What is the difference between “direct language pairs” and “language pair pivoting”?

In direct language pair translation (direct translation), the source language is translated directly into the target language without the use of an intermediate language, such as English. This means that the translation is done directly from the source language to the target language without any intermediary steps. Direct language pairs go directly from one language to another (i.e., German French).

On the other hand, pivot language translation (language pair pivoting) uses a middle language (i.e., German English English French) to bridge the gap between the source language and the target language (language pair). In this method, the source language is translated into the pivot language (i.e., English), and then the pivot language is translated into the target language. This approach can be useful when there is no direct translation available between the source language and the target language, or when the quality of the direct translation is not satisfactory.

Overall, direct translation is generally faster and more efficient than pivot language translation, but pivot language translation may be necessary in certain situations where direct translation is not possible or not of sufficient quality.

Unlike many other competing translation technologies, all of the Language Studio language pairs are direct language pairs. Direct language pairs will always give higher quality translations than pivoted language pairs.