Thread: Beware of translator!

Originally Posted by Julio Jaubert

I agree with you. I'm not worried about job's quality, human beings are much better than machines (now, I don't know about the future in 10, 50, 100 or 500 years).

Anyway, talking about the present, there are many clients that have changed from human to machine translation. One could think we are talking about handbooks or patents that never would be read. But not. I'm talking about the image of the enterprise in Internet. Please check this: http://www.emmonspanish.com/05-06/sp...2x4uctrii2.htm

No matter what we think, the problem is that clients believe machines are good translators.

Even if clients think or believe machines are good translators they're going to realize that it isn't, I cannot imagine a book like Da Vinci code translated by google, and i have seen a lot of websites that have been translated by a machine and they are not a good translation... I think we are always going to be necessary ... or at least un a recent future.

I don't think clients believe machines are good translators. I think machines can serve a particular purpose when one does not understand a single word one's reading. If I want to have a general idea of what a Dutch page is about, a machine translator serves this purpose.
Now, can human translators be replaced? Well... I think it is possible, in medium future. Machines are accomplishing things we humans could have never dreamed of in the past. Factories filled with workers are now replaced by machines. Why not in the cognitive aspect? To me this is where we are headed, we can't do anything to prevent it, but we can do many things to adjust ourselves to it and evolve.

I agree, no machine can ever replace a human (at least not yet anyway), but I think what's good for Google is good for everthing we do online too. Look at what the net has done in such a short time 1995=18,000 websites, 2007=1,000,000,000+

I think that a true translator would really and finally open the door to international commerce online because as I have a bilingual blog that requires manual edition of my spanish entries, I'd much rather have that part automated. Think about it, if I could have a plugin on my blog that would automatically translate my posts into spanish but ACCURATELY not the way Google Translate does now. That would be wonderful as it would allow us to later take that digital ability and with technology evolving, eventually lead to vocal processors that can hear understand and replicate the language fast enough where maybe someday we will have some of those "universal translators" like they have on the Star Trek show.

I'd really like the idea of knowing I could go anywhere in the world and that I could understand everyone without carrying a little book of terms.

Originally Posted by Julio Jaubert

Anyway, talking about the present, there are many clients that have changed from human to machine translation. One could think we are talking about handbooks or patents that never would be read. But not. I'm talking about the image of the enterprise in Internet. Please check this: http://www.emmonspanish.com/05-06/sp...2x4uctrii2.htm

Hola Julio:

Recién veo esto. Es una obra maestra del disparate. Parece hecho mal a propósito. Gracias por el aporte de humor, porque otra cosa no puede ser, aunque sea involuntario.

Saludos muchos,

Originally Posted by Julio Jaubert

No matter what we think, the problem is that clients believe machines are good translators.

Sí... y la gente además piensa que traducir es "soplar y hacer botella", la cosa más fácil del mundo... digo yo, ¿para qué estudiaremos tanto?

Un "thread" muy interesante... gracias Julio

I've always noticed how translation software tends to grab "segments" and ask you to assign a translation, for your TM. But what's most interesting to me is that I have to break out of that model very often to actually get a good translation. It isn't only about the words, but about the correct meaning and style.
Sometimes I get a suggested word and if I look at it isolated from the rest of the message it is spot on. But when you read the whole translation, you come to realize that word is wrong! you need a synonym, or a different sentence construction, etc.

So, even statistically speaking, you will get a great deal of errors in such translations. Computers don't understand the language to effectively restate information in a different language. And, since there are so many terms which are only appropriate in a particular context, I believe we will still have a job... of course, as long as our work is the best quality possible =)

But of course, times change and eventually, computers may get good enough! But I, for one, will not worry too much about it.

The only online translator that I have ever returned to is SpanishDict. Yes, it is a machine, but their English to Spanish translation is thorough enough for me, plus they've got a great dictionary feature so I can look up words I still don't know.