The state of the translation industry

Translation services continue to make great advancements. From enhanced machine translations to streamlined human written translations, a lot is happening. Companies in the life sciences, legal, and manufacturing industries see the benefit of this forward movement.

What translation services refers to

Translation services encompass a variety of types of translation work. The two primary categories the work of this industry falls into include:

Perfectly translated written material needed for legal documents and use in high-compliancy industries.
Interpretative services needed to get the general idea of the message conveyed in the source text.

The translation industry continues to grow in spite of economic recessions. A report by Common Sense Advisory estimated the size of the translation industry to be around $37 billion, and is expected to grow to $47 billion by 2018. The United States and Europe are the two major markets utilizing translation services.

Translation industry trends

The U.S. Bureau of Statistics expects that the translation industry will grow by 42% between 2010 and 2020. This shows a dramatic shift toward increased globalization. Companies need to translate websites, product labels, manufacturing documents, legal documents, financial documents, and more. This is no longer optional for businesses to remain compliant abroad.

There is an increased need for medical, pharmaceutical, and technical manufacturing companies to have a multilingual Internet presence. These companies must also make more content available online and offline. The combination of these two needs continues to fuel growth in the translation industry.

A few of the major trends in the translation industry used to ease the globalization trend include:

Faster and more accurate translations from machine translations, or assisted translations using machines.
Lower costs to companies needing text translated, as a result of the increased speed and accuracy provided by machine translations.

Machine translations continue to make globalization and localization easier and more affordable. This includes companies that operate in high-compliancy industries.

Machine vs. human translation

As machine translations continue to evolve, the entire translation industry is stepping up its speed and accuracy. While machines translations are still most ideal for the types of translations where the meaning or gist of the source text is needed, they are also used to aid in human translation work.

Machines continue to become more and more accurate in their ability to translate text. This is because translation programs learn over time what is correct, and what is not. With more accuracy, humans take less time to post-edit the translated text. In addition, there is less of a need for human touch when translating to get the general idea of the document.

Three of the most crucial industries where machine translation is helping, but has not quite reached its peak are as follows:

Manufacturing. A larger number of products exported on a daily basis has changed the manufacturing industry. Technical translations are expected to grow alongside manufacturing changes. As this happens, more technical documents will need reliable translations before global distribution.
Medical and pharmaceutical. Medical companies of all sizes want to bring their products to new markets. To reach potential customers on a global scale, medical and pharmaceutical companies need accurate translations of product packaging, marketing materials, warning labels and more.
Legal. With both manufacturing and the medical fields growing globally, the legal industry will need more translations of documents in multiple languages. Contracts, case results, and more will need more translations as companies operate on an increasingly large global scale.

The continued growth of the translation industry is a positive sign for businesses. With more advancements to technology used to translate text, and more streamlined processes, the translation industry continues to evolve. This makes it faster and less expensive to get accurate, reliable translated text in a timely manner.

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