Translation & Interpretation Archives

AI Translation: Expectations Vs. Reality

13 June 2019 Posted by Elite Asia AI translation, language, machine translation, technology No Comments

AI technology has drastically improved due to scientists enabling computer programs to ‘self-learn’. Hence, a computer can re-program its own code in order to function better at its task at hand. Which begs the question, is AI translation set to become another norm in our lives?

What is AI Translation?

Rather than using a human translator, an AI translation will automatically translate one language into another. As a result, allowing you to comprehend what someone is saying in another language and hold a conversation with them.

AI technology can read individual words in a number of languages. It finds the similarities between the different languages that exist between words. Thereafter, building a translation!

The Advantages of AI Translation

When people hear that AI translation tools exist, they tend to expect translation tools used in sci-fi programs. Such as Doctor Who and Star Trek, where you hear people talking in your native tongue. However, this is far from reality!

Instead, the main advantages of AI translator tools in comparison to human translators is that AI is both cheaper and quicker. Here are some of the other advantages of using AI to translate languages:

Quality in domain- and language-specific engines is enhanced
Incredibly quick, normally only takes a minute or so
Ideal for websites
AI tools will let you translate a large number of languages, whereas a human may only be able to translate one or two
Becoming more accurate

The Disadvantages of AI Translation

Although machine translation looks good on paper, there are a number of disadvantages:

Accuracy can be low in some industries. (You may not realise this as you may be unfamiliar with the language)
Mass localisation is poor, with some languages giving more accurate results than others
AI does not recognise the context something is said in, so can produce confusing results
A language mistake can be very costly i.e. a tattoo in another language

The Reality

Many people put a lot of faith into AI translation tools because they see them as a fast and low-cost way to translate a large volume of texts. This is very common in industries such as Finance, E-Commerce, Legal etc.. AI translation may prove to be a powerful tool to achieve massive localisation. However, the accuracy of the different languages is not yet standardised.

In Conclusion

If you need something translated from another language, you should weigh up the cost of a bad translation against the cost of using a human translator. A bad translation will not only cost your turnaround to be longer but it also costs more money to resolve the mistakes!

If you’re looking to localise an e-commerce website or a large-scale portal, then AI translation is wonderful. In fact, you can leverage on a domain- and language-specific translation machines and human post-editing to translate high volume contents to targeted languages.

This encourages the user to repeatedly visit your website and may even recommend it to friends.

Is AI Translation Really Changing the Industry?

AI Technology: How are E-Commerce Companies Utilising it?

4 June 2019 Posted by Elite Asia AI, artificial intelligence, e-commerce, technology, user experience No Comments

If you want an innovative way to drive sales and increase user experience on your website, you should be utilising artificial intelligence (AI) in your business. Indeed, AI technology is helping companies to take their business to the next level and leaving their competitors in the dust.

Improves the Virtual Shopping Experience

AI technologies can analyse the pattern of how a person shops online. The AI translation of these patterns provides a more personalised experience for the user. As a result, your website can leave a great impression on the user.

One of the biggest improvements to E-Commerce sites is the addition of chatbots and voice assistants. Depending on the website localisation, these AI tools proves that mass localisations can provide customer service in a number of languages. Hence, this AI Translation allows customers across the globe to receive personalised customer services.

Visual Search Engines

Another recent development for E-CommerceAI technologies is the visual search engine. Here users can take a photograph of their favourite products and the visual search engine will try to source where that product is sold.

Visual search engines can also be used to reverse-search an image, to help you find a better quality of that image as well as check its copyright status. You can also use an image search to find out information about a certain place or restaurant. You can do this by simply taking a photo and use the search bar to find reviews and booking information.

Personal Recommendations (AI)

The more you use a website enabled with AI technology, the more personalised your experience becomes. For instance, the website AI can help you find the best products related to your interests. It’s similar to having your own personal shopper but without the added cost!

With the recommendations calculated by your AI, shoppers can find what they’re looking for on a website with minimal fuss and time. Hence, this encourages users to repeatedly visit your website and may even recommend it to friends.

Voice Assistance

Voice assistance improves user experience, by helping users to type less and increasing the convenience. It allows users to speak to an E-Commerce site, asking them to pre-order something they use frequently. For instance, ordering more nappies via your Amazon Echo.

These AI voice assistants may offer the user a product recommendation they may like to add to their basket. Hence, making it a more personalised and efficient experience.

In Conclusion

AI technologies are vastly improving the user experience of E-Commerce sites, and it will be exciting to see where this ever-evolving technology takes our online shopping experience in the next few years.

