Automating Translation

Translation technology is essential for translation students, practising translators, and those working as part of the language services industry, but looming above others are the tools for automating translation: machine translation and, more recently, generative AI based on large language models (LLMs).

This book, authored by leading experts, demystifies machine translation, explaining its origins, its training data, how neural machine translation and LLMs work, how to measure their quality, how translators interact with contemporary systems for automating translation, and how readers can build their own machine translation or LLM. In later chapters, the scope of the book expands to look more broadly at translation automation in audiovisual translation and localisation. Importantly, the book also examines the sociotechnical context, focusing on ethics and sustainability. Enhanced with activities, further reading and resource links, including online support material on the Routledge Translation studies portal, this is an essential textbook for students of translation studies, trainee and practising translators, and users of MT and multilingual LLMs.