| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7] > | The "Crime" of Using MT Thread poster: Michelangela
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| @Phil Hand: I'd also like to stay on top of the technical trends | Jun 18, 2014 |
Phil Hand wrote:
I'd also like to stay on top of the technical trends...
In my case the wording would be a little bit different.
I am trying as hard as I can to stay on top of the technical trends... because this makes me capable of coming up with a unique selling proposition (USP)... thus strengthening my bargaining position... and securing higher rates
Over the last 6 months, I invested lots of time, effort, and money in staying on top of the technical trends:
1. Annual subscription to MS Office 365 Enterprise E3
2. Annual subscription to Wordbee, a translation management system (TMS)
3. Annual subscription to DocuSign Pro
4. Annual subscription to LinkedIn Premium
5. Buying and/or upgrading several software products:
- upgrading SDL Trados Studio 2011 Professional to SDL Trados Studio 2014 Professional
- buying ORFO 2014 Professional Plus, a spell-checker
- buying Foxit PhantomPDF Business, etc.
6. Committing $400 (with $250 to go to the winner) to run a contest at DesignCrowd.com, with a view to obtain a new business card (and stationery) design
...
Do I need to continue?
[Edited at 2014-06-18 01:32 GMT]
| | | | | @Mikhail Kropotov | Jun 18, 2014 |
Mikhail Kropotov wrote:
I believe you're muddying the waters by bringing CAT into the discussion as it has nothing whatsoever to do with MT.
...
If you're an expert translator and you use MT for productivity, that's fine. Just don't tell me it lets you come up with better wording than you would on your own.
Hi Mikhail (and thanks for sharing Sergei's contact details, we had a talk yesterday:)),
I would never doubt your professional skills but you might be wrong here on both counts.
1. You can add one of more MT tools to your project to be translated using SDL Trados Studio, whereby this MT would serve as a provider of translation candidates, just like a regular TM does. The quality of MT-supplied translation candidates depends on the quality of the main dictionary; add-on industry-, project-, or client-specific dictionaries; and, primarily, on the underlying algorithms and rules.
2. If a specific MT tool has been fed with the approved terminology as used by various UN system entities, the MT-supplied translation candidates may be of surprisingly high-quality, provided that the algorithms are up to the mark as well.
[Edited at 2014-06-18 01:32 GMT]
| | | | Phil Hand 
China
Local time: 00:16
Chinese to English
| Thanks, Vladimir | Jun 18, 2014 |
Could you show us an example, please? You mentioned UN documents, and I can see how the big corpus available could indeed help MT to provide useful answers. Could you take a moment to run a paragraph from a typical UN doc through your MT system, and put up the results? If you can do Russian-English that would be great, so we can all see it. Or do English-Russian, and you could suggest where the edits go, if you want.
| | | | miguelortiz
United States
Local time: 12:16
English to Spanish
+ ...
| It gets worse, I thought the previous comments were out of line, but I think this one hit the gutter | Jun 18, 2014 |
Michal Fabian wrote:
If MT helps you produce better (quicker, neater, more accurate...) translations than you would without it, chances are you're incompetent as a translator. (And I'm being mild here).
[Edited at 2014-06-18 03:26 GMT]
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Phil Hand wrote:
Could you show us an example, please? You mentioned UN documents, and I can see how the big corpus available could indeed help MT to provide useful answers. Could you take a moment to run a paragraph from a typical UN doc through your MT system, and put up the results? If you can do Russian-English that would be great, so we can all see it. Or do English-Russian, and you could suggest where the edits go, if you want.
OK, Phil, you got me interested to the point that I decided to extend my deadline for going to bed today (for your information, it's 7:35am in Moscow right now:))
I will run several paragraphs through my MT system. I have access to the documents in all six official languages of the United Nations, so I can do it both ways, i.e. ENRU
I admit I have never checked my MT tools this way, therefore I am interested in seeing the output. But even before that I want to re-iterate that I know it takes me less time to complete an assignment, when an MT tool is in place.
| | | | | Offense (good-naturedly) taken, this time | Jun 18, 2014 |
Michal Fabian wrote:
If MT helps you produce better (quicker, neater, more accurate...) translations than you would without it, chances are you're incompetent as a translator. (And I'm being mild here).
