Note: This blog post was originally written in Japanese for our Japanese website. We used our machine translation platforms to translate it and post-edit the content in English.
Machine translation can instantly translate content into a wide range of languages. Its accuracy is improving day by day, and we now live in an age when individuals can easily translate on their own. With inbound tourism to Japan on the rise, many people have probably used machine translation on a smartphone to give directions or assist customers at stations and in shops.
At our agency, we also use machine translation for translating news and online articles in specialized industries.
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of using machine translation to translate Japanese news articles into English.
The greatest advantage is, of course, immediacy. The latest news can be translated into the desired language right away. Because news articles are time-sensitive, they can also be costly. By using machine translation and then post-editing (hand editing machine-translated output), it is far more affordable and faster than asking a translator to translate from scratch.
One drawback is that machines still do not fully understand context and may mistranslate metaphors and indirect expressions. This is particularly problematic in articles on politics, economics, and international relations, where subtle nuances in wording are important and mistranslations can lead to misunderstandings. Proper nouns, in particular, show a tendency for people’s names and place names to be mistranslated.
Furthermore, specialized terms, industry jargon, and abbreviations are often scattered throughout the article, so accurate translations often cannot be produced.
However, despite these disadvantages, the output is accurate enough to grasp the content of an article.
To preserve as much of the machine translation output as possible, pre-editing the article can help with the generating of the machine translation. Pre-editing means editing the source text itself before running it through machine translation. Based on our long experience in translation, common errors caused by machine translation can be avoided within the source text.
For example, we rewrite numerals in kanji characters, such as “50-man” and “3-oku” as digits, and we also revise the source text so that wasei-eigo (Japanese-made English expressions) such as “hearing” (meaning “listening”) and “cost performance” (meaning “cost-effectiveness”) are phrased in ways that machine translation can handle more accurately.
After pre-editing the text to make it easier for machine translation to process, we run it through machine translation, and the final polishing is done by humans. We compare the source text with the machine translation output to check for mistranslations and for errors in numbers, terminology, and other details, and make corrections when necessary. This process is called post-editing.
In the end, we tailor the final quality to our clients’ needs, so please do not hesitate to tell us your ideal quality.
As we mentioned earlier, proper nouns such as people’s names and place names, as well as industry-specific terms, are particularly prone to mistranslation. However, because the terms that appear in news articles are known in advance, we can quickly apply the correct translations using a glossary. By registering these terms in the glossary beforehand, it is possible to save the time translators spend for researching official terms during the post-editing process.
In some cases, clients provide their own approved translations for proper nouns and industry-specific terms. We incorporate these into our glossary as we work. Let us know if there are terms with specific translations and we will make sure they are translated how you desire them to be.
Machine translation has become an indispensable part of the translation process. Rather than fearing it, it can be used to improve translation efficiency.
We continue to deepen our collaboration with machine translation every day and we believe this will help us provide our clients with the quality they're aiming for.
At Kawamura International, we provide translation services in a wide range of fields, including IT and localization, medical devices and pharmaceuticals, tourism and inbound travel in Japan, manufacturing, finance and business, legal, and SAP-related documents. We assign the most suitable translator based on each client’s industry and area of specialization. All our translators are experienced professionals who have passed our screening standards, so you can feel confident in the quality of our work.
Whether your priority is speed, cost, or quality, we tailor our machine translation and post-editing workflow to meet your specific needs. Every news translation project is different, speed requirements, subject matter, and quality expectations all vary. If you're looking for a faster, more cost-effective way to handle your news content translated into another language, feel free to reach out. We'd love to find the right approach for your needs.
Learn how combining machine translation with human translation and post-editing can optimize quality, cost, and delivery in translation projects.
Note: This blog post was originally written in Japanese for our Japanese website. We used our machine translation platform Translation Designer to...
Note: This blog post was originally written in Japanese for our Japanese website. We used our machine translation platform Translation Designer to...
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