NLG is a type of AI and language translation technology that is becoming more prominent in business platforms.

NLG standards for Natural Language Generation and it is changing the way we interact with machines and the way businesses gather data. What is NLG exactly, and what makes it different from other technologies? With the compound annual growth rate of the NLG market expected to reach 1.6 billion dollars by 2027, you need to know about NLG.

What is NLG?

NLG is a type of AI that automatically processes data into sentences and stories, in either written or narrative form, in a way that’s easy for us humans to understand. The NLG can take massive amounts of data from pre-set templates to form a sentence, reply, or inquiry that reads like a natural human conversation. This data and our inputted responses to this data create and add to a database of information that businesses and researchers can use to improve a process or product. 

When is NLG used?

NLG is being used for a vast array of applications, and chances are that you’re already encountering and engaging with this technology daily. Here are a few broad ways that both businesses and consumers use NLG,

• Chatbots or conversational AI assistants – Used on websites and business platforms to automatically answer customer inquiries. The advanced use of NLG carries a two-way conversation and responds to verbal commands. Examples are platforms Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Cortana. 
• Machine translation tools – Tools that translate one language to another, such as Google Translate.

• AI blog writers – Used for content creation. The NLG uses one language model and data set to write sentences and full-length articles. 

• Analytics – The NLG is created to detail insights from business data and reports, such as financial reports and spreadsheets and put it all into a format or narrative that’s easy to understand for businesses and their customers. 

• Automated leading emails and messages – This NLG creates predictive text for users when writing in emails and messaging platforms. 

• AI transcription tools – With speech recognition, the NLG takes audio and turns it into text.

• Semantic analysis – A platform used to determine what language best resonates and reaches a specific audience of which the NLG is used to create messages to which the customer is likely to respond.  

NLG has become one of the translation solutions used by global businesses as part of their website localization, eLearning translation and more. NLG is used as part of the machine translation post-editing process used by international translation companies and translation agencies online. 

How the Natural Language Process (NLP) works

 

NLP is a blanket term that refers to NLG and Natural Language Understanding (NLU). NLP is a framework that converts unstructured data to structured data. NLU is the ability of a machine to use syntactic and semantic analysis to gather meaning from a piece of text or speech. It is the NLG that allows devices to create content from the NLU data content. In short, NLU lets a computer understand what data the user is giving it. At the same time, NLG provides data back to the user from the computer in a way the user can understand, thus the Natural Language Process.

Making an NLG requires several steps and a substantial amount of NLU data to create content that resonates and sounds natural. Whether it’s a chatbot or a machine translation tool, these are some of the steps and considerations that go into making an NLG,

• Content analysis – This step analyses data to identify the main topics that should be included and what the result of the process is expected to be.  

• Data interpretation – As patterns are identified, they are put into context for machine learning.

• Document structure and sentence aggregation – A document is created along with a narrative structure with the interpreted data. From there, relevant sentences are isolated and combined to depict the topic accurately. 

• Grammar – Grammar rules, along with the syntactical structure of the source language, are added to ensure that the text sounds natural.

• Final output – The final output is presented in a template or format of the programmer’s selection. Such as a message from a chatbot, a piece of the translated text, an audio reply for personal assistant devices etc. 

The Future of NLG

NLG has created ways for businesses to communicate data efficiently and effectively, which increases productivity and reduces business costs. It presents data and information in an accessible manner while collecting big data that will lead to specific insights into a business. NLG has been used in different business industries, from insurance, retail, finance, media, eLearning platforms, eCommerce and eCommerce translation, manufacturing, translation management and more. 

While technology has come a long way, NLG is still limited compared to real human writing and semantics. NLG can only act on the NLU data, which, currently, doesn’t stack up to the ingenuity of human writing and content, which makes the quality of NLG content one of its biggest weak points. NLG, however, is not without its merit as the NLP is superb at generating human insights from big data, especially at a volume that we, as humans, are not capable of producing. As NLG can be used in various markets, it is a valuable tool that can be used in many ways for any business. Take translation and localization, for example.

