Corona communication: effective with machine translation in times of crisis

Corona communication: effective with machine translation in times of crisis

The world of corona communications is fast moving – and the effects of the pandemic are far-reaching. It is now clear that there is more to this than closed playgrounds. The virus keeps us in suspense. There are daily updates on contact restrictions, quarantine requirements and, most recently, vaccination regulations. Neural machine translation can make an important contribution to ensuring that this information is quickly available in multiple languages. Corona language does not only have to be available in corpora. In order for Corona communication to work effectively, there is no avoiding a reliable terminology check.

Rapid response thanks to machine translation

The pandemic is changing our society – and last but not least the Corona language makes this very clear. In addition, things are developing rapidly: what was just the current status is outdated in the next moment. Not only governments and authorities have to communicate continuously. Corporate communication is also crucial for companies in times of crisis. For many, this means having to translate corona communication across the company – more often, faster and in more languages. Rapid response is the key word in a crisis – and machine translation is becoming a key technology. Because in automated processes, information can not only be disseminated much faster. Many more languages ​​can also be covered.

Corona language for MT engines

The prerequisite for machine translation to deliver good results is sufficient amounts of corona language data. In March, the TAUS network therefore asked the community of language mediators to provide bilingual corona data. Six revised corpora are now freely accessible in the organization’s translation memory database. The pioneer of machine translation, Systran, took up the idea and provided a freely available MT engine that was trained with TAUS material. The aim is to give the greatest possible number of people access to factually correct medical information on COVID-19. The virus needs to be understood – literally – so that experts around the world can work together to stop the pandemic.

Check terminology in corona communication

Machine translation does not only need bilingual corpora with carefully coordinated terminology. Especially in the sensitive areas of corona communication such as medicine and health, users of translations must be able to rely on their correctness. A careful Terminology check is therefore also essential in the machine translation process. Incidentally, it’s not just about factual correctness. The translation alternative must also be selected specifically for the target group in order to be fair and understood in the context. The language register is also important in corona communication.

Cooperation such as that of TAUS and SYSTRAN can make a decisive contribution to making neural MT engines fit for corona communication. Because the pandemic speaks its own language – and nobody can avoid it at the moment.

New to neural machine translation? Take advantage of 2021 to explore. Our free webinar “NMT in a nutshell”gives you first impressions.