What is Machine Translation?

There are three types of machine translation system: rules-based, statistical and neural:

• Rules-based systems use a combination of language and grammar rules plus dictionaries for common words. Specialist dictionaries are created to focus on certain industries or disciplines. Rules-based systems typically deliver consistent translations with accurate terminology when trained with specialist dictionaries.
• Statistical systems have no knowledge of language rules. Instead they "learn" to translate by analysing large amounts of data for each language pair. They can be trained for specific industries or disciplines using additional data relevant to the sector needed. Typically statistical systems deliver more fluent-sounding but less consistent translations.
• Neural Machine Translation (NMT) is a new approach that makes machines learn to translate through one large neural network (multiple processing devices modeled on the brain). The approach has become increasingly popular amongst MT researchers and developers, as trained NMT systems have begun to show better translation performance in many language pairs compared to the phrase-based statistical approach.

When translating with SDL Trados Studio, any segments not leveraged from translation memory can automatically be machine translated for a translator to review, then accept and amend if necessary, or decide to manually translate instead. A translator can configure which machine translation to use and how much is used.

Respecting client confidentiality

If the projects you work on are commercially sensitive, your customer may require that information is not disclosed to any third parties.  Carefully consider how and when to use machine translation as you could be sharing segments of the source with a third party.

Audit files are automatically generated by SDL Trados Studio which record the use of machine translation.

SDL Trados Studio supports a number of machine translation engines that are available over an internet connection including SDL Language Cloud which is provided by SDL. You can choose between various options starting with a free package of baseline (untrained) translation up to industry specific trained engines, we have an option that is right for you.

You can use AdaptiveMT, our self-learning machine translation from within SDL Trados Studio. AdaptiveMT works via SDL Language Cloud MT and learns from your edits in real-time as you translate.

Increased productivity – deliver translations faster

• Pre-translate new segments that are not leveraged from translation memory. 
• Connect to and use a customer's or supplier's trained engine through the industry specific solution SDL Language Cloud to achieve better quality results every time.

Flexibility and choice – to suit all types of project

• Select from a number of different machine translation engines.
• Choose from over 100 languages and more than 2,500 language pairs to suit your project.
• The option to compare the results of rules-based and statistical machine translation engines.