As we have seen, machine translation is the use of computers to translate text from one language to another. Translation in this way has advantages such as convenience of use, quick results, and low cost are required.
Compare with a human translator services in addition to not necessarily available at all times, also need time to produce results and also the cost of translation is high. It is not surprising if the current machine translation used a lot of people and has become a necessity. Looks like machine translators are slowly shifting professional human translators. No wonder professional translators began to feel worried about the existence of these sophisticated machines, which can bring up the translation in a matter of seconds and also in a variety of languages. Although the results of machine translation are still many shortcomings, technology has a tendency to grow and become better.
Is the translators concerns justified? Is it true that one day all the translation work will be taken over and completed by the machine? See it now, bank teller jobs have to be replaced by an ATM machine, cash register by the scanner, even the already available software that is ready to replace the professional middle management level (mid-level managers).
I believe the answer is no. For almost purely mechanical work such as the calculation and payment of the groceries, the cashier machine is certainly enough to do well. However, the accounting profession can not simply be replaced by machines. Likewise, human translators will never be completely replaced by computers. Here, I will try to summarize some of the advantages of human translators that it seems impossible to be replicated by a machine.
Understanding the context of the situation
A word or phrase may have different meanings in different situations.
Understanding the meaning
Meaning not only from the words, but also of many other factors such as socio-cultural environment, tone / delivery, the relationship between the communicant and the audience, etc..
Sense of speaking
Humans can catch the mood and feel of a text and then translate it to the appropriate style of speaking. In translating literary works, for example, the translator is not only to deliver the message, but he was also required to be able to translate it in a beautiful style and language appropriate.
Creativity
Because the workings of a mechanical machine, the translation results were uniform and tend to sound stiff.
The examples above give encouragement; translators do not need to fear being taken over by the computer profession. Once again, the machine can only produce the meaning of the original language to the target language. He can translate the words but can not translate the meaning. While the translation we absolutely must understand the meaning, not just the meaning of the words alone. Machines can never Overcome true manpower.
Thus, machine translation is not a threat. Machine translation must be considered as a useful tool that can simplify the translation work translator in large amounts, which are monotonous and technical, and of course, the translation needs to be read and edited if used in accordance with the proportions, machine translation can be a very valuable helper for translators professionals to save time, save costs and get feedback about the variation choice of words and phrases in the target language.