Reducing Post-Editing Load - Shortening Symbol Editing with Tools

Many of you may have already implemented automatic translation, but have you ever felt dissatisfied with its quality?

Recent advancements in machine translation technology have significantly improved the accuracy of translated texts compared to previous versions. In some cases, they are even rated as being equivalent to human translation.

The quality of automatic translation is said to be this accurate, but is it really possible that no corrections are needed for the translated text?

Table of Contents:

1. No corrections needed for high-precision automatic translation?

2. Editing Work on Symbols Affecting the Refinement of Translated Text

3. We will solve that with human science!

1. No corrections needed for high-precision automatic translation?

Let me give you an example.

Visit http://www.abc-sample.com for more information.

(Note: The URL is a sample. The page will not be displayed if accessed.)

When translating the English sentence,

For more details, please refer to http://www.abc-sample.com.

This is the result.

At first glance, the translation seems fine. However, upon closer inspection, the colon is in full-width format.

Normally, clicking the URL should display the linked page, but due to some symbols being in full-width, the link does not function at all. This can significantly impair the user experience for readers and, in some cases, may lead to a decline in the brand's image.

2. Editing Work on Symbols Affecting the Refinement of Translated Text

A typical translation flow includes the process of reviewing and revising the translated text. The goal is to "refine the translation content and produce a natural translation."

Even the latest automatic translation, which boasts high accuracy, is not an exception, and there are parts of the translated text that require refinement. Therefore, it is necessary to polish the translated text through a process called post-editing.

However, there are other points to pay attention to in this post-editing work. One of them is the "editing of symbols."

As mentioned in the first example, in post-editing and translation review work, handling punctuation is as important as correcting the translation itself. If not handled correctly, it can lead to issues, as seen in the example link. There are many checkpoints regarding punctuation, such as "correcting full-width colons to half-width" and "removing unnecessary spaces before and after slashes."

However, automatic translation systems often cannot specify the rules for symbols, and post-editing workers struggle to correct these symbols.

In a survey conducted by Human Science targeting post-editing workers,

"If correcting symbols seems to be something machines are good at, why do such errors remain?"

There are too many corrections to the symbols, and I can't spend time on refining the translation.

Many responses like this were received.

3. We will solve that with human science!

To solve the concerns of post-editing workers, Human Science has developed the "MTrans Post-Edit Booster".

MTrans Post-Edit Booster can be used as an add-in for SDL Trados Studio.

Using it is very simple. Just install the add-in and set the rules for symbols. After that, you just create a project as you normally would in Trados. Modifications to the translated text will be automatically made according to rules regarding symbols, such as "replacing full-width colons with half-width" and "removing unnecessary spaces before and after slashes."

Post-editors can focus more on refining the translation since errors related to symbols are automatically corrected when opening the file.

Not only will it shorten editing time, but it will also allow you to work comfortably by efficiently reducing unnecessary corrections. If you are facing similar issues in post-editing work, please feel free to contact us!

For more details about MTrans Post-Edit Booster, please see here.

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