Machine Translation

Machine Translation – An effective tool for e-commerce expansion

The world of effective e-commerce is moving more rapidly than ever before. When time is at a premium for companies reaching out to new markets, machine translation is invaluable. Depending on the text, the translation may still need to be refined by a human translator. So what makes machine translation crucial for your business?

What is machine translation?

Machine translation, or automated translation, is probably most widely known from services such as Google Translate. Nowadays, algorithms provide better results than merely translating word for word. This makes machine translation an excellent choice for large amounts of text.

For situations requiring a more detailed approach, where the style and tone are more important, a human translator can provide the extra skills needed.

The benefits of machine translation

Fast and cost-effective. Machine translation does the bulk of the work in the blink of an eye, so your products can quickly reach new markets.
Ideal for sketching out a multilingual website. Your design can be produced more quickly by knowing the approximate amount of text in different languages.
Text gets translated quickly for new products, meaning your listings stay fresh and relevant.

When does machine translation work best?

The best use of machine translation is for large volumes of direct language and uncomplicated terminology. For e-commerce, where entire websites (including meta tags) need to be speedily available in many different languages, machine translation gets the job done.

Product descriptions, reviews, technical information, store information pages (such as About Us, Return Policies, FAQ) and each part of the payment processes and delivery are available in multiple markets swiftly and efficiently, reducing costs and helping you stay ahead of the competition.

What about human input?

Where style is essential, or where more nuanced localisation is desirable, the system might not always locate suitable equivalents. That’s where a little help from a human goes a long way.

Your landing page is an example of somewhere your brand can shine across borders, with the care and expertise of post-editing.

Contentor – Your partner in machine translation

We offer the following types of machine translation (MT):

MT alone – no editing required;
MT with light post-editing – where few tweaks are necessary;
MT with full post-editing – where more stylistic input is needed.