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How long will human translation last?
Thread poster: LucyPatterso (X)
Nicole Schnell
Nicole Schnell  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 00:11
English to German
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In memoriam
Sorry, I have to disagree. Sep 17, 2012

Tntranslations wrote:

Now's the best time for most translators to start using MT. The technology is getting to the point where it can definitely speed up work in most languages, but this is not yet reflected on the prices. If you start using MT independently right now, there will be a fairly long time span when you can keep the profits of the productivity gains all to yourself. Once clients and agencies start providing MT and requiring that it is used, the prices will drop accordingly.



I am not being paid for "putting words into German". I am paid for using my brains.


 
keshab
keshab  Identity Verified
Local time: 12:41
English to Bengali
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SITE LOCALIZER
Machine cannot represent human sentiments in a language Sep 17, 2012

LucyPatterson wrote:

I have been testing out a well-known machine translation service recently. It makes a real mess of free texts for marketing and is absolutely terrible at translating legal texts.

However, it performs remarkably well with scientific reports (at least the one I tested out was rather good) and is very useful for technical subjects.


Yes, that's it. Most of scientific books are written in English and few other European languages. My science teacher always encouraged us to write scientific matter in English and said, science is not literature. so concentrate on logic and not on grammar. Just remember when you say "North", audience should understand it is north, not south. Therefore, no doubt that MT does excellent job to translate scientific report. But, it can't be so good for literature translation, even business translation where human sentiment plays a great role.Language is nothing but interpretation of human sentiments.So we need not to be worried about MT which is just our (translators) assistant, not our master. We are safe until machine can think independently and can translate human emotion.


 
Tntranslations
Tntranslations
Local time: 09:11
You could disagree more Sep 17, 2012

Shai Nave wrote:
There are valid arguments for using MT and against it, I won't go into them now, but professionals who choose to use MT must understand that this is a tool of the trade, nothing more. Therefore, they should charge a fair amount, an amount that reflects their effort, scope of work and time invested, and not just automatically "drop the price" because someone tells them to do so because they are using some kind of tool.[Edited at 2012-09-17 14:26 GMT]


(Just to make clear it and avoid confusion, everything I say only applies to bulk translation where MT is feasible.)

Honestly, you're not really disagreeing with me. If the tool used lessens the effort, scope of work and time invested, the fair amount to ask for these things should also drop. In the long run, you can't expect to pocket all the efficiency gains yourself. Imagine how well off translators would be if they still got paid the full amount for every word, whether it was a 100 percent match, fuzzy or a new word.

Right now we're at a similar situation as when translation memories were introduced: early adopters can charge old, higher prices even though they work with new, more efficient tools. This will not last long, so it's a good time to make money. You'll also be better positioned when the paradigm changes.

Nicole Schnell wrote:
I am not being paid for "putting words into German". I am paid for using my brains.


Well if you take advantage of MT now (provided it's suitable for your field and language pair), you will be paid better for both of these things. (And I disagree, I studied German in school and you do have to use brains to put words into it.)


 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 08:11
Spanish to English
+ ...
Baby versus bathwater Sep 17, 2012

There's nothing wrong with MT per se, and it can be a useful tool. The problem arises when people start to think that "anybody can translate now" and the true value of a good translation starts to get nibbled away by hordes of MT-wielding termites. Etc etc etc.

In the words of Alfred E. Neuman: "What, me worry?"


 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 08:11
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
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Completely disagree Sep 17, 2012

Tntranslations wrote:
Now's the best time for most translators to start using MT. The technology is getting to the point where it can definitely speed up work in most languages, but this is not yet reflected on the prices. If you start using MT independently right now, there will be a fairly long time span when you can keep the profits of the productivity gains all to yourself. Once clients and agencies start providing MT and requiring that it is used, the prices will drop accordingly.

I completely disagree with this. If you are minimally conscious about the main aspects of a quality translation (meaning, style, spelling, localisation aspects, prevention of common pitfalls), MT definitely does not speed up work, but makes it not only more cumbersome and slow. It makes work also a lot less rewarding since a machine dictates the general guidelines of your style and wording. It sounds a bit sad to become a freelancer thinking that you will be your own boss... to become the servant of a machine translation tool.


