Before I start, I would like to give a brief definition of Machine Translation as stated in the Webster´s Dictionary: “Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT, is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of computer software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another.”

One of the first Machine Translations took place back in 1954 in the so-called Georgetown-IBM experiment, where over sixty Russian sentences were fully-automatic translated into English. The experiment was a huge success of its time; however, the problem became very clear when the Russian term hydraulic ram was translated as “water goat“.

In 1959, IBM created a MT Software called Mark I; and by 1963, the Mark II had been already developed, which provided word-for-word Russian language translations at the rate of about 5,000 words per hour. By 1971, a MT Software had been developed on the IBM 360/67 computer that translated between 80,000 to 100,000 words from English to Vietnamese per hour!

Today, a vast amount of software programs exist on the market that provide Machine Translation. Some of them work on-line, such as the SYSTRAN system which used to power both GOOGLE translate and also AltaVista’s Babel Fish. GOOGLE had been using SYSTRAN for several years when, back in 2007,  switched to a statistical translation method. CANDIDE from IBM was the first statistical machine translation software.

Humans can translate somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 words a day, while an average MT software can translate up to 4,000 words a minute. In addition, a MT software can store translated documents and re-use phrases that have already been translated. However, there is no MT software with an output to be qualified as a “perfect” translation, and this is why we still depend on human translators.

Remember the Telephone Game? Most of you probably remember it from childhood. You would whisper a short sentence into someone’s ear and so on until it went full circle. When the message reached the last person it was totally different from the original and it had everyone laughing out loud. You’re probably thinking, “Yes, I remember that game. But what does it have to do with Machine Translation?” Machine Translation is playing a fast-growing role in the translation industry. Some companies admit that it’s only partially effective (some say 70%); I beg to differ. Let’s play the Telephone Game and see what happens after 10 consecutive translations of the same text.

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People with little to no experience with a foreign language often assume that the process of translating is just replacing word A (source language) with word B (target language). This is how the most primitive machine translations functioned, subsequently butchering even the simplest of sentences:

Original

I am studying Spanish before I travel to Mexico.

Translation:

Soy estudiando Español antes de Viajo hasta México.

So after thoroughly confusing anyone you’re attempting to communicate with, one begins to realize that there are a LOT of factors that can complicate a translation. Things like verb tenses, phrasal verbs, slang and regionalisms will all throw the simple “find and replace” method out of whack.

The worst part about these mistakes is that they can happen to even seasoned translators after too much work.  So just remember that it’s never as easy as it seems!

The idea of machine translation was introduced to the general public on the 7th of January, 1954. The project was a collaboration between the University of Georgetown and IBM, who provided a model 701 to serve as the “brain” for the translation. The machine was fed over 60 relatively simple sentences in Russian and provided a fairly accurate English translation. Keep in mind that this experiment took place at a  time  when computers were just being introduced to the world and were frequently called “robots” or “giant brains,” so the results were astounding and in some circles, frightening.

Here is an example of one of the more general translations:

Russian: “Mi pyeryedayem mislyi posryedstvom ryechyi”

English: “We transmit thoughts by means of speech”

So why did the scientists and linguists choose Russian into English? Perhaps this next example will make things a little clearer.

Russian:  “Dyinamyit pryigotovlyayetsya xyimyicheskyim protsyessom yiz
nyitroglyitsyeryina s pryimyesjyu yinyertnix soyedyinyenyiy”

English: “Dynamite is prepared by chemical process from nitroglycerine with admixture of inert
compounds”

Cold War, here we come.

Harry Shaw is credited with saying, “There is no such thing as good writing. There is only good rewriting.” Believe it or not, translation is no different. In a best case scenario, a project will be translated, edited and then proofread by three different qualified translators. Most reputable Spanish translation companies provide these services as part of their normal translating process. Now maybe you don’t have time to give your document the full treatment, or you feel like you’d be wasting money by getting anything but a bare bones translation. Things come up out of the blue of course, but remember where that difference in time and money spent is going to show up: in the quality of the translation.

It comes as a surprise to many, but having a good translator does not always result in a good translation. A million things can go wrong: a misspelled word here, a missing phrase there, etc. These are the little things that, if not spotted, can blemish an important article, make you and your company look careless and possibly ruin a business opportunity.

As the world becomes more and more globalized, the realities of translation are reaching the mainstream. Machine translation does not work. No single translator is perfect. A project needs to be reviewed, revised, and corrected before it goes out. So a final quote to stress the importance of editing and proofreading.

“Writing without revising is the literary equivalent of waltzing gaily out of the house in your underwear.”
——- Patricia Fuller