| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] > | The impact of touch typing on words per day productivty Thread poster: John Moran
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Mark Benson (X) 
English to Swedish
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| That's something else | Jan 21, 2014 |
Rudolf Vedo CT wrote: John Moran wrote: Mark Benson wrote:
You can't claim that touch typing is worth 1000s of Euro. Please stop that immediately as it is misleading!
I've been a touch-typist since taking a typing course in high school (therefore, some... - well, let's just say "a long time"). Results on typing tests today: Touch typing: 65 wpm (net/adjusted)  Two-finger hunt-and-peck: 15 (!) wpm.  Absent the development of compensatory mechanisms (speech recognition, hiring a typist), I think that losing my touch-typing ability (from an injury, for example) would easily result in productivity/financial losses on the scale of what John represents, if not considerably more. If I had already developed a relatively fast non-touch method, the gain in acquiring the skill might be less, depending on the type of text.
The value you would lose because you had to change the way you work is one thing, learning to touch type for the sake of making more money is something completely different.
Objectively speaking, learning how to touch type isn't going to change anything except the time it takes you to type.
If you spent one day typing 4,000 words before, now you can be typing those words in less than one hour. But a translator works in a totally different way.
The situation is not a certain amount of text to type and that's it. The job is to come up with the text to type in the first place.
Getting it into the computer is becoming less of a problem and it's reasonable to believe that there will be means widely available in my lifetime that take away this task more or less entirely. Voice recognition seems to be approaching that goal already.
| | | | John Moran
Ireland
Local time: 16:14
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER | The Centre for Last Generation Localisation | Jan 21, 2014 |
Mark Benson wrote: Rudolf Vedo CT wrote: John Moran wrote: Mark Benson wrote:
You can't claim that touch typing is worth 1000s of Euro. Please stop that immediately as it is misleading!
I've been a touch-typist since taking a typing course in high school (therefore, some... - well, let's just say "a long time"). Results on typing tests today: Touch typing: 65 wpm (net/adjusted) Two-finger hunt-and-peck: 15 (!) wpm. Absent the development of compensatory mechanisms (speech recognition, hiring a typist), I think that losing my touch-typing ability (from an injury, for example) would easily result in productivity/financial losses on the scale of what John represents, if not considerably more. If I had already developed a relatively fast non-touch method, the gain in acquiring the skill might be less, depending on the type of text. The value you would lose because you had to change the way you work is one thing, learning to touch type for the sake of making more money is something completely different. Objectively speaking, learning how to touch type isn't going to change anything except the time it takes you to type. If you spent one day typing 4,000 words before, now you can be typing those words in less than one hour. But a translator works in a totally different way. The situation is not a certain amount of text to type and that's it. The job is to come up with the text to type in the first place. Getting it into the computer is becoming less of a problem and it's reasonable to believe that there will be means widely available in my lifetime that take away this task more or less entirely. Voice recognition seems to be approaching that goal already.
ASR (Automatics Voice Recognition) is the reason why it is important to bring back touch typing training now as it is only going to become more and more difficult to make the argument. I have spent the past four years looking at translator productivity with machine translation and I see voice recognition and much more sophisticated predictive typing than that provided by Trados/MemoQ on the horizon.
Early adopters (going back ten years) report massive speed improvements with ASR under certain circumstances, e.g. practice, familiarity with subject matter, low tag density. See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wctXO4-u8Y8 (1,700 words per hour)
and
http://www.kevinhendzel.com/professional-quality-translation-at-light-speed-why-voice-recognition-may-well-be-the-most-disruptive-translation-technology-youve-never-heard-of (10,000 words per day)
However, whether we are talking about ASR, MT, interactive MT, predictive typing or error tolerant keyboard software on a common sense level and based on most of the comments in this thread the ability to use a keyboard effectively seems to me to be still desirable. Though the effect is diminished, this remains true even if fewer keystrokes are required to produce a finished text. The only technology we have discussed where that is not the case was your intriguing shorthand idea and even then some sort of character based input is probably required at some point.
For example, one translator I know spends two hours every day reviewing his own work that was input using ASR. He needs a keyboard for this. With all this technology we are forgetting about an underlying skill that seems to be associated with being old fashioned.
Over a working lifetime we are not talking thousands of Euros, we are at *probably* at least talking tens of thousands. This may be more than the cost of most translator training courses (per student).
Memo to self, ask my boss in Centre for Next Generation Localisation (www.cngl.ie) if he minds if I set up a competing institute called Centre for Last Generation Localisation.
| | | | Mark Benson (X)
English to Swedish
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| Good case, but I still doubt it | Jan 21, 2014 |
John Moran wrote: Mark Benson wrote: Rudolf Vedo CT wrote: John Moran wrote: Mark Benson wrote:
You can't claim that touch typing is worth 1000s of Euro. Please stop that immediately as it is misleading!
