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GoogleTranslator is killing my future | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 25 of 63 22 June 2011 at 10:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I think some of you are too optimistic when you notice that machine translations easily can be spotted because of their characteristic errors an conclude that the translation business is safe.
But my daily newspaper also contains spelling errors and dubious syntax. Once upon a time every decent newspaper had human proofreaders. They went poof up in the air when digital spelling control became available - not because these useful contraptions catch all errors, but because a management decision was made to accept a lower, but also cheaper standard. Edited by Iversen on 22 June 2011 at 11:11am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Wompi Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 4958 days ago 56 posts - 64 votes Speaks: German*, Spanish, English Studies: Czech | Message 26 of 63 22 June 2011 at 10:40am | IP Logged | ||
Which quality of translation will be better (from English to another language) I don´t know, but I think translations between non Englisch languages are worse than between English and non English languages because probably e.g. gTranslate has more texts translated into English than into any other language. As far as I know gTranslate uses statistical algorithms on given texts and translations which it already knows. The translations from Czech into English where normally better than into e.g. German. Edited by Wompi on 22 June 2011 at 10:42am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 27 of 63 22 June 2011 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||
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As far as I can see all Google translations pass through English (otherwise English words inserted in a text in another language wouldn't be translated along with all the rest). This alone must entail that translations between English and other languages (both ways) tend to be better than other combinations. Add to that the larger amounts of bilingual matherial available for analysis with English as one of the languages, and you see why English-something combinations wins. But actually Danish <--> something isn't too bad so size apparently isn't the only factor.
As a curiosum I would like to mention that all something -> Latin combinations are fundamentally rotten because most things you would want to write about simply can't be expressed in Classical Latin onless you integrate some of the dictionaries with proposals for additions to the Latin vocabulary - and this has clearly not happened. But even translations from Classical Latin to modern languages are dismal. In spite of this I regular use translations from one of my weaker target languages into English (or Danish, sometimes other languages) when I make bilingual text for intensive study, and even though there are many and sometimes grotesque errors I prefer a machine translation to a human translation which doesn't follow the original closely. As machine translations get better this tendency will be stronger, and I can see the day where translations the other way will become so good that I would trust them more than my own judgment - although it may be necessary to modify the software of the translation sites to achieve this. For end users and language learners this is good news, but not for translators. Interpreters can probably feel safe for the next couple of years, but Youtube has already made experiments with translations of speech (so far only for English), and it is not impossible that they some day could make it work properly. And they are not alone in the field. So even interpreters could face problems - not because the machines can make a better job, but because the choice between price and quality is far too easy for most people. Edited by Iversen on 22 June 2011 at 12:36pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AlexBlackman Newbie Australia Joined 5511 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 29 of 63 22 June 2011 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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The real threat of software translation is not that it can translate better than us, but that many people think it can.
Yesterday I was discussing somethings on a Chinese webforum. I mentioned that I was English and one guy started posting things in very garbled English. I told him in Chinese that I couldn't understand him, and he posted "I use google translate" I asked him why. He [finalllly] replied in Chinese Because I was afraid you wouldn't understand. <(>,<)> 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5671 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 30 of 63 22 June 2011 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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There was another thread on this topic not too long ago: Technology + translation jobs = obsolete?
I've been a freelance translator for over 5 years, I mainly translate legal documents and I don't fear any competition from machine translation. We don't compete in the same league. The translation sector is very fragmented, there are clients who want the cheapest translation possible and don't care much about the quality and on the other side of the spectrum you have clients that demand top-notch professional quality with several rounds of proofreading and quality assurance. Machine translation caters to the former, whereas good professional translators cater to the latter. There is some truth to the myth of the poverty-stricken translator. For instance, literary translators are notoriously underpaid, so much so that most of them have other jobs to pay the bills, often as teachers or writers. Subtitling is another field that is badly paid. In my opinion, too many people work as freelance translators who really would be better off doing another job. There are many more bad translators than good translators around. In most countries, the profession is not regulated, so anybody who thinks he can speak 2 languages can set up shop. If you don't deliver good work, you can't expect to be paid top rates or to keep your clients for very long. Some freelance translators indeed have trouble making ends meet. Why? Because they only work for translation agencies and don't dare to approach companies directly, because they behave like employees instead of entrepreneurs and accept any rate an agency is willing to offer them or because they simply don't know how much their work is worth (sad, but true). Those you make a good living (6 figures is totally possible for a good, experienced translator) are usually specialized in a few fields they are experts in, thus charging more, work mainly or exclusively for companies or government agencies instead of translation agencies (no middleman thus higher rates) and most importantly, they act like entrepreneurs (they are business professionals who market their services and set their own rates and terms), not like a stay-at-home mum who makes a few dollars on the side "doing translations" and is happy to be paid 0.03 $ per word. [Sorry for the slightly off-topic rant, I just have to comment on one of my pet-peeves] 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 31 of 63 22 June 2011 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I really see no cause for worry. The fundamental Achilles heel of all translation software is and will be for a long time the problem of understanding. Frankly, I haven't seen much progress in that area. The progress I see is really more the result of throwing computing power at simple grammatical analysis and dictionary look-ups. I've never really been impressed by the quality of the translation from any product that I've seen so far. But they can certainly be very helpful as translation tools. Similarly, word processors have replaced typewriters. Spelling and grammar checkers have made the mechanics of writing correctly easier. Electronic dictionaries will probably replace paper dictionaries. The Internet is a fabulous tool for translators, of course. But all of that is really about the mechanics of translation. Some of the tedium will be reduced, but I don't see human translators being eliminated any time soon.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5383 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 32 of 63 22 June 2011 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm a little ambivalent about this issue.
On the one hand, I see that my current translator position is not at all threatened by computer translation, in the short or even in the medium term, and that all that's changed in my 10 years plus in the profession is that we have many more tools available to help ensure quality and consistency and that our job is easier because we have access to huge amounts of information online and we can work from a distance. Despite the job having become easier, the basic set of skills necessary is still the same and is still in demand because it's hard to find. On the other hand, I can also recognize that computer power and technology grows exponentially and I'm forced to admit that computers will most likely eventually replace humans, not only for translation, but for everything else. At the same time, an increase in communication necessarily implies an increase in translation needs. In the future, if the computer is to replace humans for translation in our lifetime, I suspect it will first happen with English and other common languages that are similar to English, and that the role of translators will gradually move from actual translation towards proofreading and tweeking the final copy. This also means that qualified people will continue to be needed for a while because the part that's hardest for humans is also hardest for computers. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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