Guest blog by Yves Savourel, Vice President of R&D at Argos Multilingual
Machine translation (MT) has become a very important topic in the world of languages and translations. More and more companies have begun to apply MT as it can benefit their translation projects. But what exactly is machine translation and which different types exist? These are the points I’m going to look at more closely in the following post.
Cette version française de mon article de blog The Latest Trend in the Translation Industry: PEMT a été traduite par Clovis Cerri dans le cadre de sa formation de Master TSM (Traduction Spécialisée Multilingue) à l’université de Lille. Cette traduction était publiée à l’origine sur le blog MasterTSM@Lille.
Avez-vous entendu parler de la dernière tendance sur le marché de la traduction ? Il s’agit de la PEMT*, acronyme anglophone signifiant post-editing machine translation. En clair, les clients font appel à un programme pour traduire leur texte, lequel est ensuite envoyé à un traducteur chargé d’y apporter la touche finale. Certains d’entre eux utilisent des services de traduction automatique plus poussés que ceux disponibles en ligne. Néanmoins, l’expérience me prouve que Google Traduction est l’outil le plus populaire, et c’est donc celui auquel les clients ont le plus souvent recours pour obtenir leur traduction au coût d’une révision, soit environ 50 % du prix.
The Careers in Translation and Interpreting Conference in May 2013 at Aston University in Birmingham organised by Routes into Languages inspired me to apply for the MA Translation Theory & Practice at UCL as part of a career change. The application process was straightforward: BA (Hon) results of at least 2:1, IELTS (Academic) result of at least 7.6 and a written personal statement.
¿Han escuchado hablar sobre la última tendencia en la industria de la traducción? Se la conoce como PEMT, significa traducción automática con revisión posterior (post-editing machine translation, PEMT*). Hace referencia a cuando los clientes usan un programa para traducir un texto antes de enviárselo a un traductor para que este haga la revisión final. Algunos clientes usan herramientas de traducción automática (TA) más sofisticadas que las que se ofrecen en línea. Sin embargo, según mi experiencia, el Traductor de Google es la herramienta de traducción más popular y, por ese motivo, la que los clientes usan con más frecuencia para obtener una traducción por el precio de una revisión, en general, alrededor de un 50 % menos del costo.
Have you heard of the latest trend in the translation industry? It’s called PEMT* and it stands for post-editing machine translation. This is when clients use a program to translate their text before sending it to a translator for the final edit. Some clients use more sophisticated MT (machine translation) than online offerings, but in my experience Google Translate is the most popular translation tool, and, therefore, the one clients use more often than not to get a translation for the price of a revision, usually around 50% of the cost.
Se ha hablado mucho últimamente del mercado de las traducciones premium y al por mayor, y también de si despotricar o quejarse de las malas condiciones que se encuentran en este último alguna vez servirá de algo cuando en realidad lo que todo el mundo debería hacer es seguir el ejemplo de los gurús, salir ahí afuera y hacerse con los mejores trabajos, cobrar una fortuna, ganar un salario de seis cifras, volar en primera. Porque entonces no habría nada de lo que quejarse, ¿no?
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the bulk and premium market and whether ranting or complaining about the poor conditions found in the former will ever do any good, especially as what everyone should actually be doing is following the lead of the gurus, getting out there and grabbing the best jobs, charging a fortune, earning a six-figure salary and flying first class. Because then there wouldn’t be anything for them to complain about, now would there?
If only this were so easy or possible. The translation sector encompasses as many markets as there are language combinations and specialisms. How you fare or how much you might earn probably depends more on the market you operate in than where you live. It also depends on the subjects you have studied and your specialist knowledge, how good you are at translating and your personality; whether you have the drive, get-up-and-go and belief in yourself that will enable you to land direct clients and charge decent rates rather than relying on an agency to do that for you. So many factors are involved that it’s almost impossible to generalise. And it’s also impossible for anyone to know what it might be like for a colleague in a totally different situation to their own.
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