🤖 Several interesting articles and posts about the relationship between translators and artificial intelligence were published meanwhile. Their notable feature is that after the mild depression due to the ubiquity of NMT, AI, and LLM, there are clear signs of optimism.

* * *
😃 Article titled Interpreters are wizards — at times they seem to have read my mind. AI could never compete at The Guardian. The article is rather about interpretation than about AI:

I cannot imagine how they do what they do. That they can take another’s words and sentences and reshape them, on the instant, into another language, sometimes one that is not their mother tongue, seems to me a magical feat. <...> Never has any interpreter asked me to speak slowly; never have I been asked to stop and repeat something I have said. It is uncanny.

😃 Post AI in Localization is not Disruptive. It is Intrusive by Renato Beninatto at LinkedIn:

We are not facing our end but a new beginning. It's time for the language industry to lead with conviction to articulate the value of human expertise in harmony with AI. We are innovators, strategists, and leaders. As such, we'll navigate the tides of innovation not as passive onlookers but as active, influential participants in the technological renaissance of our times.

😃 Corinne McKay posted her reflections and forecasts about the prospects of the translation profession at MT/AI: Where do I think this is all headed?

Our imminent demise has been predicted for over 30 years. I graduated from undergrad in 1993, and one of my professors told me, “I wouldn’t encourage you to go into translation, because I think that computers are going to completely take that over pretty soon.” And, 30 years later, we’re all still here!

😃 Article by Alexander Holste titled Why translators and technical writers will remain indispensable at tcworld magazine:

In two scientific papers, I have illustrated that human-machine interaction assisted by AI fails if it is not supervised by humans. <...> These examples reveal why MTWs will remain indispensable in the domain of technical communication in the future. In particular, special attention must be given to texts that are either used for image building and/or must comply with legal standards and product safety regulations.

😃 Article titled Transforming Translations: The Crucial Role of Language Data in the Age of Large Language Models and Generative AI at TAUS website, the Data-enhanced MT Solutions (DeMT™) developer.

To stay competitive and to serve the ever-diversifying needs of global communication, now is the time to invest in robust language data collection, curation, and maintenance. Language data is the bridge between the human and machine elements, shaping the future of language technology and the localization sector.

#artificialintelligence #interpretation #translatorprofession

💡 Earlier, we showed you how to replace straight quotes with guillemets in Trados Studio in one go. In this post, we will learn how to perform a similar operation in memoQ. Here’s how to do it:

😃 Press CTRL + H to open the Quick find and replace dialog box.

😃 We need access to additional options, so click Change these. The dialog box expands and changes its name to Advanced Find And Replace.

😃 Deselect the Source text checkbox (we only need to replace the translated text) and click the plain text/regular expressions switcher: the button with the angle brackets to the right of the Find what field. The dialog box changes again.

😃 Then, in the Find what field, enter the query "(.+?)" and in the Replace with field, enter «$1».

The “contraindications” are almost the same as in Trados Studio, and you shouldn’t click Replace all lazily either.

#memoq #techtips

🏙 Names of some well-known companies are actually abbreviations, not acronyms:

😃 Adidas = Adi (shortened name Adolf) Dassler is the founder's name. An «All Day I Dream About Sports» decryption appeared much later, but in fact it is a backronym, i.e. a fictional interpretation of an already existing abbreviation. It's worth noting that Adolf's older brother, Rudolf, named his company in a similar way Ruda (Rudolf Dassler), but that name "didn't work", and he renamed it to Puma.

😃 Auchan = deliberately inaccurate recording of French words Hauts champs (High Fields) referring to the name of the Roubaix quarter, where the first store of this retail chain was opened. The bird depicted on the emblem is a reference to the birds singing (au chant in French), and the bird itself is a magpie.

😃 Cisco is derived from the name of the city of San Francisco. Thus, during first years of its existence, the company's engineers insisted that this word should be written lowercase: cisco.

😃 Electrolux is formed by merging the names of the Swedish companies AB Elektromekaniska and AB Lux. The latter was engaged in the production of kerosene lamps, and Lux refers to a lux, an illuminance measurement unit.

😃 Intel = Integrated Electronics.

😃 Lego = leg godt — "play well" in Danish. Over time, the name began to be stylized as an abbreviation and written in capital letters — LEGO.

😃 Pepsi got its name from the digestive enzyme pepsin: at the end of the 19th century they believed that such a name would be associated with good digestion. Interesting fact is that pepsin was not even a part of the drink.

😃 Skype: initially, the name Skyper was formed from the sky peer-to-peer phrase — it was meant that users would contact each other directly. However, it turned out that domain names with the word skyper were already taken. Then r was simply discarded.

😃 Tefal = teflon + aluminium. The Tefal company was founded in 1956 to produce cookware with a non-stick coating based on Teflon (a.k.a. polytetrafluoroethylene, a.k.a. PTFE, a.k.a. fluoroplastic-4), when they found a way to apply it to an aluminum surface.

