Which type of translation is right for you? Now you know the basics of both translations. So how do you choose? Let's take a look at their pros and cons:

• Pure Machine Translation: Advantages

  fastest

  Most affordable

  Pure Machine Translation: Disadvantages

  The difficulty of the task is different, and the quality is uneven

  Difficulty maintaining brand image

  Language is inevitably mechanical and rigid

  Machine translation plus post-editing: advantages

  Pure machine translation is more accurate

  Smoother language and clearer meaning

  more culturally sensitive

  Slang and local vocabulary are used more naturally

  30% faster than pure human translation

  Machine translation plus post-editing: disadvantages

  Slower than pure machine translation

  More expensive than pure machine translation

  At the end of the day, when deciding whether to choose pure machine translation or machine translation plus post-editing, you need to weigh the task at hand, budget, editing timeline, and expected results. This can be a complicated calculation process. Your business determines the importance of each factor, and the order of priority may change over time. You can refer to the following use cases when making decisions:

  Scenarios for pure machine translation You need to publish specific content as soon as possible You have a limited budget Rough translation is sufficient for the purpose (lower priority internal information) You need to translate a large amount of text

  Pure machine translation is often suitable for databases, web chat, user-generated content (such as crowd sourced Q&A), and other projects where accurate translation is not required or possible.

  Applicability of machine translation plus post-editing You need to translate culturally relevant materials You need to translate highly technical materials (such as medical, legal, mechanical, etc. documents) You want to translate public-facing materials ( advertisements, product descriptions, etc.)

  Examples of machine translation  plus post-editing scenarios include blog posts, package inserts, instruction manuals, and website content. 

  We generally do not advise clients to use pure machine translation for public-facing material, especially when it is necessary to communicate a brand image to the global market. For slogans, titles and other copywriting, it is best to directly submit them to translators for transcreation.