Human and Machine Translation: How to Distinguish between Them?

Think of a situation where you test the language skills of a person who may have taken advantage of AI prompts. Or do you suspect the translator is misusing machine translation (MT)? How can you be sure that you've got a human translation instead of an MT? Here are some tips.

First, AI and humans differ enormously in terms of work time. If your contractor offers to translate hundreds of pages in a couple of days, please expect to receive a machine translation with little or even no human input.

Second. Does the translation appear to be unnatural or excessively word-for-word? Probably, an AI generated it. Pay particular attention to how slang, idioms or cultural specifics are translated.

Third. If similar words with different meanings are translated incorrectly, it’s an indication of an MT use. Here’s a real case: the term outing means a trip taken for pleasure, but when it comes to gender topics, it means the act of disclosing a person's gender identity without their consent. Should you find a mistranslation like this, be aware that someone has just been too lazy to proofread an MT.

Fourth. AI often mistranslates proper nouns, names and abbreviations, while a seasoned translator will always cross-check proper names against sources.

Fifth. You can always benefit from any of the numerous websites or apps checking texts for being AI-generated (for instance, Winston AI, GPTZero or AI Detector).

KLS employs translators who, being perfectly aware of the limits and flaws of machine translation, always work autonomously. However, a client willing to save time and money can order a machine-translation post-editing (MTPE) service from us to be promptly delivered a high-quality translation free of any MT deficiencies.