Hi Michal,
No, you are not being mild:) ... I'd rather say you are young, and it shows (unless we have a 90-year old lady hiding behind this profile photo:)).
1. Have you ever been paid above EUR 0.20 per source word for non-rush jobs?
2. Have you ever replied to an invitation to bid with an empty email with just a single "Subject" line, and still won the contract?
3. Have you ever met a Fortune 100's CEO face-to-face?
4. Have you ever flown on a private jet as a passenger?
5. Have you...?
6. Have you...?
If your answer is negative on all counts, then it's about time to re-consider your attitude towards other translators who just happen to have a different modus operandi.
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 00:16
Chinese to English
Vladimir Pochinov wrote:
OK, Phil, you got me interested to the point that I decided to extend my deadline for going to bed today (for your information, it's 7:35am in Moscow right now:))
I will run several paragraphs through my MT system. I have access to the documents in all six official languages of the United Nations, so I can do it both ways, i.e. ENRU
I admit I have never checked my MT tools this way, therefore I am interested in seeing the output. But even before that I want to re-iterate that I know it takes me less time to complete an assignment, when an MT tool is in place.
I appreciate you giving this a go for us. Proz can be a good place to learn new stuff, and with a bit of luck we can both learn something from this exercise: some quantification of what MT gives us.
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:16
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Settling down to watch | Jun 18, 2014 |
Phil Hand wrote:
Yeah, we can never get proof of much at all, but I would like to be persuaded.
Well, in that case I shall grab some popcorn and find a comfy seat.
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I do use MT 'on the side' in my CAT tools, and although admittedly I largely ignore the results, there are plenty of occasions where, for example, paragraphs of EU law pop up that are served with MT suggestions that clearly came right from the EU itself. I also find it helpful when translating lists of countries, states, animal names, etc., because it often gets them right. Moreover, its kind of like having a dictionary open on the side that can help fill blanks (the "its on the tip of my tongue... See more I do use MT 'on the side' in my CAT tools, and although admittedly I largely ignore the results, there are plenty of occasions where, for example, paragraphs of EU law pop up that are served with MT suggestions that clearly came right from the EU itself. I also find it helpful when translating lists of countries, states, animal names, etc., because it often gets them right. Moreover, its kind of like having a dictionary open on the side that can help fill blanks (the "its on the tip of my tongue" words).
Here are a couple of little examples I pulled up from the EU (NL-EN) using Microsoft Translator. You might not like the English (or the Dutch), but they are official EU translations (possibly even original source texts). Surely everyone agrees that there is nothing wrong with a machine retrieving such sections for you rather than having to search for them yourself?
"Gezien het Verdrag betreffende de werking van de Europese Unie, en met name artikel 78, lid 2, en artikel 79, leden 2 en 4,": "Having regard to the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union, and in particular article 78 (2) and 79 (2) and (4),":
"Gezien het voorstel van de Europese Commissie,": "Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,"
"Handelend volgens de gewone wetgevingsprocedure": "Acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure"
I don't know about the UN, because Dutch isn't an official language, but I bet there is a wealth of MT information there.
Cheers,
Olly
[Edited at 2014-06-18 07:21 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 00:16
Chinese to English
| Intelligent segmenting | Jun 18, 2014 |
@Olly
Yeah, I can definitely see that as a benefit. Where the corpora exist, and MT can reach in and pick out phrases, that would be a real help. Is it reliable? The think I like about the TM is that it pops up the previous versions of the segment, so you can quickly look and make sure that it is the right context. With MT presumably you don't get that, so you'd have to trust it somewhat.
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Rule number 1: Never trust MT! I use a keyboard shortcut to look up a segment on a .uk or .eu page and quickly verify that the translation is official.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 18:16
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| @Phil, somewhat off-topic, but let's play, shall we? | Jun 18, 2014 |
Phil Hand wrote:
Samuel, seeing as you're here and you've taken the time to explain clearly how MT works for you, could you give us an example? Find a paragraph of representative text, run it through your system, and put the results up?
