilingual DTP services

Let me suppose a little scenario for you: at a weekend, you and your family are waiting for the reserved dinner in an exotic restaurant. You wish a delicious well balanced family meal after a week’s hard working could be a good payoff, so you have informed the restaurant manager, a trustworthy looking man with courteous smile, to prepare it carefully and you have paid for the bill on Wednesday. However what happened in the hours coming annoyed you a lot for the delayed serving and watery flavor. It’s nothing but your fault judgment caused the waste of money and time. It may impair your enthusiasm on your following work.

Who is to blame in the case? It depends on how you look at things. Surely, we have thousands of words to decry the greedy manager who took the third rate material to muddle through the first rate price. The profit with the largest margin drives him to do the stupid thing! On the other hand, the head of the household really need to be interrogated: is it the right way to show you are generous?

It reminds me of some translation projects few of the world class companies bought recently (the news resource: Go Translators: www.gotranslators.com- blacklist). The blockbusters such as HONDA and HYUNDAI entrusted big translation projects of hundreds of thousand words to an Indian company named MORPHEUS TRAVEL & LANGUAGES Pvt. Lt with a reasonable price, as well as gave them ample time in order that they can get an ideal version. However, things went opposite direction. The reasonable price and the relative more flexible deadline were abused as an opportunity of their nasty cheat—— they never and will never allocate the translation tasks to the proper translators as they advertised, instead they sold the projects to another translation group to get a pile of commission. The best result under such a situation for the customer is the project stops being auctioned by now and the second hand company deploys the translation process immediately; I have met with such situation several times especially run into a few famous brands such as HP and Honda. The worst situation is their projects are always sold by brokers who will pay few for the assigned team work. What a pity! Is profit an over wrapped chocolate? We always have to strip it till the naked candy merges. It’s easy for anyone to imagine the translation quality the customer will obtain. That’s why big company is more likely to be the biggest victim of such ugly phenomenon.

An unwanted supper may cost you only few hundred dollars and few days upset but who can exactly tell me the unwanted translation costs what? The likewise situation urges us again: we are still bad at factoring in good and bad possibility in choosing dinner service as well as translation service. This isn’t whistleblowing we are talking about. It’s old-fashioned dealing for the same reason they deal, because they can obtain huge profits without even touching the translated text a minute, and the translator team couldn’t get even a penny for their effort on the huge projects of hundreds of thousands of words.

What is to be done with such fraudulence? Shall we forgo the next co-operation with them or to expose in the media or to be more prudent with next target?

I say yes. All of the above.  And immediately too.  

Industry News huge project translation, legal document translation, translation outsourcing