Many Cloud service have provided language pack and translation service options in their product offerings. I managed to test both of this in ODA (Oracle Digital Assistant) Chatbot. It is ideal that translation service be used as this simplify the maintenance and need for language packs. In reality, languages are complex and on the fly translation often turn to gibberish.
Why Language Packs?
These are the reasons why you still need language packs for your key texts.
- Accurate translated texts.
- Avoid ambiguity in translation.
- Support acronyms and puns.
- Able to translate industry terms correctly.
- Faster translation for fixed text.
Why Translation Service?
In Chatbot, translation service is a must-have beside language packs. Other type of application may not need translation service. Will translation service obsolete language pack? These are some reasons why you must enable your translation service.
- Helps to increase language type coverage.
- Prevent unnecessary setup.
- Aid Chatbot which allows NLP (Natural Language Process)
For the moment, it seems you have to support both language packs and translation service. Language packs are more accurate but cannot cater to unknown wordings like translation service.
Danny Kwok 