Well, the only system available to me is Google Translate. About 3 years ago I made a short video about using GT in OmegaT, but I did not look at the text before starting the translation, and the sample text turned out to be a rather poor choice for MT, so I did not gain any increase in speed in the video example.
One thing that I learnt from the video that I took of myself is that one can't simply compare the final human edit to the original machine translation, because the human does not type his translation in a single run without thinking, reconsidering, rewriting, etc. And like I said, the video text turned out to be rather difficult to put into idiomatic Afrikaans anyway.
Could you do it AF-EN, so that we can all read the results?
I only do AF-EN if it is for a back-translation, and a back-translation is by definition less idiomatic, so it wouldn't be 100% useful, but here's a piece for you:
* Afrikaans source text
Google Translate's translation into English
My edited version (note that this is a meant as a back-translation)
* &tA;Antidepressantbehandelings&tB;word as enige van die volgende gedefinieer:
&tA;Antidepressantbehandelings&tB;if any of the following defined:
&tA;Antidepressant treatments&tB; are defined as any of the following:
* Teenstrydige of duidelik onbetroubare inligting aangaande dosis, tydsduur, nakoming en uitkoms van ’n medikasieproef of -nommer (waar toepaslik) en uitkoms van EKT, VSS of TMS-proef.
Contradictory or clearly unreliable data regarding dose, duration, compliance and outcome of a drug test or number (where applicable) and outcome of ECT, or VSS TMS trial.
Contradictory or clearly unreliable information regarding dosage, duration, compliance and outcome of a medication trial or medication number (where applicable) and outcome of ECT, VNS or TMS trial.
* Bewys van teenstrydighede ten opsigte van inligting of beduidende twyfel bestaan aangaande dosis, tydsduur, nakoming en uitkoms van ’n medikasieproef of -nommer (waar toepaslik) en uitkoms van EKT, VSS of TMS-proef.
Evidence of discrepancies regarding information or significant doubt as to dose, duration, compliance and outcome of a drug test or number (where applicable) and outcome of ECT, or VSS TMS trial.
Evidence of contradictions with regard to information or significant doubt exists regarding dosage, duration, compliance and outcome of a medication trial or medication number (where applicable) and outcome of ECT, VNS or TMS trial.
* Onsekerhede wat wel bestaan, is nie krities vir algehele vertroue nie.
Uncertainties that exist, is not critical for overall confidence.
Uncertainties which do exist are not critical for overall confidence.
* Neem kennis dat daar geen minimale vereistes vir Betroubaarheid van Bron of Vertrouensgraderings is nie, buiten die drie protokolvereiste aantal Onvoldoende Response.
Note that there are no minimum requirements for Reliability of Source or Vertrouensgraderings is, except the three protocols required number Inadequate Response.
Please note that there are no minimum requirements for Reliability of Source or Confidence Ratings, except for the three protocol-required number of Inadequate Responses.
* Dit is egter belangrik om enige voldoende proewe aan te teken wat volgens die oordeel van die ondersoeker voldoende betroubaar is om by te dra tot ’n volle begrip van die pasiënt se geskiedenis van behandelingsresponse.
It is important to any adequate trials to record that in the opinion of the examiner sufficiently reliable to contribute to a full understanding of the patient's history of behandelingsresponse.
It is important, however, to record any adequate trials which in the opinion of the examiner are sufficiently reliable to contribute to a full understanding of the patient's history of treatment responses.
The sample above shows the type of quality that I normally get from Google Translate for the types of texts that Google Translate translates well in my language combination. It does not show "any particularly good suggestions" (I don't make a list of those, sorry).
Here's an example of English-Afrikaans (the example shows first-draft quality, before any proofreading, hence the presence of two mistakes in the translation, which I bracketed here):
* &tA;The socio-economic barriers to learning in general and the urban/rural disparity in particular, have been addressed in the &tB;Learner&'92;s Book&tC; by encouraging learners to gather information about topics from their own communities, where possible, and by providing suitable sources, should information be lacking.
&tA;Die sosio-ekonomiese struikelblokke tot leer in die algemeen en die stedelike / landelike verskil in die besonder, is aangespreek in die &tB;Leerdersboek&tC; deur stimulering van leerders inligting oor onderwerpe uit hul eie gemeenskappe, waar moontlik, in te samel, en deur geskikte bronne, moet die inligting vermis word nie.
