How Does Remote Simultaneous Interpretation (RSI) Work?
Have you ever wondered how people from different countries can understand each other in real-time at international events? The answer is remote simultaneous interpretation, or RSI for short.
So, how does it work?
Did you know that by 2030, the global machine translation market is expected to reach a staggering $27.46bn in volume? Some of this explosive growth is fueled by the rise of Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE), a modern approach that combines the speed of machine translation with the finesse of human expertise.
MTPE, or Machine Translation Post-Editing, combines AI-driven rapid translations which are then refined by skilled human editors to ensure accuracy, fluency, and cultural sensitivity.
Before we dive in, let’s address the so-called “elephant in the room”: MTPE or Machine Translation Post-Editing refers to the meticulous editing and refinement of texts generated by machines rather than human translators. This translation process blends the efficiency of machine translation with the expertise of human editing, delivering fast, high-quality translations that can scale far beyond the capacity of traditional human translation methods.
So, how does it work? We start by running your text through a machine translation engine, which quickly translates it from the source language into your target language.
Then, our professional translators review the machine-translated output and make any necessary adjustments to ensure accuracy, fluency, consistency, and cultural appropriateness. Additionally, our translators use their language expertise and cultural knowledge to make sure your translated content feels natural and resonates with the intended audience. By leveraging the speed of machine translation and the skills of our human translators in combination with savvy project management, we deliver high-quality translations both quickly and seamlessly.
As your business expands globally, MTPE can be a valuable tool to help you communicate effectively and offer several advantages.
We’ve helped big companies and organizations like AmCham Slovenia, Vistream and Kearney streamline their translation and localization efforts, helping them expand globally with greater speed and efficiency through MTPE.
By integrating machine translation with human expertise, you can save time and resources while still getting top-quality translations. This allows you to focus on your core business while we handle your translation needs with the highest standards of quality and professionalism.
We recommend using machine translation post-editing (MTPE) for content types such as user manuals, technical documentation, knowledge base articles, and product descriptions. These materials often follow standardized formats and use straightforward language, making them ideal for machine translation.
We can ensure a high degree of accuracy and consistency in these translations through full post-editing by our skilled linguists achieving the required level of quality and desired tone of voice.
MTPE can also benefit your marketing content, including website copy, social media posts, and email campaigns, when targeting international audiences.
However, for highly creative or emotive content, like advertising slogans or taglines, we recommend a more hands-on human translation approach to better capture the intended nuances.
Other areas where we apply MTPE include legal documents, financial reports, and medical records, which often involve large volumes of text. However, these types of content require a high level of precision, so here we place special emphasis on attention to detail and accuracy.
Machine Translation (MT) technology, which includes systems like Google Translate and DeepL, facilitates rapid text translation but often lacks the nuanced understanding necessary for cultural and contextual accuracy.
This is where post-editing, a critical component of MTPE, becomes indispensable, as human editors refine raw MT output to guarantee accuracy, coherence, and cultural appropriateness, leveraging their linguistic expertise and cultural insights to enhance the quality of the final translated product.
Post-editing is an essential part of MTPE. Unlike human translation editing, machine translation post-editing involves reviewing and refining machine-translated text to ensure accuracy, consistency, and readability.
There are two primary types of post-editing:
The choice depends on factors such as the purpose of the translated content, the target audience, and the desired level of quality. However, at GORR we are committed to delivering the best results, which is why we almost always recommend comprehensive full post-editing. This in-depth process elevates machine-translated text to the same quality you would expect from human translation.
Our linguists carefully review and refine the entire document, focusing on the consistent use of the correct terminology and a logical flow from start to finish.
With full post-editing, we transform raw machine translation into a polished, publish-ready piece that meets your high standards for professionally translated content.
The MTPE workflow consists of two main stages: pre-editing and post-editing.
Pre-editing steps prepare the source text for machine translation, optimizing the output quality by addressing issues like formatting, terminology, and sentence structure.
Once the machine translation is generated, human post-editors refine the output using various techniques to guarantee accuracy, fluency, and adherence to client specifications.
We consider pre-editing an essential step in the machine translation post-editing (MTPE) workflow.
Pre-editing prepares your source text for machine translation, minimizing post-editing effort and ensuring the best results. We follow predefined quality standards to optimize the source text for machine translation by correcting grammar, clarifying ambiguity, and simplifying complex sentences.
Pre-editing also helps machine translation engines accurately convey the intended meaning and linguistic nuances of your source text.
For instance, when working on a project for a major European patent company like Inventio, we found that pre-editing technical jargon and patent-specific terms greatly improved translation accuracy.
After you’ve optimized the source text through pre-editing, the next step in the MTPE workflow is post-editing. This involves reviewing the machine translation output, evaluating its quality, and making necessary revisions to improve fluency, accuracy, and cultural sensitivity.
Post-editing guarantees that your translated content effectively communicates your intended message.
Some key post-editing techniques we do:
As a post-editor, we must achieve a balance between efficiency and quality, leveraging our linguistic expertise and cultural knowledge to refine the machine-translation output.
Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE) professionals require a unique blend of linguistic prowess and technical know-how to excel in their roles.
Post-editors must possess native-level fluency in the target language, a keen eye for spotting errors, and the ability to classify and correct them while preserving the intended meaning.
Additionally, a strong grasp of machine translation (MT) systems, including their capabilities, limitations, and the underlying technology, is essential for both post-editors and MT engineers to effectively train, evaluate, and optimize MT performance.
