Technical translation is essential for a product or service’s success in the worldwide market. Today, an increasing number of firms are going global, hoping to boost market size or improve customer experience by providing translated language versions of their products. In this post, AM Vietnam will discuss the most prevalent methods for handling technical translations on the market today.
Main challenges in the technical translation process.
Quality and accuracy are always the highest priorities in every translation assignment. However, technical translation imposes even tougher restrictions on these parameters because little errors might result in major consequences such as penalties, lawsuits, reputational damage, or even license denial. The patent prevented the company from continuing to operate in that market.
In other words, corporate compliance and accountability are inextricably tied to the quality of a company’s technical translations. Each technical translation specialty has its own set of requirements and specialized vocabulary, as well as a staff of highly qualified, experienced, and knowledgeable translators in the relevant subject.
For example, when translating intellectual property rights (IPR) such as patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, licensing, and unfair competition, the translator should employ a highly specific and stringent terminology. Translators must also have some interdisciplinary expertise in order to understand areas of technology, business, economics, and law.
How to translate technical documents
While technical translation necessitates the skill of technical writers and translators, translation technology, such as neural machine translation, translation memory, term bases, and proofreading, can help simplify procedures and assure automated quality assurance. The techniques available today have evolved throughout time to make complex technical translation jobs more efficient and cost-effective.
Today, three major ways can be utilized to translate technical documents, depending on the nature and requirements of the project:
#1. Use the translator’s translation
To manually translate documents, a professional translator with technical knowledge is required. The benefit of this strategy is that translation accuracy is guaranteed—as long as you use specialist translation providers.
Understanding context, as well as cultural and linguistic nuances, allows translators to resolve ambiguities, identify the most prevalent terminology in a given region, and ensure that the finished result is of high quality.
Human translation, on the other hand, is a labor-intensive and costly procedure. Furthermore, if a translator cannot be located, it may result in delays. Project management costs, which include ensuring that translators receive the relevant information and content on schedule, can be expensive.
#2. Use machine translation (MT)
Machine translation is a quick and cost-effective way to create automatic translations. Neural machine translation (NMT) is the most advanced and dependable type of machine translation available today. This type of machine translation uses a system to automatically translate text from one language to another without human intervention.
The main disadvantage of machine translation over translator translation is the loss of some human translation skills, such as interpreting context and cultural nuances. For example, the translator can adjust the translation to diverse linguistic nuances, tones, and styles while still expressing concepts creatively.
Technical translation is one of the circumstances when machine translation can be most effective because the text contains numerous well-defined terms and the papers are well-structured. Idioms, sayings, and nuanced nuances are uncommon in technical texts, and accuracy frequently takes precedence over language proficiency, thus machine translation can produce satisfactory results—if the correct technology is used.
#3. Machine translation proofreading (MTPE)
This method is becoming increasingly popular for offering commercial translation services, integrating the finest features of both translator and machine translation methods. A professional translator edits the draft translation created by the machine translation engine to assure its accuracy, clarity, and high quality.
MTPE is a popular alternative for corporations with big localization projects since it can save time and money, similar to machine translation, while maintaining quality standards. The larger the data set input into the MT tool, the better the chances of generating a correct translation. Machine learning allows translators to teach the tool to produce higher-quality translations while proofreading and editing MT drafts.
Manage the terminology and subject matter expertise
Terminology validation in technical translation is the primary instrument for producing accurate translations. This method entails routinely creating, managing, and deploying a shared terminology database (also known as a glossary or term base) before beginning any translation project for general use. A set of terms used in all translations.
Most vital is the coordinated effort of skilled translators, legal experts, and local market advisors. Ideally, the glossary should include technical terminology, text-type-specific idioms, acronyms, and abbreviations.
Effective management of specialist language and terminology, combined with a thorough understanding of the subject, can considerably reduce the likelihood of costly errors or oversights in technical translation projects. Implementing a glossary for everyone in your firm may require some effort, but once completed, translators will have a solid reference for industry-specific and common phrases. Frequently used.
This can enhance translation productivity, accuracy, and turnaround time while also ensuring uniformity across markets. Furthermore, thoroughly reading and checking all terms and conditions relating to products and services helps strengthen the consistency of your global marketing message, resulting in a brand that connects with clients worldwide.
Simplify technical translation with localization technology
As technology advances, organizations now have access to a variety of cloud-based tools and services that can assist them overcome the obstacles of technical translation. Localization technology refers to the employment of various translation tools, platforms, and software solutions for managing the translation and localization of digital products such as web or mobile applications, as well as content.
Prior to the introduction of translation technology, translators frequently employed manual techniques in conjunction with spreadsheets. This translation process frequently results in errors and mistranslations, which can have far-reaching effects for enterprises, including delays in time to market, worse output quality, increased expenses, and reputational harm.
Localization technology looks to be transforming technical translation and localization projects. A translation management system (TMS), for example, offers a comprehensive solution for manual task automation and workflow management, including machine translation and terminology management, memory translation and terminology bases, and automated quality assurance tools.
Businesses that use cutting-edge technologies can manage massive amounts of content, decrease errors, save time and money, and ensure consistent translation quality.
The following features are the reasons why organizations must have localization solutions in order to handle technical translation challenges:
- Automate and expedite tedious and time-consuming procedures in the traditional translation process, such as extracting material from technical publications and transferring them to translators, and importing documents. translated into the original source.
- Improve the quality and consistency of translations by offering a common terminological library for enterprises.
- Flag all errors or inconsistent usage that may be missed while conducting quality assurance checks that automatically detect spelling, grammar, or other potential issues.
- Reduce time to market by optimizing procedures and workflows, enabling for the production of higher quality content in less time.
- Increase efficiency and save expenses by implementing an effective translation process that reuses translated information.
- Save costs by combining AI and translators’ experience by utilizing cheek translation.