Artificial Intelligence is all around us and we all are being forced to use it whether we like it or not. I wrote about my experience translating artificial intelligence a year ago when I first started receiving documents for proof reading from a client. At a later date another client also sent along a website that was to automatically translate into the language of the user when they logged in. My job was to proof read the French portions to ensure they were correct. In both cases there were mistakes in the documents that had to be corrected and you certainly had to be proof read.
Can you use Artificial Intelligence without a human translator?
To answer the question I would have to say “NO” and let me tell you why. French is a very specific language, there is a word for everything where as in English words can have more than one meaning. While artificial intelligence does a good job in general terms, it can have a hard time with specific dialect. Parisian French and Quebec French are very different even though both are French dialects. The way artificial intelligence works is that it draws information from a variety of sources to come up with the best outcome for your request. That means it is drawing French words from France, Quebec, Creole French, and many other places. Looking at your document it will be in French but may be a mixed with different languages. If you send this out as is it will not look correct to the end user.
As for using a person to proof read your translation this will work but won’t necessarily save you any money. If the translator needs to make any changes they might have to restructure the whole document causing them to start from scratch. You will need someone to proof read the document and translators will charge for that time which will not save you much money on the translation as many charge the same price whether making charges or not. If your products go into different markets you want the translation to reflect the specific dialect of the language for the end user.
How do I use Artificial Intelligence for my work?
If you really enjoy using artificial intelligence use it on the English document for ideas. That is the way the tool is meant to be used. Using artificial intelligence to translate leaves too many variables and areas for it to create a wrong translation. If you really want to understand what I mean here got to Quebec and speak only Parisian French. You will instantly see the problem.
About the Author
Carmen Outridge is a Quebec born translation expert located in Ontario Canada. Outridge Translation offers translation services from English to French for the Quebec market. You can learn more about Outridge Translation Services at www.outridgetranslation.com
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