&tA;Die sosio-ekonomiese hindernisse tot leer oor die algemeen en spesifieke [should be: spesifiek; minor grammar error] die verskil tussen stad en land, kry spesifieke aandag in die &tB;leerdersboek&tC;. Dit stimuleer leerders om inligting oor temas te versamel uit hul eie gemeenskappe, of as die inligting nie daar beskikbaar is nie, uit geskikte bronne.
* Reconciliations are the areas of bookkeeping in which learners are most likely to be involved with when they begin a career in business finance, accounting or bookkeeping so it is essential for their future prospects that they become proficient and well practised with this aspect of the course.
Rekonsiliasies is die gebied van boekhouding waarin leerders is waarskynlik om betrokke te wees met wanneer hulle begin 'n loopbaan in die sakewêreld Finansies, Rekeningkunde of boekhouding, dus is dit noodsaaklik vir hul toekomstige vooruitsigte dat hulle bekwame en goed geoefen met hierdie aspek van die kursus.
Rekonsiliasies is die gebied van boekhouding waarby leerders mees waarskynlik betrokke gaan wees wanneer hulle 'n loopbaan in sake-finansies, rekeningkunde of boekhouding gaan volg. Dit is dus noodsaaklik vir hul toekomstig [should be: toekoms OR toekomstige ontwikkeling; minor grammar error and omitted noun] dat hulle hierdie aspek van die kursus goed onder die knie kry.
* The barrier to learning of communication has been addressed in the &tA;Teacher&'92;s Guide&tB; by encouraging the teacher to use combinations of individual, pair and small group work to provide opportunities to learners to develop their communication abilities in this second language.
Die versperring te leer van kommunikasie is aangespreek word in die &tA;Teacher's Guide&tB; deur die onderwyser aan te moedig om kombinasies van die individu, 'n paar en n klein groep werk om geleenthede te verskaf aan leerders om hulle kommunikasie vaardighede te ontwikkel in die tweede taal te gebruik.
Die hindernis van kommunikasie word in die &tA;onderwysergids&tB; opgelos deur die onderwyser aan te sê om leerders die geleentheid te gee om kommunikasie in hul tweede taal te ontwikkel as individu, twee-twee of in groepe.
* The curriculum is inflexible if such diversity is not taken into account in terms of the style and tempo of teaching and learning, what is taught, the way the classroom is managed and organised, and the materials and equipment used in the learning and teaching process.
Die kurrikulum is onbuigsaam indien so 'n verskeidenheid is nie in ag geneem word in terme van die styl en tempo van onderrig en leer, wat geleer word, die manier waarop die klaskamer bestuur en georganiseer, en die materiale en toerusting wat gebruik word in die leer-en onderrigproses.
'n Kurrikulum is onbuigsaam as sodanige verskeidenheid nie in ag geneem word by die styl en tempo van onderrig en leer nie, of by wat geleer word, die manier waarop die klaskamer bestuur en georganiseer word, en watter materiaal en toerusting gebruik word.
One thing that I now remember from the effect of using MT is that during a translation you get used to the types of mistakes made by the MT engine on that particular piece of text, which means that you become more efficient at correcting those mistakes, because the mistakes are mostly of a similar kind. This speeds up the translation speed after the first few segments.
[Edited at 2014-06-18 08:08 GMT]
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| Before this thread goes any further | Jun 18, 2014 |
I think that we should all take a minute to remember that comparing MT for different language pairs, and to a somewhat lesser extent to different fields, doesn't really work.
Because languages evolved from older languages over the millennia, some are very closely related in syntax and vocabulary (Romance languages, for instance) while others are utterly and completely different. It's a bit like the difference between converting a 1967 Ford Mustang coupe to a 1967 Ford Mustang hatchb... See more I think that we should all take a minute to remember that comparing MT for different language pairs, and to a somewhat lesser extent to different fields, doesn't really work.
Because languages evolved from older languages over the millennia, some are very closely related in syntax and vocabulary (Romance languages, for instance) while others are utterly and completely different. It's a bit like the difference between converting a 1967 Ford Mustang coupe to a 1967 Ford Mustang hatchback and converting a school bus to a 1967 Ford Mustang hatchback. In both cases, you are converting one vehicle to another, but I think it's obvious that one conversion will be a little more difficult than the other.
