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Will technology replace interpreters ? | ||
Tags: Interpreting | Career | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 9 of 18 10 September 2013 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I second what Iwwersetzerin said. Your message could have been written ten years ago, but here we are ten years later and not much has changed in the profession. I’m a full-time translator and I do simultaneous interpretation every now and then.
The only aspect of translation that might have been affected is that simple texts people only need to get a gist of can now be translated by machines (in some language combinations, anyway). But these texts were never an important part of our job anyway. On the downside, the general public’s impression of translation may have slightly changed since many seem to think you can indeed just put a text in Google Translate and off you go. On the other hand, advances in international communications have meant that there are a lot more texts being translated. On the freelance side of things, people come to me because they care about their business’ image. I don’t fear for my job. A quick tip: if you plan on becoming a translator, learn how to write. This is the skill that’s hardest to find nowadays and one no computer can do. As for interpretation, this is such an extreme task that requires getting the gist of the message, sorting through the useless and unsaid information, and reporting back a condensed version of the essence of that message in a few seconds, and computers are nowhere near getting close to part of that. When and if they ever are, I suspect there will still be settings in which the use of a computer would be impractical (or incompatible). 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 10 of 18 10 September 2013 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Or you can be like me and work for months doing "copy-editing" with a translator whose translations are WORSE than Google Translate, and who gets paid 4x what you get paid. Don't ask... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 11 of 18 11 September 2013 at 12:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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A thought came to me after the "learn to write" comment, and that was book
translations, by which I mean good quality literary, or at least literary-ish books. I think few would be happy with a machine translation of a literary work (although I'm aware of Iversen's use of google translate to produce semi-literal translations of some texts, though probably not whole books, and not literature, as he says he doesn't like it! :-) ). Anyway, book translation (especially of literary books), is a fairly specialised field within an already specialised field, and I suppose there will always be some work available there for the right people. The problem there is that publishers will only commission translations of books that they think will sell, and unfortunately, many fine books may remain untranslated. And the people with the right skills wouldn't have time to just do it for the love of it "in their spare time". They probably just don't have that kind of "spare time". 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nicozerpa Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 4325 days ago 182 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 12 of 18 11 September 2013 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
Exactly! Translation is basically an intellectual labour, a job where reasoning is the key. A translator doesn't just replace a word with another, he or she needs to put the sentences in the right context, to know the idiosyncrasies of the people who speaks the two languages involved and adapt the text accordingly, understand ironies, take into account small nuances... Computers are good with automated processes, but not with reasoning activities. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6371 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 18 19 September 2013 at 3:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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Translation software is no where near the level of humans yet and I assure you it will not reach human level ability until it can understand what it is translating, and that will require true strong AI. When that day comes not just yours but most jobs could be replaced by AI.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4667 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 14 of 18 19 September 2013 at 4:19am | IP Logged | |||||
It can be extremely time-consuming in the case of Chinese or Japanese ;) since (too) many learners rely on smartphone/PCs 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 15 of 18 19 September 2013 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
I was referring to the ability to write properly-constructed sentences, not to write by hand. Besides, translators typically translate into their mother tongue. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 16 of 18 20 September 2013 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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1997 Deep Blue computer beats Chess Grand Master Garry Kasparov.
2011 Watson computer beats humans at Jeopardy. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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