A "like" for yet another wonderful piece of writing, but not liking your trials and tribulations. I'm not a translator, though I've done my share of translation, so I am able to empathize with much of what you've written. In my line of work, I need to use several languages for daily tasks, and I do indeed use machine translation. It saves me time in that it produces a product that I'm then able to edit and plug in my experience and knowledge to make it right. But, no machine translation is go to go. It always needs work, and that work must be done with someone with actual knowledge, experience, and I dare say, talent to make it right. It's not easy work, nor is it quick, if you want the end product to be of the highest quality. I feel for you.
Tangent: I recently ran into an interpreter working freelance. Not entirely sure about who she works for and what the conditions are, but she also works as an interpreter for the Brussels police. I.e. when a foreigner speaks to the police, but either speaks no French/Flemish (or simply wants to be sure that he/she doesn't make potentially disastrous mistakes in responding), they are afforded the services of an interpreter certified (licensed?) by the Brussels govt. The Brussels govt. pays for the service. She said it's a good side-gig, and pays many of her bills. I'm sure that, in the future, this might also be taken over by Google translate in conversation mode (I've used that recently to good effect in Turkey), but for the next five years, it could serve as a stop-gap?
Thanks Aidas for a flattering and constructive comment.
First, I very much appreciate your hands-on-experience feedback on machine translation. Everything you say is 100% correct. And everything you say is ostensibly what also happens in the sector. Except, as you say, the input in terms of post-editing is far above the 3.5 cents per word that it is marketed at.
Now, translators scrabbling for crumbs from the great language banqueting table are faced with a dilemma: they can baulk at the derisory rates being offered, but they'll never be raised. The agency will simply offer the work to those who're prepared to bow down to them. So, either you accept 3.5, or you get nothing.
Interpreting is an entirely different skill to translation. I have indeed done it. I interpreted at Brussels South Station once in an interview of a famous British pop star who was caught with drugs. In that case, the interpreting was sequential. In view of the arrestee's notoriety, the prosecutor decided to let him go with a warning, which had to be given. It is in the way of punishment, in fact, to sit laboriously being lectured to by a cop who knows the words are going in one ear and out the other. But the law requires it. And it required me to make sure it at least went in the one ear.
In court, interpreting is simultaneous and I wonder at people who are able to listen, translate, voice the translation and still be listening to the next sentence. It's marvellous, and I can't do it. It requires special training. There are sworn translators, sworn interpreters, and those who do both: sworn translator-interpreters.
The problem is that you are either a sworn interpreter (or sworn translator-interpreter) or not, but there's no distinction as between sequential and simultaneous. There should be. The sequential is pretty standard stuff (if I can do it). Simultaneous is highly skilled. But there you are. The state franchises legal interpreting services that it does not itself fully understand.
I'd be glad to do the police work, but could never do the court work. I've tried. I am one of the few translators who has ever interpreted in the Court of Cassation. I simply told the bench of seven judges: "Ralentissez-vous, je ne sais pas traduire si vite que cela. Une phrase à la fois!" And they obeyed me.
A "like" for yet another wonderful piece of writing, but not liking your trials and tribulations. I'm not a translator, though I've done my share of translation, so I am able to empathize with much of what you've written. In my line of work, I need to use several languages for daily tasks, and I do indeed use machine translation. It saves me time in that it produces a product that I'm then able to edit and plug in my experience and knowledge to make it right. But, no machine translation is go to go. It always needs work, and that work must be done with someone with actual knowledge, experience, and I dare say, talent to make it right. It's not easy work, nor is it quick, if you want the end product to be of the highest quality. I feel for you.
Tangent: I recently ran into an interpreter working freelance. Not entirely sure about who she works for and what the conditions are, but she also works as an interpreter for the Brussels police. I.e. when a foreigner speaks to the police, but either speaks no French/Flemish (or simply wants to be sure that he/she doesn't make potentially disastrous mistakes in responding), they are afforded the services of an interpreter certified (licensed?) by the Brussels govt. The Brussels govt. pays for the service. She said it's a good side-gig, and pays many of her bills. I'm sure that, in the future, this might also be taken over by Google translate in conversation mode (I've used that recently to good effect in Turkey), but for the next five years, it could serve as a stop-gap?
Thanks Aidas for a flattering and constructive comment.
First, I very much appreciate your hands-on-experience feedback on machine translation. Everything you say is 100% correct. And everything you say is ostensibly what also happens in the sector. Except, as you say, the input in terms of post-editing is far above the 3.5 cents per word that it is marketed at.
Now, translators scrabbling for crumbs from the great language banqueting table are faced with a dilemma: they can baulk at the derisory rates being offered, but they'll never be raised. The agency will simply offer the work to those who're prepared to bow down to them. So, either you accept 3.5, or you get nothing.
Interpreting is an entirely different skill to translation. I have indeed done it. I interpreted at Brussels South Station once in an interview of a famous British pop star who was caught with drugs. In that case, the interpreting was sequential. In view of the arrestee's notoriety, the prosecutor decided to let him go with a warning, which had to be given. It is in the way of punishment, in fact, to sit laboriously being lectured to by a cop who knows the words are going in one ear and out the other. But the law requires it. And it required me to make sure it at least went in the one ear.
In court, interpreting is simultaneous and I wonder at people who are able to listen, translate, voice the translation and still be listening to the next sentence. It's marvellous, and I can't do it. It requires special training. There are sworn translators, sworn interpreters, and those who do both: sworn translator-interpreters.
The problem is that you are either a sworn interpreter (or sworn translator-interpreter) or not, but there's no distinction as between sequential and simultaneous. There should be. The sequential is pretty standard stuff (if I can do it). Simultaneous is highly skilled. But there you are. The state franchises legal interpreting services that it does not itself fully understand.
I'd be glad to do the police work, but could never do the court work. I've tried. I am one of the few translators who has ever interpreted in the Court of Cassation. I simply told the bench of seven judges: "Ralentissez-vous, je ne sais pas traduire si vite que cela. Une phrase à la fois!" And they obeyed me.