Nowadays, a large variety of Machine translation tools can be used online for free. Why bother booking a human being? You can translate whatever you want and keep your money. How come freelance translators still exist, then? Can you really translate every type of content online? How legit is the result?
The Machine
No human being would be capable of knowing as many languages as a computer. Even though some people seem to be seriously gifted, the human mind is limited. There are only so many languages and dialects you can learn. The machine is not so limited as it relies on data. The more it is fed, the more results you can get. Give it data in Yoruba or Chichewa, and it will learn the language and do the job. It will even do the job fast. In a split second, you can read your translation.
How well will it do the job, though?
Let's be honest, results can be pretty accurate. This technology is actually getting more and more sophisticated. Let's not get our hopes too high, though, let's not forget this is a machine. It has no awareness. It does not understand what is to be translated. Not knowing the meaning of the source material can be fairly risky, let alone not knowing the tone that is meant to be conveyed, especially in more creative fields.
Machine translation will show the most probable and recurrent result, depending on its database and ability to analyse patterns in previous translations as well as lexical and grammar rules. The thing is,
syntax differs from language to language. It does not matter that much if you simply need to understand a comment below an entertaining video, song lyrics, informal communication, etc.
When it comes to content that is meant to be distributed, especially creative or sensitive content, it is safer to hire a human translator.
The Human Translator
Thanks to their training, experience, passion, and common sense, the human translator will thoroughly read the source material, make the appropriate research (e.g. specific terminology), follow your instructions, ask questions to leave out any doubt or possible misunderstanding. Communication is key, after all. It might take a little more time, but the result will certainly be a lot more reliable. This is extremely important regarding legal, medical or technical documents. One misunderstanding, or translation mistake, can cause major problems.
Most importantly, the human translator will preserve the confidentiality. When using machine translation, you need to be cautious when agreeing to the terms and conditions, as some of them might save your material in the database.
Now, for creative content, a professional translator will definitely be an added value. When machine translation leaves out the style, subtlety, comedy, and creativity, as robots tend to do, the human has cultural background, hindsight, and consciousness.
This article from the Time is not exactly about translation, but it says a lot:
"Humans have vast mental libraries of cultural references and linguistic nuances to draw upon when hearing or telling a joke. AI has access only to the information that humans choose to give it, which means that if we want an AI to make us laugh, we have to be clear about the kind of humor we want to teach it."
Indeed, keep in mind that Artificial Intelligence runs on data. If the data is inappropriate, your result might be inappropriate too. The result can be funny too. Dodgy translations should not happen with a professional translator who would check, double check, triple check.
Lastly, as I previously pointed out, you can communicate with a human translator. A professional translator is a service provider who will be able to comply with guidelines and guide you through your project at the same time. A good service provider can work with their client to carry out the best work possible, depending on the client's goal. What kind of audience do you want to reach? Should I localise as well? Would you prefer a formal tone or something more laid back?
You might also benefit from their expertise and get a couple of free advice. Source material can be slightly flawed sometimes. They will see it and reach out to you. A machine would have tried to translate the mistake anyway, creating another mistake.
What makes a huge difference in matters of communication too is that a human translator can pinpoint topics, or names (brands, nicknames, etc.) that could be culturally sensitive and talk about it with you to come up with the best translation, a translation that will not offend anyone and stay true to the message you wish to convey. Inclusivity means a wider audience, but we'll talk about that later!
Remember
Professional human translator
Communication
Confidentiality
Expertise
Knowledge of legal, commercial, and cultural challenges
Hindsight
Quality control
Machine translation
Easy to use
Fast
Free or affordable
Many languages
BUT
No confidentiality (especially when it's free)
Do not understand the meaning
Does not verify source material
Cannot address concerns, give advice or guidance