| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21] > | translation is dead as a profession Thread poster: Daniel Rich
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:23
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Job offers still coming | Jun 21, 2022 |
Meanwhile the job offers are still coming but I never (or almost never) respond to them because:
- the agency is based in a country where I know the rates are extremely low due to economic differences;
- they require me to use Trados (which I won't; I have my own preferred CAT tool);
- the email they send is just a generic "adding translators to our database" thing;
- they ask me to quote my "best rate";
- the job offer refers to a field of specialisation tha... See more Meanwhile the job offers are still coming but I never (or almost never) respond to them because:
- the agency is based in a country where I know the rates are extremely low due to economic differences;
- they require me to use Trados (which I won't; I have my own preferred CAT tool);
- the email they send is just a generic "adding translators to our database" thing;
- they ask me to quote my "best rate";
- the job offer refers to a field of specialisation that I don't offer.
- the work is MT or post-editing.
But the offers are still coming, which suggests that translation, as a profession, no matter what you may think of it, is not dead.
[Edited at 2022-06-21 09:08 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lingua 5B 
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 04:23
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Could it be Google Translate going crazy?
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:23
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| We were warned | Jun 21, 2022 |
"The Government is planning to close every rail ticket office in England, leaving passengers to buy their tickets online"
https://tinyurl.com/2alxnpon
All kinds of jobs are being replaced by IT. There's nothing we can do to stop this from happening. It has been happening for 20 years in other professions (e.g. graphic design) and has now - belatedly - caught up with the work of the ... See more "The Government is planning to close every rail ticket office in England, leaving passengers to buy their tickets online"
https://tinyurl.com/2alxnpon
All kinds of jobs are being replaced by IT. There's nothing we can do to stop this from happening. It has been happening for 20 years in other professions (e.g. graphic design) and has now - belatedly - caught up with the work of the translator.
Or *most* translators. There is still work for translators but only for the most skilful ones, and there won't be enormous volumes of work. Instead there will be seriously demanding documents to translate that require a high degree of literacy, and are only required occasionally.
On the other hand, the future is bleak for translators who previously relied on translating mechanical, repetitive documents that can easily be handled by MT and only require slight retouching, or even no retouching at all.
[Edited at 2022-06-21 09:23 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 04:23
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| Isn't Proz a misleading microcosm? | Jun 21, 2022 |
In fact I always see the same small group of people responding here. In my opinion this creates a highly distorted image that does not necessarily have much to do with reality. Outside Proz there is an ocean of translators at work. Is the translation business changing? It certainly is. Is it dead and can' t you make a living anymore? I don't believe a word of it.
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| I am already 85% an editor and proofreader | Jun 21, 2022 |
David GAY wrote:
If translators are no longer needed to translate but are still needed only to edit and supervise the machine s work and train MT engines, 90 percent of the jobs are going to be destroyed because proofreading and editing typically make up only a fraction of a translator s work and income.
Really?
I spend 85% of my time editing and proofreading my work.
MT can only take away the 15% of my time spent typing/dictating (and will probably then add at least as much to the time I spend editing).
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:23
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Lieven Malaise wrote:
Outside Proz there is an ocean of translators at work.
So maybe a good alternative name for Proz would be "Beached Translators" 
| | | | David GAY
Local time: 04:23
English to French
+ ...
Ice Scream wrote: David GAY wrote:
If translators are no longer needed to translate but are still needed only to edit and supervise the machine s work and train MT engines, 90 percent of the jobs are going to be destroyed because proofreading and editing typically make up only a fraction of a translator s work and income.
Really? I spend 85% of my time editing and proofreading my work. MT can only take away the 15% of my time spent typing/dictating (and will probably then add at least as much to the time I spend editing).
Frankly, does it really save time to use dictation if you translate complex sentences
I doubt it. The quality of your first draft must be very low indeed if it takes you so much time to review it.
But the biggest problem looming right now is very high inflation.
