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Translation Software Buying Guide

Learn More About Translation Software

Translation is becoming a necessity for many companies as the world moves toward more a global economy. With the international reach of the world wide web many companies are suddenly trying to figure out how to reach customers that do not speak the same language.

In the past the only solution was hiring a professional translator and sometimes waiting days for a translation. Although this method of translation can be very accurate, it is also very expensive. The average cost for hiring a human translator to translate an email ranges from $50.00 to $90.00. Also think about the time factor, having customers wait days for a reply is not an option in today's marketplace. Think how you would feel if you emailed a company and they did not respond for days. Let's look at another factor, what if the email you just spent money on to translate turned out to be a business prospect that you were not interested in working with?

Translation Software is One Solution

Now let's take a look at translation software as a solution. Language translation software uses complex algorithms, a set of computer instructions to analyze, parse text and perform translation. Every language in the world has its own distinct grammar rules. Good language translation software should be able to look at the grammar and sentence structure to determine the proper translation. Grammar is part of the general study of language called linguistics. Under the heading of grammar there is a subset of items that are also very important, for example phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.

How good is Translation Software?

Each year translation software just keeps getting better and more accurate as the power of the personal computer increases. In the past three years there has been a dramatic increase in the accuracy that translation software can deliver. Language translation software can be an extremely useful tool to reduce translation costs and improve productivity. Just the fact you can take a document and translate it in seconds to give you the gist of what is being said is nothing less than a technological miracle. There are also a number of factors that affect the accuracy of the post translation results. Since translation software uses complex linguistic rules to translate text this also means the text you are translating must have good sentence structure, proper spelling and good punctuation.

Translation software can almost instantly translate an email or document and deliver the results but there are limitations since it is software. Let's take a look at the sample below to see how translation software handles the text.

See Spanish Translation Sample

See French Translation Sample

Accuracy of the translation can vary by language. You can improve the accuracy by training the software using the additional features and tools in the software.

Systran's Dictionary Builder and Translation Memory Improves the Accuracy

The most accurate translation software will first produce a rough draft of the translation. To achieve higher accuracy the software can be trained to understand additional terminology and phrases.

Example: The word "mouse" is a rodent, but in computer terms the word ‘mouse’ relates to a computer device. You can turn on the Computer Dictionary in the Professional Premium version of the software (which already contains the word mouse as a computer term), or you can add the word mouse to a customer terminology dictionary you can create with the software

Good translation software gives you additional tools and filters that allow you to train and control the software. Higher accuracy can be achieved by adding your own specific terms to custom dictionaries. Phrases and complete sentences can be added to translation memory which can reduce repetitive editing and typing, and increase the accuracy to the level of publishable results. The ability to customize the software to be more accurate makes it even more invaluable to many companies worldwide.

Systran Translation Tools: (Note: Some tools only available in Professional Versions)

Will Translation Software Replace a Human Translator?

Many professional translators are afraid that translation software will replace them. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Actually translation software is being used by more and more human translators to increase their productivity. Translation software has proven to be a useful tool and timesaving device, but you still need need human intervention in order to maintain the quality of translation needed in businesses today.

Even though you can use the best translation software on the market, it still cannot completely replace a professional translator, language is too complex. You need a human translator to tweak the results and proof critical documents. The amount of translation needed is overwhelming and beyond the capability of human translators. The need for translation in general has grown immensely in the last few years. Automating the translation process with software is not only cost effective but a necessity for many companies. There are also times that translation software will not meet your needs and you need a professional translator. You almost have to test translation software to see how it handles your type of documents.

Translation Software Provides Consistent Results

Many companies have found that when working with human translators alone on larger projects you will find the style of translation is different. For example if you are doing a training manual on software one translator may say "serial number" and another one say "activation code". Translation software can provide consistency in documents.

WARNING: Translation Software Testing

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is trying to test translation software incorrectly. If you are testing translation software be sure you do it correctly.

1. Test translate complete sentences with proper punctuation and grammar.

2. If you do test single words, remember in many languages there are words that are spelled the same yet are very different. Example: ship This can be a ship on the ocean or a verb, you ship a package. If you are putting ship in a sentence and you say, "the ship", the software will know it is a noun and translate it accordingly.

2. You Can Not get an accurate test by translating to one language, and then translating those results back to the original language to test the accuracy. Why? Well think about it, software is smart yet not 100% accurate and it is looking for proper grammar, if you translate text and one word is changed, then you translate the same sentence back again you have just compounded the errors. This is not a good test. To get a better idea, I suggest going over to www.yahoo.com or www.cnn.com and find the international area for samples of foreign language text you can copy and paste the url into our online test translation box. This will give you well written text in that language to test translate. Or contact us to run a full test on one of your documents.

Free Online Translation

Translation Software by Systran that is Powerful and Reliable

Using the same cutting-edge translation technology that has made SYSTRAN solutions the choice of leading search engines, multinational corporations, and governments, SYSTRAN represents the ultimate desktop translation software available on the market today. It extends the competency of language technologies combined into one potent product, capable of deep customization.

Take a moment to look at the products Systran has to offer for translation. If you are doing translation for business you will need to compare two main products that have many of the tools discussed in this overview.

SYSTRAN 6.0 (See all Translation Software Products)

Languages: English - Spanish - French - Japanese - German - Portuguese -
Italian - Korean - Chinese - Dutch - Arabic - Dutch - Swedish - Russian