Editor needs 6 hours to PEMT 2K article about MT Thread poster: Hans Lenting
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The editor of The Correspondent needed 6 hours to post-edit the machine translation of this Dutch article about machine translation in the Dutch De Correspondent:
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| | | | Dan Lucas 
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:28
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Hans Lenting wrote:
The editor of The Correspondent needed 6 hours to post-edit the machine translation of this Dutch article about machine translation in the Dutch De Correspondent:
I am glad she at least addresses the issue, which is more than most monolingual writers do, but if it took several hours to knock a relatively short text like this into shape then it clearly only works for people who don't value their own time.
To put it another way, if an editor is being paid (say) 30 euro an hour, and it took 6 hours, then for that 180 euro they could instead of paid for a decent translator, spent 20 minutes doing a quick check, and had the whole thing done in half the time.
But if the editor is getting paid by the piece rather than by the hour, and if he is prepared to work long hours for very little pay, then there's no incentive for them to use a proper translator. As is often the case, it's about putting a proper price on one's own time.
Regards,
Dan
[Edited at 2020-01-24 08:19 GMT]
| | | | Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
TOPIC STARTER | What is it good for? | Jan 24, 2020 |
Dan Lucas wrote:
But if the editor is getting paid by the piece rather than by the hour, and if he is prepared to work long hours for very little pay, then there's no incentive for them to use a proper translator. As is often the case, it's about putting a proper price on one's own time.
You're right. One can even ask: what is it good for, to send a whole article through such an MT system, instead of translating it manually, possibly with suggestions of MT.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 23:28
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Hans Lenting wrote:
[Sanne Blauw] of The Correspondent needed 6 hours to post-edit the machine translation of this Dutch article ... in the Dutch De Correspondent.
Towards the end of her article, Mrs. Blauw writes: "This is exactly what I will do with this piece. It's not like I'm translating it into Chinese and putting it online unchecked. I will edit it myself and then have it edited by an English-speaking colleague with a good feel for language." (Google Translated, adjusted)
So, did Mrs. Blauw spend 6 hours "editing it herself"? Did her English-speaking colleague edit it from scratch or did her colleague edit Mrs. Blauw's edit?
Either way... SIX HOURS.
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Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
TOPIC STARTER
Marga Blankestijn writes in the Vertalerskoffiehoek group at FB that she received an e-mail from The Correspondent regarding the English version:
Tell that to our copy editor Shaun Lavelle, who spent six hours correcting the English in this piece after Numeracy correspondent Sanne Blauw ran it through a translation programme.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 23:28
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Calm down, everyone -- it's not a translation, it's a rewrite | Jan 24, 2020 |
Hans Lenting wrote:
The editor of The Correspondent needed 6 hours to post-edit the machine translation of this Dutch article...
No, he didn't. He spent 6 hours rewriting it (and researching additional content for it), and he just happened to have consulted machine translation in the process. Here is a PDF file with the original article, the editor's "translation", and the Google Translate translation.
People like The Correspondent's editor give us real translators a bad name. I have nothing against copywriting, and bilingual copywriting is certainly a translator skill, but creating an English version of an article to be published in the English version of your magazine isn't "translation" and certainly isn't PEMT if you remove non-trivial content from it or add non-trivial content to it. Okay, okay, this article is about translation itself, so I understand that the examples might be adjusted for the other language, but what this editor did is more than just translation.
[Edited at 2020-01-24 11:53 GMT]
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:28
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Samuel Murray wrote:
...but what this editor did is more than just translation.
So ask the translator to transcreate it in the first place.
Would still take less time and money than the process as described!
Dan
| | | | | People have an idea that translating must be word for word | Jan 27, 2020 |
We should give ourselves a new name. Translingual copywriters or something. Translating is getting a bad name, and of course no one will pay a lot of money for what Google Translate can do in minutes if not seconds!
Thanks to anyone who raises the issue and takes it seriously!
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