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Technology + translation jobs = obsolete? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5629 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 1 of 10 30 May 2011 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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A while ago, I read a thread on translating as a job on this site. It was a very
interesting thread but something stuck in my mind about it. One of the posters (a translator) commented that he feared that one day the advent of technology could make his job obsolete. I'm interested in translation/maybe in doing a translation MA in the future but does anyone know if this is a real concern for those in the field of translation? I've seen some pretty impressive leaps in technology in the last 5 or so years (smartphones that can duplicate and translate something on the fly, translate sites, text recognition etc) and I wonder if this kind of thing is/will negatively affect the industry. I tried searching on the net for opinions/info on it but I couldn't really find anything. The optimist might say 'Technology makes it easier to communicate around the world hence increasing the amount of work we get. The technology itself makes our jobs easer. Translation isn't going anywhere'. The pessimist says 'The advancements of technology are making human translators obsolete. Get out while you can'. This is not a question of interpreting, that's a whole different ballgame and though I've used some very impressive translators, 1. they're not yet perfect (but getting closer) 2. They're not as good with a non-European language. Maybe it's not going to happen tomorrow but I do wonder if this is a real concern because I've met quite a few ex-journalists in my life who have lost their jobs to the changes in technology and now do something completely different. One of my friends wanted to do a MA in Journalism and I (and my ex-journalist friends) thought that she was insane. Does anyone know anything about this/have an opinion on this? Edited by crafedog on 30 May 2011 at 2:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5192 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 10 30 May 2011 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been a translator for 10 years and I haven't noticed any change, neither have I heard other translators fear for their job. I suppose the companies that hire translators or contract freelance translators need quality work and they know you can't use Google Translate. On the other hand, I've heard of some translators using Google Translate to get a first rough draft, but I've never done so myself.
However, in those 10 years, communications have increased while the quality of online translators has also increased. Since it's possible to use online translators to get a good grasp of what a text is saying, especially in certain language combinations, it's certainly plausible that a large portion of that increase would have gone to online translators. Edited by Arekkusu on 30 May 2011 at 6:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5037 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 3 of 10 30 May 2011 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been translating part-time for the last 10 years. True, there are a lot of new toys out there, but they're no match for a real translator for reasons that have been explained many times before (the main one being that proper translation requires understanding, something a machine can't and won't be able to do for a long while). OTOH there are large portions of the market where quality doesn't really matter, so they're quickly moving to Google Translate and the like there just because technology got 'good enough' and it's cheaper than hiring someone knowledgeable / qualified.
And then we get horridly translated instruction manuals for our new electrical appliances :) So, unless you're aiming for that kind of market niche, you should be pretty safe. Of course the same balance shift can be observed in just about any kind of labor market all the time, so your story about people losing their jobs, etc. really makes me wonder just how many people delude themselves about the work they do :( 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5629 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 4 of 10 30 May 2011 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the interesting replies so far everybody.
I found the quote: "By the way, I don't know how old you are or how serious you are about becoming a translator, but bear in mind the possibility that machine translation may overtake your skills before you are ready to retire. It's a scary possibility that we professionals try hard to put to the back of our minds!" I'm fairly young and I wonder if this could be true for me. I don't really want to spend the next 5 years or so building attaining a high level/quality of translation, doing it for a while, then losing work by the day one day in the (however far) future. A real concern or just a possibility? [p.s. Before I saw your language profile mrwarper I thought you were a native English speaker. It's nice to see such a high level/naturalness from a non-native speaker. I'm an English teacher and constantly working on my Spanish so that was refreshing to see] Edited by crafedog on 30 May 2011 at 6:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4941 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 6 of 10 30 May 2011 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | ||
If you truly thought about it, you'd realize you've seen a LOT of amazing things. They're just not related to language-processing. And even Google translate, as horrible as it is, does a decent job with certain language combinations. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5480 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 10 30 May 2011 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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The claim that human translators will soon be replaced be computers has been around since the 1950s. It hasn't happened and I believe that it won't happen anytime soon.
I've been a freelance translator for over 5 years and I don't see Google Translate and co. as competition. We don't compete in the same league. If you only need to understand what a text is about and get a rough draft, you go to Google Translate, if you need a top quality translation ready for publication, you turn to an experienced professional. Lately, more and more companies are looking to recruit translators to post-edit machine-translated texts (sounds like the worst and most boring job in the world to me and I don't know many professional translators who accept this kind of jobs). If the machine-translated text is of an acceptable quality (translation of an easy text between related languages), it can make sense from an economic point of view, but in many cases it is more time-consuming (and thus more expensive) to fix a butchered machine-translated text than to translate it from scratch. Machine translation can work in some fields. It works best in technical contexts together with controlled language. Controlled language means that a text which will be machine-translated is pretreated to make sentence structures easier, use limited pre-approved vocabulary, etc. In other areas, it can be disastrous. It obviously won't work well for texts that require creativity (literature, marketing, etc.) and I believe that it is downright dangerous to use it for texts for which 100% accuracy is crucial and when important decisions have to be taken based on the translation (medical, legal, diplomacy, etc.). I specialize in legal translation, so I absolutely don't worry that I will ever be replaced by a computer. I don't think my clients would sign a contract that is machine-translated or submit machine-translated documents to a court. Human translators are around to stay. In fact, the translation industry is booming and growing more rapidly than ever before thanks to the advances in technology and globalisation. Economic crisis? Not in this sector! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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