Post-Editing of Machine Translation

Definition of post-editing

Please make sure to review the Reference folder before starting working on the project.

Editing of machine translation (MT) to ensure the accuracy and stylistic acceptability of the target text. Mind you, there can be more errors to look out for and to correct than when editing human translation. In this sense, the post-editing effort is analogous to adjusting fuzzy matches from a TM.

Post-edited translation is to be of high quality. Also, its quality must not be lower than that which results from human translation and editing.

Post-editing should be carried out via the specified CAT tool, with good attention to: accuracy of translation, language conventions (i.e. grammar, spelling), compliance with defined and generally accepted terminology and style.

Guidelines for post-editing

Please ensure all segments are fully post edited (revised and reviewed) to render human-like translation that is in line with the account’s terminology, tone and style requirements.

• Ensure a grammatically, syntactically and semantically correct translation.
• Ensure that key terminology is correctly translated and that untranslated terms belong to the client’s list of “Do Not Translate” terms.
• Ensure that no information has been accidentally added or omitted.
• Edit any offensive, inappropriate or culturally unacceptable content.
• Use as much of the raw MT output as reasonably possible.
• Unless required by the glossary or style guide, do not replace a correct word with a synonym and do not change correct word order just for the sake of pure personal preference.
• Basic rules regarding spelling, punctuation and hyphenation apply at all times.
• Pay special attention to tags and spaces surrounding them – please carefully mirror them them in the target.