For businesses that want translation and localization services to expand into other global markets, NLG is an important part of a quality translation. Translators use machines to help expedite the translation process and fine-tune it with their human expertise. This process is called machine translation post-editing.

Related: Machine, mind, or machine and mind: how to best deploy today’s machine translation solutions

Into23 provides translation management and translation solutions that cater to your business. Into23 can help you use an NLG in multiple languages for your business; whether it’s a customer support chatbot or transcription services for a voice assistant, Into23 can help your customers interact with your business better.

Marketing translation and translation, in general, have a long and robust history. How did the modern translation industry become what it is today?

What is translation? In its simple form, it means to turn symbols from one set to another, such as words from a body of text in one language to that of another. Translation and its emergence have played a very important role throughout history in bridging cultural and linguistic divides that have evolved through trade as well as a means of spreading traditions and religious beliefs. 

Where and how did translation evolve? How has translation changed today, and how will it be used in the future? 

Translation Origins

Sumerian bilingual text – Photo from Wikimedia – Caption – “This is the first known Sumerian-Akkadian bilingual tablet which dates back to around 2270 BC. The practice of translation is believed to have begun in Mesopotamia.”

Scholars believe that writing began to emerge in humans some 5,550 years ago. First, with early pictorial signs in early Mesopotamian and Egypt, we have evidence of fully-formed writing platforms as early as 1300 BC in China. With the development of written communication, translation became a necessary means of communication for the growth of populations and trade. While translation started within the trade as a business translation for financial means, translation eventually found its way into culture, art, and religion as it proved to be an effective means of spreading your beliefs, values, and traditions to other people. 

The word “translation” and it’s meaning come from two different languages.  The word itself comes from Latin and means “to bring or carry across”, but its meaning is also derived from the Ancient Greek word metaphrasis, which means “to speak across”, which then led to the word metaphrase, which means “word for word”. While the meaning of translation comes from these ancient languages, it is believed that those in the Mesopotamian region were the first to practice the art of translation. 

One of the earliest known pieces to be translated is the Sumerian poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was translated into Asian languages in 2100 BC. From there, one of the first known significant translations is that of the Old Testament in the 3rd century, as the bible was translated from Hebrew to Greek. Between A.D. 383 and 404, a man named Eusebius Hieronymus, or St. Jerome as he would become known, translated the bible from Greek to Latin. What made St. Jerome’s translation so innovative is that he first translated the text from Greek. Still, he then went back and checked his newly translated Latin text against the original Hebrew version (since he was fluent in all three languages) to increase the translation accuracy. St. Jerome also endorsed the transcreation method rather than the traditional word-for-word translation. In a letter St. Jerome wrote to his friend on the best methods of translation, he said,

“For I myself not only admit but freely proclaim that in translating from the Greek, I render sense for sense and not word for word, except in the case of the Holy Scriptures, where even the order of the words is a mystery.”

With his masterful translation of the bible and the concepts that he created, St. Jerome became one of the most prominent translators in history. St. Jerome died on September 30th, 420, and since then, St. Jerome has become the patron saint of translators. September 30th is also officially recognised as International Translation Day. 

The evolution of translation

The earliest days of translation required the work of educated polyglots or at least bilinguals who would painstakingly translate passages of text by hand. This work would take translators months and sometimes even years to complete. The advent of the printing press made things somewhat easier as the translations became more consistent. 

With the printing press, documents only needed to be translated once before being typeset and then run repeatedly. While this method was more efficient in producing copies, if there were any errors in the translation, they too were also reproduced, and there wasn’t a quick method to fix this. As a result, any translations with errors used as foundational pieces for translation into other languages meant that further errors followed and compounded into the next translation. 

It wasn’t until the late 20th century, with the emergence of machine translation and machine translation post-editing, that made the translation process became more consistent.

