In the digital age, post-editing is the need of time. The purpose of post-editing is to ensure that the translation is fulfilling the standards of good quality content. It is basically an improvement process for machine translation with minimal human input. The quality of the text obtained from machine translation varies from task to task depending on several issues like used language pair, quality of the source material and customer determination of high-quality content vs. low-quality content.
Significance of post-editing
Technical or scientific documents with limited vocabulary are two types of texts most appropriate for machine translation. When we say limited, we are referring to the number of meanings the word can bear. Currently, we are constantly confronted with the complexity of the scientific and technical fields, but we also understand that the more complexity of technical writing is important, the more the translation of certain words is important, the more likely it is that the translation machine will choose the right word. Post-editing is a specialized talent and skill and differs from editing a text translated by a human being. This service is suitable specifically for companies that have already translated documents or a huge translation memory in a given language, which facilitates the implementation of the automatic service. From the point of view of the final product, the post-editing task must be treated as a normal editing function. The editor must automatically take the machine translation and refine it in the same way as human translation. The fact that a translation using translation tools do not mean that the editor can reduce the quality of editing. In fact, in some cases, it is necessary to pay more attention, because the device does not have the ability to analyze.
When post-editing is used?
Texts that are suitable for the MT engines are technical or scientific documents with a limited vocabulary. Given the complexity of the scientific or technical field, remember that the more complex the technical complexity, the more accurate the translation of the word and the more likely it is that the machine will choose the correct word. The less precise texts of machine translation are literary works, poems, novels, etc. because they require important explanatory qualities and because the intention of the author is an essential element of literature. As a result, post-editing work will be so large and complex that we will need to recompile the entire document. In order to continue to adapt to the realities of the industry, we must remain open to the possibility that this trend will increase, especially in industrial translations.
It is the responsibility of the editor to automatically take, translate and refine the translated text in the same way as any human-written translation. The fact that the translation was done using translation tools does not mean that the editor must reduce the quality of the revision. In fact, in many cases, it may be important to pay more attention to the revision because the translation machine does not have the analytical capacity.
References:
https://www.translatemedia.com/translation-services/machine-translation-and-post-editing/
https://www.onehourtranslation.com/translation/blog/why-post-editing-important-translation
https://localizeblog.com/importance-post-editing-machine-translation/
