While post-editing is an important part of the translator’s work, we can wonder if post-editing will remain a part of it in the future, or if it will totally replace the translator’s work and become the main task.
- Differences between light and full post-editing
Post-editing means correcting a machine translation output so that it becomes readable and understandable. But there are different levels of correction and post-editing, depending on the result.
On one hand, there is ‘light post-editing’, which is the simplest form of post-editing, the aim is to correct the machine translation output so that it is clear and the message conveyed is understandable, but it is not intended to be of high quality from an editorial point of view. Documents that receive a light post-editing are usually intended for internal use within a company.
On the other hand, there is the ‘full post-editing’ process. It aims to provide a high-quality translation and requires a lot of corrections and adaptations. In this case, the machine translation output is deeply reviewed and modified to ensure that there are no errors at all. Full post-editing doesn’t only mean correcting mistakes, but also means guaranteeing a stylistic and tonal coherence throughout the document. These documents are supposed to be of high quality and can be published and used wherever they are needed as they are supposed to contain no mistakes and be culturally adapted.
For those who have already experienced translating something through a machine translation, you might know that there are quality issues sometimes. Some sentences can be totally incomprehensible and require a complete reorganisation or more terminological research. At some point, it can no longer be considered as post-editing but as formulating a whole new translation.
- Post-editing requires quality machine translation
Over the last few years, machine translations have significantly improved. Sometimes an MT output can be used as it is, as the quality is not only sufficient but totally satisfying. Machine translation supplies good quality translation in record time, and depending on the purpose of the translation, an MT output can be totally sufficient. Even specialised texts can be translated by MT tools as terminology is often right. The highlights of MT are undeniable and allow people to save a huge amount of time.
Nevertheless, MT can sometimes be at a loss to translate texts, especially if there are idioms, puns, jokes or advertising hooks in it. In these cases, the need for a human translator is necessary, for example for localisation and transcreation projects: as MT tools do not have cultural references and can’t apprehend every play on words and jokes, it is normal that they can’t translate them in a foreign language. In the advertising and marketing sectors, MT can be used to translate information, but they are not able to provide translations of advertising hooks for example. At some point in the translation process, the help of a human translator is always needed.
- Translators resist… but need to adapt
No matter who you talk to, as a wannabe translator you will always be told that becoming a translator is over. With all the improvements made in machine translation, the quality MT tools provide keeps improving and might be considered as threatening. However, there are still more and more translators entering the job market every year. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job outlook between 2020 and 2030 should indeed increase by 24%. And according to the opinion of those who are directly concerned, which means the future translators, they do not feel threatened by MT. As a future translator myself, I would say that we are quite confident in the market. Yet we have to adapt and accept the changes that the improvement of MT tools implies in our professional lives.
Post editing is for sure an important part of a translator’s work nowadays, and this is a task it will be more and more difficult to avoid in the future for those who don’t like it. However, if translators are ready to adapt to the market and choose judicious fields of specialisation, they have nothing to worry about in the future.
Lucie Otto
M1 TSM 2021-2022
La Traduction de A à Z 