Legal Translation Systems

Give Us a Call! (877) 626-0642

AI TRANSLATION EDITING SERVICE

 

NEW SERVICE

 

We know well that many corporate clients are choosing to save money and have their translations done by a number of AI powered sources, such as google translate, linguee, microsoft, etc. Now you can have your AI done Portuguese translations vetted by a qualified and experienced professional, who is also a published writer in both languages, at half the cost for translations.

 

WHY DO IT?

 

AI is far from perfect and frequently does not read context well. For instance, it will often misuse the word "recurso" in Portuguese texts, as the important business word can mean a number of things in English: a legal appeal, funds, material assets, a course of action. It will just pick up the first word that occurs and embarrass you. Sometimes it turns a positive into a negative and vice-versa, causing confusion and even legal issues, and may translate the same word five or six different ways in long texts.

 

It also does not consider style or cultural issues. You may also be embarrassed to find out that your AI done translation has offended your Brazilian or Portuguese hosts by failing to detect a cultural impropriety.

 

In some cases, it will be so clear the text was translated by AI that rather than impressing you will transmit the wrong message to your counterpart.

  

WHAT DO DO?

 

Our AI TRANSLATION EDITING SERVICE works very simply. We have a minimum job charge of US$ 50.00 (up to 1 thousand words); anything beyond that will cost US$0.05 per word, based on your AI translation word count.

 

Send your Word document for a quote Click here

 

You must send an editable Word document in the translated version plus the original text. We cannot work on PDF documents, which often convert very poorly.  We can only work on editable material, so if you want charts and graphics checked you must provide them in editable form. We can also work on editable Power Point and Excel files.

 

SERVICE AVAILABLE FROM ENGLISH INTO PORTUGUESE AND PORTUGUESE INTO ENGLISH

 

Our quote will provide payment methods and delivery date. Short jobs may be turned around on the same day, longer texts require more time. Remember, we are not only proofreading your document: we strive to clean it up, provide more suitable terminology, style, paragraph length and word order.

 

WEBSITE TRANSLATION EDITING

 

You must provide the text of the website in an editable Word or Excel file, both English and Portuguese. We will not work directly on site building software.

 

WILL WE CERTIFY YOUR AI DONE TRANSLATION?

 

No. Our certified translations state under oath that we prepared the translation, so we cannot certify translations done by third parties. For certified translation services click here

 

 

LEGAL TRANSLATION SYSTEMS

DE PAULA TRANSLATIONS

Since 1982

(877) 626-0642

legaltranslationsystemsquote@gmail.com

 


JUST HOW GOOD IS AI TRANSLATION?

By Carlos de Paula

 

 

I have been exposed to machine translation from the very beginning, so in the 90s I had already tried computer software in a few language pairs. To tell you the truth, they were all very bad back then.

 

However, time flies when you are having fun, and it does the same when you are not. With time translation software has become better, I must admit. However, most AI translations still sound like AI text, devoid of style and life, incapable of understanding figures of speech, cynicism, irony, humor, nuances, and the proverbial text between the lines.

 

However, I knew that sooner or later it would be widely adopted as a tool, so in the last couple of decades I continued to study several software titles in myriad languages.

 

As it stands, AI produced translation still has a major problem: it reads context very poorly. That, in certain languages, can have disastrous consequences, for the same word can have different meanings in the same language, for instance, “recurso” can have several meanings in Portuguese. This can cause all types of nasty havoc. Embarrassment is one such problem. Legal issues are more serious, for, to this day, the most popular AI translation tools around make positive negative, and negative positive, with disturbing frequency. This in a contract can lead to litigation, great expense and loss of face.

 

Not only that, AI frequently picks up the wrong translation for a given term, often leading to hilarious renderings. Again, translation software fails to connect the dots where the dots are often very important.

 

Another problem is that AI translation works reasonably when text is well written. As writing skills are in short order these days, AI is often used to make sense of the senseless, haphazardly put together, ghastly collections of words. A badly written text will sound wacky, bizarre, after being put through translation software.

 

In short, commercial planes are flown by automatic pilot for the longest part of a trip, but qualified pilots have to take-off and land the darn things. It is no different with translations.

 

Let us face it, one cannot stop the wheels of commerce. Businesses penny-pinch as much as possible when it comes to translation work, it has always been so, for it is often seen as nuisance.  Now that it is available a few clicks away, for free, the perception is that we translators have been highway robbers all along.

 

I saw the writing on the wall and specialized in editing AI produced translations, for it is the future of the written translation industry, whether we like it or not. I have been able to turn atrocities and inaccuracies into good and precise text,  even making them enjoyable. When a client comes to me with “a translation he did”, I already know what that means. I only draw the line on certified document translations: I do not accept AI done translations prepared by clients, after all, I have to certify that I did it. Those are done from scratch.

 

Whether AI will ever reach perfection is debatable. Brazilians, for one, like to be witty, and AI fails to handle wittiness all that well, so that a culturally competent editor will always be necessary. In other words, rather than making it my number one enemy, I decided to coexist with it. We translators have no choice. I am not that handsome to become an influencer.

 

Carlos de Paula is one of the top Brazilian Portuguese translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top Portuguese AI Translation editor as well.