No matter what role you have in the localization industry, just reaching out here implies that you are already benefiting from multiple NLP applications, like when you type any word in Google Search. Nowadays, NLP is everywhere indeed!
What is NLP?
NLP, or Natural Language Processing, is a subfield of artificial intelligence that focuses on enabling computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language. Let’s say that the focus is to “humanize” computers by teaching them to provide more human-friendly outputs.
On our side, humans take profit of the amazing advantages of having a machine doing millions of calculations to provide a result —otherwise, it would be impossible for us. So imagine the potential options. As a matter of fact, this technology is especially useful in the field of translation.
NLP in the translation and localization industry
The creation of CAT tools, translation memories and terminology databases changed the industry a few years ago. It was a big step forward, right? We are now looking at something bigger. Since the revolutionary launch of Neuronal Machine Translation, the whole localization industry has changed from darkness to a light bright future. NMT will not prevent companies from hiring human professional translators. On the contrary, NMT means a revolution in terms of work volumes, since more companies are now getting global and the multilingual content produced by those global companies keeps continuously growing.
According to the European Commission report Digital Language Equality in Europe by 2030, the demand for language services is expected to continue to grow in the coming years, driven by the increasing global interconnectedness of businesses and the growing importance of international trade. The language industry is a key contributor to economic growth and competitiveness, and is expected to continue to be an important sector in the future with a potential to create new jobs.
How linguists and translators benefit from NLP applications?
As NLP technology has become more advanced, the role of the translator has shifted from a solely manual process to a more post-editing role. This is how NLP helps translators and linguists do their job. Translators now use NLP technology to assist them in the translation process in many ways —including concordance search in TMs, text prediction, terminology inconsistencies detection, a spellchecker. This change is the natural evolution in the field of translation for linguists and translators, and has allowed for more efficient and accurate translations, as well as the capacity to produce more words daily.
If love is in the air, NLP is everywhere nowadays. The translator doesn’t type the texts anymore. The source language text is processed in a program that uses NLP algorithms to analyze and interpret the text, and then suggests appropriate translations in the target language by means of computing vectors and embeddings. Language is kind of mathematics at this stage, a melody of numbers. Do you hear the beat?
The translation industry is changing dramatically. Technologies like NLP, Neural Machine Translation or Machine Learning are taking the artificial intelligence to a next level. The translator still plays a crucial role in post-editing the translations to ensure accuracy and quality, as well as in providing human feedback to reinforce machine learning. This is a matter of evolution, so let’s try to remind Darwin’s basic concepts. The key for evolution is adaptation. Learning and acquiring new skills will help translators adapt to the fast changing times into a new era.
