Day after day, we spend the biggest portion of our days working. Naturally, work and professional success are an important part of our lives, but what do we do when work demands so much from us that we have no time left to pursue our hobbies and creativity, hit the gym, or even spend time with our loved ones? More and more companies around the world focus on a thing called work-life balance, and public institutions are organising conferences on occupational safety and resources which allow you to work smart, not hard. Work-life balance is at the heart of everything – the ability to work efficiently without overworking, to work in a healthy and sustainable way, avoiding burnout, fatigue, boredom and the other nonsense which can turn our careers into a never-ending series of challenges.
A tool for increasing efficiency
Every industry has methods to help people work smarter, not harder. In the translation industry, this tool is machine translation post-editing. It’s a hybrid translation solution in which a linguist edits the translation produced by an advanced machine translation technology. Essentially, a draft produced by a translation tool is sent to a translator, and it is the job of the translator to improve and polish the draft until it sounds natural, adapting it to the specifics of the particular industry and making sure that the original meaning is conveyed accurately.
Of course, there are certain types of text which the machine translator tackles more successfully: standard legal contracts, various instructions or technical texts work best, while creative content, ads, and other types of finicky texts will produce questionable results at best (at least for the time being).
What are the key benefits?
First of all, the use of post-editing is the best evidence that the translator or translation agency is up-to-date with the latest standards and practices in the industry and is not afraid to implement them in their work. Secondly, efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. The translator can work faster, translate more and spend less time on the “boring” parts of the text, while the client is provided with translations of large texts in record time, at a reasonable price, and without sacrificing quality. A true win-win for all the parties involved!
Success through cooperation
Notwithstanding emotional bias and the seemingly endless discussions about whether, when, and how machine translation will out-compete linguists, machine translation post-editing in itself is a great example of how machines and humans can work together. Machine translation has seen tremendous growth in recent years, with more and more progressive translation specialists and agencies, including Linearis, providing machine translation post-editing. The benefits are on-par translations, excellent value for money and above all the opportunity to work smarter, not harder, leaving more time for yourself, your hobbies, family and friends.
If you wish to work smarter, make the most out of cutting-edge technology and stay one step ahead of others, join our team of editors now.
