Machine translation and the European commission

More and more translation agencies are investing in the automation of their processes. Their main goal is to obtain the highest quality translation at the lowest cost. By using machine translation you can increase translation speed, decrease costs, thus make your LSP more efficient. European Commission is very open to this technology. What is more, it helps in development of machine translation and make it more popular.

I would like to present some interesting facts about European Commission survey made in 2020:

Over 2,800 SMEs (small medium enterprises) took part in a survey, of which:
 • 92 % expressed interest in using a free, secure, automated translation system provided by the EU;
 • over 70 % find automated translation useful for their business;
 • 47 % plan to start cross-border business for which translation will be useful;
 • almost 40 % had not previously used automated translation.

Potential use of human vs. automated translation by activities

For 80 % of the respondents, automated translation is the right tool to understand social media, over 70 % would use it to gather information and over 60 % consider it usable in chatbots. Over 50 % of the respondents would use automated translation for seeking business partners abroad and purchasing products or services. Most respondents clearly prefer human translation when negotiating or signing contracts.

E-Translation - MT from European Commission

This solution - eTranslation is an online machine translation service provided by the European Commission (EC). eTranslation is intended for European public administrations, Small and Medium-sized enterprises and University language faculties, or for Connecting Europe Facility projects. The eTranslation service is free of charge and will help you save time and money to translate your documents and text between any two official EU languages, and more. It was officially launched on 15 November 2017 and builds on the previous machine translation service of the European Commission - MT.
 
In my opinion, it is great that European Commission is engaged in developing Machine translation tools. There are many different countries and cultures in Europe and everyone has their own language. Thanks to the technology it will be easier to communicate and cross the barriers. 
 

Patrick Repetski
CEO