The Role of MTPE in Improving Machine Translation Results

In this era of technology, AI can translate thousands of words in a few minutes.

It sounds amazing, doesn't it?

But there’s one thing to keep in mind: fast doesn’t always mean accurate, and accurate doesn’t necessarily mean natural.

This is because machine translation results may appear good and flawless at first glance. However, there may be context that has been overlooked, terminology that is not quite accurate, or sentences that sound awkward and unnatural to readers of the target language.

For businesses that communicate with an international audience, small issues like this can lead to misunderstandings among consumers and have a significant impact.

So, what role do human translators have?

The answer can be found in a process increasingly used in the translation industry today: Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE).

Then, what is MTPE?

MTPE or Machine Translation Post-Editing, is the process of reviewing and correcting machine-generated translations. This means that translators do not always have to translate the entire text from the beginning. They can use the machine translation output as a starting point, then review and refine it.

 

In simple terms, the process can be described as follows:

This approach combines two distinct strengths.

The machine can work quickly and process large amounts of text. While human translators bring something that technology still struggles to fully replicate, such as contextual understanding and decision-making ability.

This is where human review becomes important.

When “Right” just isn’t enough. Translation is not just about finding equivalent words in another language. This is becoming increasingly important in business content, especially when a company translates marketing materials for an international audience. Imagine a brand using the slogan “Taste the difference.” If translated literally, the slogan could be “Rasakan perbedaannya.” Grammatically, this translation is correct. But does “Rasakan perbedaannya” have the same appeal and leave the same impression, such as for Indonesian consumers? Not necessarily.

In the context of marketing, a slogan does more than just convey information. Slogans also convey a brand’s message, tone, and persuasive power. That's why translators need to look beyond the meaning of each word. As an example, “Taste the difference” can be adapted to “Nikmati cita rasa yang berbeda” or “Rasakan cita rasa istimewa," depending on the brand’s positioning, character, and target audience. This is where human translators come in. They consider whether the word choices sound natural, whether the message they want to convey still comes across strongly, and whether the translation aligns with the brand’s communication style with its customers.

The same principle applies to various other types of business content, such as taglines, product descriptions, advertisements, humor, and cultural references. Sometimes a translation may be grammatically correct, but it may not necessarily convey the message and impression the brand intends. Because of this, human review is not only necessary for identifying errors in machine translation results. More than that, human translators ensure that the translation remains accurate in meaning, sounds natural in the target language, and is appropriate for communication.

If so, what exactly do human translators do?

Human review isn't just about finding typos or grammatical errors. Translators need to evaluate whether the machine translation output truly conveys the intended message, sounds natural to the target audience, and meets the required quality standards. In general, the key tasks performed by human translators are as follows:

1. Ensuring Meaning

A word can have more than one meaning. The machine translation may choose the wrong meaning when the context isn't clear enough.

Human translators compare the translated text with the source text to ensure that the intended message is accurately conveyed.

2. Making the Translation More Natural

Have you ever read a sentence that’s grammatically correct but sounds like “translated language”?

Well, this is where human translators come in.

Translators can rephrase sentences, choose different words, and adapt expressions so that the final result sounds like the language actually used by the target audience. That's because a good translation shouldn't feel like a translation.

3. Ensuring Terminology Remains Consistent

Imagine reading a technical document and finding the same terminology translated differently on every page.

That's confusing, isn't it?

Human translators can use glossaries, terminology databases, and client preferences to ensure that key terminology remains accurate and consistent.

4. Maintaining Tone and Brand Voice

Legal documents certainly shouldn’t sound like social media captions. The same goes for luxury brands, which may require a more elegant tone than brands that want to come across as casual and playful. Translators do more than just translate information. They also need to maintain the tone, style, and brand voice so that the message still feels like it comes from the same brand.

5. Making Culture a Priority

This becomes even more important when translation moves into the localization domain. A joke, idiom, cultural reference, or even a way of expressing something that works in one country may not necessarily have the same effect in another country. Human translators can recognize these differences and adapt the content so that it feels more natural and relevant to the target audience.

MTPE Is More Than Just “Fixing AI Errors”

It might be easy to think of MTPE as a simple process: AI translates, and humans correct.

But the process isn't that simple.

A Post-Editor needs to understand the source text, the target audience, the purpose of the content, and the required quality standards. There are some sentences that might just need a slight change. Still, there are also instances where machine-translated text must be completely rewritten because it doesn’t convey the message accurately or sounds too stiff. In other words, the machine provides a starting point, but the translator determines the final result. Because of this, MTPE does not mean eliminating the role of translators. In fact, technology can change the way a translator’s expertise is utilized.

With that in mind, are translators still needed in the current AI era?

Of course. Except that its role continues to evolve.

AI can help translators work faster. AI can process large amounts of text, handle repetitive content, and provide preliminary translations in a short amount of time. Meanwhile, human translators bring another aspect that is no less important, such as context, culture, creativity, linguistic judgment, and quality control. This change shows that the role of the translator does not always have to be viewed as one that is at odds with technology. This change shows that the role of translators does not always have to be viewed as opposed to technology.

As AI continues to advance, the role of translators can also evolve from simply translating text to evaluating, editing, and ensuring the quality of machine translation results. This is why skills such as linguistic judgment, cultural awareness, terminology management, and quality control are becoming increasingly relevant. As such, the future of translation should not be viewed as a competition between human translation and AI but rather as a collaboration between human translation and AI. Machines don't have to replace translators. Conversely, machines can help translators reduce repetitive work so they can focus more on tasks that require human understanding and judgment. Ultimately, the quality of a translation isn’t just about how quickly a word can be converted from one language to another. What’s more important is ensuring that the message retains the same meaning when it reaches the reader. That is where human expertise still plays a significant role.

After all, technology and human expertise don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Machine translation offers speed and efficiency, while human translators ensure that every message retains its meaning, context, and appropriate quality.

That is where MTPE becomes important for combining machines’ ability to process language with humans’ ability to understand language. The quality of a translation isn’t just about how quickly a word can be converted from one language to another but about ensuring that the message retains the same meaning when it reaches the reader.

AI provides speed. Humans provide judgment. MTPE brings them together.