Human Translation Vs. Machine Translation

Human Translation Vs. Machine Translation – Who Wins, and Why?

The debate of man versus machine has been raging on for years, and it doesn’t seem to go away anytime soon! From film productions such as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator to real-world scenarios, the concern due to Artificial Intelligence (AI) is growing. Will humans be expendable in the near future? Although the threat is in nearly all industries, the translation industry appears to attract increased attention due to its importance in culture. As technology continues to advance, do human translators stand a chance against machine translators? Who wins in the debate of machine translators versus human translators? Read on for an in-depth analysis of the pro and cons of each side of the debate, and a fact-based verdict on who wins.

The Battleground – Trends in the Translation Industry

The career outlook for translation and interpretation professionals is a dilemma. On the one hand, it’s one of the fastest-growing industries. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rapidly-growing profession is expected to increase by 46% between 2015 and 2022. Similarly, a research project by CarrerBuilder ranked Translation and Interpretation (T&I) as one of the most promising industries in regard to new jobs created. In particular, the study estimated that there would be nearly 13,000 new T&I jobs between 2014-2019.

Figure 1. The Growth of Machine Translation (Source: Statista)

On the other hand, tremendous technological advancements in machine translation threaten the career outlook of Translation and Interpretation professionals. According to an informative article appearing in The Economist, the quality of translation technology is constantly rising, putting the future of human translators into question. Do we embrace technology at the cost of human translation? Or is there a middle ground whereby supporters of both sides of the debate can find a truce?

Expert Tip: One of the most important things in any translation and interpretation task is the risk or consequences of potential mistakes. For example, translation mistakes in legal documents, medical equipment, political statements, or manuals can have life-threatening repercussions. 

Machine Translation

Since scientists and developers started developing machine translation in the 1950s, the technology has undergone decades of improvements. Today machine translation tools such as Yandex Translate, Bing Translator, and the wildly popular Google Translate offer state-of-the-art translation services at the click of a button. 

Figure 2. Comparison of the quality of translation (Source: Google AI Blog)

In 2016, Google announced the revolutionary Google Neural Machine Translation System, which is touted to be nearly as good as human translators (see figure 2 above). This was a testament to the tremendous growth of machine translation. But is it good enough to replace human translation? Below are the pros and cons of machine translation.

Disadvantages of Machine Translation:

• Machines cannot translate context, especially when words have dual meanings
• Machine translation does not relate words to culture-specific slangs, puns, idioms, and other lexical items 
• The accuracy of machine translation is inconsistent between languages
• Machines cannot recreate a style of tone from one language to another
• Translation mistakes can be costly
• Depending on the content and context, machine translation has lower levels of accuracy

Advantages of Machine Translation:

• Machine translation is constantly improving
• Machine translation is the cheaper option – tools such as Google translate are free
• Translation tools such as Skype Translator or Google Translate are readily available
• Machine translation is fast and instantaneous 
• Unlike human translation, machine translation allows users to use one tool for multiple languages

Human Translation

During the 2019 Croatian Language Community Conference, Professor Andy Way delivered an informative talk, in which he weighed in his opinion of the ‘machine versus human translation’ debate. In particular, he claimed that “despite technological advances, the challenge of overcoming the language barrier remains.  We will always need human expert translators to verify the output of machine translation engines.  We will not be replaced!” Below are some advantages and disadvantages of human translation that highlight the reasoning behind Professor Andy Way’s argument:

Advantages of Human Translation

• Human translation can capture the meaning and context of words
• Human translation offers the highest level of accuracy
• Professional translators can understand and interpret localized languages, including the creative use of words (slogans, metaphors, puns, etc.)
• If the literal translation of content is not available, human translators can determine the best alternatives to convey the meaning
• The ability to review work ensures the quality of the human translation process

Disadvantages of Human Translation

• The scope of human translators is limited. You’ll need different translators for different languages
• Professional translation is costly, whereas most machine translation tools are free or affordable
• Human translation has a longer turnaround time

The Unbiased Verdict

Based on the industry trends and arguments for both sides, the ‘machine versus human translation’ debate is unnecessary. There is a time and a place for both machine translation and human translation. As shown in the graph below, the solution lies in collaboration. The future of translation is about machines and humans working together to boost efficiency and accuracy. In an article published in The Korea Times, Shin Seok-Hwan, the Vice President of Saltlux Inc (a language service provider) asserted that "Though research shows machine translators can perform about 85 to 90 percent of human experts, they still make absurd mistakes. Today's event is more about how much humans can benefit from using these machines and boost work efficiency of professional translators."

Figure 3. Collaboration of humans and machines for improved performance (Source: HBR.org)

In a nutshell, machine translation should necessarily be seen as a threat to human translators. Both sides of the debate have their advantages and disadvantages. The important thing is to know when it’s better to use the services of machine translation rather than human translation, and vice versa? But for the best results, the key lies in collaboration between man and machine.

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Rodrigo Ortiz-Monasterio - the author - is a professional Spanish Translator and Spanish Copywriter with over 25 years of experience in the marketing, advertising, business and corporate communications fields.