 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 08:11
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
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Did you... Sep 17, 2012

Tntranslations wrote:
(Just to make clear it and avoid confusion, everything I say only applies to bulk translation where MT is feasible.)

I think you did not say this in your first response... did you?


 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 08:11
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Ah OK! Sep 17, 2012

Tntranslations wrote:
Well if you take advantage of MT now (provided it's suitable for your field and language pair)...

You should have mentioned this earlier. I can tell you now already: MT is not suitable for technical translations from English and German into Spanish. In my work you have to think a lot about what the writer is trying to convey.

If we for the time being skip the fact that in technical translation you must know a fair deal of each of the matters at hand, thinking is something machines cannot do for now. When they do, I will be happy to reassess the situation.


 
Shai Navé
Shai Navé  Identity Verified
Israel
Local time: 10:11
English to Hebrew
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Clarification Sep 17, 2012

Tntranslations,
To be clear, I disagree with 2 of your statements. When I wrote that professionals should charge a rate the reflects the work that they are doing I meant that the professional should not earn less per hour or per day of work just for using a certain tool (which is a process that already started by some stakeholders looking for MT-post editing for ridiculous rates although the work usually takes as much as time as translating the content from scratch, if not more), and also
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Tntranslations,
To be clear, I disagree with 2 of your statements. When I wrote that professionals should charge a rate the reflects the work that they are doing I meant that the professional should not earn less per hour or per day of work just for using a certain tool (which is a process that already started by some stakeholders looking for MT-post editing for ridiculous rates although the work usually takes as much as time as translating the content from scratch, if not more), and also take into account one's investment in hardware, software, the time for maintaining that environment, and every other technology related investment (in time and money). Let's assume for a minute that a good MT solution is available for your needs. You will have to invest in the software, you might need to upgrade your hardware, you will have to invest time in learning, training and maintaining that MT environment. So even if in theory it enables you to double your daily effective output this doesn't mean that you should drop your per unit rate by half. The obsession with per unit rate, which is the focal point of translators, agencies and client alike, is just small part of the picture.

Besides, when I wrote that I couldn't disagree more I mostly opposed your statement that now is the ideal time to switch to MT. First, not everyone wants to lose our unique, knowledgeable and professional voice and replace it with a generic solution. So MT, which is a tool, is not something everyone would choose to use. Secondly, I disagreed with your suggestion (to use a tool that increases one's efficiency while charging the same and riding this wave as long as one can), I think that it is unethical. If to use your example, when using CAT tools, if a 10,000 words documents has 4,000 new words and the rest are repetitions, I don't charge for 10,000 words, but I also don't offer those ridiculous discounts that agencies try to impose for every half percent of "fuzziness". I charge for the project an amount that truly represents the work required, the time invested, my initial investment in the technology as well as other CAT tool related aspects of a project, which I think is the most fair approach for both sides.

So, the discussion about MT amongst professionals should focus on its usefulness, advantages and disadvantages in different environments as a work tool, and not lead with the "now the rates should drop" angle.

[Edited at 2012-09-17 20:42 GMT]
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Miguel Carmona
Miguel Carmona  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 00:11
English to Spanish
The hordes of MT-wielding termites Sep 17, 2012

neilmac wrote:
There's nothing wrong with MT per se, and it can be a useful tool. The problem arises when people start to think that "anybody can translate now" and the true value of a good translation starts to get nibbled away by hordes of MT-wielding termites. Etc etc etc.

In the words of Alfred E. Neuman: "What, me worry?"


Yes, the hordes of MT-wielding termites led by mediocre agencies, their shepherds, who could not be happier at the profits that they will be making thanks to this anomalous situation.

BTW, "hordes of MT-wielding termites" is definitely an expression for posterity. Well put, Neilmac!

