Most common types of translation errors
The types of translation errors have become crucially relevant in today’s fast-paced society, where translating is a daily aspect of everyday life. In an increasingly globalized world, translations are an essential tool to facilitate intercultural communication. New machine translation technologies and the massive arrival of artificial intelligence contribute to this task, benefiting thousands of users on a daily basis. However, it is essential to understand the limitations and errors that these tools may present.
However, while these tools can be quite useful for addressing minor, specific doubts, they can cause significant translation errors in important projects, potentially harming your professional career. From small misunderstandings to errors in understanding the context and overall meaning, using non-professional translations can lead to serious consequences.
This is why it’s crucial to be informed about the types of translation errors that search engines and other AI tools can produce, and how to avoid them. In this article, Specialty Translations highlights some of the most significant and frequent errors in machine translation tools and explains why, in certain cases, relying on professional translators is indispensable for ensuring reliable and high-quality translations.
What Are the Most Common Translation Errors?
Lexical and Contextual Errors
When a text includes polysemous words, interpreting the correct meaning can be challenging. A seemingly simple error in meaning can lead to entirely misunderstanding the intended message.
Machine translation tools work by translating words individually, without considering the context of the sentence within the broader framework of the text. This inability to view the text as an organic whole often leads to errors. Tools like Google Translate make significant comprehension mistakes, resulting in errors in translating the general context. The phrases produced by such translations are often grammatically correct in the target language, making it even harder to detect when the translation is inadequate. Engaging a professional ensures the translation is accurate and retains the original meaning of the provided text.
Grammatical Errors
Every language has its own grammatical structure. While some languages share similarities in structure, others differ significantly. When dealing with complex sentence structures, such as compound tenses, subordinate clauses, conditionals, or juxtaposed sentences, machine translations often fail to understand verb tenses, concordance, or the hierarchical order of sentence components. This can result in texts that are either completely incomprehensible or contain incorrect information.
Cultural, Tone, and Style Errors
Every language is a reflection of the culture it belongs to. A literal translation of sentences can result in nonsensical interpretations and errors that undermine the text’s credibility. Cultural references, idiomatic expressions, wordplay, proverbs, or idioms are difficult to translate without the knowledge of an expert. The translator’s role goes beyond mastering the source and target languages; they must also have a deep understanding of the corresponding cultures to interpret nuances when the meaning is not literal.
Machine translation tools lack the ability to appropriately adapt languages to one another. Additionally, maintaining the register, tone, and style of the original text is vital. Without the expertise of a professional translator, shifts in language that generate confusion—whether excessively formal or overly casual—can occur, depending on the intended audience.
Technical or Specialized Errors
For professional texts within a specific field of expertise, it is crucial to rely on someone proficient not only in the languages but also in translating the specific subject matter. Scientific, legal, medical, or literary texts are impossible to translate accurately using machine tools. Such tools can lead to comprehension errors and, in some cases, serious legal consequences.
Problems with Machine Translation Tools
In recent years, tools like Google Translate, DeepL, and ChatGPT have gained immense popularity. While they are fast, accessible, and free—making them highly appealing—they often result in a multitude of problems when used for important texts. While they can be helpful for resolving simple queries, their algorithms often fail to grasp complex meanings. These tools are unprepared for specialized or technical texts that require professional knowledge of the subject matter. They cannot provide alternatives when they fail to comprehend the required context or tone.
Despite advances in technology, there has yet to be a tool capable of addressing the cultural context of source and target languages. The level of precision and reliability in their translations is insufficient to guarantee quality results.
Moreover, they are far from being able to make corrections when the output doesn’t meet user expectations, making them unable to adapt to the specific needs of a particular text.
The Importance of Professional Translation Services
This article has outlined why machine translation cannot match the precision and quality of expert human translation. A professional translator’s role goes beyond converting text from one language to another; it requires additional expertise, such as cultural awareness and specialized vocabulary, to ensure the original message is preserved with all its nuances and intricacies.
A professional translation service like the one offered by Specialty Translations guarantees that the message will be understood and interpreted exactly as intended.
To avoid future problems and unnecessary risks, we recommend choosing a professional team with extensive experience, like ours, to deliver an error-free result tailored to your needs.
If you need high-quality, reliable translations, contact us, and we’ll help ensure your message is effectively understood.
