Machine translation: not quite there yet

Interesting article from the BBC on the limits of machine translation and the switch from phrase-based engines to neural networks:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36638929

SFT Financial Translation Summer School

Looking forward to attending the financial translation summer school in Paris this year.

It's taking place on 6-8 July at Bercy.

More info at http://www.sft.fr/formation-traduction-uetf2016.html#.V15xcVdbuoM

From Artists to Businesspeople

The word "artist" has the meaning of someone who is skilled at what he or she does.

As translators, I feel there is often pressure on us to show that we are at the top of our game, producing the best art of our careers, continually conquering new heights and pushing back the limits to our creativity. Translation, after all, is a creative art, which is incidentally why machine translation is only partly useful, and then again only on certain types of humdrum documents.

I would partly like to refute this focus on the creative side of the job, by breaking translation down into three skillsets:

- Writing. Whatever their field, translators should continually be honing their writing skills. This is perhaps the "arty" side of the job and what makes it fun. Even when translating investment reports day in day out, I can still try to spruce up my writing, even though the subject matter has become very familiar to me over time.

- Linguistic problem-solving. Translation is, at its bare bones, solving problems. From a broad standpoint, this starts as "I have this text in front of me in one language and someone needs it in another". But within the overall process, we adopt strategies for dealing with particular issues between various language pairs, e.g. French to English. Our nous as writers should inform this process so that we won't write monstrous French-sounding English for example.

- Business acumen. A rare quality among translators. This is not solely about making money and running a profitable business; it means that we are fully aware of our place in the client's universe. We take into account what they want and even try to anticipate needs that they have not expressed or may never even express. Business acumen also means having the right procedures in place, like revision (which is why I work as part of a two-person team) and knowing how to approach a translation project.

Consequently, only a small part of what translators do (or ought to do) can be considered as "art".

As a corollary, when we go to meet our clients, do we look like artists or businesspeople?

Still here...

Blog-writing has fallen by the wayside recently. The final weeks of 2015 and the initial part of 2016 were dedicated to translating a collection of articles on investing from Italian. That period then ran into reporting season, with its usual spate of annual reports and corporate press releases.

Normal coverage will be resumed soon (here's hoping).

Translation and leadership

Leadership guru John Maxwell has a simple philosophy: "Everything rises and falls on leadership".

Believing that people in life should lead, i.e. have influence, rather than unwittingly following others like sheep, this morning I pondered how this could relate to the translation industry...

... and to staff translator positions

Believe me, I'm having incredible fun running a translation business and working with my colleague, Hanna. Customers tell me they're happy, which is of course the goal.

But sometimes the mind wanders and I catch myself thinking on what terms would I ever go back to being a staff translator. Consistently, time and again, my one guiding criterion is management: how does senior management view translation? A cost item to be kept as low as possible? Or an opportunity to impress peers and clients with expertly written prose?

Generally, it is management that sets the tone as to whether translators (and their work) are respected in an organisation, as reflected in the following:

• The translator has a management-level contract (cadre in France, fondé de pouvoir in Switzerland)
• Pay is commensurate with qualifications and experience, on a similar scale to other skilled clerical positions
• The translation team leader participates in top-level meetings, especially regarding branding/marketing in languages other than the company's official tongue.

Any thoughts?

FT article supporting the need to use expert translators when companies have something to lose

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/06502358-771b-11e5-a95a-27d368e1ddf7.html#axzz3pB2n8UX5

To paraphrase, companies with a lot to lose should find a reputable translator, preferably a referral from a satisfied customer. Mr Skapinker also speaks of the need for translators to know about the industry for which they are translating.

Here we do finance, nothing more, nothing less...

Poor translation back in the spotlight

Yes folks, it's definitely worth getting yourself a good translator, especially when the topic is as high profile as FIFA is at the moment:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/10/johnson-lost-translation

For those interested, here is the link to the English translation of the Swiss Public Prosecutor's press release:

https://www.news.admin.ch/message/index.html?lang=en&msg-id=58891

"Johnson" has a point. One can be "disloyal" in English but only to a person or a body, like being disloyal to a government.

I'm no legal translator, but if "illegal" is too strong a word, then it is still possible to recast the sentence. Many people – including some translators – don't realise that it is okay to play with syntax, i.e. retaining the impact of the original text but expressing the ideas with a different part of speech in comparison with the original text. So, something like (assuming the German is the source text):

Furthermore, Joseph Blatter is accused of acting in bad faith by making a payment for CHF 2 billion to Michel Platini...

Summer reading

Here are my summer books this year, so it won't be much of a holiday...

At the moment I'm fascinated by the whole intersect between translation and good writing. As experienced practitioners know, there are two extremes to be avoided: one is sticking too closely to a source text and producing a plodding, turgid target piece that fails to pass on the intended message of the original; the other extreme is a free translation that says more (and often less) than the original text. In the middle of this, the translator must "find his or her voice" (to use Ros Schwartz's expression from the Financial Translation Summer School this year).

My gut feeling is that specialisation (again!) is the name of the game. As a seasoned financial writer, I know my way around my subject - and have drafted financial articles directly in English. I know what may be omitted, and what must be left in.

Anyone who has worked in the translation business for more than 10 minutes knows what it's like to be "out of one's depth" in a text. This is the feeling we have while learning the trade. Enter the more experienced team member to revise the junior translator's text.

Once we have earned our stripes, I believe that we should not stray too far outside our area(s) of expertise. And in the financial and business arena, there are plenty of sub-specialisations to be developed, from financial statements (using the right IFRS terminology, of course) and macroeconomics to fund reports and currency roundups.

Horses for courses...