What does human translation have to offer that AI cannot replace?

There is no doubt that machine translation has advanced rapidly, especially thanks to recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models. Despite this rapid breakthrough, human translation remains essential and offers many irreplaceable advantages over machine translation.

This blog explores the advantages of human translation and why it is still irreplaceable even in today’s world.

Linguistic quality

Human beings have a deeper understanding of language and its cultural context, which allows us to grasp and convey non-textual nuances, slang, idioms, and cultural references.

Conversely, machine translation is based on algorithms and does not have the ability to comprehend fully the subtle elements of language, which may lead to errors and inaccuracies in the final result.

Context and adaptation

Human translators understand the needs, intentions, and preferences of the target audience and can easily adapt the style, tone, and language level accordingly. This is especially important when translating marketing content, such as websites or advertisements, and other materials intended for specific audiences.

Automated tools often result in forced or inappropriate translations for the target audience.

Creativity

Translators are by nature creative thinkers, who enjoy reading, writing, and conversing in different languages. This social and communicative competences allow them to apply their personal or localized style to the text so that it may sound natural and coherent in the target language.

In the translation of literary content, such as poetry, novels and essays, the translator’s creativity and style are essential to capture the unique essence of the original author’s message.

Machine translation, conversely, lacks such creative capacity.

Ability to translate from non-digital sources

Translators as human beings can read and translate from non-digital texts such as an old original birth certificate or a diploma and perform the translation based on the non-digitized physical document.

This advantage is a task that machine translation would not be able to perform.

Confidentiality

Human translators are often bound to NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreements), laws and strict professional codes of ethics, which guarantees that the documents and confidential information the translator comes to know is all protected and will not be disclosed.

On the other hand, machine translation often involves the use of online services that cannot always guarantee the confidentiality of the data and information being translated. Additionally, as a fast-growing area with relatively new technologies, the use of artificial intelligence-based tools (and the data they collect) is not regulated by law with the rigorousness that handling critical information deserves.

Adaptability to technical or specialized terms

Professional translators can acquire and exhibit technical or specialized terms accurately, coherently, and consistently, thus ensuring reliable translation in fields such as medicine, engineering, law, etc.

Unlike an automated tool, translators can also learn from their own work to correct possible errors that may jeopardize the cohesion of the text. Automated tools lack the memory to use previous translations to contextualize the new texts they translate, which affects consistency in the meaning of acronyms, abbreviations, and specific terms.

If you are looking for high-quality translation services that capture the nuances and cultural context of a text, you will still need to rely on the services of a skilled professional. Human translation is not only a valuable investment in quality and accuracy, but it also helps ensure the confidentiality of your documents.

To summarize, in an increasingly globalized and multilingual world, translators’ skills continue to offer irreplaceable value for effective communication between languages and cultures.