I received a claim from a client who came back with some comments on one of my Machine-Translation Post-Editing tasks, and the Project Manager admitted they were concerned about the number of changes that was requested, as it seemed quite high. They wanted to know if they were actual error or stylistic preferences by the client.
My answer to the Translation Project Manager was this:
Thank you for sending over the feedback. I have gone through each comment and posted a reply.
Apart from three actual typos in the first dialogue, all other changes were preferential and derive from a mismatch in expectations: I was asked to perform an MTPE task, not to rewrite from zero entire segments for the translation to sound much better in style. If I had to rewrite entire segments and disregard the AI translation completely, that would be considered as a translation job, not as an MTPE job.
Fortunately, the Project Manager fully understood the difference between MTPE and translation, and therefore clarified that they appreciated my support.
While making the translation accurate, natural, and fluent falls within the scope of MTPE, client stylistic preferences sometimes do go beyond what would generally be expected within a Machine-Translation Post-Editing task.
The important thing as a professional translator is to be accountable and explain one’s choices to solve any possible mismatch in expectations.
