Translation Automation with a Human Touch
Automation is omnipresent in our daily life, from our thermostats that help us keep indoor temperature comfortable, to programmable coffee makers so that we can wake up to the delicious smell of coffee; from mobile apps to create shopping lists, order pizzas and remember birthdays to voice assistants replying to our commands and to chatbots manning helpdesks. Automation is advancing quickly in the translation industry, too. Translation management systems are becoming comprehensive service platforms with numerous functionalities to...
read moreA Checklist For Your Translation Project Management
What allows a medical team to move around the patient’s bed with the same coordination of an orchestra playing Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand”? What prevents a routine surgery from turning into a fatal tragedy? What transforms an announced disaster into a perfectly executed manoeuvre? The answer is… checklists. And if you don’t believe me, read The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. You’ll discover that a checklist can literally be a lifesaver in all those fields where the stakes are the highest. The checklist method advocated by...
read moreTranslator Training: A Threefold Approach
Whether they’re beginners or more experienced, translators have always been aware of the importance of continuous professional development. But in the last few years, translator training has become a lightning rod for discussion, with translators stuck in the middle between developing skills requested by their customers and following their professional interests. On the one hand, translation buyers are very clear about what kinds of skills they are looking for. They’re ready to forgo the traditional translation competences (based...
read moreProject Management Inside and Outside the Translation Industry
This article was originally published on the Wordbee Blog. Machine translation and post-editing weren’t born yesterday. This much we know. But, guess what? Project management wasn’t born yesterday either. Project management began in the years between the two World Wars. Its development as a discipline peaked during WWII, when the Unites States needed to maximize its war effort. With the Marshall Plan and the reconstruction of Europe, project management and related disciplines were applied to large and complex projects: for...
read more#SmartReads 7/2018 – The Fall Issue
#SmartReads 7-2018 on the Language and Translation Industry At the beginning of September, I was invited to hold a workshop at the Translation Technology Summer School, organized by the prestigious KU Leuven University (Belgium). It was a useful experience for me because I was reminded of the state of things in the real world (=translation industry). I can only hope it was the same for the Summer School participants. I wrote a recap of the discussion here: Futurebound: Are We There Yet? In the meantime, there is another workshop in...
read moreSmartReads 6-2018: Post-Summer Issue
#SmartReads 6-2018 on the Translation Industry Let’s start by wishing Happy Birthday to Katherine Johnson (in the picture above) on her 100th birthday. She is the “human computer” who helped NASA put astronauts into orbit around Earth. Have you seen the movie Hidden Figures? New Articles I published two new articles on the WordBee blog: – Terminology: Necessary Evil or Bare Necessity? – Terminologists have an arduous task. They need to translate terminology...
read more#SmartReads 5-2018 on the Translation Industry
#SmartReads 5-2018 on the Translation Industry. New Articles I published two new articles on the WordBee blog: – Translation Quality Management: A Holistic Approach – Translation quality management can be a rather confusing subject due to the lack of unique and standard terminology. For example, in ordinary quality management (i.e. ISO9000s), quality assurance (QA) is “part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled” (ISO 9000:2005, 3.2.11),...
read moreFuturebound: Are We There Yet?
The 3rd edition of the International Summer School for Translation Technology, organized by the prestigious Belgian university KU Leuven, took place from Sep. 3 to Sep. 7, 2018. I was invited to hold a workshop together with Iulianna van der Lek, research associate and CAT tools trainer. The title of the workshop was Futurebound: A Matrix for Translation Professionals and was held on the opening day. The premises In his book “The Age of Spiritual Machines” (1999), the futurist Ray Kurzweil stated that spoken language translation...
read moreTerminology: Necessary Evil or Bare Necessity?
Terminologists have an arduous task. They need to translate terminology into money.How? By presenting convincing examples of terminological mistakes and their consequences in a corporate setting. And there’s nothing that terminologists all over the world would like more than to know that CEOs, CIOs, or CTOs are interested and ready to invest in a well-structured and fully developed terminology database. In Support of Terminology In reality, thanks to the explosion of the new economy, terminology has already spread without any...
read moreWhat Is Post-Editing? Here Are 3 Approaches
Post-editing of Machine Translation (PEMT) wasn’t born yesterday. On the contrary, it’s as old as machine translation (MT) itself. And although at the moment, we have a large amount of material at our disposal about this topic, the nuances of the discussion are such that in some cases we risk losing sight of what PEMT really is. PEMT: No Need for Creativity Let’s start by saying that PEMT has nothing to do with revision. Nor does it require the “creativity” of, let’s say, transcreation. In spite of all the articles written on the...
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