In today's globalized marketplace, effective communication across languages is crucial. Language service providers (LSPs) are increasingly offering custom machine translation (MT) engines – AI-powered tools trained specifically for a client's needs. This goes beyond generic translation services, offering a personalized solution for businesses like wholesale companies with unique terminology and content types.

Why Custom MT?

Imagine a wholesale company juggling project SKUs (Stock Keeping Units), marketing materials, and HR documents in multiple languages. Traditional MT engines might struggle with the specific product names, industry jargon, and brand voice of these materials. Here's where custom MT shines:

• Accuracy for Industry-Specific Language: Custom MT engines are trained on a client's specific terminology databases, glossaries, and past translations. This ensures project SKUs and technical terms are translated accurately, avoiding costly misunderstandings.

• Consistent Brand Voice: Marketing materials and communications need a consistent tone and style. Custom MT can be trained on existing marketing content to capture the brand voice and translate messages effectively across languages.

• Efficiency and Cost Savings: Translating large volumes of content, like product descriptions or HR documents, can be time-consuming and expensive. Custom MT automates a significant portion of the process, saving time and resources.

Building a Bespoke Translator

ORCA follows a multi-step process to create a custom MT engine for your business:

1. Needs Analysis: ORCA dives deep into your business, understanding the languages you work with, the content types you translate (SKUs, marketing materials, HR documents, operational handbooks, ect.), and the desired level of accuracy.

2. Data Gathering: This is where the magic happens. Our team gathers your existing translated content – sales emails, marketing brochures, employee handbooks – and any relevant glossaries or style guides. The more data you provide, the better the engine will learn your specific language use.

3. Engine Selection and Training: ORCA chooses an MT engine framework (often a neural network) best suited for your needs. Then, the engine is trained on the data you provided. This involves feeding the engine massive amounts of text and corresponding translations, allowing it to identify patterns and relationships between words and phrases in different languages.

4. Testing and Refinement: Once trained, the engine undergoes rigorous testing with new content. You work in collaboration with ORCA to evaluate the translations, identifying areas for improvement. The engine is then fine-tuned based on this feedback, iteratively improving its accuracy and fluency.

5. Integration and Deployment: The custom MT engine is integrated with your existing workflows, allowing seamless translation within your content management systems or other software.

Beyond Basic Translation

Custom MT offers additional benefits beyond basic translation:

• Domain Adaptation: The engine can be continuously adapted to new industry trends and vocabulary as your business evolves.

• Terminology Management: Custom MT engines can be integrated with terminology management systems, ensuring consistent translation of specific terms across all content.

• Security and Confidentiality: Unlike some cloud-based MT solutions, custom engines can be deployed on-premise, addressing security concerns for sensitive data like project SKUs or HR documents.

The Human Touch Remains

While custom MT offers significant advantages, it's important to remember that it's not a silver bullet. For highly nuanced content or critical communications, human post-editing by experienced translators remains essential. Additionally, human expertise is crucial for tasks like cultural adaptation and ensuring translations resonate with the target audience.

The Future of Tailored Translation

Custom MT is a rapidly evolving field. Advancements in artificial intelligence and natural language processing promise even more powerful and nuanced translation capabilities. At ORCA, we are constantly refining our approaches, offering businesses a cost-effective and efficient way to communicate across borders.