
Translation Learning Center Back to Center Entrance
Spanish Portuguese Japanese	French Swedish Chinese	German Russian Korean	Italian Dutch Arabic

How to Guide: Will Translation Software Work for you?

There are two main ways to use foreign language translating software. First, a gisting level to produce a rough draft. With some users this is all they need. But if you are working with a document that needs 100% translation accuracy, you will use the software to produce a rough draft and then use the additional tools to increase the accuracy and then do a final edit of the document.

Not all translating software is created equal and the accuracy in a package can vary for each language. For example if you buy a multiple languages you will find some are more accurate that others. This is true with any company's product on the market today.

Gisting Level of Translations:

If you do not know the other language you can use the software to get the gist or the idea of the document's meaning. You can translate documents, emails, do research, communicate with employees and more. If you are using the software without knowing the other language, below are a few tips.

Tips For using the software if you one know one language:

Software will not completely replace the human translator, you will still need to proof your translations but there are times when you will completely rely on the software. If you have no one to proof your documents then you should do the following.

Use the customization tools in your Software to you to build additional dictionaries. These dictionaries can be filled with abbreviations or terminology that is specific to your company.
Increase the accuracy of your translations by using proper grammar, punctuation and sentence structure. Read our section on translation tips for more information.
Let the other person know you are using automatic translation software to translate the document. Inform the person receiving the document know that you are using software, they will understand if a word is out of context.
Send the Original Document - If you do not have someone that can proof your document before sending, be sure to send the original English document along with the Spanish translation or vise versa. If there is any question the original document can be used as a reference.

Publishable Level Translations:

You can achieve higher accuracy and publishable results for business correspondence, training manuals, professional documents, books, and more. Speed up translation jobs for translators or anyone that is bilingual in both languages.

If you have the ability to read both languages you can use even more tools in the software to make translations easier and faster.

Tips For using the software if you one know both languages:

Customization tools in your software to you to build additional dictionaries. These dictionaries can be filled with abbreviations or terminology that is specific to your company.
Proofing tools - Review sentences for ambiguous words can help you to increase the accuracy of your translations by controlling the original source document.
Translation Memory - Professional level customizations are possible with this tool. If software does not translate a sentence to your specifications, you can edit the sentence and then store the sentence in the translation memory. You are training the software to learn entire sentences based on your type of document.
After you have used all of the additional tools, checked spelling and grammar, you will want to do a complete translation to produce your final rough draft and then you are ready for a human to edit and proof the document.

Automatically translating documents with software can reduce your overall translation costs but there are times you will still need a human that can help you to proof your documents.

When Not to Use Translation Software

Although the technology is improving software cannot completely replace the human when it comes to understanding a document. There are times when you will need a translator for your project. Also, it is important to remember that human translators are not considered to be 100% accurate. If it is a critical document make sure you have a good translator.

Critical Documents you cannot have proof read - If you have a critical document that needs 100% accuracy, you can use software to get the gist of the meaning but you cannot rely on it completely. With critical documents you need a human translator to help you.
Marketing Slogans - Although you can train the software to learn your marketing slogan, even human translators have trouble with interpreting the correct meaning.
Original Documents with poor grammar - Human translators will agree that if they receive documents that are hard to understand in the native language, they will have problems translating the files. The same is true with translation software, if a document is not well written software will not return good results.
Translating the Bible - The Bible is a critical document and written in an older style of language. The Bible is available in many languages and one of these should be used instead of trying to recreate a new translation.
Translating Songs, Poems or Rhymes - Software was not designed to convert this style of writing.

::>See a Complete List of Translation Software that is available.