Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1679 Joined: December 23, 2004 Location: France
does MT software take work away from translators?
Originally written by Marie Glück on October 12, 2005 8:37 AM
But you are destroying my business with this computer translations. They should contact me first and then the machine.
appeared in:
Subject : RE: a little Haitian Creole in the forums today Posted: October 12, 2005 8:37 AM Post #67227 —in reply to #67207
Marie
My perspective if that if MT systems are implemented appropriately and with MT postediting training (http://www.geocities.com/mtpostediting/), it can lead to more volume of translation work completed in the same amount of time.
Productivity measurements of MT implementations have been published:
Elite Veteran Mother tongues: German, French Posts: 1014 Joined: March 8, 2005 Location: Austria
RE: does MT software take away work from translators?
Hie, Monsieur Jeff,
Moin tap sèlman plezante.
I was only jocking.
Je ne faisais que plaisanter.
I have read your information about this and also Monsieur Yves´, because I love Wordfast. I am also convinced that no machine can ever replace this amazing human brain, the greatest gift of HIS CREATOR.
Elite Veteran Mother tongues: German, French Posts: 1014 Joined: March 8, 2005 Location: Austria
RE: does MT software take away work from translators?
Hie,
It should have been instead "His Creator" Its creator. The Germain seems to be getting the best of me.
A propos, thanks for clarifying the HC controversy. Well explained and true. I have not studied HC because it was not accepted as an official language in my days. I read Gouverneur de la Rosé d´Aimé Cézaire in French although come to think of it today it should have been in HC. We studied Corneille, Molière and the likes during my years in Lycée. Even Schakespear was not included. The instructeurs were mostly from Belgium, Canada, Lebanon, and probably the US. I am not complaining, people did what they thought was best at the time. We can always catch up with many things.
Concerning TM. I am fascinated by the translations memories programs like Wordfast, my favorite. I have tried Trados and SDLX which are also quite good. But I don´t know what sense it makes to buy all three and then there are more.
As regards Machine Translations, I am not quite familiar with them. This is what I want to start learning. I think I am faster with a dictionary. On a personal note, are you a teacher of any language? I think I better read your profile.
Na wè pita.
Madeleine
PS: I was surprised not to find the thread upon returning from my computer course. Then I started to look around a bit.
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1679 Joined: December 23, 2004 Location: France
RE: does MT software take away work from translators?
Originally written by Marie Glück on October 12, 2005 4:36 PM
On a personal note, are you a teacher of any language? I think I better read your profile.
Prior to working in industry, I spent about 7 years doing research on various Creole languages, and teaching French, English and Linguistics and translating to survive. I then got involved in training of technical writing and translation and translation tools. All indicated in 1-page at: http://www.geocities.com/jeffallenpubs/. A list of the academic and professional courses I have given is at: http://www.geocities.com/jeffallentraining/
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1679 Joined: December 23, 2004 Location: France
I agree that computer-based tools do not replace the human brain
Originally written by Marie Glück on October 12, 2005 12:23 PM I am also convinced that no machine can ever replace this amazing human brain...
I totally agree. That's why I wrote the 1-page article entitled "Thinking about machine translation: several questions to ask yourself when you read an article about MT technologies" which is available at: http://www.geocities.com/mtpostediting/
Most that I have written and presented over the past 5 or so years on the topic of language techologies has focused on how to optimize and streamline the human intervention part of using computer-based tools.
This is highlighted in a post I wrote the this past year:
These factors were taken from a diagram that I presented at a conference in 1999, and which I presented again in a conference tutorial in Sept 2004 with additional info.
I've already written the draft of an article that describes in more detail each of the points mentioned in those diagrams and that post, and hope to finish up the final version in the coming 6 months, as time permits.
