By Harshita Mehta

Information technology has grown fast, and it now shapes both our professional and personal lives. This article looks at how IT helps in everyday life and in translation, especially through computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools.

IT in everyday life

IT brings people together, helps us exchange information and supports development. It makes many tasks simpler, and during the COVID-19 pandemic it helped people stay connected, communicate and work. The author gives examples:

• Education. Students can learn through Zoom, Skype and other online platforms.
• Communication. Email, social networks and video calls make it easy to reach people.
• Health. Gadgets can track heart rate, calories burned and blood pressure.
• Security. A CCTV camera lets you see who is at the door before you open it, and technology has also helped forensics and the fight against cyber-crime.

IT in translation

Translators use technology to enhance their work, and CAT tools are the most common. A CAT tool is software that helps a translator work faster, which is useful on large projects with tight deadlines. It stores translated text in a translation memory (TM) and reuses it when the same text appears again, which saves time and effort and improves consistency and quality.

Some tools also combine a dictionary with a search function, so translators can look up bilingual words, idioms and expressions in different languages and check meanings. As a result, translators do not have to remember large amounts of terminology.

Humans and machines

The author notes that translation tools are becoming more advanced and that artificial intelligence is playing a bigger part in both professional and personal use. Translating from one language to another is a complex human activity, so she asks whether human translators can ever be fully replaced. In her view, tools have made translation more precise, effective and often cheaper, while the human role remains important.

Related reading

For more on this topic, read CAT tools and machine translation: how IT supports translators.