Comprehensibility of machine-aided translations of Russian scientific documents

This study used special reading-comprehension tests to compare the speed and accuracy with which the same Russian technical articles in physics, earth sciences, and electrical engineering could be read by technically sophisticated readers when they were presented in English translated from the original Russian by machine only, by machine plus postediting, and by normal manual procedures. Thus, the emphasis was on the transmission of the technical message rather than on linguistic characteristics. In general, the results consistently showed that manual translations exceeded post-edited translations, which exceeded machine translations across all three disciplines and various types of questions. Losses in speed and efficiency were substantially greater than in accuracy, and differences between machine alone and post-edited generally exceeded differences between post-edited and manual translations. However, it was concluded that machine-alone translations were surprisingly good and well worth further consideration under the proper circumstances.