To work as a post-editor, you need strong language skills in both the source and target languages. Being a native speaker alone is simply not enough; you must be a trained translator or linguist with a specialized skillset that allows you to identify and effectively address the language nuances introduced by machine translation. You must be able to find and fix mistakes in the text that the computer translated to make sure it’s correct, easy to read, and right for the people who will read it. Often, a sentence may seem fine at first glance, but a true specialist’s eye will catch the subtle issues and refine them so they sound clear and natural, as if the text were translated from scratch.
We also need to pay close attention to details and keep the words, style, and tone the same in the whole document. You should know a lot about the topic and the special words used in that field to make sure the translation is technically correct and makes sense. This goes hand in hand with consistency – and inconsistently used key terms will be standardized to the correct terms for the entire document.
Besides language skills, you need to know how to use translation memory tools, terminology management systems, and quality control software.
We must also work well under short deadlines while still doing high-quality work. You also need good communication skills because we often work with project managers, clients, and other team members to make sure the final translation is what the client wants and matches their brand’s voice and message.
MTPE processes come with a range of challenges, such as the confusion between light and full post-editing, and the balance between what translators expect and what the industry needs.
However, new developments in MTPE bring hope, like using advanced NMT error analysis to improve post-editing methods and giving translators more control through clear, context-driven guidelines.
As the translation industry continues to change, it will be crucial to rethink MTPE guidelines to keep up with the NMT era. This will help overcome challenges and ensure translations meet high standards and are fit for their intended purpose.
The main challenges we face in machine translation post-editing (MTPE) processes are selecting the best machine translation engines for your project, ensuring post-editors are skilled at identifying and correcting errors, maintaining consistency across the entire document, and balancing the level of post-editing required with your project deadlines and budget.
Even with the best engines, our post-editors must be familiar with common translation tools and adept at refining machine-generated text to meet the quality standards of human translation. They also need to maintain a consistent style, tone, and terminology throughout your document.
Effective communication between you, our project managers, and post-editors is key for setting realistic expectations and delivering high-quality translations that meet your needs.
We stay up to date with ongoing research and development in machine translation technology to further streamline our processes and provide you with the best possible service.
Innovations and future trends in machine translation are making post-editing an increasingly important skill for professional translators. As AI translation tools advance rapidly, the quality of raw machine translation output is improving. However, we still need skilled human translators to refine the output and ensure accuracy, natural language flow, and cultural appropriateness.
While machine translation can process large volumes of content quickly, it struggles with nuance, context, and idioms that human translators handle naturally.
We expect innovations in translation memories and machine learning to enhance machine translation’s accuracy and efficiency over time. Nevertheless, the need for expert post-editors to polish the output isn’t likely to disappear anytime soon.
MTPE has found widespread adoption across various industries, from e-commerce and software localization to legal and medical sectors.
Major companies such as Microsoft, Booking.com, and eBay have successfully implemented MTPE workflows, leveraging the technology to translate vast amounts of content while maintaining high quality standards. Many smaller and local companies are also following this trend.
This approach has enabled them to allocate financial resources effectively, allowing investment into multiple markets simultaneously. The scalability, cost-effectiveness, and time efficiency of MTPE workflows make it possible to enter far more markets than traditional approaches typically allow. Let’s take a closer look at some real-world applications and success stories that demonstrate the impact and potential of MTPE in different domains.
We can confidently say that our Machine Translation Post-Editing service is widely used in various sectors, including e-commerce, finance, business, patent claims, construction machinery, software localization, tourism, life sciences, and legal domains. However, while an exceedingly useful tool, MT continues to require the keen eye of an experienced human translator to guarantee a high-quality final product.
For example, if you’re a global e-commerce giant like Amazon, you can rely on MTPE to localize millions of product descriptions and customer reviews, ensuring high-quality MT output that resonates with your local audiences. Smaller e-commerce businesses can follow this example, achieving significantly more in market expansion than traditional methods typically allow.
Similarly, if you’re in the software industry, like Microsoft or Adobe, you can utilize MTPE to deliver localized user interfaces, help documentation, and marketing materials that cater to your international users. As previously mentioned, smaller firms can follow suit, leveraging MTPE workflows to achieve efficiency and scalability in delivering multilingual content to users worldwide.
If you’re in the life sciences sector, with its complex medical terminology and regulatory requirements, MTPE can help you ensure accuracy and consistency across your translated content.
And if you’re a legal firm or institution, MTPE can assist you in handling the translation of contracts, patents, and court documents, where precision is paramount. This is why it’s essential to have an expert carefully review the content before it’s finalized.
Let us share with you a case study that illustrates this point.
GORR was approached by Ljubljanske mlekarne, a leading dairy company in Slovenia, to improve the quality of their internal training modules on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The content had been machine-translated from English to Slovenian but required refinement to meet the company’s high standards for clarity and consistency.
To address this, we applied our MTPE services, focusing on key challenges such as inconsistent terminology, awkward phrasing, and lack of readability. Our linguists standardized DEI-specific terms and rephrased the content to ensure it was both engaging and easy to understand while maintaining the appropriate tone for sensitive topics.
Through close collaboration with Ljubljanske mlekarne, we ensured the final translation aligned with their values and internal language style. The result was a polished, professional DEI training module that enhanced clarity, consistency, and overall impact, helping the company effectively communicate its commitment to inclusivity.
By leveraging MTPE, GORR helped Ljubljanske mlekarne create high-quality training content quickly and efficiently, demonstrating how combining machine translation with human expertise can meet the demands of today’s diverse workplace.
Have you ever wondered how people from different countries can understand each other in real-time at international events? The answer is remote simultaneous interpretation, or RSI for short.
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