Modern-day translation

With the emergence of machine translation and platforms like Google translate, anyone can get a quick and immediate translation of nearly any text. However, just like in the early days of translation, machine translation alone is prone to many translation errors, especially since machines can’t translate the cultural concepts, idioms, etc., that make human language so robust. Machine translations are decent at finding concordances at the sentence level but fall flat when making suggestions at a morphological level. This is why international translation companies now use machine and human translations in a process called machine translation post-editing.

Even with current technology, machine translation doesn’t compare to human translation, which is what makes machine translation post-editing the most effective means of translation. Translators use a machine to translate the text first, a process that helps expedite the translation process, and then once the content has gone through a machine, the translator will then go through it and edit and compare it to the original text. This results in an accurate, reliable, fast, and quality translation for the client or business.

Related: How to be a translator in 2022

Regarding translation management, translators today don’t need to be polyglots anymore. Still, most translation companies want translators who are experts in language pair translation, meaning a translator needs complete mastery of two languages, as well as subject-specific expertise (i.e. English-Chinese legal translation). Language pair translations ensure you get the most accurate and quality translation. 

Future of translation

While machines have made things easier in the translation industry, and I’m sure even St. Jerome would be impressed with the progress that has been made, as of yet, machine translation cannot operate alone and still requires the handy work of a professional translator. Using a professional translator is especially important in business as businesses today are not afforded the same luxuries of making translation errors as the early pioneers were. Companies today now use business translation services to ensure that they’re getting the best quality translation possible to represent and expand their brand. These companies use machine translation post-editing with qualified translation professionals to produce consistent results.

Related: Why Google Translate Isn’t Enough for Business

That is not to say that machine-alone translation isn’t being worked on, however. The Semantic Web or Web 3.0 is an extension of our current internet that is being worked on that aims to create instant translations of any language online, which would include any semantic or cultural content, and make the searches and the retrieval of this information universal. Web 3.0 aims to analyze every piece of data that is available on the internet and have it make sense in every language. This would create interactive pages that are no longer just text translations but include audio/voice and all other forms of media. While the Semantic Web sounds impressive, the fact that there are over 6,800 languages worldwide and that we are still confined to our current means of machine translation means that this idea is a very long way from becoming reality. 

In the meantime, quality translations are best left to the professionals at international translation companies like Into23. Into23 offers localization and translation services in any language with professional translators from all over the globe. Into23 can help your brand or business reach new markets in other languages and offer translation solutions for every industry. Check out our services today and get a free quote.

What types of marketing translation trends are becoming prominent in 2022? Here’s what to expect for the remainder of the year.

Content translation services have seen a massive increase in demand, with much of this growth being linked to the internet, the pandemic, our global expansion and uses of technology. The market worth of this industry has grown and is looking to grow further in 2022 as the pandemic has slowly stabilised and more people and places of business took their work and education online and have kept it there. 

What has driven growth in the translation industry in 2022?

The biggest driver behind the growth of the translation industry has been the increased need for people to access information in different languages and cultures, coinciding with the growth of technology and our reliance on it. Technology has made it possible for people to communicate in meaningful ways across the globe in various formats and languages, which became increasingly important during the pandemic. Language translation technology has also come a long way, making it faster and more accessible for people and businesses to get what they need.

While translation solutions come in many forms, depending on your business or need, these areas are some of the most noticeable upward trends of 2022. They are relevant aspects to consider if you’re looking to expand globally. 

Multilingual customer support

If you have a platform that has been localized for customers, you’ll also need multilingual customer service support. As more people use their phones for everyday tasks, from emails to banking, these services must be provided and serviced in the customer’s language. The same goes for customer support. Today, 67% of consumers expect to be able to message or chat with a business when they need support. As this number is likely to increase, businesses that want to continue to reach their customers globally must consider multilingual customer support in their localization strategies. A marketing translation agency can provide support and resources in multiple languages to help fortify an existing localization strategy or start a new one. 