I've been a touch-typist since taking a typing course in high school (therefore, some... - well, let's just say "a long time"). Results on typing tests today: Touch typing: 65 wpm (net/adjusted) Two-finger hunt-and-peck: 15 (!) wpm. Absent the development of compensatory mechanisms (speech recognition, hiring a typist), I think that losing my touch-typing ability (from an injury, for example) would easily result in productivity/financial losses on the scale of what John represents, if not considerably more. If I had already developed a relatively fast non-touch method, the gain in acquiring the skill might be less, depending on the type of text. The value you would lose because you had to change the way you work is one thing, learning to touch type for the sake of making more money is something completely different. Objectively speaking, learning how to touch type isn't going to change anything except the time it takes you to type. If you spent one day typing 4,000 words before, now you can be typing those words in less than one hour. But a translator works in a totally different way. The situation is not a certain amount of text to type and that's it. The job is to come up with the text to type in the first place. Getting it into the computer is becoming less of a problem and it's reasonable to believe that there will be means widely available in my lifetime that take away this task more or less entirely. Voice recognition seems to be approaching that goal already. ASR (Automatics Voice Recognition) is the reason why it is important to bring back touch typing training now as it is only going to become more and more difficult to make the argument. I have spent the past four years looking at translator productivity with machine translation and I see voice recognition and much more sophisticated predictive typing than that provided by Trados/MemoQ on the horizon. Early adopters (going back ten years) report massive speed improvements with ASR under certain circumstances, e.g. practice, familiarity with subject matter, low tag density. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wctXO4-u8Y8 (1,700 words per hour) and http://www.kevinhendzel.com/professional-quality-translation-at-light-speed-why-voice-recognition-may-well-be-the-most-disruptive-translation-technology-youve-never-heard-of (10,000 words per day) However, whether we are talking about ASR, MT, interactive MT, predictive typing or error tolerant keyboard software on a common sense level and based on most of the comments in this thread the ability to use a keyboard effectively seems to me to be still desirable. Though the effect is diminished, this remains true even if fewer keystrokes are required to produce a finished text. The only technology we have discussed where that is not the case was your intriguing shorthand idea and even then some sort of character based input is probably required at some point. For example, one translator I know spends two hours every day reviewing his own work that was input using ASR. He needs a keyboard for this. With all this technology we are forgetting about an underlying skill that seems to be associated with being old fashioned. Over a working lifetime we are not talking thousands of Euros, we are at *probably* at least talking tens of thousands. This may be more than the cost of most translator training courses (per student). Memo to self, ask my boss in Centre for Next Generation Localisation ( www.cngl.ie) if he minds if I set up a competing institute called Centre for Last Generation Localisation.
I think the swipe typing in Android shows that markets are increasingly becoming prepared for higher learning requirements, but also much more value.
Who knows at which point the use of alternative input devices will become necessary to stay alive as a translator. I mean if you are required to translate 4,000 words per day, rather than the 2,500 - 3,000 that I think are still common - which steps do you take? Is touch typing really sufficient? Next step?
There have been many ideas in the past and I'm not sure to what extent they failed, but the learning requirements were hefty. In some areas these devices are required. I'm not familiar with which they are exactly, but I do believe that live subtitling is one.
While you're right that being good at using a keyboard is useful to a translator in general, we're seeing touchscreens taking over increasingly. It's possible to touch type with a touch screen, but the point is that keyboard control is less relevant. And I also wanted to repeat that every person who uses a keyboard professionally will be fast in his or her own way. At least fast enough for their needs.
| | | | Neil Coffey
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:14
French to English
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| Typing isn't a "special" skill any more | Jan 21, 2014 |
John Moran wrote:
I would really like to use our software to build a case for bringing touch-typing back into translator education.
I really would expect college/university courses to assume that proficient typing is a general life skill that is a prior requisite to ANY course, not a special skill to be taught during a specific course such as translation.
If you've actually observed a lack of this skill among translation course candidates, then make your pitch to primary school education committees, not translation colleges...!
[Edited at 2014-01-21 20:38 GMT]
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John Moran
Ireland
Local time: 16:14
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Primary school would be a better place to teach the skill | Jan 22, 2014 |
Neil Coffey wrote: John Moran wrote:
I would really like to use our software to build a case for bringing touch-typing back into translator education.
