Machine translation (MT) has improved significantly over the years, thanks to artificial intelligence and deep learning. However, when it comes to legal and technical documents, machine translation still faces major challenges. These types of documents require high accuracy, context awareness, and domain-specific knowledge—areas where human translators still outperform machines. Let’s explore the key reasons why machine translation struggles with legal and technical texts.
1. Complex Terminology & Jargon
Legal and technical documents use highly specialized terms that require precise translation. Machine translation systems often fail to interpret these terms correctly, leading to errors. For example:
- In legal documents, the term “consideration” has a specific meaning in contract law, which a machine might translate as “thought” instead of “something of value exchanged in a contract.”
- In technical manuals, terms like “torque” or “shear strength” require exact translation to avoid safety risks.
2. Context & Ambiguity Issues
Legal and technical texts rely heavily on context. A single word can have multiple meanings depending on how it is used. Machines often struggle with:
- Legal Ambiguity: Legal language includes complex clauses and long sentences that require human judgment to interpret correctly.
- Technical Ambiguity: Technical documents use abbreviations and acronyms that can have different meanings across industries. For example, “IP” can mean “intellectual property” in legal documents or “Internet Protocol” in technology-related documents.
3. Grammar & Sentence Structure Challenges
Legal documents have long, complicated sentences with multiple clauses. Technical documents use precise, structured language. Machine translation often:
- Misses the correct sentence structure in legal texts, which can change the meaning.
- Fails to maintain consistency in technical documents, which can confuse users.
4. Lack of Cultural & Regional Understanding
Laws and regulations vary across countries, and machine translation struggles to adapt to these differences. Some terms and legal concepts do not have direct translations in other languages. Human translators understand these cultural and legal nuances, whereas machines do not.
5. Inability to Interpret Intent & Tone
Legal documents require a formal and precise tone, while technical documents must be clear and instructional. Machine translation often:
- Misinterprets the formality level in legal texts, leading to an inappropriate tone.
- Fails to maintain clarity in technical writing, making instructions confusing.
Can Machine Translation Improve?
Machine translation is continuously improving, but for now, it cannot fully replace human expertise in legal and technical translations. Some ways to enhance MT performance include:
- Using specialized AI models trained in legal and technical language.
- Combining machine translation with human review for accuracy.
- Building extensive domain-specific translation databases to reduce errors.
Conclusion
While machine translation is a powerful tool, it is not yet reliable for translating legal and technical documents accurately. The complexity of terminology, sentence structure, and cultural differences makes human translators essential for ensuring precision and clarity. Until machine translation technology evolves further, professional human translators will remain the best choice for legal and technical translations.
