There are now many online automatic translation systems that can instantly translate text from one language to another. However, the quality of these results cannot be compared to that of translation companies, especially when complex languages like Chinese are involved.
Why not use automatic translation?
The automatic translation feature is a useful tool when you want to quickly get the general meaning of a sentence, such as when you receive an email from a foreign customer and want to know what they're writing.
However, please note that translators are never involved when it comes to machine translation. In machine translation, a machine searches a large database for sentences similar to the original and suggests sentences that it thinks are closest to the original. However, we cannot verify these suggestions and cannot confirm whether they were written by native speakers. Therefore, the translation may contain significant grammatical or semantic errors. Additionally, these systems do not provide confidentiality or guarantee quality.
Take Google Translate, for example, which uses text found on the Internet to perform the requested translation. And as you know, it's easy to spot mistakes on the web.
For this reason, for any type of document, especially public or official documents, it is important to use a translation company that guarantees the quality and confidentiality of the original text.
why? The main reasons are:
1. Automatic translation does not guarantee the quality of the text
Despite many improvements over the years, machine translation has still not reached optimal quality levels. Language is complex and constantly evolving, making it extremely difficult for machines to interpret all the nuances of human communication.
If you've ever used an automatic editor to translate text, you've probably noticed that the results are often difficult to understand and contain syntax errors.
2. Machine translators cannot understand synonyms
First, the main problem with automatic translation is synonyms, or words with multiple meanings. Machines find it difficult to interpret the meaning of the word in a particular context. Such mistakes can have serious consequences.
3. Technical terminology is an obstacle to automatic translation
When performing technical translation or specialized translation in a specific field, there are often specialized terms and words that are difficult to translate accurately with machine translation. To be able to translate texts correctly and use appropriate expressions in the target language requires good knowledge and even experience of the industry.
Machines will never be able to achieve the skills of professional translators who also have knowledge and experience in fields such as law and medicine.
4. Improper translation can lead to loss of trust
Inappropriate translations can lead to a loss of trust, especially for well-known brands, and consumers may not want to purchase your product or service. For example, when it comes to mobile apps, many apps have failed in certain markets because of poor quality translations that hindered proper use. Therefore, before performing automatic translation, you should seriously consider where your text will appear and how it will be used.
Ask a native expert for your Chinese translation
Mandarin, most commonly known as Chinese, is a very complex language. It consists of 85,568 characters and 370,000 words. Additionally, each letter consists of at least two overlapping letters, one defining a meaning and the other a phoneme.
So if you need to translate a text into Mandarin, you need to know the letters that represent meanings and the letters that define phonemes, as well as their countless combinations, in order to find the right word.
To interpret and write kanji, you also need to memorize each stroke. This is not trivial, as one character can sometimes contain up to 18 lines. Although the task of typing has been simplified by the advent of computers, the only way to recognize letters is by learning the individual letters.
Therefore, Chinese is a challenge in the translation industry and it is best to hire a native professional translator to ensure the quality and accuracy of the translated text.
FAQ
Yes, Alphatrad Denmark has native experts who perfectly understand both languages and can translate texts from many languages into Chinese and vice versa.
Although automatic translators cannot test the quality of translations, translation companies guarantee the quality of the text and use computer systems to ensure the accuracy of the content.
