Machine translation of EC press releases
At a press briefing on 12.6.2023, European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer announced, as a little housekeeping announcement, the launch of a pilot programme for machine translation of the Commission's press releases.
The service will be provided by the EU's in-house machine translation tool "eTranslation" and no, it will not replace the work of translators.
Machine translation of EC press releases
At a press briefing on 12.6.2023, European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer announced the launch of a pilot programme for machine translation of the Commission's press releases.
The service will be provided by the EU's in-house machine translation tool "eTranslation" and no, it will not replace the work of translators.
eTranslation is a machine translation tool designed to make it easier for citizens to access EU information in their preferred language. It allows automatic translation of texts or parts of texts, as well as whole documents, into all 24 official EU languages.
Instant accessibility
This decision follows the current evolution of the global information services landscape, which has been revolutionised by the web and the use of social networks. In an increasingly interconnected and digitised world, news is disseminated much faster than in the past, allowing for continuous updates "minute by minute".
This increasing speed, for example, has caused newsrooms around the world to open their own digital portals and social channels through which they can reach users with every breaking news story.
Instant availability of information has become paramount, and it is out of this need that the EU's programme for instant automatic translation of Commission news was born.
The material to be instantly machine-translated concerns the environment, maritime affairs and fisheries, transport and the new European Bauhaus.
EU and machine translation
The use of eTranslation will therefore be for the immediate translation of press summaries in languages for which the output of a professional translator is not yet available. As Mamer himself says: "We will continue to provide professional human translation of our press materials, which will replace machine translation as soon as it is available."
In practice, machine translation will fill the time gap between the published content and its translation by a qualified linguist.
This information is routinely available on the European Commission's portal, which can be viewed in the Press Corner section of the EC's official website, in four European languages, namely English, German, French and Spanish.
The machine translations will thus cover the gap that would have been left by waiting for a qualified translator to work, while also extending the coverage of the EC languages.
Disclaimer
Finally, given the unreliability of machine translation, content translated by eTranslation will be marked with a disclaimer aimed at alerting users to the possible inaccuracy of what they have just read.
The role of the human translator is not contested by the authorities. Professionals will have the final say in order to guarantee the highest quality, accuracy and reliability of the translated texts.
Disclaimer: Also this text was machine translated from Slovak.
Photo: 200 Degrees