The effort involved in post-editing will be determined by two main criteria:
- The quality of the MT raw output.
- The expected end quality of the content.
To reach quality similar to “high-quality human translation and revision” (a.k.a. “publishable quality”), full post-editing is usually recommended.
For quality of a lower standard, often referred to as “good enough” or “fit for purpose”, light post-editing is usually recommended.
Guidelines for achieving “good enough” quality
“Good enough” is defined as comprehensible (i.e. you can understand the main content of the message), accurate (i.e. it communicates the same meaning as the source text), but as not being stylistically compelling.
The text may sound like it was generated by a computer, syntax might be somewhat unusual, grammar may not be perfect but the message is accurate.
- Aim for semantically correct translation.
- Ensure that no information has been accidentally added or omitted.
- Edit any offensive, inappropriate or culturally unacceptable content.
- Use as much of the raw MT output as possible.
- Basic rules regarding spelling apply.
- No need to implement corrections that are of a stylistic nature only.
- No need to restructure sentences solely to improve the natural flow of the text.
Guidelines for achieving quality similar or equal to human translation:
This level of quality is generally defined as being comprehensible (i.e. an end user perfectly understands the content of the message), accurate (i.e. it communicates the same meaning as the source text), stylistically fine, though the style may not be as good as that achieved by a native-speaker human translator.
Syntax is normal, grammar and punctuation are correct.
- Aim for grammatically, syntactically and semantically correct translation.
- Ensure that key terminology is correctly translated and that untranslated terms belong to the client’s list of “Do Not Translate” terms”.
- Ensure that no information has been accidentally added or omitted.
- Edit any offensive, inappropriate or culturally unacceptable content.
- Use as much of the raw MT output as possible.
- Basic rules regarding spelling, punctuation and hyphenation apply.
- Ensure that formatting is correct.