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TAIWAN Business.EU l services l production support
Artificial Intelligence:
Cutting Down Translation and Technical
Documentation Costs
More and more companies today are searching for ways to save on costs for translation
and localization of technical documentation
and marketing materials. Some are going
about it by hiring cheaper translators and
agencies but as we all know, a low price also
often means low quality. In the competitive
world, however, companies can hardly afford
to sell their products with poor quality documentation. It has a direct, and very perceptible,
impact on customer satisfaction, which of
course, also affects the saleability of these
products. The solution is to secure translation
and localization of documentation that is of
a high quality but is carried out efficiently to
decrease costs.
Software support for translators of technical documentation and other company
materials (e.g. catalogues, fliers and manuals) has already taken off in countries to the
west of our border. This software enables
computer-aided translation (CAT), with the
goal of making the work of a professional
translator more effective, while increasing
the final output quality through the use of a
translation memory, fuzzy logics and
terminology management. As opposed to
the standard 8 to 10 pages per day, with
this software, a translator is able to translate about 30 to 70% more, all the while
maintaining a high quality level of the
translation (even increasing the quality,
thanks to the advanced functionalities).
BMW for example, is one of the pioneers in
this respect, as it has been using CAT
software to localize its user and service
manuals into 27 languages for quarter of a
century already. Representatives from the
German headquarters report that the
company saves hundreds of thousands of
Euros each year and that the completion
time for the different language versions of
the manuals is reduced greatly. Let us look
at the basic CAT software principles, which
significantly improve the localization
process in terms of efficiency and quality.
special 2019
A Few Important Reminders to Start
CAT software does not replace the translator. It merely makes the translator's work
more effective, while improving the quality
of the work. It uses a translation memory,
thanks to which the software remembers
every translated sentence that the translator ever wrote. When this identical sentence appears again, it is automatically
pre-translated (with the option for the
translator to check it, of course). This
function saves, both, time and money,
especially in texts where certain passages
are repeated over and over again (this is
typical of technical documentation).
Another advantage of this functionality is
the consistency of the translation and
terminology throughout the entire
document, which is a very important factor
for the overall quality of the text.
If the software does not find a sentence
that is 100% identical, it is able to find a
sentence that is at least similar; this is
where fuzzy logics comes in. An example is
a long sentence, where one or two words
change, while the rest of the sentence
remains the same. In this case, the translator receives a so-called fuzzy match, where
he or she immediately sees the differences
in both sentences highlighted in colour.
The translator can then use the offered
translation and manually translate the
changed words. The result is, once again,
improved efficiency and better consistency
throughout the translation of the
documentation, i.e. improved overall
quality. The goal is repeated use of the
translator's work using a sophisticated
comparative mechanism, which results in a
30–70% reduction of time and costs in the
translation of technical documentation.
The function for maintaining consistent
terminology, which is especially important
in technical documentation, also improves
the overall translation quality.
We must also mention a new technology,
which has been developing over the past
few years at the speed of light. By now,
everyone has heard of Machine Translation
(MT), or has at least tried some of the
available free online translating tools.
These often produce comical translations
and cannot be used as a reliable source of
translation if exact formulations are important, which technical documentation,
contracts or marketing materials certainly
require. Translators do not need to fear for
their jobs but the manner in which they