Audio description between MT translation and recreation: An Interview Study for the Language Pair English-German

Merle Sauter, Ekaterina Lapshinova-Koltunski, Sylvia Jaki


Abstract
This study examines the machine translation of audio descriptions (AD) as an alternative to producing new AD for audiovisual formats in a foreign language. To assess acceptance and comprehensibility among German users, a survey was conducted with blind and visually impaired participants, examining key AD strategies, such as character description and naming, facial expressions and gestures, and spatio-temporal settings. Participants compared machine-translated English AD with original German AD and provided feedback on these aspects. Results showed overall acceptance of the translated AD, although the original was generally preferred. Findings suggest that AD translation is feasible for the German audience, but further studies are needed on machine translation, production costs, as well as larger-scale user studies.
Anthology ID:
2026.eamt-1.44
Volume:
Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (Volume 1)
Month:
June
Year:
2026
Address:
Tilburg, The Netherlands
Editors:
Dimitar Shterionov, Eva Vanmassenhove, Mirella De Sisto, Fred Blain, Javad Pourmostafa Roshan Sharami, Lisa Lepp, Chiara Manna, Argentina Anna Rescigno, Alina Karakanta, Ayla Rigouts Terryn, Manuel Lardelli, Natalia Resende, Elena Murgolo, Janiça Hackenbuchner, Anna Zaretskaya, Miquel Esplà-Gomis, Thierry Etchegoyhen, Dagmar Gromann, Rachel Bawden, Barry Haddow, Sara Szoc, Mikel Forcada, Helena Moniz
Venue:
EAMT
SIG:
Publisher:
European Association for Machine Translation
Note:
Pages:
705–718
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.44/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Merle Sauter, Ekaterina Lapshinova-Koltunski, and Sylvia Jaki. 2026. Audio description between MT translation and recreation: An Interview Study for the Language Pair English-German. In Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (Volume 1), pages 705–718, Tilburg, The Netherlands. European Association for Machine Translation.
Cite (Informal):
Audio description between MT translation and recreation: An Interview Study for the Language Pair English-German (Sauter et al., EAMT 2026)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.eamt-1.44.pdf