😃 Verizon = veritas (Latin for truth) + horizon.

😃 Vodafone = Voice Data and Fone (i.e. telephone).

#abbreviationsandacronyms #etymology

📈 Brief summary of a large-scale Freelance translator survey 2023 in as many as 107 countries, mostly European:

😃 41% of women and 31% of men have a postgraduate degree in translation.

😃 Most translators work with 3 to 4 areas of expertise, with 12% not specializing at all. Respondents mentioned law as one of their areas of expertise, followed by advertising & marketing, medicine, and business.

😃 52% of respondents work full-time as freelance translators. About a quarter can't find full-time orders, another quarter cannot devote more time to work for other reasons.

😃 59% of translators use CAT tools frequently, and 19% never use such tools. Most popular CAT tools are Trados Studio, memoQ, and Phrase. The most commonly cited benefits of CAT tools were consistency (83%), quality assurance features (46%), and shorter turnaround times (saving time) (45%).

😃 Weapons, gambling, religion and pornography are the most commonly refused topics on ethical reasons ground.

😃 The main perceived benefit of being a freelance translator is freedom/flexibility. The most commonly cited challenge was low rates of pay, followed by the increasing use of machine translation, difficulties in securing work, and delays in payment.

😃 69% of translators who took part in the survey are members of a professional translation association.

😃 Only 11% of the translators don’t do any CPD.

😃 Men vs women charge almost identical rates. Translators who specialize charge up to 43% more than those who do not, and members of translation associations charge, on average 44% more than those who do not belong to a professional body.

😃 High earners seem to specialize, use CAT tools, be members of a professional translation body, and have a website.

😃 One month/30 days is the standard payment term for translators.

😃 3/4 of translators apply a surcharge for urgent requests (tight deadlines), while 12% never apply surcharges.

😃 Inflation was the main reason for increasing rates, with the second most commonly cited factor being their increase in experience over time. Some respondents regard this as good business practice, and 7% do it because of high demand for their services. The main reason for not increasing their rates is the fear of losing clients.

😃 The vast majority of translators (83%) work with translation agencies. The most commonly perceived benefit is that this allows the translator to focus on working rather than client acquisition and other tasks such as project management and file preparation. Some respondents see such benefits as steady workflow, reliable payments, and the opportunity of being able to work on interesting or varied projects. The most commonly experienced challenge/difficulty was low rates of pay, followed by the unreasonably tight deadlines, as well as no direct access to end-client for clarifications.

😃 77% of translators work with direct clients. The main benefits are higher rates of pay and ease of communication, and that direct clients welcome questions and feedback. Clients’ lack of understanding of the translation process is the main challenge when working with direct clients, followed by the difficulty in turning down work/saying "no", and unrealistic expectations.

😃 Only 13% feel they have been affected by the Russia-Ukraine war. Around two thirds (63%) of all respondents who answered this question said they have not been affected, while the rest were unsure.

#translatorprofession

📰 Several articles about translation and languages:

😃 An article about why AI will never replace qualified translators. Spoiler alert: it fails the semantic ambiguity test. Everything comes back to the meaning.

😃 Where to gain experience as a new translator.

😃 How to translate faster.

😃 An unexpected scientific study: it turned out that the sound of a language depends on the climate in which its speakers live. In areas with high temperature and humidity, people pronounce more vowels, and in the mountains—consonants. Humid regions are also characterized by complex tone systems.

#AI #translatorprofession #linguistics

🤖 Several articles on artificial intelligence in translation.

😃 Duolingo cuts 10% of contractors and uses more AI to create app content as it's cheeper:

We just no longer need as many people to do the type of work some of these contractors were doing. Part of that could be attributed to AI.

This decision caused a lot of debates within the linguistic community.

😃 Samsung is about to introduce smartphones with embeded Galaxy AI — AI function for instant translation right during the call. Such smartphones might be introduced early in 2024 yet.

😃 An article about DeepL at Financial Times. DeepL is perhaps the most financially successful company in the field of translation. They don't disclose the amount of its income, but as per investors' estimation, it worth a billion dollars — meaning it is a so-called "unicorn".

😃 Microsoft is going to add one more key to the standard keyboard — a new Copilot key. It will launch an AI assistant. This is the first major change in 30 years: last time Microsoft added the Win key.

😃 An article ChatGPT (Un-)Fit for Translation? at TAUS website about whether it's time to use ChatGPT for translation. Spoiler: it's not clear yet as it has some pros and cons.

😃 An article about The Language AI Alphabet at Nimdzi website about meaning of all those GPT, LLMs, LLaMA, GenAI, and more buzzwords and acronyms flying around and how they are tied together.

#deepl #translationandmoney #AI #microsoft #artificialintelligence #textandspeech #duolingo