“We figured we would just use machine translation.”
Today, this has become an entirely natural idea, as machine translation is fast, easily accessible, and often produces surprisingly good results.
However!
The question is the same as in all other business decisions:
What will the result be?
What do we want to use it for?
Machine translation has its place. It can be very useful for internal materials or for quickly processing large quantities of content. It helps you make sense of information and speeds up the preparation process.
However, exports are not about that!
Here, the goal isn’t to provide a text that you can “understand somehow,” but to create one that works.
In an offer, a website, or a product description, every word counts.
The emphasis, the wording, the style. A slight inaccuracy may not be noticeable, but it makes the reader uncertain.
That is what the machine can’t see. It doesn’t understand context, it isn’t familiar with the business goal, and it can’t distinguish between a text that merely informs and one that is actually trying to sell something.
That is why it ends up being a risk where there are high stakes in communication.
The question isn’t whether to use machine translation or not, but how to manage it.
At Hunnect, machine translation is not something to be avoided, but it is not a stand-alone solution, either. It is one of many tools that we use if it truly adds value to the end result – and we consciously avoid it if it would compromise quality or effectiveness.
In the end, what matters is not how the text was made but what effect it has on the other side.
Contact us if you need a translation to help bolster your reputation in a new market and support your product sales.
We know how to help!