Is AI Translation Really Changing the Industry?

7 May 2019 Posted by Elite Asia advantages, AI, AI translation, challenges, globalisation, linguistics, localisation, machine translation, technology No Comments

As the business arena becomes more globalised, the need for localisation via translation grows and that growth fuels the need for better and more effective translation technologies (such as AI translation). As they say, necessity is the mother of all inventions. This philosophy stands true even for translation technology.

The growth in translation needs gave birth to machine translation (MT), which overcame much of the challenges posed by traditional translation processes. But new challenges keep cropping up. Fortunately, newer technologies are showing up to save the day.

One such technology is Artificial Intelligence or AI-based translation. AI translation offers distinct advantages compared to the older MT technology. For instance, it can factor in linguistic nuances and context to provide more accurate translations.

Already in Play

AI-based translation is already at play. You can see it everywhere from Google to Facebook. For instance, if you visit an international website via Google, you’ll have the option of seeing the translated version. There’s almost no human involvement or intervention here. It’s Google’s own automated translation service.

Microsoft is also offering its own real-time translation app, which can translate speech, text, and even images. What’s even more amazing is that this application can run offline, making instant translation a reality.

Even Facebook switched to AI translation as its primary approach in 2017.

One of the key benefits of AI translation is that it factors in context and entire sentences, which boosts accuracy.

Neural Machine Translation (NMT)

Traditional MT relied upon existing translations or translation memories to get the job done. However, now, we have something called Neural Machine Translation or NMT. NMT makes use of translation memories as well. But it goes further and uses something called deep learning to boost translation accuracy.

NMT literally builds what is called an artificial neural network, sort of a like a human brain. What does that mean? Well, it means that the system can correct itself by going back, assessing, and correcting its approach or method.

On the contrary, traditional or statistical MT relies on correlation to choose the best possible translation. This method simply does not provide the same level of accuracy.

Conclusion

AI-based translation has come quite far. However, there are still some challenges to be overcome. For instance, AI translations are still plagued by grammatical inaccuracies. There are also complaints of such translations lacking nuance.

So, human translation still remains a necessity. Though AI translation may be evolving, it is too soon to predict its overall impact on the translation and localisation industry.

How Artificial Intelligence Works When Translating a Language

Thanks to globalisation, translation is one area that’s recently been given the Artificial Intelligence treatment. So, how does AI actually aid translation?

Read More >

Worldwide Digital Transformation

18 September 2018 Posted by administrator AI, artificial intelligence, communication, interpreters, machine learning, translators No Comments

Despite the fact that global digital transformation (DX) is something that all businesses must work towards, the sad truth is that most of them tend to fail in their efforts, especially when it comes to justifying the expenditure.

Now, with IDC predicting that DX expenditure across the globe will touch a mind-bending $2 trillion by 2020, it means that a good $1.6 trillion could just end up getting written off.

That begs a question – if generating ROI on worldwide digital transformation is so complex, why indulge in it in the first place?

Well, there are several reasons. To begin with, there are significant rewards that come from digitising a business and disrupting a market. If success is achieved, the concerned company will gain a significant share in the market and boost profitability, while building a sustainable business.

Secondly, if you don’t do it, your competitors are going to anyway. Finally, the causes of failure can always be overcome; it just needs better planning. Possible failure is a weak excuse.

So, if you’re wondering how you can achieve digital transformation across your global business, here are a few strategies.

Have a digital vision

You need a strategy that can get the buy-in of those at the top. This vision must be in alignment with the entire business for the purpose of a smoother execution. More importantly, it must be made clear that DX is more than marketing or technology; it’s a complete change in the way your organisation conducts business.

Mark business drives

Conduct an assessment of whether you want to focus on business innovation or technology operations. Find out where your position is within that spectrum. Look at your operations from the perspective of process, technology, and people. Consider the inefficiencies that currently exist in your business processes.

Assess and give importance to IT initiatives

What are you aiming for? Are you looking to improve your internal processes or do you want to boost your project management and technology standards? Is your focus going to be on improving customer satisfaction and value by delivering the right experiences, products, services, and content?

These are important questions to ask.

Ensure alignment

Make sure there are no gaps. Determine what technologies you need and train your workforce accordingly for better implementation. If there are skill gaps, arrange for proper training and focus on developing talents.

Reinforce your IT department with entrepreneurs, strategic visionaries, and project planners; not just technology enablers.

Alter IT strategy based on need

DX is an ongoing phase, which means priorities will change. Recognise this and adjust strategies whenever necessary.

