Today, language is the ultimate medium through which to express emotions and thoughts to other humans. Even before languages were fully developed, humans communicated with their fellows. With the creation of languages, communication became easy for people who spoke the same language. However, with the linguistic and cultural diversity present today, it becomes difficult to understand people who are speaking a different language than yours. With the rise of globalization, it has become more important to understand the views and demands of diverse audiences so that businesses can scale in the market. When it comes to Japan, the role of a Japanese translation agency becomes very important.
There has always been a debate on AI translation and human translators. In this read, we are going to explore if MT is the best way to translate Japanese language or not.
Peculiarity of the Japanese Language
The Japanese language is primarily spoken in Japan where more than 90% of the citizens speak Japanese as their first language. Just like any other language, the Japanese language is peculiar in its own way. The grammar, syntax, syntactical structure, and lexicons are different from every other language making Japanese a language of its own kind. There are three writing systems in the Japanese language, Kanji, Hiragana, and Katana. Kanji is a logographic character system which is originally borrowed from the Chinese language. It represents a word and sometimes a whole concept, so each and every Kanji character is extremely important.
Hiragana is a Japanese phonetic syllabary with 46 letters for each syllable. It means that each syllable is a separate symbol conveying a separate meaning. It consists of a vowel followed by a consonant. On the other hand, Katana is also a phonetic syllabary used for foreign loanwords, such as onomatopoeia, and it exerts emphasis on syllables.
The sentence structure in the Japanese language is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). Honorifics are a must while speaking Japanese. Social hierarchy is very much followed and so is the respect for elders. One of the distinct qualities of this language is that there aren’t any grammatical genders in it.
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Japanese Language Translation
There is a deep presence of social hierarchy and social context in the Japanese language. This is one of the differentiating qualities that makes Japanese a difficult language to translate. Keigo is a complex system of honorifics excessively used to represent. Not only in writing but also in spoken language, special attention to formality and tonality is given to showcase the social hierarchy between the speaker and the listener. As mentioned earlier, the rise in globalization has urged businesses to add translation agencies as their permanent partners. So entering Japan to flourish your business in this market highlights the importance of hiring a Japanese translation agency.
Japanese language translation takes your brand right in front of the target audiences and captures their attention. Research has proved that audiences like to engage with brands who cater to them in their native language. So entry into the Japanese market exclusively depends on how much effort you have put into translating your content for the target audiences.
Machine Translation & Japanese Language
Machine translation is the new norm in the translation industry today. And undoubtedly it has helped a lot. It has reduced the time and cost of translation to a massive degree which means that you can get translation in a few dollars and secure the attention of your audience. But there are a few things that make Machine Translation an odd addition to translation. As we have described above, the Japanese language consists of three different writing systems and the exertion of social hierarchy and context. These make it difficult to translate your content accurately with AI technology.
Native speakers of the Japanese language are completely aware of the tonality and formality of language making themselves the best fit for language translation. There are many machine translation tools that can imitate human translation solutions, but there still remains a space for post editing where human linguists and editors enter the scene. A professional translation company is of great help in such circumstances, for instance, marketing and advertising content that contains humor. AI can’t perfectly translate that humor retaining the actual meaning so here you will need human Japanese translators that are native speakers of the language as well.
Methods like Statistical Machine Translation, Neural Machine Translation, Rule-Based Translation., etc., are a few of the different types of AI translation that transform your foreign language content into the Japanese language. So Machine Translation is a good option for translating a bulk of content into the Japanese language but when it comes to content that has to resonate with the native audiences, human translations are the way to go.
Final Words!
To sum up, Machine Translation is a great option that not only saves time but also saves money. But not every language is compatible with machine translation and Japanese is one of those languages. The Japanese language consists of three different writing systems that only a native speaker can understand and distinguish. Other than that, there is a constant following of social hierarchy that needs to be maintained. So there is a compulsory need for a human translator, who will keep the contextual meaning in the translated texts.
