Translators’ Perceptions and Edit Traces: Quality of MT as a Tool in Canadian Parliamentary Translation

A study by researchers including Jeniffer Leal-Wyss, Gabriel Bernier-Colborne, Delaney Lothian, Michel Simard, and Rebecca Knowles, presented at the 17th Conference of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas (AMTA) in August 2026 in Québec City, analyzed post-editing activity by Parliament of Canada translators using a specialized neural machine translation (NMT) system, finding that translators' perceptions of errors often align with observed edit patterns, and the feedback can inform strategies to mitigate errors. The study, published on pages 159–173 of the proceedings, compared translations with and without NMT use to evaluate differences in edit patterns.

Translators’ Perceptions and Edit Traces: Quality of MT as a Tool in Canadian Parliamentary Translation https://aclanthology.org/2026.amta-research.10.pdf Jeniffer Leal-Wyss /people/jeniffer-leal-wyss/unverified/ , Gabriel Bernier-Colborne /people/gabriel-bernier-colborne/unverified/ , Delaney Lothian /people/delaney-lothian/unverified/ , Michel Simard /people/michel-simard/ , Rebecca Knowles /people/rebecca-knowles/ Abstract The Parliament of Canada’s translation workflow includes access to a specialized neural machine translation NMT system. This study analyzes post-editing PE activity to identify the types of edits translators make when interacting with the NMT system, as well as the frequency, nature, and severity of errors encountered. We compare translations produced with and without the use of this NMT system to evaluate potential differences in edit patterns. To complement this analysis, we draw on insights from a user study. Our findings explore how translators’ perceptions align with observed PE patterns and how their feedback can inform strategies to better understand, and possibly mitigate, some of the errors observed.- Anthology ID: - 2026.amta-research.10 - Volume: Proceedings of the 17th Conference of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas Volume 1: Research Track /volumes/2026.amta-research/ - Month: - August - Year: - 2026 - Address: - Québec City, Canada - Editors: Eleftheria Briakou /people/eleftheria-briakou/unverified/ , Jeremy Gwinnup /people/jeremy-gwinnup/ , Shivali Goel /people/shivali-goel/unverified/ - Venue: AMTA /venues/amta/ - SIG: - Publisher: - Association for Machine Translation in the Americas - Note: - Pages: - 159–173 - Language: - URL: https://aclanthology.org/2026.amta-research.10/ https://aclanthology.org/2026.amta-research.10/ - DOI: - Cite ACL : - Jeniffer Leal-Wyss, Gabriel Bernier-Colborne, Delaney Lothian, Michel Simard, and Rebecca Knowles. 2026. Translators’ Perceptions and Edit Traces: Quality of MT as a Tool in Canadian Parliamentary Translation https://aclanthology.org/2026.amta-research.10/ . In Proceedings of the 17th Conference of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas Volume 1: Research Track , pages 159–173, Québec City, Canada. Association for Machine Translation in the Americas. - Cite Informal : Translators’ Perceptions and Edit Traces: Quality of MT as a Tool in Canadian Parliamentary Translation https://aclanthology.org/2026.amta-research.10/ Leal-Wyss et al., AMTA 2026 - PDF: https://aclanthology.org/2026.amta-research.10.pdf https://aclanthology.org/2026.amta-research.10.pdf