According to the book The New European Patent (2015) by Alfredo Ilardi, the EU Patent Office’s investigation of the suitability of machine translation for translating patent documentation resulted in the following conclusion:
“Given the state of technological development, the maximum period for the development of high quality machine translations cannot be considered to exceed 12 years.”
While the EU’s intention was not to deride machine translation, its conclusion once again provides consumers with a stark reminder that MT remains a poor substitute for human translation; an unreliable option fraught with the potential for inconsistences and inaccurate “Translationese”.
So, how long can you afford to wait for high-quality translation?
If your deadline is less than 12 years away, why not contact AltoLingua for professional, high-quality human translation at affordable rates? We stand by our conviction that human translators are always the best fit for human readers.
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