Increased use of machine translation post-editing

Machine translation has become an essential part of the translation industry and is a trend that has continued upward for several years. 

What is machine translation post-editing?

Machine translation is when you enter content into an automated software translation tool, and the machine converts it into the target language. Google translate is the most well-known machine translator that most of us use in our daily lives. However, the results of these machine translations alone vary drastically in terms of accuracy and are not sufficient enough to be used in business for a variety of reasons.

Related: Why Google translate isn’t effective enough for business

The post-editing portion comes after the machine translation. A professional translator will go over the machine translation and compare it to the original text to get the most accurate translation. Machine translation post-editing is desirable for businesses and marketing translation as it offers a quick turnaround at a lower cost.  

The machine translation market has been steadily increasing and is anticipated to reach 230.67 million USD by 2026. 

Increase usage of eLearning platforms

The pandemic may have kept us at home the last few years, but eLearning platforms kept us learning and connected. Forbes estimates that by 2025, the eLearning sector could be worth as much as USD 355 billion dollars. As the business and education sectors looked towards online learning tools and software to maintain a global reach, the videos, courses and quizzes also needed to be updated and translated for global audiences. This newfound flexibility offers benefits to businesses, educators and students as people can work and learn on their own time from the comfort of a home or café. eLearning and eLearning translation shows no signs of slowing and will continue to increase in demand as more and more people and businesses maintain a work/study from home approach. 

Businesses using media localization

Two different types of media are trending right now, podcasts and videos. Podcasts are now being used for business, pleasure, and education and have seen a large rise in listeners, especially considering they’ve only been around for two decades. It is estimated that there will be around 424.2 million podcast listeners worldwide in 2022 and that podcasts will be a USD 94.88 billion industry by 2028.

Videos are also an essential part of today’s media market. In 2019 alone, the average person’s video consumption was 84 minutes daily. Enter the pandemic, and by 2021 that average was nearly 100 minutes per day. Now we’re in the beginning part of 2022, and video streaming and downloads are anticipated to account for 82% of the global internet traffic. A study done by Wyzowl found that 81% of businesses now create at least some video content. Point of fact, if you’re not using videos in your business marketing materials, you should be. 

With the impressive rise of both video and podcast consumption, the need for localization, such as audio transcription services, multilingual voice-over services, or subtitling services, becomes necessary for going global and is a trend that will continue well past 2022. 

Subtitles have become a must

As previously mentioned, videos are currently making up the majority of consumer internet traffic. To make business ads, videos, and video courses more accessible for everyone, subtitles have become essential. 

Even outside of any language or subtitle translation, many of the videos people consume on social media are often viewed on mute, meaning that if a video doesn’t have subtitles, it’s more likely to be skipped and scrolled past. Subtitles have become a required feature for views and impressions, even when the language hasn’t been changed.  

Further, if you do require language translation for a video to reach new audiences, subtitling is generally more affordable than dubbing and is just as effective in reaching your target audiences. 

Multilingual SEO strategies 

By now, it’s obvious that the biggest trend is the translation and localization of businesses in general. This is an upward trend that was growing even before the pandemic. Going global means having an online presence and reaching and connecting to audiences in new and meaningful ways with technology. While website localization is becoming more common, it is often an afterthought. Businesses are now opting to create a multilingual SEO strategy from the get-go so that their business content and practices are aligned with their global goals from the start.

What is a multilingual SEO strategy?

It is the practice of optimizing your SEO in more than one language. This includes everything from websites, eCommerce platforms, video content, social media, customer support and more. The best way to develop a multilingual SEO strategy is to work with a translation project management company that offers multilingual translation services and marketing translations. This ensures an effective strategy that is aimed at a specific target audience and ensures effective use of your business’s resources along with a quality translation that showcases the values and goals of your business. 

Into23 offers quality translation solutions for all major global languages to help your business enter any global market. Bring your business into 2022 and beyond with our transparent and quality language solutions. Contact us today for a free quote to start your global journey.