Once you manage to create an effective digital strategy, you can reap the benefits of working in an improved digital workplace and having greater stakeholder engagement. All you need is proper planning for operational efficiency, customer value, and growth/innovation.

How-Artificial-Intelligence-Works-When-Translating-Language

How Artificial Intelligence Works When Translating a Language

25 June 2018 Posted by administrator AI, artificial intelligence, communication, interpreters, machine learning, translators No Comments

It’s clear that businesses, today, have to make the most of technology to stay in the race. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and other such technology allow businesses to gain a competitive edge in a crowded marketplace. Thanks to globalisation, translation is one area that’s recently been given the AI treatment.

So, how does AI actually aid translation? Well, that’s what we are here to find out.

It’s Called Machine Translation

AI-aided translation is called machine translation. What it does is that it converts text from the source language to text in the output language. There exist a range of machine translation programs that businesses can use for their translation needs.

However, the two most common happen to be SMT-based i.e. Statistical Machine Translation and RBMT-based i.e. Rule-Based Machine Translation.

The latter operates on the idea that language is all about syntactic and grammatical rules. So, in order to work, these programs refer to bilingual dictionaries for the specified languages. These dictionaries are composed of linguistic rules that apply to the sentence structures in each of the specified languages. Then, there are rules to help the program link the sentence structures of each language.

However, the process is time-consuming as new requirements have to be met each time a new language is paired with the source language. Even so, RMBT is effective when it comes to pairing languages with very different word orders, such as English to Chinese.

On the other hand, SMT works on the concept of probabilities. Google Translator is an example of this. What the tool does it refers to a set of target segments and chooses the most probable segments as a match to the source segment. To put it simply, Google Translator translates by looking at the highest statistical probability.

SMT works better than RMBT because it can accommodate a wide-range of languages. It does not depend on an extensive list of resources to get the job done.

So, that’s how AI-translation works.

The Future of AI Translation

Machine translation will definitely evolve as time goes by. However, human translation is still very relevant as context plays a major role in effective translation. This is completely dependent on human involvement.

For instance, colloquialism is something that machines still cannot figure out. So, machine translation is still primarily a tool aimed at simplifying the process, rather than taking it over.

Get Your Global Business Ready For E-Commerce

18 June 2018 Posted by administrator analytics, communication, ecommerce, marketing, translation No Comments

If you’re looking to expand your global business, look no further than e-commerce. You see, e-commerce is the future. The numbers are in and they’re pretty clear. According to last year’s statistics from Statista, the global e-commerce market will likely grow by 246.15% as far as sales are concerned.

That means the global e-commerce industry, which was worth $1.3 trillion in 2014, will grow to be worth $4.5 trillion in 2021. That’s a massive amount of growth. So, it’s clear that your business’s future lies in e-commerce.

But, how do you go about doing it? Well, we’ve got a few strategies to help you out. Do note that this isn’t an exhaustive list of strategies. There’s a lot that goes into establishing an e-commerce business, but we’re just focusing on a few key steps.

Start Developing Your Social Networks

Social media is the holy grail of consistent traffic and leads. So, leverage your social media networks to build an audience. Start by claiming your name on all the major networks. Establish your territory and start building your brand.

Also, choose the social media platforms that work for you the best. It doesn’t always have to be on Facebook or Twitter. If you’re a brand that relies heavily on visuals, Instagram or even Pinterest can prove to be far more effective.

Prepare Your E-Mail Marketing Strategy

E-Mail is the most important part of e-commerce marketing. Time and again, it has proven to be the most effective marketing channel for e-commerce sites, often providing tremendous returns on investment.

Localize

Of course, let’s not forget localization. As a global brand, you need to make sure your site is localized for the markets you’re catering to. This firstly means translating the content into the local language while taking context into consideration.

Then come in the other aspects. This includes using high-definition images to highlight products because images are far more effective than words. You also need to provide prices in the local currency in order to improve the shopper’s experience. Make sure you establish customer service channels that cater specifically to local shoppers.

To put it simply, make sure you have done everything possible to create a comfortable experience for your international shoppers. Go local.

Use Analytics

Analytics will help you set up your e-commerce business effectively. With analytics, you can gain valuable insights about your visitors and customers. This is necessary considering the fact that you won’t be dealing with people in person anymore.

So, to truly be able to see your online customers, you need analytics to guide you.

Get Started!

So, there you have it – a few basic steps to help you get started with your global e-commerce endeavor. Remember, the idea is to make things as convenient as possible for your audiences across the globe. So, make sure you assess their needs and requirements. Then, use the insights to figure out the next step.

Translation & Interpretation