subject: 6 Reasons Not To Rely On Software For Business Translation [print this page] Limiting unnecessary costs is important in business translation. Although choosing to use automated software as your business translator may seem to reduce expenses, this path will cost you more over time, because of the negative outcomes described below.
1. Fatal Mistakes Often Result from Automated Business Translation.
Translation software makes silly errors that even a novice human speaker would never make. For instance, a Reuters article described how an automated prescription translation service instructed Spanish speaking patients to take a pill eleven times a day, when the original English instructions directed users to take it once a day. How could this happen? The word "once" means eleven in Spanish. It's not unusual for software to make such deadly translation mistakes.
A more serious example: Four prostate cancer sufferers died in Epinal, France after following poorly translated labels on their prostate medicine. Had the doctor's office used human business translation services instead of automated software, those four men would still be alive. Let's dive into the linguistics behind why it's best to choose a human business translator.
2. Dialects confuse software translators.
Social class and geographic location influence how people speak. This multiplies the amount of words and phrases involved in business translation. Let's say you're hoping to buy a very specific type of fasteners from manufacturers in India. Considering that Indians speak thirty languages and two thousand different dialects, choosing to use translation software is foolish. Whereas human translators appreciate the nuances of social class and location-based dialects, translation software falls short in this area. You could very well end up with the wrong nuts or bolts if you try to use automated business translation services.
3. Certain words are unique to their languages, which trips up translation software.
Some words are only found in one language. English, for instance, includes the quirky word gobbledygook - this concept is not packed into a single word in other tongue. To successfully translate such words requires a cultural appreciation that automated translator software lacks. A worthwhile business translator, however, is fully capable of substituting a longer phrase in such situations.
4. Sophisticated writing techniques are lost in software-produced translations.
Style, wordplay, and tone are important in writing. They convey the message "in-between the lines," which a native speaker will probably pick up on. Business translation software falls short because it can't translate wordplay, such as puns - and emotional tone is often lost when a phrase is run through an automated process.
5. Translation software stumbles on idioms.
Idioms are quirky phrases that don't make sense without cultural knowledge. For instance, while "Turn it loose" was a successful invitation for drinkers in America to enjoy Coors beer, the same phrase was disgusting to Spanish speakers, who use this exact phrase to describe diarrhea. This is only one of many shocking examples that show why human translators are preferable to translation software.
6. Word-for-word Translations Don't Always Make Sense.
The kind of word-for-word translation that translation software delivers is inevitably clunky, and even comical, for the simple reason that software can't appreciate the nuances of the human experience.
Business translation services are worth their fees because each professional business translator understands the relevant culture. For this reason, a business translator is much more likely to catch more subtle shifts in meaning - the kind of subtle implications that can demolish product sales and destroy delicate deals if not properly translated.