[Edited at 2022-06-21 16:19 GMT]
[Edited at 2022-06-21 16:44 GMT]
[Edited at 2022-06-21 19:43 GMT]
| | | | David GAY
Local time: 04:23
English to French
+ ...
| misleading microcosm | Jun 21, 2022 |
Lieven Malaise wrote:
In fact I always see the same small group of people responding here. In my opinion this creates a highly distorted image that does not necessarily have much to do with reality. Outside Proz there is an ocean of translators at work. Is the translation business changing? It certainly is. Is it dead and can' t you make a living anymore? I don't believe a word of it.
Yes, Proz forum is a very misleading microcosm. Always the same names among the agreers. And there is some kind of misunderstanding. Many translators live in the short term and don t see what is in store in the near future and just say so far so good. There are other fora such as Reddit. I ve read some reports of translators who wrote they lost 70 percent of their income in the past years. I ve also read some testimonials here on Proz of experienced translators whose income has fallen to reach the minimum wage. Your own situation should not in my opinion be taken as a standard because you live in a country which is trilingual. Most translators are not in this situation. But Deepl is already in use even in trilingual countries with high quality expectations such as Switzerland.You are very lucky to do fine with the kind of endorsements you have on Proz and linkedin. If you analyzed your business in the light of Porter s 5 forces, you would understand how fragile your business is. Frankly I wonder why you have joined Proz in 2020 after 21 years in the business especially if according to you, Proz is a place for beached or stranded translators. In my opinion, if I m not mistaken, the statement translation is dead as a profession simply means that there is no future in this profession. It doesn t mean it s impossible right now to earn a living as a translator.
[Edited at 2022-06-21 20:47 GMT]
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expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 03:23
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| I speak for myself, but I believe many think the same way | Jun 21, 2022 |
David GAY wrote: Ice Scream wrote:
I spend 85% of my time editing and proofreading my work.
Frankly, does it really save time to use dictation if you translate complex sentences I doubt it. The quality of your first draft must be very low indeed if it takes you so much time to review it.
Well, we don't know if that percentage includes the translator self-review only, or if it is followed by a translator peer-review and/or a post-translation client review.
And even if we spend 85% or more, it doesn't surprise me, and it's nothing wrong with that.
Anyway, before delivery of my translations I need to check very carefully if it is accurate and well-worded.
And I take all the time that is needed (also taking breaks to clear my mind), because translating involves a very complex mental processing, and as we know it’s hard to get everything spot on first time.
Dedicating our time to improve our translated texts is essential for producing consistent professional quality translations, regardless of whether the draft is "very low" or not.
But, each translator uses the tools, means and methods they prefer, in order to deliver a high degree of translation quality.
[Edited at 2022-06-21 20:49 GMT]
| | | | David GAY
Local time: 04:23
English to French
+ ...
As far as I m concerned, even though I m a very bad typist, I have never used dictation although I had considered doing so to speed up the translation process. By the way, can dictation be used with a CAT tool?
| | | | expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 03:23
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
David GAY wrote:
By the way, can dictation be used with a CAT tool?
As far as I am aware of, you can integrate one of the most used dictation software - Dragon Naturally Speaking - with most part of CAT tools.
It works better with memoQ than with Trados Studio.
I don't use it, but I use quite often the 'Read Loud' option in Word (feature that reads text to the user, highlighting the words as they are read.) It's useful and very simple.
| | | | David GAY
Local time: 04:23
English to French
+ ...
expressisverbis wrote: David GAY wrote:
By the way, can dictation be used with a CAT tool? As far as I am aware of, you can integrate one of the most used dictation software - Dragon Naturally Speaking - with most part of CAT tools. It works better with memoQ than with Trados Studio. I don't use it, but I use quite often the 'Read Loud' option in Word (feature that reads text to the user, highlighting the words as they are read.) It's useful and very simple.
thank you for answering my question. I thought it would be very difficult to use dictation within a CAT tool because of the tags.
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Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 04:23
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| Good morning. | Jun 22, 2022 |
David GAY wrote:
Your own situation should not in my opinion be taken as a standard because you live in a country which is trilingual.
My opinion isn't based on my own situation but on the mere fact that there are still an awful lot of translators that earn a decent income by translating. But you might be right about the fact that translators in bi- or trilingual countries have an advantage.