On top of this, using MT on translations with relatively high repetitiveness, such as technical manuals, patents, or contracts will be different than using it on more creative texts such as marketing, advertising, or literary work.
So if we make the blanket statement that "using MT as a translator is bad," this seems to me to be a false dilemma. The situation is simply not as black and white as that.
[Edited at 2014-06-18 07:43 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thanks for confirming what I knew to be true | Jun 18, 2014 |
Vladimir Pochinov wrote: Michal Fabian wrote:
If MT helps you produce better (quicker, neater, more accurate...) translations than you would without it, chances are you're incompetent as a translator. (And I'm being mild here). Hi Michal, No, you are not being mild:) ... I'd rather say you are young, and it shows (unless we have a 90-year old lady hiding behind this profile photo:)). 1. Have you ever been paid above EUR 0.20 per source word for non-rush jobs? 2. Have you ever replied to an invitation to bid with an empty email with just a single "Subject" line, and still won the contract? 3. Have you ever met a Fortune 100's CEO face-to-face? 4. Have you ever flown on a private jet as a passenger? 5. Have you...? 6. Have you...? If your answer is negative on all counts, then it's about time to re-consider your attitude towards other translators who just happen to have a different modus operandi.
I do quite not see how this is relevant, but here goes:
1. Yes.
2. I rarely bid. Clients tend to come to me directly.
3. Yes.
4. Yes.
5. ???
6. ???
For at least a decade, I've been hearing from MT-enthousiasts that MT will shortly become... well, if not great, then at least adequate for its purpose. Like, in a year or so. We be makin' great progress, folks. Any minute now. Remember where mobile phones were 10 years ago? I wonder what happened to the development of MT.
One of the problems of Google Translate, for example, is that an increasing part of its corpus consists of MT-translated texts. (There has been a post in Translation News on this topic about a month ago). In other words, the system feeds on its own nonsense, which then gets reinforced.
As Samuel's examples clearly show, the results of MT are a sorry sight. I sincerely hope that it would take any good translator less time to rewrite those sentences from scratch than to edit the MT content (granted, I am no native speaker, but both my Afrikaans and my English are fluent).
Also, I do not understand how age has to do with anything. I know a plethora of translators in their forties who are terrible, and probably have been since their twenties. A few 'could-you-please-save-our-text' editing jobs are waiting in my inbox.
[Edited at 2014-06-18 08:04 GMT]
| | | | | Another possible positive example: Microsoft help | Jun 18, 2014 |
I think that Microsoft makes very extensive use of raw MT (maybe including minimal user/crowd post-editing) in its online help. I have a German version of Word, so I think that a lot of the results I get are the results of MT and these are are generally helpful. Anyone interested can take a look at Microsoft help in their non-English language or languages and form an opinion for themselves.
This seems like a great field for MT: relatively short texts (I would go insane if I had to t... See more I think that Microsoft makes very extensive use of raw MT (maybe including minimal user/crowd post-editing) in its online help. I have a German version of Word, so I think that a lot of the results I get are the results of MT and these are are generally helpful. Anyone interested can take a look at Microsoft help in their non-English language or languages and form an opinion for themselves.
This seems like a great field for MT: relatively short texts (I would go insane if I had to try to read 5-10 book pages of the results), extremely utilitarian function (I only care that the text allows me to fix my problem), a relatively isolated subject matter, (usually) relatively simple and logically constructed source sentences, and access to gigantic, directly relevant, and professionally compiled glossaries and corpora.
That said, I think it is unfair to define a translation where a translator has made extensive use of a bilingual dictionary as a quality translation: That is not really much different than a stone-age version of MT. If translators aren't familiar enough with the subject matter and its texts in the source and target languages to intuitively know or to very quickly and reliably verify the vast majority of technical terms, collocations, standard formulations and other conventions, they will never have the time to research and verify the genuinely tricky parts using monolingual general and technical dictionaries and parallel texts (in the proper sense of the term, i. e., related untranslated target-language texts). ▲ Collapse
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