The Future of Translation Technology – Trends Shaping-Up the Industry

As the digital realm endlessly drives for more globalized and collective experiences, the global translation industry is projected to carry on its growth in the coming years. With the pandemic continuing, people are mostly in their homes working (or playing) in front of computer screens, making this the time when multilingual content can help businesses get ahead of the game.

2020 brought to light where the weaknesses lie within many companies. It also was a catalyst for an aspiration to make evident global growth after a year of global suffering. And every time global evolution enters the discussion, so does multilingual communication.

This unexpected catastrophe enforced professionals from all sorts of different industries to changeround—how things will work now differently, and where exactly these changes will lead them. It speeded up various approaches to business, from how they aid customers, work with vendors, and act as a team with each other. It also brought out the significance of flawless, crisp communication in a globalized world, which in turn meant language professionals from all areas became significant. Translators and interpreters worked and continue to work diligently to support key information and make sure the right content in right language reaches the right people, from news about the new vaccine to translating video interviews and even medical records, and this is not likely to change in 2021.

The translation industry during the time of crisis was able to adjust swiftly to the new needs since the supply chain model was already pretty much based on a freelance or small agency model. All the fluctuations brought on by this pandemic will likely excavate and forge new ways of working, with active technologies and flexible progressions commanding styles may change – thus, leading to a more globalized way of executing businesses.

An upsurge in globalization due to the pandemic, internet and as well as the integration of people, companies and cultures will eventually demand for more language services as there will be a rise in the need to communicate with people from other countries, in different languages. As organizations carry on to make their products and services accessible in more languages, CSA expects that the language services industry will continue to grow and that the market will increase to $56.18 billion by 2021.

The AI Language

One of the projected 2021 translation industry inclinations is the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) with the translation expansion practice. While this has existed for some time, 2021 will see a more wide-scale implementation of AI in all industries––including translation––in contrast to earlier years.

Call for Post-Editing

Post-editing will propagate as a 2021 translation industry trend incited from both acceptance of translation machine learning (which is fueled by post-editing), as well as the new state of consumer attitude in a post-2020 world. Post-editing is the method of enlightening upon a translation from its machine-translated origins. If markets become progressively competitive in the year where negatively-affected businesses begin to recover themselves, companies are going to pursue ways to communicate better with foreign stakeholders, multilingual customers and clients.

Dedicated Translators

In 2021 the translation industry anticipates growth and the demand for dedicated translators. As information technology, science and manufacturing propagate there will be an upsurge in the development of communication materials that include specialized terminology. That’s where dedicated and specialized translators and glossary development starts.

Multilingual Conversational UI Design

While conversational UI has already commenced to penetrate the tech world, finalizing it for a multitude of language pairs will be the next trial. As conversational boundaries gain more traction, we will see a growing standard for higher-quality multilingual conversations within chat-bots and more.

Speech to Text & Speech to Speech

Speech to text and speech to speech translation will witness a demand upsurge in 2021. As the suitability of hands-free inches toward becoming the standard, so will the aspiration for getting a transcript or audio translation from speech in real time.

Incorporations with Strong Translation API’s

API access is becoming progressively significant, particularly when it comes to linking a content management system (CMS) to a translation management system. With an emphasis on output and connectivity, companies are going to look to advance the quality of their translations while reorganizing them. This necessitates more than raw translation, which means strong translation API’s with tools to augment efficiency and translation quality will become more prevalent.

E-Learning Course Translation

The attractiveness of e-Learning courses has pitched throughout the past decade. But the pandemic in 2020 propelled the world into online learning. In 2021, the rising accessibility of online courses means more competition. As E-Learning course producers look to become more competitive, they will multiply the availability of their courses in other languages. Therefore, e-Learning course translation is a foreseen translation industry trend in 2021.

As globalization escalates, Transcreation is becoming more and more popular in the translation industry due to companies identifying that they cannot use just one method when communicating with clients worldwide. For numerous years now, generating tailored user familiarities has been one of the biggest trends on the rise across industries. Transcreation, a word that surfaces from merging “translation” and “creation”.

Transcreation is a process that involves both localization and creativity, and the idea is to make over the content so that it gives the impression as if it was first produced in that language. Transcreation is generally used for marketing materials that companies want adapting to suit their overseas target markets. Transcreation and translation consent companies to not only localize their content for new audiences but to adapt the idea to this new culture’s viewpoint to better engage with their target consumers.

Video content is now controlling the internet as Cisco Study Visual Networking Index (VNI) predicts that “1 million minutes of video will be streamed or downloaded every second in 2021. The world will be watching 3 trillion minutes of internet video per month by 2021.”

The video content can comprise of anything from short YouTube videos or full movies on Netflix. Video ads are also becoming progressively more prevalent as it was foreseen that in 2019 and 2020, 80% of online content will be video rather than text or image-based. This upsurge in video advertising comes from the fact that video ads have a much higher conversion rate than other ad types. The intensification in video content will influence the translation industry as it will lead to a higher demand for video translation services such as subtitling, dubbing and voiceover services.

As we enter the year 2021, the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we must recall that with excessive crisis comes great prospect. At LangSpire, we look forward to helping our clients navigate these undefined times with our team of experts and talented language professionals committed to—not only interpret businesses content—but to truly interconnect with their message. With the team at LangSpire, businesses can learn how to better benefit from localization in this COVID-19 world.