Machine translation can be fast and cheap. It is a valuable resource when a quick translation is needed. Billions of words have been translated automatically and the pace continues to accelerate. Many professional translators are afraid of losing their jobs to machines. The fear is oversized though. Man made translation with a real person taking responsibility of the quality doesn’t compete in the same league with a raw machine translation with unknown quality. Continue reading 3 Reasons Why Knowing Machine Translation Quality Is Important
Tag: good quality translation
Can context be fully understood?
As Iina stated in a previous post, “context is machine translators’ weak point”. Likewise, Jonathan Downie wrote a guest post, which is a reply to this post of mine, where he states that context is a fundamental factor within the communication process. He sustains that context changes the perception of the message, and therefore it must be included as an element that “rearranges” the traditional sender-message-medium-receiver diagram. In general terms, I cannot disagree with the remark. Nevertheless, context can and should be thought of not only as a barrier to communication (when contexts are different), but also as something that allows communication (when it is shared). Continue reading Can context be fully understood?
Poetry: Eternally Human Translation
This is a guest post by Tom Rowsell from EmpowerLingua.
To the Old Norse, poetry was divine. Referred to as the mead of poetry, the comparison with alcohol was due to the intoxicating effect of poetry which was associated with the primary deity of the Norse pantheon, Odin. The gods made poetry by mixing the blood of the first man, who had died from the weight of his own wisdom, with honey. Continue reading Poetry: Eternally Human Translation
Translation and Empathy
What makes us aesthetically enjoy a work of art? This is a classic question in the philosophy of art and in aesthetics. Philosophers have tried to explain what kind of relation, between subjects and artistic forms, explains that feeling of rapture and delight that, sometimes, we experience in looking at a church, a painting or a sculpture. Continue reading Translation and Empathy
Ensuring the High Quality of Translation
Translation is a product or service and the translator is the service provider. And when talking about providing services and products, quality always comes to mind. It does not matter how small a service or product is, what matters to clients and consumers is the quality of the product they are paying for. How then could the “quality” of translation be assured? Continue reading Ensuring the High Quality of Translation
Proofreading: a pointless cost or an important part of every translation task?
You probably know the feeling when you are so close to the finish that you just want to run as fast as you can to the finish line. It’s almost impossible to keep the head cold and be patient enough to slow down. In translation projects (and other projects as well) the last steps are often dedicated to quality control and review. The truth is that if the work is done impeccably already in the earlier steps the last step of proofreading may not bring any additional value. Continue reading Proofreading: a pointless cost or an important part of every translation task?