Recently, "Our Translator" is very popular, this is a workplace drama in the translation industry, I took the time to watch an episode, and the biggest realization is that it is too beautifying the profession of "translation", and I want to talk to you about the cruel industry reality behind it.
1. The impact of AI on human translation
The restoration of the simultaneous interpretation scene in this TV series, and the conflict and complementarity between machine translation and human translation generally reflect the reality of the current translation industry. I only watched the first episode.,Blind guess the later stage.,The female protagonist as a translator will join forces with the male protagonist.,Highlight that human translators and machine translation are not opposites.,You can cooperate.,If you see the students in the back, you can leave a message for spoilers.。
Machine translation was the first area in which artificial intelligence first broke through. At present, machine translation has replaced low-end translation, and it can be said that translators below the level of catti can basically be replaced by machines (personal opinion, for reference only). However, at present, it is difficult for machine translation to replace high-end translators, and official documents still need to be proofread by humans. However, it is certain that the development of machine translation will be faster than imagined, and the participation of translators will be required in addition to the participation of engineers. What translators need to do is embrace technology and understand how to make better use of it. At the same time, translators can act as expert consultants, providing relevant advice and guidance on the improvement of the software.
Machine-assisted software (CAT): Before 2016, machine translation didn't make much of a splash because the quality of the translations was hard to compliment. At that time, there were more applications of machine-assisted software, and it was more widely recognized, which played a great role in improving translation efficiency, especially team translation efficiency. The study of machine-assisted software is also one of the courses that many master's degrees. The more famous ones are Trados, Memoq, etc., here, it is recommended that students who do not know machine auxiliary software to learn about it. This is one of the thresholds for many companies to recruit translators.
Google launched a deep learning neural translation system in 2016, which has greatly improved the quality of translations. At the same time, many translation companies have begun to adopt the MTPE (post-editing) model, which directly halves the remuneration of translators.
In terms of interpretation, many companies have launched translation machines, which can achieve simultaneous interpretation, and many people travel abroad and carry translation machines with them to meet the daily needs of food, clothing, housing and transportation, which replaces the work of accompanying interpreters. However, in formal meetings, the use of a translator is a fantasy, because a mistake in one sentence or one word can lead to significant consequences.
In 2023, ChatGPT will be born, ChatGPT is based on the OpenAI GPT-3 language model, a powerful natural language processing (NLP) system, translation is only one of its most insignificant functions, but its output is more natural and fluent, closer to human language. Of course, there is still a lot of room for improvement in Xindaya. For example, one of my clients used ChatGPT to automatically reply to the editors of SCI journals, and then brought me the content of the reply for editing. I've found that GPT is still quite mechanical. The grammar can be said to be completely correct, and the content is completely understandable, but the content is very complicated, and it doesn't matter if the content of the previous letter is repeated, if the editor on the other side reads the letter, he may be confused, and he doesn't know why he has to write something that can be explained clearly in one or two sentences. However, technology is developing faster than people can imagine, and as a translator, you have to be prepared for danger in times of peace.
2. "Translator" or "Little Translator"? - Career development of translators
The tone of the word "translator" determines that this TV series is far higher than reality.
After graduating from a high school translation college, if they take the pure translation route, they will generally be admitted to the foreign affairs department, work full-time simultaneous interpretation in the top 500, or directly choose freelancing.
In the case of the examination, the advantages are obvious, stable, and the social status is high, but the system depends on the department and position, and some positions will limit the development of professional ability.
Choose the top 500, the frequency of simultaneous interpretation and consecutive interpretation is generally very high, you can quickly become a familiar translator in a certain field, or even an expert, and the interpreter generally serves the big leader, it is very convenient to change jobs, if you do it for a year or two, you feel that there will be greater development in business, you can transfer to business departments, such as project management, sales, after-sales management, finance, human resources, executive assistants and other non-strong professional and technical business departments. I have met the vice president of a foreign company before who graduated from Beijing Foreign University, and he was a translator at the beginning of his career, and then he changed jobs and became the vice president.
Freelancing, some students choose freelancing as soon as they graduate, which on the one hand requires strong enough strength, and on the other hand, they need to have their own resources and customers. The latter is arguably more important than the former. More on that later.
On the other hand, the development path of the translation company is not as stable as the system, the development path is not as good as that of the top 500, the training opportunities are also not as good as the latter, and the degree of freedom is not comparable to that of freelancing. The only advantage may be that you can understand the workings of a translation agency and become your own translation company in the future.