Elite Veteran Mother tongue: Portuguese Posts: 715 Joined: August 5, 2005 Location: Portugal
RE: I agree that computer-based tools do not replace the human brain
Hi Jeff,
I brought this from the Other Bias at TC thread, if you find a better place to post it, please do. I did not react immediately, but these issues have been in mind for a while.
Originally written by Jeff Allen on October 12, 2005 12:27 AM
Hmmmm,
how about the idea of setting up Machine Translation (MT) buttons all
over the site for as many language pairs as possible.
Originally written by Marina Oliveira on October 12, 2005 1:55 AM ...looks like calling the very devil... Could I have a Russian to Portuguese TM button?
Ah,
they have Russian<->Spanish, Russian<->German,
Russian<->French, and Russian<->English, but only
Portuguese<->English
Yes, this was a little joke, as I know there are not such pairs in MT as there are not either in other working materials. I studied Russian for only a school year (not an easy task even for a speaker used to languages using case inflection!) and my class book was written in French. In so many other situations, it is hard to find reliable online resources for European Portuguese. Portuguese is in the top ten of most spoken languages, but largely due to Brazilian population, so the most of the online resources that can be found are based on Brazilian Portuguese, not on European PT.
Originally written by Marina Oliveira on October 12, 2005 1:55 AM ...but, then, who would do the editing?
That's one of my areas of expertise, MT Postediting (http://www.geocities.com/mtpostediting). Just need some volunteers to train on it for the languages I don't do.
I don't know if you do Portuguese or even whether I qualify, but if I can be of use, you may count me in. Quite frankly, I have not grown very fond of Machine Translation to date. I feel, however, that we will have to deal with it increasingly in the future. MT is not likely to fade as a fashion device does, so we might as well make it a better and more reliable tool than it is at present.
Originally written by Jeff Allen on October 13, 2005 3:44 PM Most that I have written and presented over the past 5 or so years on the topic of language techologies has focused on how to optimize and streamline the human intervention part of using computer-based tools.
I have followed the theme since I joined TC, unfortunately not as much as I would like to. I don't think that Machine Translation will replace human brain, not in our lifetime, at least. I think it will narrow and 'deepen' human translation fields to a higher specialisation, whereas MT has its niche in general fields, where context and ambuity do not play a major role.
This is my humble contribution to MT discussion.
Marina
[Edited by Marina Oliveira on October 16, 2005 8:30 AM]
Extreme Veteran Mother tongue: Bulgarian Posts: 581 Joined: March 18, 2004 Location: Bulgaria
RE: does MT software take away work from translators?
'Machine translation" .... meaning a machine doing translation using .... what? - glossaries?, vocabularies?, syntax rules?, rules of word formation?, etymology of the languages it is translating between? ... A lot more, for sure! I am not sure that in our days there is even one such machine able to translate as the human brain does. Perhaps, however, in the future there will be such "tools". I'm just thinking that to teach a machine to do all this, and not between two languages only, but ... being a smart 3PO, or a tiny babelfish , a human is definitely needed! And ... on the other hand, as languages develop whether we want it or not, the human element shall always be needed, even if only to "enter" into the machine the new changes in a language ...
Now ... as to the MT - button-o-mania. Hmmmm..... Can one really rely on what the MT-box offers??? I've seen such "toys"on the websites of many translation vendors/providers. They're fun, I admit! Yet.... From what I've tried, it is all a matter of putting words and phrases together, if at all arranging them in a sentence. But I would not blindly rely on a sentence built in this way, and use it. And if so .... then it all comes down to having yet another dictionary/glossary, right?
I have also seen MT softwares. I've seen what they can. Yes, the developers are constantly trying to improve their functions, but .... I think I'll lose more, or at least the same amount of time in editting what the MT-tool has done, than sit down and translate the whole text.
After all these "philosophical" contemplations with my morning ... .... I would like to ask a very simple question:
What is the development of MT aimed at?
[Edited by Rossitsa Iordanova on October 17, 2005 1:36 AM]
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.... I would like to ask a very simple question:
