Language technology leads to growth for all

Machine translation enables organizations to dramatically increase the amount of content they translate and the languages they support. And, as the technology improves and matures, it has gained acceptance among content-producing organizations and language service providers.

Text by Arle Lommel

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Language technology leads to growth for all

Image: © Le Moal Olivier/123rf.com

Machine translation (MT) is a permanent – and highly controversial – topic for organizations that require translation as well as for the language service providers (LSPs) who work with them. Common Sense Advisory’s (CSA Research) examination of MT showed that it is poised on the edge of a tremendous growth curve that will take it from a niche solution suitable primarily for large enterprises to a mainstream one for companies of any size. This article examines the changing role of MT and how this affects language service providers (LSPs), enterprise content developers, individual technical communicators, and human translators.

Content growth renders MT inevitable

CSA Research estimates that the global capacity of all professional translators today could address only 0.00000000009 percent – less than one-billionth – of the content generated every day. Even though much of that content ...