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Job changing from translator to MT post-editor Thread poster: eccotraduttrice
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jyuan_us 
United States
Local time: 03:31
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| If somebody puts a Kudoz question like "how are you doing today?" | Oct 10, 2018 |
You'll save your time by just copying and pasting the 7 Chinese characters that MT can generate for you. I don't think it is more creative and enjoyable to type these 7 characters one by one than copying and pasting them.
[Edited at 2018-10-10 09:57 GMT]
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:31
Member (2008)
Italian to English
jyuan_us wrote:
You save your time of typing 7 Chinese characters if you MT it and then copy and paste it. I don't think it is more creative and enjoyable to type these 7 characters one by one.
Nobody says to me "how are you doing today?" and lives.
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jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 03:31
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| Haha. I got your point but | Oct 10, 2018 |
Tom in London wrote: jyuan_us wrote:
You save your time of typing 7 Chinese characters if you MT it and then copy and paste it. I don't think it is more creative and enjoyable to type these 7 characters one by one. Nobody says to me "how are you doing today?" and lives.
There are "About 721,000 results" if you google-search the entire sentence.
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jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 03:31
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| A possible solution | Oct 10, 2018 |
eccotraduttrice wrote: jyuan_us wrote:
I don't think PEMT and translation are mutually exclusive processes. They have a lot in common. They should not be considered as totally incompatible with each other.
I look at the issue in a neutral way, although I don't take PEMT jobs myself. You're not neutral, you're claiming knowledge and offering an opinion (a rather harsh one) about something you say you don't even participate in. The opinions of people who do not have experience in a subject are not very valuable.
If you are too annoyed about post-editing MT, you may just delete the machine-generated translation and translate the text from scratch on your own. I think your employer/boss will like it because human translations are supposed to be better than MT translations, even if they have been post-edited.
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| Missing the point | Oct 10, 2018 |
jyuan_us wrote:
If you are too annoyed about post-editing MT, you may just delete the machine-generated translation and translate the text from scratch on your own. I think your employer/boss will like it because human translations are supposed to be better than MT translations, even if they have been post-edited.
eccotraduttrice wrote:
The idea is that my productivity will be increased so much that they will be able to give me quite a substantial raise in the near future.
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jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 03:31
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
Mirko Mainardi wrote: jyuan_us wrote:
If you are too annoyed about post-editing MT, you may just delete the machine-generated translation and translate the text from scratch on your own. I think your employer/boss will like it because human translations are supposed to be better than MT translations, even if they have been post-edited. eccotraduttrice wrote:
The idea is that my productivity will be increased so much that they will be able to give me quite a substantial raise in the near future.
The OP would rather work with the more enjoyable process of translating from scratch at a lower productivity, so maybe she can tell her boss that she would prefer translating from scratch, even if she would not get a raise. As they say, there are things more important than money in life. For the OP's case, the enjoyment of her work process (or a sense of satisfaction/achievements at work) could be more important than money.
If her boss doesn't buy in her idea, maybe she will have to overcome her dislike of PEMT tasks. If she cannot, maybe it is time to leave.
I guess nowadays being a freelancer could get you more income than being employed, if money is a concern for the OP. [Edited at 2018-10-10 18:19 GMT]
[Edited at 2018-10-10 18:22 GMT]
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jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 03:31
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| More thought | Oct 10, 2018 |
You can get a raise when working in a way your boss doesn't like only if you are indispensable to the company. Otherwise, you will have to sacrifice one thing for another.
[Edited at 2018-10-10 18:19 GMT]
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| My experience is that PEMT is more time consuming than straight translation... | Oct 10, 2018 |
It depends on your languages, and MT may work just fine in some contexts in Chinese, but the PO works with Italian and Spanish. My knowledge of Italian is very limited, but I have been dabbling with it for a couple of years, and I have seen machine translations from Italian into English. They are perhaps better than nothing but they are not satisfactory for someone who knows what a real translator can produce, and can get an idea of how much better the source text is.
All the human ... See more It depends on your languages, and MT may work just fine in some contexts in Chinese, but the PO works with Italian and Spanish. My knowledge of Italian is very limited, but I have been dabbling with it for a couple of years, and I have seen machine translations from Italian into English. They are perhaps better than nothing but they are not satisfactory for someone who knows what a real translator can produce, and can get an idea of how much better the source text is.
All the human work around machine translation is very different from direct human translation in any case. If you are good at one, you will not necessarily be good at the other.
My advice to the PO is to take a deep breath and decide on an exit strategy, then get back to translating. Having done that, try to look at the job in a positive light until you can get away - don't 'cultivate' the fact that you hate post editing, if you know what I mean. This is for your own sake. Save your energy for getting the job done and coming home to your children, or for explaining rationally and calmly that it may be OK as a job, but it is not for you.
And then use your energy for getting back on track into real translation, even if you do have to take a detour.
If you have a non-competition clause, and you have to take a completely different job, perhaps it could be an opportunity to get into a subject area where you can learn the jargon and terminology for later, or where you can use your languages in a different way until the non-competition clause expires, or while you are building up contacts for freelancing.
Changing course is not easy, but there are often advantages along the way, if you can see them and grasp the opportunities. I hope you succeed. ▲ Collapse
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eccotraduttrice
United States
Local time: 00:31
Italian to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Will do! Thanks for your input! | Oct 10, 2018 |
Tom in London wrote:
To the OP, eccotraduttrice:
I would be interested to know how you resolve this problem. Please keep us informed !
Thank you Tom, I will come back and update! Probably will be in a couple weeks.
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eccotraduttrice
United States
Local time: 00:31
Italian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Christine Andersen wrote:
It depends on your languages, and MT may work just fine in some contexts in Chinese, but the PO works with Italian and Spanish. My knowledge of Italian is very limited, but I have been dabbling with it for a couple of years, and I have seen machine translations from Italian into English. They are perhaps better than nothing but they are not satisfactory for someone who knows what a real translator can produce, and can get an idea of how much better the source text is.
All the human work around machine translation is very different from direct human translation in any case. If you are good at one, you will not necessarily be good at the other.
My advice to the PO is to take a deep breath and decide on an exit strategy, then get back to translating. Having done that, try to look at the job in a positive light until you can get away - don't 'cultivate' the fact that you hate post editing, if you know what I mean. This is for your own sake. Save your energy for getting the job done and coming home to your children, or for explaining rationally and calmly that it may be OK as a job, but it is not for you.
And then use your energy for getting back on track into real translation, even if you do have to take a detour.
If you have a non-competition clause, and you have to take a completely different job, perhaps it could be an opportunity to get into a subject area where you can learn the jargon and terminology for later, or where you can use your languages in a different way until the non-competition clause expires, or while you are building up contacts for freelancing.
Changing course is not easy, but there are often advantages along the way, if you can see them and grasp the opportunities. I hope you succeed.
You understand perfectly...thank you Christine! I had one day of mourning, then I decided to just accept that I have a different job now, and I am sticking with it for my family and our future. I will talk to my supervisors and see what is possible for me, and then decide where to go from there.
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