Machine translation - what you need to know

Machine translation (MT) is a state-of-the-art technology that has revolutionized the field of life sciences. As companies grow and expand across different geographical regions, the need for MT grows as well in order to cater to a more culturally diverse audience. To compete in the international market, companies must produce high-quality translated material that appeals to both internal and external parties.

 

With neural machine translation, life sciences professionals can access and understand information from a wide range of sources, enabling them to make new breakthroughs and advance in their fields. This technology has also opened up new opportunities for international collaboration, making it easier for researchers from different countries to work together to solve some of the world's most pressing health problems.

 

RWS is a leading provider of language services, content management, and intellectual property services. We have the latest translation and content management technology that helps you meet your goals quickly, accurately, and in compliance with regulations. RWS also owns Language Weaver, the original MT solution that allows global enterprises and organizations to effectively manage their multilingual content and processes on a large scale in real-time. With Language Weaver, companies can safeguard their data, expedite their understanding of information, and fuel their growth through adaptive language technologies. Furthermore, our ISO-certified processes ensure that your global content is always accurate, consistent, and compliant. At RWS, we are highly flexible and customize our solutions to fit your needs, ensuring you get the greatest level of service.

Neural machine translation (NMT) is a type of machine translation that uses deep learning algorithms to generate translations. It works by using artificial neural networks to map the meaning of a source language sentence into a target language sentence. It uses various techniques, including recurrent neural networks, convolutional neural networks, and attention-based models, to achieve the task of machine translation.

 

NMT is a valuable tool in a translation production workflow. It is designed to reduce costs and speed up turnaround times. Machine translation can help companies to more easily comply with standards set by international regulatory bodies, such as Regulation 2017/745 (EU MDR) and Regulation 2017/746 (IVDR). 

 

While it can provide many benefits, it also has some potential risks, depending on how you implement it. For example: 

 

To ensure the end product meets the desired quality, NMT should be used in conjunction with human linguists who can act as gatekeepers of the final output and make sure it is fit for purpose. Post-editors use NMT as a productivity booster, receiving rough drafts from the translation memory (TM) and using their language and subject matter expertise to strike a balance between over- and under-editing. Additionally, seamless integration with existing work methods and tools helps to focus solely on translation quality and accuracy. As the content is finalized, it is captured for reuse in the TM, while any issues that are detected and reported during the post-editing process can be worked on continually to improve the NMT output. 

In the life sciences industry, there is ample content that is suitable to use with modern machine translation tools. It is important to remember, though, that the quality of the source content needs to be high in order to get the best results from NMT. It’s estimated that around 80% of the content from a pharmaceutical company can be used successfully with NMT.

 

NMT can be used to translate materials in various areas, such as; Clinical Trial Management, eLearning and Training, Regulatory Affairs, Marketing and Medical and In Vitro Diagnostic Device Fields. While NMT effectively decreases costs and turnaround time, the addition of human linguists for MTPE significantly improves the quality and accuracy of the translation. For this reason, it would be wise to collaborate with a Language Service Provider (LSP) that specializes in NMT deployment with MTPE within the life sciences field.

 

At RWS, we have a team of highly skilled linguists and experts who specialize in this kind of work and understand how important it is to produce accurate and culturally relevant translations that are compliant with the relevant regulations.

 

NMT is an invaluable tool for businesses when used correctly. It can help speed up the time it takes to get products to market and, when combined with a post-edit, can support a high-quality translation output. It also has the potential to increase the scope of what can be translated and reduce potential spending, depending on the maturity of the deployment. NMT is a great resource that can help businesses expand to new markets quickly and efficiently. 

NMT is an evolving technology  that is uncovering novel and emerging use cases for transforming multilingual data into actionable insights at scale. RWS recognizes this and works closely with clients to ensure their expectations align with NMT's current and advancing capabilities. If you are considering the implementation of machine translation into your production lifecycle, RWS provides valuable insights on deploying successful NMT programs. Our team works with you to assess your content viability and set realistic goals. We provide support to define an implementation process, put it into execution and pilot testing, and use measuring and monitoring techniques to evaluate the adequacy and fluency of your content. We also continually look for ways to improve your engine and overall MT deployment planning.  

 

At RWS Group, we stay up to date with the latest technological advancements and invest heavily in research and development in the NMT space. This allows us to offer innovative solutions and automated processes to help our customers get to market quicker. NMT is particularly useful for areas such as EudraVigilance and eConsent, as well as providing context at a document level. We are also researching how to use NMT with Languages of Limited Diffusion (LLD) and looking into unsupervised and automated post-editing training.

 

Continuous innovation is key in the life sciences industry, and RWS Group is at the forefront of these advances. At RWS, we aim to improve the overall customer experience and the value we bring to our clients. Join us on this exciting journey, and trust us with your LSP needs.