I really would expect college/university courses to assume that proficient typing is a general life skill that is a prior requisite to ANY course, not a special skill to be taught during a specific course such as translation. If you've actually observed a lack of this skill among translation course candidates, then make your pitch to primary school education committees, not translation colleges...! [Edited at 2014-01-21 20:38 GMT]
I agree, that would be a better place to teach the skill but politics is the art of the possible. I don't meet many people in the department of eduction in Ireland but I do meet translator educators from time to time.
| | | | | How can you work without touch typing? | Jan 22, 2014 |
I had to do a course in the first year at language school. If you failed (well, in reality nobody ever did), you couldn't continue your studies.
I also had to do a test when applying for my first job at a large agency.
Learn it, it doesn't take very long but will help you immensely.
| | | | Neil Coffey
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:14
French to English
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| No need to invent the laser-powered mind-reading device just yet... | Jan 22, 2014 |
Mark Benson wrote:
stay alive as a translator. I mean if you are required to translate 4,000 words per day ... Is touch typing really sufficient?
Yes.
If you type 50wpm, then that's a theoretical output of 12,000 words in an 8 hour day. Given that 50wpm is not actually terribly fast for touch typing, then it seems a very realistic aim to type, say, half this theoretical output (6,000 words) without the typing being the rate-determining step.
If you're having to *translate* more than that in a day, I think your brain is going to melt before your keyboard and fingers do...
[Edited at 2014-01-22 23:35 GMT]
| | | | John Moran
Ireland
Local time: 16:14
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Not that simple I suspect | Jan 22, 2014 |
Neil Coffey wrote: Mark Benson wrote:
stay alive as a translator. I mean if you are required to translate 4,000 words per day ... Is touch typing really sufficient?
Yes. If you type 50wpm, then that's a theoretical output of 12,000 words in an 8 hour day. Given that 50wpm is not actually terribly fast for touch typing, then it seems a very realistic aim to type, say, half this theoretical output (6,000 words) without the typing being the rate-determining step. If you're having to *translate* more than that in a day, I think your brain is going to melt before your keyboard and fingers do... [Edited at 2014-01-22 23:35 GMT]
I think that is oversimplifying the issue though. If it were true, how come so many translators like Kevin Lossner comment on how ASR aids their words per day productivity? I suspect the micro-distractions of having to look down at the keyboard add up. It seems that some people can type and think at the same time. I suspect I can't but it is hard to prove without that laser-powered mind reader.
I am willing to accept it makes little or no difference on hard stuff but not all material is equally hard (e.g. regular clients where you don't have to put too much thought into the translation).
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Mark Benson (X)
English to Swedish
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| I already said that | Jan 23, 2014 |
Neil Coffey wrote: Mark Benson wrote:
stay alive as a translator. I mean if you are required to translate 4,000 words per day ... Is touch typing really sufficient?
Yes. If you type 50wpm, then that's a theoretical output of 12,000 words in an 8 hour day. Given that 50wpm is not actually terribly fast for touch typing, then it seems a very realistic aim to type, say, half this theoretical output (6,000 words) without the typing being the rate-determining step. If you're having to *translate* more than that in a day, I think your brain is going to melt before your keyboard and fingers do... [Edited at 2014-01-22 23:35 GMT]
I just made the same statement several times already. Thus, what we conclude here is that if you are going to TYPE 4,000 words per day, touch typing will reduce your work day from 8 hours to 45 minutes, while if you have to TRANSLATE 4,000 words in a day I'm still not clear how helpful touch typing is going to be.
Edit: In this case assuming a starting rate of 10 wpm and whatnot. The details don't matter. T The point remains the same: I don't endorse marketing of touch typing as something that can increase your productivity as a translator - no way.
[Edited at 2014-01-23 01:02 GMT]
| | | | Erik Freitag
Germany
Local time: 17:14
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
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| Type and think | Jan 23, 2014 |
John Moran wrote:
It seems that some people can type and think at the same time.
Yes, of course! It didn't occur to me that some people can't do that until I read your post, but you're most certainly correct there.
Fast touch typing is basically a process somewhat similar to ASR - you get your thoughts to "paper" directly, with no intermediate steps (like looking at the keyboard and searching keys). ASR comes with the additional benefit of less physical strain, but (imho) with the drawback of errors that are more difficult to find during proofreading.
| | | | | DIY Touch Typing | Jan 23, 2014 |
Touch typing is something I learned on my own, without taking any classes. I may have taken a typing class in middle school, but it was not helpful to me. I do not know exactly how I learned this skill, except that it evolved naturally over a period of time. Other than "qwerty," I could not tell you where any specific letter is on the keyboard. It is something that my hands and brain do automatically with no conscious thought from me. It is definitely a blessing to be able to do this because I c... See more Touch typing is something I learned on my own, without taking any classes. I may have taken a typing class in middle school, but it was not helpful to me. I do not know exactly how I learned this skill, except that it evolved naturally over a period of time. Other than "qwerty," I could not tell you where any specific letter is on the keyboard. It is something that my hands and brain do automatically with no conscious thought from me. It is definitely a blessing to be able to do this because I can type as fast as I can think/translate.