Whether in the system or in the company, translation is destined to play an auxiliary role, not the core department and core business of the unit, then his status is destined not to be too high. In the eyes of most people, the interpreter is just a "microphone", a tool, and in certain situations, the interpreter will also be the best choice for the "backstabber" (for example, if the speaker is questioned by the other party due to lack of professional knowledge, he will say that the interpreter has not conveyed it clearly to him). In the company, when other departments apply for translation, they usually say that they will send us a "small translator" (I say that it is a small translator because the people who are still "doing" translation are generally relatively young translators, and the older translators are generally transferred or promoted to management, and do not do translation in person).
In addition, there are many international conferences in the market, in fact, the real significance is not what the participants said and listened to, but the fact that everyone attended and met at the conference. The purpose of inviting simultaneous interpreters is to fill the scene and show respect for foreign language speakers, and no one will evaluate how well the interpreters translate, and it can be said that there are few people who listen carefully on the spot. The organizers did not pay much attention to simultaneous interpreters, which gave rise to a lot of indiscriminate "simultaneous interpreters", which also indirectly affected the status of interpreters.
At present, if it is mentioned that the level of a certain simultaneous interpreter is very high, it is probably not a strong endorsement to say that he is the top interpreter of a translation company, and the interpreter with the highest recognition in the translation industry is an AIIC member, with more than 3,000 interpreters in the world and only more than 30 in China.
3. About 12 minutes of consecutive interpretation without notes
Many people questioned the clip in the play.
Yes, theoretically, if the speaker does not stop for a long time, the interpreter needs to interrupt the speaker for 3-5 minutes to ensure the quality of the translation and the audience's feelings. However, if you've been involved in enough meetings, you'll find that in special situations, the interpreter can't interrupt the speaker or force the invention.
For example, the most famous scene is Zhang Jingchao's ten-minute consecutive interpretation. In the situation at that time, the speaker was your boss, many levels higher than you, and the speaker's tone and emotion were very abundant, and if you interrupted, it would affect his expression. Of course, the premise is that the translator is fully confident in his or her translation ability. There are usually such scenarios in the company, such as the shareholders are arguing, no one will consider the ability of a small translator to bear, and the translator cannot be forcibly inserted, which is self-deprecating. Or the boss is scolding his subordinates and so on. I've had the longest time I've ever had in a company meeting with 15 minutes of uninterrupted communication.
Here's a tip, if the waiting time for consecutive interpreting is too long, the interpreter needs to sort out the speaker's logic in his mind when taking notes, and allocate a little energy to review his previous speech, so as not to be able to read his original notes when he starts translating. However, in this case, the interpreter is usually taking notes, and it is a meeting occasion.
The atmosphere of the dinner is generally relaxed and pleasant, the two sides of the dialogue switch quickly, if it is one-to-many, the interpreter will do consecutive interpretation, if it is one-to-one, the interpreter is usually synchronous whisper interpretation. Interpreters are allowed to carry a notebook that fits in their pocket, but try not to take notes, as the main atmosphere does not allow it. In such occasions, if one party speaks for 12 minutes in a row, it is a great disrespect to the other party, and with the time of the interpreter, the other party needs to wait 20 minutes to know what the other party has said, which is impossible.
In addition, interpreters are not qualified to drink and eat at banquets, and usually need to rest their stomachs before the meal, or eat some leftovers after the banquet. Otherwise, you just ate a broccoli in your mouth and there are vegetable scraps in your teeth, and the customer starts talking, what do you do? So it's better not to eat and drink some soup.
Fourth, some details
1.Collaboration between partners in the booth. The partners need to agree on who will open first, not who will sit in first, and how many minutes to change people must also be agreed before the meeting. As a workplace drama, this can be added, so that students who are interested in translation can just learn about simultaneous interpretation.
2.Mutual assistance between partners. As the company's chief translator, Lynsey may have written notes to his partner constantly in order to show his help to his partner. But in real life, it's very rude. On the one hand, interpreting symbols are not set in stone, each translator has their own specific symbols, and the symbols you write may not be understood by others. On the other hand, the frequent passing of notes without asking for help from my partner would make me angry if I were sitting there, an action that itself would affect me, and on the other hand, it would also be a question of my professional ability. In the actual meeting, it is generally very frequent to appear very difficult to remember numbers, such as a financial audit meeting, in one sentence, there are multiple numbers, you can help your partner remember it, and don't be sentimental at other times.
I will share more about the experience and insights of translation and interpretation work with you in future articles, hoping to let you know the real life of translators, and don't choose the path of translation because of the glamour of the translators in "Our Translator".