The future of translation is more relevant today than ever. Adapting to innovations and integrating them into the day-to-day work of translation companies is key to responding to the challenge and opportunity offered by the increased digitalization and globalization that is already a reality for professionals, entrepreneurs and businesses around the world.
Never before have small- and medium-sized companies achieved a similar global reach. The rise of ecommerce has made products and services accessible to users in places that were unreachable until recently. Now new geographic markets are emerging for all sectors.
All the world's a stage open to vendors and companies, and expert translation agencies are the communication channel needed to take advantage of this opportunity.
How is the translation industry addressing the new challenges?
Mankind progressed more during the 20th century than at any other time in history, but the 21st century is not far behind. Changes are occurring at breakneck speed, and technology is revolutionizing the way we work and communicate.
The future of the translation and interpreting sector is no stranger to these changes, and it needs to adapt to respond to new demands, integrating the latest technological solutions and the best-trained human capital.
The trends shaping the future of translation and interpreting
Translation plays an increasingly important role in the economy as an instrument of understanding and comprehension in business relationships and transactions, both in B2B and B2C. Specialized translation, post-editing, project coordination or linguistic engineering are terms used every day in the industry. Here are the main trends that are shaping the future of translation and interpreting.
A surge in interpreting services
The use of new collaborative tools and platforms has changed the way we communicate. Online meetings and events, webinars and video calls are commonly used between companies and employees at different locations and with partners and customers in other countries. Remote language interpreting is the ideal solution for this.
Increasingly specialized translation
The change in mentality of many companies towards the internationalization of their products and services requires all kinds of translations into the languages of the new areas of activity. Legal, technical, academic, advertising and marketing translations need to be provided jointly and dynamically, adapting them to all types of formats (web, audiovisual, legal documents, e-learning, etc.).
New languages
New markets with new languages to be translated into. Companies and professionals from all sectors are demanding different language services in languages that were not so common before, such as Urdu, Hindi or Korean, as well as Portuguese or Arabic, languages with an increasing number of speakers.
The geographical variants of languages such as Spanish in the United States or French spoken in sub-Saharan Africa also need to be considered. Native translators who can provide excellent localizations or transcreations are the human capital we’re talking about.
Post-editing
The future of machine translation is not to replace human translators but to speed up their work. It lacks the capacity of human language to give the translation the most appropriate meaning, tone and style, to use, when necessary, expressions, turns of phrase and figures of speech specific to the target language and the type of language required by the text (formal, protocol, informal, corporate, etc.).
A study conducted by the European Union in 2022 on the trends, expectations and concerns of the language industry in Europe ranks post-editing as the second most in-demand service after human translation, with transcreation coming in third.
The future of translation is linked to technological advances that at the same time set the guidelines for companies to follow. A translation company that integrates the latest trends without neglecting the essential human factor is the best guarantee to achieve your goals.