If someone wants to learn this on their own, I would suggest opening up a blank Word document and simply challenging yourself to type something without looking at the keyboard. Do this for a set period every day, and I think you will eventually get the hang of it.
I do not use all ten fingers, nor do I place my fingers on the keyboard in the same manner suggested by the pros. But I am able to type with my eyes closed or while turning around to talk to people or look at something else going on in the room. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:14
Hebrew to English
| Congratulations to the fast typers out there... | Jan 23, 2014 |
Well done!
I really hope that "productivity" doesn't become the status symbol (or weapon even) it is in other areas of employment. I thought I'd escaped that when I stopped working in the evil Western capitalist banking behemoth.
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Kay Denney
France
Local time: 17:14
French to English
| Learning as you go | Jan 23, 2014 |
My daughter grew up using a keyboard, she was on MSN at age nine (although of course her access to the computer was restricted, mainly because she had to wait for Mummy to stop working and let her brother have a turn afterwards). She types faster than me and never looks at the keyboard, doesn't have to think about what she's doing. She never had to learn, she just picked it up.
My son had similar access but his fingers don't make the keyboard rattle quite as fast.
| | | | nrichy (X)
France
Local time: 17:14
French to Dutch
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efreitag wrote: John Moran wrote:
It seems that some people can type and think at the same time. Yes, of course! It didn't occur to me that some people can't do that until I read your post, but you're most certainly correct there.
I learnt touch typing at the age of 14, because my mother was the director of a school for secretaries. For me it was a game then, but when I was a student it was highly profitable as I could find easily temporary work.
As a translator, it means that when I see a sentence, the translation is already in my fingers. A large part of the process is unconscious. As if my brain is not concerned. Or like an interpreter, who doesn't have to "think". Experience adds, for instance, given that I translate from a Roman into a Germanic language, I don't have to "change word order" because the right word order is already there in the translated sentence. It's a kind of instant picture with immediate result, a kind of reflex. I have to "think" more when the subject is difficult, but again, a part of the process is automated.
Touch typing is especially useful for revising and correcting translations, and should be combined with learning the Word shortcuts, especially Ctrl + Shift + left and right arrow, which enables to highlight words (and then to delete or to copy them).
A good keyboard is a must too, not necessarily an expensive one, but one with a special mark on the f and the j, and clics that can be heared. I am totally lost on keyboards which are too small, too big or too flat, and loose time on curved ones. This is personal of course. Just find the combination which is working for you.
By the way, it takes about 6 months - 1 year to be performant.
[Edited at 2014-01-23 13:10 GMT]
| | | | kmtext
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:14
English
+ ...
| I am a fast touch typist, but I don't think it increases my translation output by very much | Jan 23, 2014 |
I learnt to touch type in college using a DOS-based programme called Accutype - which was an efficient way to learn. Before then I'd been a two-finger typist for a number of years.
I hadn't really thought about my output in terms of word count before, because as a subtitler, we usually think of it in terms of minutes per day, but I've just gone back through some of my recent projects and I must admit I'm surprised by the numbers. Working monolingually, we're expected to produce betw... See more I learnt to touch type in college using a DOS-based programme called Accutype - which was an efficient way to learn. Before then I'd been a two-finger typist for a number of years.
I hadn't really thought about my output in terms of word count before, because as a subtitler, we usually think of it in terms of minutes per day, but I've just gone back through some of my recent projects and I must admit I'm surprised by the numbers. Working monolingually, we're expected to produce between 40 and 60 minutes of completed subtitles in an average day. Depending on the nature of the programme, that can mean a count of anything up to 8,000 words in a day. Translation targets are slightly lower, 30-50 minutes per day, but you're still talking about translating 3,000-5,000 words a day on average. I'm definitely in the wrong line of work!
Touch typing really does make a difference if I'm working monolingually. I can keep up with live speech, so I occasionally do live subtitling, and transcription isn't too much of a problem, but translation is a completely different matter - unless I'm working on a subject I know really well or where there's a certain amount of repetition - so I don't think touch typing really has much of an effect on my output when translating.
What I've found has increased my productivity is the use of shortforms for common phrases and also correction of habitual typos, so I can enter three or four keystrokes rather than typing out half a dozen words longhand.
One of my clients has recently been talking about subtitling live news and sports programmes, but while I'm willing to do that monolingually, having tried simultaneous interpretation a few times in my younger days, that's definitely something I'd rather leave to someone else! ▲ Collapse
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