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Machine translation has greatly improved the ease and speed of converting text from one language to another, but it’s not without its problems.
While, thanks to advances in neural networks and AI, automatic translation is a lot more reliable (just look at the history of Google Translate), you still can’t rely on it one hundred percent. This is especially true in sensitive areas, such as medical, legal, and financial fields.
But you know how they say, knowing is half the battle. If you are aware of potential pitfall in using machine translation, you are better prepared for dealing with them. Therefore, that’s exactly what we will talk about in this post. Follow along to learn about common issues with automatic translation and practical ways to deal with them, including when translating your website.
Typical Machine Translation Troubles
Let’s start off with getting to know the issue. What exactly are the most frequent problems and difficulties in machine translation? Are they the same as general translation problems? Let’s find out.
1. Linguistic Nuances
Due to the complexity and diversity of languages, machine translation systems often struggle with their subtleties. Many of them can be hard to grasp for machines, as they are is based on the people who create and use languages, the cultures they exist in, and much more. Below are some common issues in this area.
Idioms and Metaphors
Figurative language is among the biggest issues for machine translation. That’s because it’s often rooted in cultural references that you need to be aware of to understand it. What’s more, idioms and metaphors also don’t always have a direct equivalent in another language, making it necessary to use workarounds or descriptions.
You may also run into the problem that machine translation takes this kind of language literally, in which case the translation won’t make sense. Just think of an example like “to hit the books,” which means something very different when taken literally than its metaphorical meaning (i.e., “to study intently”).
Slang and Colloquialisms
Slang is hard enough for people to keep up with, let alone machines. Just ask any grown-up who regularly has to communicate with school-age children.
Slang is a part of language that’s highly dynamic and changes quickly and often over time. There are even countless variations within the same language and, like idioms, slang is often not to be taken literally. For example, to “spill the tea” means to share gossip. Of course, a literal translation would mean something completely different.
All of these are factors that make slang difficult to deal with for machine translation.
Formality
Another difficulty machines have in common with real-life people is using honorifics and addressing people with the right level of formality. This especially becomes a problem in languages such as Japanese, Korean, German, and Spanish, which have formal and informal verb forms or use distinct words based on the level of respect the speaker has for a person they address.
Because it is dependent on context, machine translation systems can struggle to pick the correct form, which can lead to awkward or even disrespectful translations. Like we need help making a bad impression in another language!
Gender
A final linguistic nuance that machine translation often has problems with is gender. Some languages assign genders to nouns, which affects associated adjectives, verbs, and pronouns. Machine translation can mismatch these genders, leading to inaccurate or nonsensical outputs, particularly for languages with complex gender rules.
For example, in languages like Spanish or French, where adjectives and articles change based on the gender of the noun, automatic translation systems may struggle to maintain the gender congruence, especially in longer sentences.
2. Contextual Understanding
One of the biggest limitations of machine translation systems is the difficulty to understand context, which is crucial for accurate translation. Two particular obstacles in this regard are homonyms and polysemy.
Those are fancy terms to describe words that are spelled and/or pronounced the same but mean different things and words that possess multiple related, yet differently used meanings.
For example, the English word “ring” can describe anything circular, a thing you wear on your finger, or the sound telephones used to make (ask your parents), making it a homonym. On the other hand, the word “light” can mean both something that’s not heavy, not serious, or light of color.
These instances were especially a problem in the past, when machine translation systems would pick words and phrases based on statistical likelihood. While they have become much better at taking context into account by now, these are still problems you can frequently encounter.
3. Cultural Peculiarities
Language and culture are deeply intertwined, and understanding cultural context is essential for producing translations that resonate with native speakers. This is another area where machine translation often has problems.
A common example here is words that are hard to translate because they are tightly related to a cultural context. For example, Japanese uses the term “salaryman” (サラリーマン) to describe a particular type of corporate worker.
Translating this word into English or other languages might result in a generic term like “employee,” missing the cultural connotations tied to Japanese work culture.
Another example is region-specific words in the same language, such as “faucet” vs. “tap” in American and British English. Or, how Australians call flip-flops “thongs,” while that’s a type of underwear in most other regions of the world.
It’s easy to see how not understanding these cultural differences can easily lead to inaccurate translations. They are also especially a problem in website localization.
4. Grammatical and Structural Errors
Another thing machine translation systems can struggle with is maintaining accurate grammar and sentence structure. This is particularly true when handling languages with significantly different syntaxes or complex grammatical rules.
For example, while English follows a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order, other languages like Japanese use Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). Arabic can even use Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) (which is why it is one of the hardest languages in the world). Human translators struggle with this, and machine translations have the same issue.
Other problems include gender, verb conjugations, and tenses (as mentioned above), and additionally, complex sentences with multiple clauses, subordination, or embedded phrases.
5. Limited Training Data
Machine translation systems rely heavily on extensive language data to train them. Its availability makes all the difference in the eventual translation output in different ways.
