Machine Translation (Google) and Human Translation

Abir Zein Zeinab Kabalan Lea Haj Hassan Nabila Wehbe Abstract Translation in the Arab world, for instance, is known as "an act of understanding before explaining". In this regard, it is necessary that before starting the translation of any text, the translator should have a clear understanding, linguistically, semantically and culturally speaking, of that source text so that he or she would be able to convey the real intended meaning of the target language. This paper is an attempt to draw a distinction between Machine Translation and Human Translation shedding light on the different characteristics of each one. Thus, for the sake of illustrating, it will provide many legal texts that are translated by both Machine Translation (Google) and Human Translation. Analysis: It is quite obvious, from the first reading of each translation, that machine translation is not that perfect rendering of the source text into the target text. The point is that the translated text, still, bears much of the traits characterizing the language of the source text; therefore, much should be said about how the use of language is violated as well as the meaning. 1. Semantics: The source text (sample 1): call today for more information! Human translation: أجر الطرف الأول المؤجر للطرف الثاني المستأجر القابل لذلك الوحدة السكنية الموضحة المعالم بالبند التمهيدي Machine translation الطرف الأول، والمؤجر لم تسمح بهذا على الطرف الثاني واستأجرت الطرف الثاني بموجب هذا الاتفاق من المؤجر الوحدة السكنية التي يتم الإشارة إلى الميزات في In the above example, the machine translation is a literal translation or instead a word-for-word translation; the reader can easily notice that there is no flexibility in the machine translation in that each word in the source text has been substituted orderly by another in the machine translation.Thus, it becomes clear that machine translation, is a translation, the focus of which is the source text rather than the target text. The word order is respected only in the source text. 2. Morphology: . Human translation يقر الطرف الثاني المستأجر أنه قد عاين العين المؤجرة المعاينة التامة النافية للجهالة ،وقبل استئجارها بالحالة التي هي عليها ،ويقر أن الوحدة السكنية صالحة للغرض الذي أستؤجرت من أجله ويتعهد بأن يستخدمها فيما حدد لها Machine translation: يجب أن الطرف الثاني أن تعلن اضطلعت الطرف الثاني التفتيش السليم للمباني المؤجرة وقبلت لاستئجار كما هو ويقر بأن الوحدة السكنية ليناسب الغرض الذي تم تأجيره عليه ويتعهد استخدام وحدة حسب ما تم تعيينه. Although the meaning can be comprehensible; nevertheless, the structure of languages are different and, hence, they should be respected for the sake of producing a well-formed translation in the target language. The inability of the machine translation to produce a well-structured text is due to its focus on the "comprehension" and not "the production of a perfect target text". So far as the human translation is concerned, the above example can reveal, clearly how the human translator is capable of avoiding what have been criticized in the machine translation. The human version is a structure respecting and its focus has been in both the source text, in an act of comprehension, and the target text, in an act of producing a perfect translation. The human translator's flexibility allows them to move from language into another bearing in their minds the difference of structures between languages. 3. Syntax: No one can deny that the main rationale behind any translation is to transfer as much as possible the meaning intended by the source text's writer into the target text. Yet, in machine translation, this is not always the case in that sometimes the achieved meaning is ambiguous, distorted, and it becomes difficult to grasp it just like in the following example: The source text (sample 3): particle distribution curve and particle distribution analysis data are not output, and the output is confined to only the CBC 8 parameter. Machine translation: يجب على المستأجر القيام هيربي لدفع أي ضرائب والرسوم والمخالفات والتعويضات أو مصاريف أو الناتجة عن استخدام الوحدة السكنية الخاضعة لهذا الاتفاق من تاريخ توقيع هذا الاتفاق والمؤجر لا يتحمل أي منهم Human translation: يلتزم المستأجر بسداد أية ضرائب أو رسوم أو قيمة أية مخالفات أو غرامات أو تعويضات أو مصروفات تتصل بالوحدة موضوع هذا العقد أو تنتج عن استخدامه لها من تاريخ التوقيع على هذا العقد ولا يتحمل المؤجر بأي منها In this example, the machine translated sentence produces certain associations with no sense. This is mainly, as stated before, due to the fact that machine translation focuses on the source text's language which is in this case English, as being different from Arabic. As for the human translation in the same example, the ability of the translator to substitute the words renders the translation easy to be understood. it is only through human translation that the translator can add or delete certain words or even phrases, sometimes, for the sake of clarity. Conclusion: Finally, it is obvious that the machine translation can’t compete with the human capacity to produce and interpret words and languages, because the meanings are missed in many phases of translation also the translation is limited and can’t recognize nor translate some words like idioms and slang for example. On one hand, someone said that: “Machine translation is an important but difficult problem. One of the properties that makes it difficult is the fact that different languages express the same concepts in different orders. A machine translation system must therefore rearrange the source language concepts to produce a fluent translation in the target language.” On the other hand, human translators can reproduce different words to create effective materials in the target language. While the Machine translations are useful in giving the reader a general idea of what the source text says, but can never replace the human element in translation, and only a human translator can render a translation suitable for public consumption. Recommendations: It is recommended that translators with the help of specialists and expert to upload and update their memories for machine translation, regularly. It is recommended as well that translators pinpoint the weaknesses and mistakes of machine translation, in order to go back revise and check these points. Programmers have to stop creating programs that seek to replace human translators for the reasons mentioned above. And the programs that are made need to be of such a nature that human translators can make use of them to enhance the translation process and make it easier and more accurate, like it is being done with translation memories.