David GAY wrote: I wonder why you have joined Proz in 2020 after 21 years in the business
Because of covid I had a very bad month of April/May 2020 (-60%). That worried me and since I didn't know how long that situation would last, I decided proactively to take several measures to 'survive'. So I joined Proz. Ultimately it wasn't 'necessary' because of June onwards things were back to normal (and even better than ever before). But I stayed because I saw the benefits of having a public profile completed with a maximum of finished project descriptions. Furthermore it's interesting to read what other translators do or think about the profession.
David GAY wrote: according to you, Proz is a place for beached or stranded translators.
That's not what I said or meant. I mean that you can't rely on the testimonies on Proz to draw general conclusions, be it in a positive or negative way, because there are way too few people responding here.
David GAY wrote: In my opinion, if I m not mistaken, the statement translation is dead as a profession simply means that there is no future in this profession.
In my opinion you can only say that if you are convinced about the fact that in a some near future or in the medium term computers will be able to think or feel like humans do. I highly doubt that.
[Edited at 2022-06-22 05:52 GMT]
[Edited at 2022-06-22 05:53 GMT]
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 05:23
Member
English to Turkish
| Microcosm of croakers | Jun 22, 2022 |
It appears that the majority of those announcing the death of translation on these forums are from the first world countries and translating from or into major languages. Well, I live in a third world country and translate into an unfortunate language that offers very little in the way of jobs as compared to German or Portuguese, but I have to say that I'm thriving, having earned in the last 5 years as a freelancer 5-6 times more than I did during my 10 year stint as an in-house (during which ti... See more It appears that the majority of those announcing the death of translation on these forums are from the first world countries and translating from or into major languages. Well, I live in a third world country and translate into an unfortunate language that offers very little in the way of jobs as compared to German or Portuguese, but I have to say that I'm thriving, having earned in the last 5 years as a freelancer 5-6 times more than I did during my 10 year stint as an in-house (during which time I never once visited this website). Either the croakers' experience is vastly different than mine or the world doesn't revolve around them, or probably both.
I don't know much about the 'microcosm of Proz', but this website has been good to me. I wish I discovered it a lot earlier and broke into freelancing 10 years ago (I'd probably have made enough money by now to see me through retirement). Of course I have the advantage of being located in an economically effed up country, I'd probably barely survive if I were living in Amsterdam or Hamburg, and I'd croak just as much like the folk here. But then I come across, every now and then, the profiles of some Dutch or Swedish translators located in Colombia, Thailand or Philippines and translating from English or Spanish... So moving to a sunny third world country and living in style there is also an option if you could do that (that is if you're single or retired etc.)
If I were a native English speaker and translating from a major European language, I'd most certainly seek out those 'boutique translation agencies' that seem to pay upwards of 0.12 EUR per word instead of whinging about machine translation, low rates and the big corporate translation groups on these forums.
I believe that if you're a native English (or German or French) speaker and a good translator, you stand a good chance of being noticed and given regular and decently paying work in a short space of time. But you can't say the same for someone translating into Turkish or Georgian, where a German or Danish PM couldn't tell anything about the quality of their work. Anybody who has watched enough Netflix rubbish and thinks they know super English can masquerade themselves as a translator and get away with their rubbish (by working at very low rates) for as long as the agency's clients don't report any complaints.
To be fair, I don't know much about the circumstances of croakers, they may have valid reasons (I mean the standards of living in London or Madrid wouldn't even begin to compare to mine, and DeepL must be producing 'jaw-dropping' results in their source and target languages), but they don't reflect my reality. So it wouldn't be correct to make generalizations as to the death of translation, Proz etc., if that makes sense. ▲ Collapse
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David GAY wrote:
Frankly, does it really save time to use dictation if you translate complex sentences
I doubt it.
It does. That's why I use it.
The quality of your first draft must be very low indeed if it takes you so much time to review it.
Or maybe the quality of the final version is very high indeed.
But the biggest problem looming right now is very high inflation.
Not if you raise your prices. Or do more work. Or spend less.
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