The document presents an interactive discussion on machine translation (MT) within the translation and localization industry, highlighting diverse opinions regarding its effectiveness and impact. While some respondents acknowledge its potential to enhance productivity and facilitate growth, others express concerns about quality, reliability, and the risk of oversimplification of the translation process. Overall, there is a mixed sentiment toward MT, with a majority leaning toward negative views on its limitations and implications for professional translators.

1. Thoughts on machine translation
Interactive discussion about MT intricacies
in the translation and localisation industry
Lucía Guerrero – Machine Translation Specialist at CPSL

3. Profile of the survey respondents

7. 0,0%
10,0%
20,0%
30,0%
40,0%
50,0%
60,0%
Google Translate Microsoft
Translator
DeepL Systran Slate Kantan
MT platforms
MT platforms

9. My main concern about machine translation is…
4,015
3,507
3,358
3,597
2,746
3,254
3,059
3,687
3,582
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5
quality
privacy
rates
data
computing power
technical skills
finding posteditors
quality evaluation
unpredictability

10. Their thoughts vs. your own

12. 15,72%
22,46%
61,83%
Negative
Neutral
Positive
#machinetranslation sentiment analysis on Twitter
23,89%
10,45%
65,67%
Negative
Neutral
Positive
Machine translation as a problem vs. a solution:
sentiment analysis on reasons and general comments

13. Adjectives tag cloud Nouns tag cloud

14. Thoughts on machine translation
Machine translation…
▪ allowed my company to grow by 50% last year
▪ is a tasty fruit, but may be hard to cook
▪ is the cancer of the translation industry
▪ is never going to be able to do serious translation
▪ will force me to find a different career (not just job) within the next 5 years
▪ is still a baby
▪ hugely helps me in my daily work; my hourly output would be much less without it
▪ s***s

15. Thoughts on machine translation
Machine translation: a problem or a solution?
▪ Tedious tasks could be achieved by MT, different levels of quality can be offered focusing HT on more
creative texts.
▪ It creates a false sense of trustworthiness, which can lead to disastrous mistakes.
▪ It is another key component of the translator's software toolkit.
▪ Machine translation does not exist. What machines do is imitating the results of translation, but they
cannot do the actual PROCESS of translation, which consists of UNDERSTANDING the source, the
audience, the context and so on (…)
▪ Using MT usually takes more time than translating from scratch, MT introduces errors a translator
would not make and would not expect.
▪ It makes the written word far less diverse.
▪ MT is a useful tool in the hands of a skilled translator/specialist, but too many people think it means
that anyone can now translate any kind of text easily.

17. Thank you!