Pay Now or Pay Later: HUMAN VERSUS MACHINE TRANSLATION

Enter machine translation.  This free translation medium, offering international corporations and law firms readily accessible – and free! – translation, allows you to converse and correspond with clients and review documents. One of the best known and most popular is Google Translate™, followed closely by Bing Translate and several others. Even more exciting is the recent news of real-time audio translation devices, a la Star Trek™ and other popular sci-fi shows. Zero cost, zero hassle. Right?

Absolutely WRONG! Give them a wide berth. At best, you end up with a ridiculous, poorly worded translation which is good for a laugh when sharing with friends (remember the “Clitoris Festival” in Galicia, Spain? For professional purposes, the results could be disastrous. For example, when you plug Section 3(a1) of the Israel Civil Procedure Regulations – 1984 into Google Translate, this is what you get:

“Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (a), the plaintiff was the business of the branches, and one of them is in the jurisdiction where the residence or place of business of the defendant, the claim shall be submitted to the court in that jurisdiction.” – Can you imagine that in your contract? I rest my case.

But that is not the worst of it by far. If you are an attorney, when you offer text to a translation site, you could be in violation of your legal and ethical obligations to keep your client’s information confidential. If you are a business, you are placing the sanctity of your intellectual property and trade secrets at risk.

How can this be?! All you did was use a simple online tool, right? How could things go so wrong? The answer is in the fine print. In Google’s Terms of Service for example, which apply to services including Google Translate™, it states, “When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content…you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce…communicate, publish…and distribute such content.” How is that for a kick in the butt? Plus, if you are on an unsecured wireless (Wi-Fi) network (such as those offered in many cafes, libraries, and similar institutions), you run the added risk that the content you send to your preferred machine translation provider will be intercepted by unscrupulous hackers. Boy, when things go wrong…

When translating your important and/or sensitive legal documents or business documents, it is important to ensure the use of human translators who are competent, trained translators translating into a language in which they are fully fluent. This includes use of a translator specializing in the relevant specialty field (such as legal professionals for legal translation, business and finance professionals for business and financial translations, etc.). It is also crucial to ensure that they do not place your confidential information at risk. It is for this reason for example that Weis-Words International Translations requires all translators to commit, in writing, not to utilize machine translation in their work.

While the allure of “free” translation is tempting, there is no such thing as a free lunch. There is always a price to pay. Avoid paying a heavier, hidden price for “free translation.” When it comes to translation, it’s not enough to be smart, you need to be – “Weis.” Weis Words International Translations invites you to take advantage of our professional, high quality, confidential, human translation services for all of your legal translation and business translation needs.