Rochester, NY – July 13, 2012 Advanced Language Translation Inc. announced today that it has extended its service offering to include automated translation for selected languages and content types. The Rochester, New York-based firm has been observing the development of automated translation, also referred to as machine translation or “MT” for the past 15 years. “Since starting the company”, commented company owner, Scott Bass, “we just couldn’t take MT seriously because the quality was so poor.“ However, through a strategic partnership with machine translation provider Asia Online the viability of machine translation for commercial translation became apparent. Asia Online specializes in providing customized machine translation engines focused on near-human quality that can then quickly be edited to the same level as a human-only approach in a fraction of the time.

“The reality is that like any other mode of communication, customers expect cost to decrease over time and when usage is high”, notes Bass, who oversaw the implementation of the new service. Machine translation helps reduce costs by addressing the repetitive nature of translating technical content, such as that found in machine and software manuals. Time is also a key factor.  “Companies that manufacture complex products require high-quality documentation to support their customers, but our clients’ customers cannot wait four months for a 500-page manual to arrive.”

Bass recognizes that some of his company’s clients maybe skeptical of this new approach. “Many of our customers have been burned by machine translation. Maybe they used Google Translate or some other free online service, and they got really poor results.” Bass explains that their approach is not merely using a computer to do the translation. His firm uses a combination of machine translation and human translation in order to achieve the high quality expected by his customers. “Machine translation will likely never be as good as human translation in most contexts. However, when you combine customized machine translation—like the kind our firm provides—with excellent human translators who focus on technical materials, it is possible to translate faster and more cost-effectively.”

“We are very pleased that, after a series of successful pilots, the Advanced Language team was able to clearly demonstrate the increased productivity when using Asia Online’s Language Studio technology as part of their translation workflow and have now moved to full production use.” said Dion Wiggins, Asia Online CEO.

The basis for this machine-human hybrid method is that the machine translation software is trained for specific types of content, writing styles and preferred vocabulary for each customer. Advanced Language’s production team works with Asia Online’s engineers to train the software for specific types of content and language pairs, which dramatically increases quality. Bass notes, “The most important thing we want our clients to know about this new service is that it must be used strategically. For certain types of highly stylized content—such as marketing materials—it may not be effective and thus not worth the time and expense to deploy a machine translation engine. But, for large technical manuals that have a consistent style and predictable language usage, it can be quite effective.”

About the companies:
Advanced Language Translation Inc. is an ISO 9001:2008-certified translation and localization services provider. Founded in 1994 Advanced Language remains focused on innovation by researching new software and multimedia applications to expedite the translation process in print, on the Web and in software interfaces. For more information on Advanced Language Translation visit their website at www.advancedlanguage.comor call 1–800-218‑9024.

 Asia Online is a privately owned company backed by individual investors and institutional venture capital. Its corporate headquarters are in Singapore, and it has significant operations in Bangkok, Thailand, with R&D activities throughout Asia and expanding sales operations in Europe and North America. Asia Online has developed the world’s first automated technology designed to translate content to a near-human publication quality in more than 500 language pair combinations. For more information on Asia Online visit their website at www.asiaonline.net or call +1 (424) 245‑8384 (USA).