General Language Data
If training data for a particular language is scarce, say for indigenous languages like Quechua, it will diminish translation quality. In that case, machine translation systems simply don’t have enough information to go on to be accurate. This is, for example, a factor in why Google Translate is better at certain languages than others.
Another sticking point are regional dialects since systems are often trained primarily on standard forms of a language. For example, machine translation data might focus on Modern Standard Arabic, which can differ greatly from dialects like Egyptian or Levantine Arabic, leading to misunderstandings.
Data for Particular Industries
This issue doesn’t just apply to languages in general; it can also affect specific topical areas. Disciplines like medicine, law, or engineering, especially, often use words with specific meanings and connotations that experts in the fields will be familiar with.
Therefore, generating accurate translations in these areas requires a deep understanding of the subject matter. If training data doesn’t involve enough appropriate material, machine translation quality can suffer.
Language Bias
Another area where training data comes into play is language bias. Systems trained on data primarily from one region, demographic, or cultural context can inadvertently include bias. This can affect their accuracy and inclusivity. It’s something that’s very visible in artificial intelligence, such as X’s Grok AI, but it can affect machine translation in a similar way.
Adapting to Language Progress
Languages evolve constantly, with new terms and phrases emerging regularly, especially online. Machine translation systems may struggle to keep up with this evolution if they are not constantly updated.
Do you know what “drip”, “rizz”, or an “NPC” is? If so, congratulations, you are up to date on young people’s speech. If not, just hope that the training data of your machine translation systems has the latest edition of Urban Dictionary.
6. Sentiment and Tone
Another thing machine translation struggles with is interpreting the underlying sentiment or tone. Yet, that is often crucial to convey the speaker’s real intent, especially in cases like humor, irony, or sarcasm.
We all know that the phrase “that was a brilliant idea” can mean very different things depending on how it is pronounced (all married people are nodding along right now). However, machine translation systems often don’t get this kind of emotional subtext. Instead, they can take phrases such as this literally and miss the wider context.
7. Style
Finally, there is style. Written language especially shows very different stylistic approaches depending on the topic, genre, audience, and intent. Think formal vs informal, technical vs literary, or persuasive vs informative.
Preserving style across translations is generally a challenge and, like its human counterparts, machine translation can struggle with it. This is especially true in things like marketing messages, which usually can’t be translated directly.
Instead, the goal here is to preserve the sentiment while embedding the message into a new language environment. This process is known as transcreation and it’s something machine translation simply isn’t made for.
What Can You Do About It?
As you can see, there are several different factors that can create problems with machine translation. So, what is a person to do to avoid these issues? Let’s talk about that now.
1. Make Translation Easier
One of the ways you can ensure higher-quality results is by preparing your source material in a way that makes it easier to translate with machines. Basically, it’s all about addressing the issues mentioned above.
- Use simple language — Go for straightforward language and avoid idioms, slang, and cultural references that may not translate accurately.
- Utilize shorter, less complex sentences — Machine translation performs better with complete sentences than with fragmented or overly complex ones. Breaking text into shorter phrases helps keep the meaning intact.
- Specify context for ambiguous words — For words with multiple meanings, include additional context or use simpler terms to clarify which meaning is the intended one. Alternatively, rephrase sentences to avoid ambiguous words.
- Use formal language when possible — Machine translation often interprets formal language more reliably than when it’s casual or conversational.
- Translate back and forth — After receiving the initial translation, convert your text back into the original language to check if the meaning holds. Adjust the source as needed until the intended message remains intact across translations.
This type of contextual editing eliminates a number of problems inherent in machine translation. Of course, it doesn’t lend itself to every kind of content. For example, you wouldn’t want to do it for literary works like books. However, for content where the facts are more important than the language they are delivered in, all of the above can help you end up with better machine translation results.
2. Select High-Quality Tools
Besides improving your source material, the most important step in getting the most out of machine translation is choosing the right tool for the job. As mentioned above, different providers excel in different languages and topical areas. For example, Google Translate and DeepL deliver different quality when translating certain languages.
There are also AI translation models specialized in certain topical areas that have received the right training data to translate things like medical texts with higher accuracy. If you pick the right tool for the job from the get-go, you are already making a good step in the right direction.
3. Take Advantage of All Available Features
In addition to picking the right machine translation provider, it is also important that you use every tool in their arsenal. Many have particular settings that you can employ to improve translations.
For example, you might be able to select between different regional dialects of your language. Google Translate shows alternative translations for specific words, and you can manually select the most appropriate option if the initial choice seems off. In addition, you can save frequently used phrases to help with translation accuracy.
4. Check and Correct the Results
The most obvious and highly recommended solution to the problems above is to not simply rely on machine translation but to put a human translator in the loop as well.
While machine translation can do a lot of the heavy lifting more quickly and cheaply than real-life translators, it takes the experience, knowledge, and cultural understanding of a real person to spot translation blunders a machine might miss.
