Post-Editing of Machine Translations
Post-Editing of Machine Translations

Post-Editing of Machine Translations

In most cases, machine translations are of limited or no use at all. They often involve considerable risks. To ensure maximum security, human post-editing is indispensable. This involves completely rewriting culture-specific content according to the perspective of the target culture.

When it comes to post-editing offered by the Translation Agency Vienna | Connect Translations Austria GmbH, the (human) translators always have the last say.

We only offer "full post-editing", because "light post-editing" does not meet our strict RecogSense® quality standards. "Full post-editing" means that a human translator (post-editor) reads, assesses, and edits the machine translation to ensure that its quality is comparable to that of a human translation in terms of accuracy, comprehensibility, and readability.

Full RecogSense®-approved post-editing – workflow

"Full post-editing" is a process in which the post-editors include both the source text and the machine translation – supplied by you or produced by us at your request. The final result is a comprehensible, culture and target group appropriate translation whose content matches that of the source text.

A fully post-edited machine translation meets our strict RecogSense® quality standards. The post-editor must ensure:

  • semantic accuracy and lexical cohesion of the translation
  • correct syntax, spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, hyphenation, etc.
  • consistent and uniform wording and spelling throughout
  • consistent adherence to subject-specific and/or customer-specific terminology
  • consideration of any reference material provided by the client
  • compliance with any style guides provided by or developed together with the customer
  • suitability of the translation for the target group and the stated purpose through correct choice of words, appropriate style, and consideration of cultural specificities
  • completeness of the translation
  • correct formatting

In post-editing, the machine translation is

  • compared with the source text sentence by sentence and
  • if necessary, rephrased and corrected in terms of content.

Thereby,

  • the post-editor takes over as many usable parts of the machine translation as possible;
  • the post-editor re-translates those parts of the machine translation that cannot be used.

In post-editing, we use a highly specialised tool which enables existing customer-specific translation and terminology databases to be integrated into the post-editing process.

Quality of the source text – pre-editing

The amount of work involved in "full post-editing" depends on several factors. A decisive factor is the quality of the source text. Clear and comprehensible texts without a complex syntactic structure are more suitable for machine translation than texts with typing errors and without a clear structure.

The better the source text, the better the result of the machine translation and the less work for the post-editors.

Pre-editing means that the source text is edited and adjusted so that it is “fit” for the machine.

Post-editing – languages and prices

We only offer "full post-editing" for those language combinations for which we can 100% guarantee that the post-editors meet the strict RecogSense® quality standards in terms of education, linguistic knowledge, and training:

  • Translations from Czech, Dutch, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, and Slovenian into German
  • Translations from German or English into Czech, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, and Slovenian

The price is calculated individually and according to the actual amount of work, which depends on the language combination, the quality of the source text, the result of the machine translation, and the length of the text.

We will gladly explain further details during a free consultation appointment. Just call us at +43 1 894 89 73 or send us an e-mail to arrange an appointment.