Effective machine translation solutions
If you need very large amounts of text translated quickly and without high costs,
our machine translation services might be suited to your requirements.
Machine translation at Diction: your benefits
What texts is machine translation suitable for?
You have specific expectations when it comes to the quality of your texts. Occasionally, you may have a text that needs to be translated quickly and cost-effectively, and that doesn’t need to be of the same high quality as a text translated by a professional translator. In such cases, a machine translation might be the right solution for you. Neural machine translation systems are now capable of delivering acceptable results for certain types of text.
Machines have favourite texts
Just like our human translators, machines also have their preferences when it comes to what they work on. For machine translations, high input quality is essential for high output quality.
Simple syntax
The longer and more complex a sentence is, the more likely it is that the machine will make mistakes.
Variety
Product lists, for example, are problematic, as a machine needs context to analyse in order to translate accurately.
Clear, objective prose
Machines usually don’t recognise creative metaphors, cryptic slogans and hidden meanings. They prefer simple, straightforward texts.
Which machine translation services do I need?
You can choose from a number of different service packages that we tailor to suit your needs for machine translation. If you aren’t sure what you need, just give us a call and we’ll be happy to help.
Man or machine? Or both?
Does a human translator need to work on your text? Is a hybrid solution with post-editing the best option? Do you just need pure machine translation without post-editing? The graphic below shows how you can decide based on translation volume, quality requirements and text type.
Can you integrate CAT tools into machine translations?
Yes. We have hybrid solutions that integrate your translation memories and terminology databases to improve the machine translation output. The diagram below shows how this works.
Post-editing for machine translations
We recommend post-editing – having your translation checked for errors – for machine translations. Even highly sophisticated machine translation systems make mistakes. Click here to find out more about post-editing.
We are also certified in accordance with ISO 18587 for post-editing.
Blog articles about machine translation
Want to read more about technologies such as machine translation? Our Head of Translation Technology is happy to give you a look behind the scenes – check out our blog articles about our technologies (in German).
Do you have any questions about machine translation?
What’s the right system for you? Are your texts suitable for machine translation? Diction’s machine translation experts and our Head of Translation Technology, Bruno Ciola, will be happy to help at any time.
+41 81 750 53 33
languagetechnology@diction.ch
Real machine translation experts
Diction has some real machine translation experts on their team. They managed to do exactly what we wanted by creating a kind of hybrid system that combines the use of machine translation, translation memories and post-editing. This system allows us to request the right translation quality depending on what the text will be used for, which means we can tailor the price to our needs and reduce our overall costs. Our team all know exactly how to place orders and were impressed with the quality right from the start.
Roger Rölli
Team Leader Marketing Services,
AMAG Import Ltd
FAQ
Should my machine-translated text be proofread?
We recommend this service (post-editing) in most cases. The results that professional machine translation systems are capable of delivering today are surprisingly good, but not free of errors. That’s why you should have the target text checked by a professional. Our experts know exactly what the limitations of machine translation software are, and can improve your translation without spending too much time on it, saving you money. If you only require a translation of a very low standard (e.g. if you just want to understand the gist of a text), a machine translation without post-editing might be sufficient. Still not sure? Just give us a call and we’ll help you decide.
Is machine translation suitable for all texts?
Neural machine translation systems are now capable of delivering acceptable results for a lot of texts, but they are not suitable for all text types and requirements. If you need a marketing brochure with lots of clever puns to be translated, we definitely recommend a professional translator. The same applies for legal texts, as the choice of words is critical. Data protection is also important to consider. Diction has very high standards when it comes to data protection and information security, but you (and we) have no control over which server your data is stored on if you use an openly available machine translation service. Machine translation is a suitable option if you just need to understand the gist of a document, or if the content is not creative but rather purely informative or technical. We also recommend post-editing. The best option for machine translation is using a trainable machine that learns your terminology as it translates – and you also don’t need to have any concerns about data protection when you use Diction’s systems. Just give us a call, and we can discuss if machine translation is a viable option for you, and which type would be best suited to your requirements.