MTPE (Machine Translation Post-Editing)

This service involves proofreading machine-translated texts, offering the best of both worlds: the speed of machine translation and the expertise of a professional translator. It is not recommended for confidential documents. Its main advantages, depending on the type and quality of the original text: faster delivery and greater accuracy in the translation of technical terms. On the other hand, MTPE should not be used for ironic, metaphorical or humorous texts, for example. In other words, nothing compares to the work of an experienced professional translator.

Our Executive Director, Marisol Mandarino, is MTPE certified by SDL, the company now called RWS, the owner of the Trados Studio software.

There are two types of MTPE: light and full.

Simple MTPE offers a less detailed review of the translation produced by the machine. Minimal corrections are made, usually to the lexicon and syntax, as well as correcting the formatting of numbers, dates and the use of capitalization, for example. Of the two MTPE options, it is the least expensive and fastest, but it is never a perfect translation.

On the other hand, full MTPE requires more hours of revision and is therefore a more expensive service, but it is still less expensive and quicker than doing the translation from scratch. Depending on the type of text and the quality of the original, it may take fewer or more hours to achieve this result, but the goal of this type of MTPE is to obtain a high-quality translation. The proofreader for this type of work must be an experienced translator who will not be mislead by the translation suggested by the machine. In addition to the errors that are normally corrected in simple MTPE, the proofreader/translator will also correct less obvious errors, stylistic errors and the fluency of the final text, so that the final text does not cause the reader any surprise. The final text will have the quality of a translation by a professional translator.