Post Editing

At TranslationTouch, we implement a special process for full MT post-editing

The technological progress that’s been made in the translation industry during the past few decades has become a fact that cannot be denied, especially in the field of machine translation.

Of course, we know that machines cannot replace human translators. However, more and more frequently, companies find it necessary to translate large chunks of texts on a tight schedule. Obviously, quality suffers as a result. MT post-editing can help improve the situation – and we possess all the requisite skills.

At TranslationTouch, we implement a special process for full MT post-editing, aiming to reach a quality similar to “the high-quality human translation and revision” (a.k.a. “publishable quality”).

This level of quality is generally defined as being comprehensible (i.e. an end user perfectly understands the content of the message), accurate (i.e. it communicates the same meaning as the source text), stylistically fine, though the style may not be as good as that achieved by a native-speaker human translator. Syntax is normal, grammar and punctuation are correct.

Our process combines the following guidelines:

• Aim for grammatically, syntactically and semantically correct translation.
• Ensure that key terminology is correctly translated and that untranslated terms belong to the client’s list of “Do Not Translate” terms.
• Ensure that no information has been accidentally added or omitted.
• Edit any offensive, inappropriate or culturally unacceptable content.
• Use as much of the raw MT output as possible.
• Basic rules regarding spelling, punctuation and hyphenation apply.
• Ensure that formatting is correct.