Comparing Human Translation and Machine Translation Post-Editing

Abstract

As machine translation becomes a part of the translation market around the world, the post-editing of machine translation appears to be an increasingly used alternative to human translation. The aim of this article is to compare human translation with the post-editing of machine translation through an experiment on students at master’s degree level in the specialization of Translating and Interpret-ing in a language combination with English at Comenius University and to discover which process provides better and more time-efficient translations. The results acquired through a quality assessment of the submitted translations were analysed based on a temporal aspect of effort and quality. At the end of the article, the findings of the analyses are interpreted and the results are explained to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of human translation and the post-editing of machine translation.