| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Automated Machine Translation Thread poster: Katharina Harer
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Kevin Fulton 
United States
Local time: 08:03
German to English
| Millions of words translated monthly ... | Oct 21, 2015 |
... in the financial services industry. The megabanks (Credit Suisse, etc.) rely heavily on machine translation for data, since much of the documentation contains fixed phrases (balance sheets, etc.), standard terminology, predictable syntax and, of course, numbers. The types of analysis these institutions do cannot depend on the time lag imposed by human translation.
As pointed out above, the automotive industry relies heavily on MT for parts/price lists. I attended a meeting in t... See more ... in the financial services industry. The megabanks (Credit Suisse, etc.) rely heavily on machine translation for data, since much of the documentation contains fixed phrases (balance sheets, etc.), standard terminology, predictable syntax and, of course, numbers. The types of analysis these institutions do cannot depend on the time lag imposed by human translation.
As pointed out above, the automotive industry relies heavily on MT for parts/price lists. I attended a meeting in the last century where the head of General Motors linguistic services stated that the company's goal was to pay one cent for one word, once. Advances in machine translation has made that a reality in certain parts of the industry. ▲ Collapse
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Katharina Harer wrote:
After translating for over ten years it has come to my attention that the automated machine translations are gaining in popularity with big companies. An agent from an agency I work with recently told me that soon we might all be out of a job, due to automated machine translations becoming better and better.
What are your experiences as translators and what is your prognosis?
Automated machine translations are gaining popularity only with certain agencies (not the good ones) because they now found a reason to ask for post-editing machine translation and demand even lower "editing" rates. Simply ignore such agencies. There is more and more work out there for human translators (machines don't translate at all, they match up words and thus are much more likely to be completely wrong most of the times, in many respects, with regard to meaning, grammar, style). Most translation jobs also involve research, and no machine is capable of that. Don't succumb to some unrealistic, totally unprofessional "job" offer from unprofessional agencies/clients.
As always, it's the quality that counts for serious agencies and end-clients alike. That quality comes at a professional, fair price. It doesn't matter what tools you use to get to that result. I am not in the word-translating business for lists for one cent a word. And neither should anyone. I do use CAT tools and they help but it doesn't mean I need to sell myself cheap now. My tools are my tools and the end result is the end result I arrive at, not any of my tools. And in text translation, that's what will always be true. As long as there isn't a machine that thinks like a human being, there's no chance for machines to take over our profession.
| | | | | Simple texts are not really our job | Oct 22, 2015 |
I agree with the colleagues who have expressed that MT is here to stay and that, in due time and if we play our cards right, post-editing can become a good source of income for new generations of translators. Maybe not for me, as I might be too old and cranky to change my whole call-it-romantic perception of traslation as an art. However, in Spain we say that one cannot always be sure that one will not drink of that water (i.e. if one day one ends up thirsty).
Now, my point of view ... See more I agree with the colleagues who have expressed that MT is here to stay and that, in due time and if we play our cards right, post-editing can become a good source of income for new generations of translators. Maybe not for me, as I might be too old and cranky to change my whole call-it-romantic perception of traslation as an art. However, in Spain we say that one cannot always be sure that one will not drink of that water (i.e. if one day one ends up thirsty).
Now, my point of view is that MT is allowing many companies to translate huge amounts of information that would otherwise go untranslated. Are these highly standardised, industrially-written, relatively simple documents (financial reports, wheather reports, instructions about software...) that can be translated by MT really the work of a professional translator? I really doubt it.
Our job is, as has been for centuries, to translate the materials nobody else is able to translate fully, powerfully, and successfully (not a bilingual secretary, not a bilingual relative of the VP, not your local language teacher, not a MT solution). This is the kind of text that will exist for many generations to come. Every conscious translator must keep pushing the limits (higher education, continuous education, sharpening research and IT abilities, exercising curiosity, being an agile and reliable business partner) to prove to customers the worth of a translator at every single point of contact.
Let's give MT a good fight, folks! For one, we will make MT developers sweat a bit and watch our backs for a long time.
[Edited at 2015-10-22 03:53 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:03
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| We have to learn to live with it | Oct 22, 2015 |
Patrick Porter wrote: The way I see it, the translation industry has always evolved with technology; there’s nothing new about that...[ read more here]
Largely agree. Just yesterday we had a thread that touched upon how faxes were once the bane of our lives. Now they're gone, hurray!
Now we get to use email, software dictionaries that translate the word at point, broadband, PDF for document transfer, CAT tools, VoIP or Skype instead of wincingly expensive international calls, the cloud - it's a far more pleasant world and efficient world for translators, thanks to technology.
We can embrace MT as a weapon in our fight to become ever more efficient, just as we embraced the technologies mentioned above, or we can pretend it doesn't exist and become uncompetitive. It's here and it's not going away.
However, as noted on another thread, I want an MT service that guarantees confidentiality - i.e. one that will be accepted by my clients as leak-proof - for a price that an individual freelancer can pay. On price, we're not there yet.
At this stage, in my pair, the only translators likely to be replaced by machines are those who translate like machines. Auto parts catalogues have been mentioned. This is a classic example of repetitive, low-value added translation where confidentiality isn't a big deal. I have been invited to bid for such projects many times but the rate is always too low. It makes sense to cede this kind of thing to MT.
Tomás commented that "simple texts are not our job" and he is basically right. I would modify it slightly to say "texts where the rewards of using MT outweigh the risks are not our job". As an example of the kind of texts on which we should be focusing, I've just been asked to translate a keynote presentation for one of the world's top auto companies, to explain a strategic product that has important implications for its future.
This isn't the sort of thing that MT gets a sniff at. The reward is a few dollars saved, if that, while the risk of a mistake is too high and the consequences of allowing an error to creep in are too great.
Regards
Dan
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Personally I think wath we are still so far from te day wath a machine can translate a feeling like desperation or the happiness. Until that moment we will work.
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