The argument between machine translation tools and human translators has been going on for a while. The end product of both these processes is entirely different. The difference in approach brings a difference in results. Machine translation always had some bad reputation vague of its accuracy and contextual differences. For basic and simple communication, machine translation is great but the peculiarity of languages is a thing an AI tool can’t understand. For instance, in the case of Japanese and Chinese translations, there is mainly a difference of dialect. This is why help from a Japanese and Chinese translation company is needed.
But this doesn’t mean that machine translation is bad. It is just a way to look at it which is why we are going to provide both a positive and negative perspective in this read.
Talking About Machine Translation (MT)
Simply speaking, machine translation is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to convert text from one language to another. MT has revolutionized the way we communicate across different languages with multilingual people. It has automated translation processes and made them infinite times faster. The target text is translated with the help of computer algorithms. It involves the source text into different parts and analyzes their meaning. After analyzing the meaning, it reconstructs the text into the target language.
In the past MT wasn’t a huge success but now with the inculcation of new processes such as Neural Machine Translation (NMT), the use of MT has increased. NMT uses cutting-edge technology to improve the accuracy of the text so that it can match the work of human translators. NMT involves a more nuanced understanding of meaning and context which previously MT used to lack. This addition of better understanding occurs when AI tools efficiently translate complex word patterns.
Peculiarity of Language Translations
Languages itself are a peculiar phenomenon. They have different dialects and they sound even more different when people speak them adding their own accents in it. For instance, if you say that you can speak only Chinese, still there will be some dialects of the language you know which will make a second Chinese speaker difficult to understand you. When such a peculiarity and uniqueness is present in only one language, imagine the level of difference between a hundred other languages and their thousand dialects. This is why translation is not an easy task to perform. It is extremely important to keep the contextual meaning in the translated text so that foreign language audiences can understand it easily, and for that, you need help from a professional Chinese and Japanese translation company.
Japanese Translation
There are almost 13 dialects of the Japanese language. Other than that, Japanese has been present since the 4th century BC. Being present on the face of the earth for this long, Japanese has become a strong language. It has endured the threat of being dead many times and now it stands stronger. These dialects make it a different language to translate. This is why hiring translators from a Japanese translation company is the most accurate method.
The three writing systems in the Japanese language make it a difficult language to translate. These writing systems include:
- Kanji (Chinese characters)
- Hiragana (a syllabary for native Japanese words)
- Katakana (used for foreign loanwords)
Mastery of these three systems is important so that the meaning and context is retained. The difference in grammar is a complex concept that only a Japanese native speaker can understand. Subject-object-verb structure is followed in Japanese. There are many idiomatic and cultural references in the Japanese language which don’t have any exact translations in any other language. So a human translator is the best fit for Japanese translation if you want the essence of the source text in the translated text.
Chinese Translation
Chinese is one of the oldest languages and has somewhat around eight to ten dialects. Mainly there are 8 but some critics say there are ten. In these dialects, there is a further division of sub-dialects whose number is uncountable. The Chinese language is basically a logographic language where every character has a meaning. It means you can’t skip any characters, otherwise the meaning of the sentence will change entirely. There is a lack of inflectional morphology in the Chinese language which means that you can’t understand if the speaker is talking in the past, present, or future. A Chinese translation company is all you need to get accurate Chinese translations.
Human Intervention in Japanese and Chinese Translation
The need for human translators is a phenomenon we can’t possibly deny. Even though MT has advanced significantly, it’s important to recognize its limitations. MT frequently has trouble understanding subtleties, context-specific meanings, and cultural allusions. This results in translations that are amusing, absurd, or even offensive. Concerns around data security and privacy are also raised by MT’s dependence on large databases. Finding a balance between automation and human interaction is crucial which is why there is Machine Translation Post Editing (MTPE). The machine-translated text is edited by native translators to avoid errors and monotonous tones. It means that you can trust machine translation tools and later get experts to edit them.
Final Words!
To sum up, yes there is no doubt that what human translators do, AI tools can never do. These tools are just for human help and we can rely on them completely. Businesses who trust MT, suffer from the consequence of sounding monotonous, dry, and out of context. Chinese and Japanese, both languages are complex and have many dialects and sub-dialects. So human translators are the right persons for the translation job.
Asher 
UmarAwan