Balancing between translation quality and costs can be tough for any business looking to expand to Sweden.  

If you’re considering machine translation to stay cost-efficient, it’s essential to understand the downsides of choosing AI (Artificial Intelligence) over human linguists. Let’s go over everything you need to know about machine translation vs. a professional English-Swedish translator, so you can make the right decision for your translation needs.  

When to Choose Machine Translation

Machine translation (MT) utilizes AI algorithms to churn out a translation. It’s typically the most affordable type of translation because it doesn’t require human input, though some translators offer “postediting” of machine translation as a compromise between cost and quality. 

Pros

To start, machine translation can be an interesting choice for translating certain company materials. Some benefits of machine translation include: 

• It has a quick turnaround time.
• It’s a low-budget option.
• You can scale MT according to your content volume.
• Sometimes you can set up automatic MT integration.

Typically, companies choose machine translation when they have large volumes of content, a limited budget or a challenging project timeline. There’s no doubt that machine translation is a “quick and dirty” option to get a translation completed on a tight budget.

Cons

However, machine translation isn’t known for its quality and a lot can go wrong with your English-Swedish content when you utilize machine translation. In particular, if you have creative or client-facing materials, machine translation can lead to disastrous results. Overall, machine translation:

• Can’t handle nuance, such as idioms, slang, abbreviations, etc.
• Doesn’t know specialized industry terms
• Doesn’t understand regional vocabulary differences
• Produces awkward or unnatural phrasing
• Doesn’t process context to determine the correct tone/style

Given these potential problems, you should only use machine translation under certain circumstances, such as when the content is internally-facing, low stakes or has a short life cycle. 

When to Choose a Professional English-Swedish Translator

Instead of machine translation, you may opt for a professional English-Swedish linguist. On the whole, human linguists offer a much more reliable and high-quality final product. Here’s a look at why a professional translator may be right for your project.

Pros

With a professional English-Swedish linguist, you can be sure that your translation doesn’t have egregious errors or put your business at risk. Ultimately, these professionals can craft top-level translations because they have industry-best skills such as:

• Specialized abilities to phrase beyond literal wording
• Deep knowledge of Swedish culture
• Ability to align the text with your company’s brand voice
• Well-versed in performing high-level SEO research

In this way, a professional English-Swedish translator can guarantee a high-quality translation, which is especially important when you have high-stakes, creative or technical content. 

Cons

To be honest, there aren’t a lot of downsides to choosing a professional English-Swedish translator except regarding your budget. 

• It’s more expensive compared to machine translation.

Though, as the saying goes, “you get what you pay for.” Sometimes it’s best to increase your budget and get a high-quality product, rather than isolate your Swedish customers with clunky machine translation.

Best Case Scenarios for a Professional Translator vs. Machine Translation

 

Professional English-Swedish Translator

Machine Translation

You’re better off with a human linguist when your content is:   • Customer-facing Highly technical (such as legal language) • Uses creative or nuanced language (such as idioms, slang, abbreviations, etc.) • Requires a rare language pair   Real examples of content:   • Any eCommerce areas that customers use to buy the product Any marketing content aimed at converting customers • Any creative materials such as videos or ads  • Any technical content that explains safety instructions

Machine translation may be right for certain situations where the content is:   • Internal Low stakes (i.e. it won’t be seen by many people) • Has a short life cycle (i.e. it won’t be visible in the long run)   Real examples of content:   • Any internal company materials • Any low-priority marketing content (such as social media posts) • Any marketing content with a short lifecycle (such as product reviews or  testimonials) • Any content you only need the “gist” of

Take Advantage of Professional Swedish Translation Services

For key marketing campaigns and product launches, you’ll want to choose industry-leading English-Swedish translators to get the job done right. Hire a professional like me to craft your brand’s message and get top results for your target customers in Sweden.

Reach out to Swedish Translation Services to learn more about my extensive experience and check out successful case studies of projects I’ve done for other clients.

 

 

Check also:

• Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and the Future-Proofed Translator
• Why There’s Room for Both MT and Human Translation
• 6 Reasons Not to Use Software for Your Business Translations