How well do real-time machine translation apps perform in practice? Insights from a literature review

Mark Pluymaekers


Abstract
Although more and more professionals are using real-time machine translation during dialogues with interlocutors who speak a different language, the performance of real-time MT apps has received only limited attention in the academic literature. This study summarizes the findings of prior studies (N = 34) reporting an evaluation of one or more real-time MT apps in a professional setting. Our findings show that real-time MT apps are often tested in realistic circumstances and that users are more frequently employed as judges of performance than professional translators. Furthermore, most studies report overall positive results with regard to performance, particularly when apps are tested in real-life situations.
Anthology ID:
2022.eamt-1.8
Volume:
Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation
Month:
June
Year:
2022
Address:
Ghent, Belgium
Editors:
Helena Moniz, Lieve Macken, Andrew Rufener, Loïc Barrault, Marta R. Costa-jussà, Christophe Declercq, Maarit Koponen, Ellie Kemp, Spyridon Pilos, Mikel L. Forcada, Carolina Scarton, Joachim Van den Bogaert, Joke Daems, Arda Tezcan, Bram Vanroy, Margot Fonteyne
Venue:
EAMT
SIG:
Publisher:
European Association for Machine Translation
Note:
Pages:
51–60
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2022.eamt-1.8
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Mark Pluymaekers. 2022. How well do real-time machine translation apps perform in practice? Insights from a literature review. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation, pages 51–60, Ghent, Belgium. European Association for Machine Translation.
Cite (Informal):
How well do real-time machine translation apps perform in practice? Insights from a literature review (Pluymaekers, EAMT 2022)
Copy Citation:
PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2022.eamt-1.8.pdf