[Edited at 2012-09-17 21:18 GMT]


 
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 03:11
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
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Why Post Editing of Machine Translations is a Fool's Errand Sep 17, 2012

Related article: http://patenttranslator.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/post-editing-of-machine-translations-is-a-good-definition-of-the-term-a-fools-errand/

Unfortunately, many of the current statistic-based MT systems produce output that reads like a good translation (because the text is taken f
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Related article: http://patenttranslator.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/post-editing-of-machine-translations-is-a-good-definition-of-the-term-a-fools-errand/

Unfortunately, many of the current statistic-based MT systems produce output that reads like a good translation (because the text is taken from actual documents), but many times the source text says something completely different. It never occurs to monolingual people that a computer would provide something that sounds like perfect English, but have absolutely nothing to do with what the source text means (or in some cases the complete opposite).

Machine translation is not translation, it is guessing and the odds are not in your favor.

However, someone is going to have to get seriously hurt, killed or lose a lot of money after relying on a machine-translated document before people start paying attention to the serious potential dangers of MT. Someone WILL attempt to sue the operators of MT systems for damages (although they probably will not be successful) or a company with a machine-translated website. It is only a matter of time.

That having been said, MT can, in some instances, be useful for skilled translators who know what they are doing, but in no way is this additional help worthy of ANY discount or cost reduction whatsoever.

If you find post-editing machine translation easier, you quite simply do not know how to translate!

If human KudoZ answerers cannot come to a consensus on a translation, how will a computer decide?




[Edited at 2012-09-17 23:05 GMT]
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John Fossey
John Fossey  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 03:11
Member (2008)
French to English
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Simple answer to a simple question Sep 17, 2012

The simple answer to "How long will human translation last?" is:

Forever...


 
LilianNekipelov
LilianNekipelov  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 03:11
Russian to English
+ ...
MT is totally useless for professional translation purposes Sep 17, 2012

It may have some entertainment value -- like video games, that sort. It has really no value whatsoever for professional translators. It may be somehow helpful perhaps in creating great, thorough, and accurate dictionaries, phrase books. Other than that, Sisyphus work.

Any attempt to create reliable MT will fail, because the whole concept is based on Utopian premises -- the same as creating a human robot, who would be not that different from a human being.


 
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 03:11
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Human translation Sep 18, 2012

Machine translation is based on matching existing translations. If there were no more human translations, machine translation could not improve. In fact, the more bilingual machine translations that appear on the net and the more error-filled bilingual documents submitted by incompetent human "translators", the more the system collapses in on itself. Who will be left to program the machine?


LucyPatterson wrote:

My question is the following: As machine translations improve, there will be less work for translators. Many clients just want to know what a text says, and can deal with a few odd turns of phrase and mistakes. They can hire someone to make it sound more natural if required, but the main thing is they can understand the content.

How soon will this happen? Is it already happening now?


[Edited at 2012-09-18 01:40 GMT]


 
Meta Arkadia
Meta Arkadia
Local time: 14:11
English to Indonesian
+ ...
October 3, 2014 Sep 18, 2012

Jeff Whittaker wrote:
Machine translation is based on matching existing translations.

That's Google's approach. A statistical MT. It's based on brute force, large databases and processing power. It's not much better - worse, in fact - than assembling a translation from your own TMs, if they're big and relevant enough. GT lacks Artificial Intelligence (Google didn't know where to steal it). An MT should be able to learn, like Dragon NS. Bing is slightly better. AI combined with relevant databases will be far better.
Another problem is, that we start from written language. You can't blame us, because we only deal with written language. But from a linguistic point of view, written language doesn't count. So add AI to relevant corpora, somehow fake the source text to be oral (ask Lewinsky?), and there you are. It will be adequate, if not downright good. Of course, there will be mistakes every now and then. But then again, you also make mistakes. Even I do, very rarely.
MT will be good enough before we know it. With a high degree of accuracy: October 3, 2014 (the day after I'll turn 65).

Cheers,

Hans


 
Meta Arkadia
Meta Arkadia
Local time: 14:11
English to Indonesian
+ ...
Practical Sep 18, 2012

Tntranslations wrote:
Now's the best time for most translators to start using MT.

A non-philosophical, very practical approach. Use it, before it uses you.

Cheers,

Hans


 
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