Nowadays language remains the main means of communication. It is generally acknowledged that there are thousands of distinct languages spoken across the globe today. Due to the Internet expansion and the growth of international online communication translators’ services are becoming increasingly demanded.
With the full-scale war Russia started in 2022 translating from English to Russian and vice versa is a crucial service today. However, the question arises: should you save money and opt for automatic translation or hire professionals? Let’s break down the pros and cons of both options.
Language Understanding
Modern Natural Language Processing models treat language as a complex pattern-matching task. They learn statistical associations between words and phrases, which are extracted from an extensive volume of text data they’ve been trained on.
For people, language comprehension is complex. We understand the combination of words, their semantic properties, intonation patterns, and contextual connotations. And, in addition, we have an endless background and developed capacity when it comes to reading and responding to language. That’s a level of “understanding” that AI hasn’t reached yet.
But if machines’ language comprehension still leaves much to be desired, how can they render oral or written messages accurately?
Russian Language Translation
As a professional English-to-Russian translator I tried several CAT (computer-assisted translation) tools, but none of them suited me. Some have even proposed such laughably silly outcomes that I had to literally LOL.
I think translation programs could approach an ideal of accuracy someday, but they will never match human translation. There is a very human element to communication, much of which is heavily dependent on context, concepts, social relationships, and intent. Computers cannot grasp these nuances.
Context:
I bet you have heard of a kid song with a line like this “You do the hokey pokey”? I would like to translate that sentence into Russian and I use Google Translate. Guess what? Instead, I have a “You do hockey”.
One more example. A couple of years ago our team translated a Russian film about The Great Dutchess Yekaterina Fyodorovna into English. The following word combination occurred ‘почитать Катехизис’. The CAT advised us to translate it as ‘to worship the Catechism’ while the correct version was ‘to read the Catechism’. The thing is both verbs are the right variants which coincide in spelling but have different meanings. But you need to consider the context to choose the appropriate one. That’s where tools still fail.
Doubtless, machine learning is improving rapidly. But it will take a long long time for automated translation tools to understand the contexts of our conversations, our songs, etc. I even think that these machines can never be as good as a human in identifying which context this phase or sentence is about.
Way of speech:
Machines take things too literally. Let me give you an example. This year is the 200th anniversary of the tale ’Twas The Night Before Christmas’ by Clement Clarke Moore. I was asked to translate it both into Russian and Ukrainian by a small publisher. Below is an example of an automated translation of 2 lines into Russian. And next to it is the translation of the output back into English. Obviously, software can’t imitate our way of speech and render it into another language accurately.
Moreover, machines won’t be able to compose lyrics in the foreseeable future. Please feel free to hire a native poet from the Russian Language Services team in case you need to translate a poem into Russian.
Scientific terms:
For the last 6 months, our translators’ team has been working on the English-to-Russian translation of 3 books on psychotherapy. We started translating with the glossary of terms. I can tell you – that was the task. Two translators and I as an editor had to do lots of research work and look through several psychological dictionaries. Moreover, we read tons of domain-specific articles to understand what these terms were about. Our team had to convey the author’s ideas to Russian-speaking people who read the translated book. Can a machine translation do that? Definitely, not.
Social relationships:
The Russian language has different pronouns for formal and informal situations, which also affects verb and adjective forms depending on your relationship with the speaker. Google Translate has improved its accuracy with intimate phrases like “I love you” and “I want to kiss you” by returning the informal variants in Russian. However, for phrases that could be neutral and used in both formal and informal situations, such as “Can you pass the potatoes?”, Google Translate defaults to the formal variant since it cannot discern the context. Unlike an AI-powered assistant, a human interpreter would be able to make a more informed choice. For instance, a person could choose to say “Would you like some coffee?” or “How ’bout a cup o’ Joe?” depending on the desired level of informality, which is a nuance that only a human can fully grasp.
Intent:
Humans tend to break language rules purposely, while computers can only follow programmed general rules of thumb. For instance, a person could use the informal pronoun instead of the formal one to insult someone, or use the formal pronoun instead of the informal one for a humorous effect. These instances of humor, insults, puns, and wordplay pose a challenge for human interpreters, let alone computer translators. There have been situations where I had to explain a joke because it was untranslatable due to its reliance on specific word forms of a language.
Comparing the translation quality, we must admit, that machine translation has made tremendous progress in its accuracy. Yet, they aren’t without issues. Tools frequently have inaccuracies, wrong contextualization, and the use of phrases or idiomatics. This can create miscommunications and potentially dissatisfied customers.
Professional translators, possessing an intricate knowledge of both language and cultural subtleties, can deliver translations that are accurate and of high quality. They are able to consider the text’s specific topic and reproduce its sense accurately. So if quality matters to you, professional translation is the way to go.
English to Russian Translation Rates
When choosing between automated tools and professional services, the important thing to consider is the price.
Machine translation is typically free or inexpensive, particularly with web services. Elsewhere, you will find premium offerings and platforms offering automation for specialized, high-quality or confidential translation, charging per word. That top rate could be quite high — maybe even over $0.10 per word for niche or enterprise-level translations.
Professional translation, however, is paid and prices may vary depending on text complexity and deadlines as well as the qualifications of a translator. But it’s crucial to know that the price of a professional translation is proportional to the quality. And make no mistake — bad translations can cost businesses dearly.
Do you want to hand your important documents, let’s say a 1-billion-dollar contract with your potential Russian-speaking client, to a machine? You surely have to have it proofreaded, edited, and revised again by a human, right? Why don’t you just choose a human English<>Russian translator who can translate, proofread, and edit your contract with care right from the start? Easier, isn’t it?
Sometimes professional services are not as expensive as you might suppose. For example, some specialized companies’ English to Russian translation rates per word start from only $0.05. That includes not only expert translation services by native Russian linguists with degrees but also proofreading by a professional editor.
Therefore, the price-quality ratio is better with professional translation. Investing in high-quality translation ensures accuracy, reliability, and professionalism. While automatic translation may be useful for everyday communication, it’s advisable to turn to experienced translators for business and professional purposes.
Indeed, human translators can not and will never be fully replaced by machine translation tools. One must admit, hiring a professional is the best choice, even though we do make mistakes sometimes and we can not work continuously 24/7 like a machine.