Therefore, it is recommended that you don’t simply run with what your machine translation software spits out. Instead, be sure to have quality control in place in the form of a person knowledgeable in your language pairs and their cultural backgrounds. This way, you get the best of both worlds.
Overcome Problems in Machine Translation by Using TranslatePress
When using machine translation for converting your website to another language, you might run into one or more of the problems mentioned above. In the rest of this article, we want to show you how our TranslatePress translation plugin helps you avoid this fate.
TranslatePress AI Picks the Right Translation Engine for You
TranslatePress allows you to translate your web content in several ways. The most hands-off method is TranslatePress AI. But how does it help you avoid problems with machine translation?
Our AI uses different sources for its translations and automatically selects the most appropriate one for the language pair you have selected. It also uses AI to ensure translation accuracy. That way, you can ensure that you are starting off with the best possible output and highest quality.
In addition to that, TranslatePress AI is super easy to use. After installing the plugin, simply go to Settings → General. Here, choose your default language at the top, then pick your target language(s) from the drop-down menu under All Languages and click Add.
TranslatePress also supports different local dialects. Save your choices when you are done.
After that, head to the Automatic Translation tab. Once there, switch the drop-down menu under Enable Automatic Translation to Yes. Save again at the bottom.
Your work is pretty much done. After this, TranslatePress will immediately start converting your website to your target language(s) fully automatically. In fact, you can go to the front end of your site and use the language switcher to see the finished job.
The best part: TranslatePress does not simply translate your posts and pages, but also your menus, widgets, themes, plugins, and even SEO metadata. Be aware, however, that you need a TranslatePress license and AI credits for this to work.
Or, Pick Your Preferred Machine Translation
If you don’t have a TranslatePress license or AI credits, you can also still use machine translation. Still in Automatic Translations, open the options under Alternative Engines, and choose Google Translate or DeepL (the latter, again, needs a license).
Then, obtain an API key using this guide for Google Translate or this one for DeepL. The rest works the same way as TranslatePress AI. After you save, you will find your website automatically translated according to your choices when you visit it in the front-end.
Just a quick note: Using Google Translate or DeepL can come with extra costs depending on your usage. This is not an issue with TranslatePress AI, which has no extra cost outside the plugin.
Refine Automatic Translations by Hand
Above, we have talked about how the most important step is to check and correct your machine translations. That’s why, in TranslatePress, all automatic results are editable by hand and it’s easy to do so.
It all happens in the TranslatePress translation interface, which you can access by clicking Translate Site in the settings or the WordPress taskbar.
On the following screen, you see a preview of your site on the right and the translation tools on the left.
Use the drop-down menu to switch the preview to your target language.
After that, use it to navigate to the translation you want to edit. Do this via the second drop-down menu, the forward and backward arrows, or by clicking the text in the preview screen.
When you do so, a new field appears on the left side. Here, you find the machine-translated text, which you can easily modify and correct.
Once finished, click Save at the top or press Cmd/Ctrl+S on your keyboard. After that, the corrected string will automatically appear on your site.
By the way, you can use the same process to translate your images. Just click on them, then provide a link to the localized version or pick it from your website’s media library.
Work With Professional Translators
But what if you are not knowledgeable enough to judge whether your machine translation needs correction or not? No problem at all. With a TranslatePress license, you have the possibility to create dedicated translator accounts.
That way, if you work with freelancers and agencies to outsource your translation needs, they can make correction directly on your website.
This saves you a lot of time usually spent sending content back and forth and manually copying and pasting it into your site.
Take Advantage of Additional TranslatePress Features
If the above isn’t enough, there are a few more features in TranslatePress Pro that further improve your international blog:
- Multilingual SEO — TranslatePress automatically implements hreflang tags for all your chosen languages. That way, your translated content can appear for appropriate keywords. In addition, you get access to the multilingual SEO pack. It lets you convert your page URLs, SEO titles, meta descriptions, ALT tags, and other important SEO markers to another language, creates multilingual sitemaps, and works with most of the popular WordPress SEO plugins.
- Language-specific navigation – This allows you to show different menus on your site depending on the language someone views it in.
- Automatic user language detection – Show your website in your visitor’s preferred language automatically.
Start off with the free version of TranslatePress for one additional language. If you need more, TranslatePress Pro comes in three fair pricing tiers so you can find the right option for you.
Your Problems With Machine Translation – Solved!
Machine translation comes with numerous challenges. It doesn’t always deal well with more idiomatic language, complex grammar, or taking into account context, culture, tone, and style.
This isn’t because automatic translation is inherently bad. It’s simply due to the complexity of language itself and is also highly dependent on the amount of material available for training the translation system.
Fortunately, there are plenty of things you can do to address these issues. From pre-processing your source material to making it easier to translate over picking the right translation engine to augmenting the output with quality control by a human translator.
If you are looking for a translation solution for your WordPress website that lets get the most out of machine translation, give TranslatePress a try!
