Machine Translation

What is machine translation

Machine translation (MT) is the automated process of translating text from one natural language, such as English, into another, such as German, using computer software.

Although machine translation is not usually recommended as the only translation method, it can be a helpful tool in certain localization scenarios. For instance, you can use it to generate initial translations of software texts that will later be reviewed and improved by human translators (human post-editing), or to quickly translate non-customer-facing content where perfect accuracy is less critical.

Localizely integrates with Amazon Translate and Google Translate as its machine translation providers.

How to use Machine Translation

Machine Translation is enabled by default in Localizely. It allows you to automatically fill in missing translations for certain languages. All translations generated by Machine Translation are marked as unreviewed.

To automatically generate translations using Machine Translation for your preferred languages, go to the Translations page and click on the more button. From the menu that appears, select Translate via MT. This will open a dialog where you can enter the required details for Machine Translation.

In the dialog, select the target languages you want to translate into. Optionally, you can narrow down the selection of string keys by choosing tags to filter.

When you register, you receive 2,000 free characters for machine translation so you can try it out and see how it works. These characters can be used for both Machine Translation and AI Translation. Since providers such as Amazon Translate, Google Translate, and OpenAI charge for their services, additional characters aren't free. If you need more of these characters, the project owner can purchase additional ones on the Billing page.

Inline Machine Translation

On the Translations page, you can automatically fill in missing translations for any string key using the auto-translate button. Clicking it opens a menu where you can choose how to translate that row. Simply select Translate via MT, and the translations will be generated automatically.

Configuration

By default, only the project owner and project admins can use Machine Translation and AI Translation to automatically generate translations. To allow translators to use these features, enable this option on the Settings page.