An IT company serving the Government of Canada recently inquired about French translation.
Most of their questions regarding our experience, capabilities, qualified personnel, professional certifications, compatibility with their formats, use of technology, consistency, access and protection of their information were answered to their satisfaction.
Nonetheless, main concern of the prospective client was our use of technology in the translation process particularly if at least 80% of their documentation will be translated by human translators.
At the time of almost universal online presence of automatic translation engines and increased need for translation services this seems to be a major confusion.
The online concept, also referred to as machine translation produces translations based on an algorithm, probability and computation.
Since these systems use AI tools, they are not 100% accurate. Although they have definitely improved over time, they are by far not comparable to human translators. They can produce very good results to convey a message or even imitate the style and tone, if the purpose is to provide a general idea of the meaning.
The most powerful processors with the best algorithm, AI language models that attempt to mimic human text still have limitations and cannot replicate human translations and a trained experienced translator. The best system loaded with millions of segments of speech and various linguistic patterns is unable to perceive and express emotions, nuances, psychological and social reasoning.
Our prospect and, hopefully, our new client was rightfully concerned. Here is our response to all current and future consumers of translation services and organizations and individuals that will be shopping for French, English or other language translation.
With our procedures and technology in place we will:
- Input all existing and previously translated documents into translation memories (TMs). These TMs will be used to automate and streamline translation process, consolidate your content including management of your terminology.
- Our translation automation tools will warrant 100% consistency of terminology and style
- We will deliver 100% error free translations
- Maintain your terminology and text databases that will contain all your historical and current documents that will grow on an accumulative basis with every single entry
- Terminology will be consistent across all your documents and will be updated with every single entry
- Upon your feedback or request for changes and updates these will instantly unfold across all your documents and term bases
- Our systems are compatible with large number of commercially available office applications, DTP and typesetting software (e.g. InDesign), processors for editing large complex documents (e.g. Adobe FrameMaker), embedded context Java formats as well as variety of HTML and XML formats. Complete list of file formats will be provided upon request
In the end, your documents will be translated by a human translator or team of [human] translators, specialists in the field. Each translation will be revised by 2 human revisers.
