Evaluating the Operational Benefit of Using Machine Translation Output as Translation Memory Input

Following the guidelines for MT evaluation proposed in the ISLE taxonomy, this paper presents considerations and procedures for evaluating the integration of machine-translated segments into a larger translation workflow with Translation Memory (TM) systems. The scenario here focuses on the software localisation industry, which already uses TM systems and looks to further streamline the overall translation process by integrating Machine Translation (MT). The main agents involved in this evaluation scenario are localisation managers and translators; the primary aspects of evaluation are speed, quality, and user acceptance. Using the penalty feature of Translation Memory systems, the authors also outline a possible method for finding the “right place” for MT produced segments among TM matches with different degrees of fuzziness.