subject: Streamline Translation Process With A Good Language Translation Solution [print this page] In his book, Introducing Translation Theory: Theories and Applications, Jeremy Munday says that, "The process of translation between two different languages involves the translator changing an original written text (the source text or ST) in the original verbal language (the source language or SL) into a written text (the target text or TT) in a different verbal language (the target language or TL). Simply put, translation is the communication of the meaning from one language to other language.
Now, every language has its own unique expressions, colloquialism, ways of addressing people, and ways of using tenses. For instance, in the case of English, it has several unique aspects that make translation a bit difficult. The verb-adverb combination such as dig in, dig up, come along, come up is something peculiar to English when compared to other languages that use single specific verbs. Hence, language translation must be carried out with great precision and accuracy as one small slip can cause irreparable damage. This is because when translating content, the translators need to consider not only the language but also the culture. What might be acceptable to a source audience may not be acceptable to the target audience. Given below are a few examples of erroneous translations.
Honda named their new vehicle Honda Fitta but had to rename it Honda Jazz because in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish languages Fitta was an old word used in vulgar language to refer to a woman's genitals.
The company, Parker Pen had once used the slogan, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you". Unfortunately, in Mexico this phrase when translated means, It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant".
In such a scenario, when seeking language translation services, enterprises must make sure that the service provider does not depend on machine translation or human translation alone. Though machine translation helps to translate information faster, the problem that proves a constant hindrance is its inability to recognize colloquialisms and idioms of what they mean in context. Hence, what is required is a language translation process that combines machine translation and human expertise in a way that exploits the natural capacities of each. A document is fed through a machine translation program, and a professional translator then provides the final polish. This combination results in two benefits. Firstly, the translation process is streamlined like never before and secondly, the machine translation actually gets smarter and learns from the changes made by the human, resulting in better machine translations the next time through.
Such a language translation solution offers contextual translations of words and phrases rather than simpler sentence-based translation systems. This can lower the cost of localization by as much as 50% while doubling the speed of translation.
