Translating is a lot of work and in today’s ever higher-pacing life, one can see the appeal of cutting a few corners, using a few translation shortcuts while making life a little easier. While working online as a translator remember that a big part of being a professional in a specific field (apart from knowing your craft and continuously learning and improving) is knowing which shortcuts are safe and which hide a deadly trap. Stepping on such a landmine will undoubtedly compromise your reputation and destroy your customers’ trust in your abilities as a qualified professional. Read more for some translation shortcuts that are going to keep you working online as a successful online translator while saving time for work-life balance.
This article will outline the pitfalls and hidden dangers while using shortcuts online as a translator, specifically using Google Translate. You don’t need to be a translator to have heard of possibly the most well know machine translation tool. It’s probably saved us all on one occasion or another while trying to decipher something in a language we don’t understand well. But is it suitable for professional translators’ needs?
Friend or foe?
Let’s start by explaining the appeal of using services such as Google Translate. With the Internet at our fingertips, online public access to a free, quick, and easy-to-use method represents significant progress in translation technology. The easy access to free translation tools may entice you into using Google Translate for your business. However, we first need to know how it works to understand why that wouldn’t be the best course of action.
Google Translate started a statistical machine translation service that learned from translated documents on the web to provide the best statistical match using predictive algorithms. Initially, the primary sources used in training the statistical machine translation system (SMT for short), which represented the basis of Google Translate, were the United Nations and the European Union documents. The input text had to be first translated into English before being translated into the selected language. That is one of the main reasons for the poor grammatical accuracy at the time.
In 2016, Google transitioned its translating method to a neural machine translation system. It uses deep learning techniques to translate whole sentences at a time, thus significantly improving the translated text’s accuracy. However, the accuracy of the translated text remains questionable due to the tool’s inability to grasp context, nuances, cultural differences, phrases, colloquialisms, figurative expressions, and regional specifics of languages. In other words, it can merely translate but cannot interpret. It still depends highly on the type of source content used, as well as on the language combination.
I would do anything for a translation, but I won’t do that
Even if we put the issue of quality aside, as a professional, you should make another equally significant consideration. You have a duty to your clients to protect the data they entrust you to translate. You might be tasked with translating sensitive, proprietary, or confidential legal documents. Suppose the materials involve legal contracts, financial reports, compliance training materials, health-related documents, pharmaceutical drug trials, or other sensitive subjects. Misunderstandings due to translation errors could compromise safety levels and entail financial concerns, often leading to legal disputes. Furthermore, any data you input into the Google Translate interface becomes the property of Google, and they can use the data at their discretion. This may result in breaches of regulations or contractual relations established with your partners, customers, or vendors.
As a professional, you should value your expertise and not get tempted into compromising the integrity of your brand or company merely to be faster and cheaper than the competition. Translating is a cutthroat business; you will be fighting for clients, negotiating prices that are too low as it is, barely catching deadlines, burning the midnight oil, and wondering what you can do to get an edge over others. However, tempted you may be, don’t risk your reputation by cutting corners with Google Translate. It is a good tool for a quick and easy understanding of a pastime or leisure topic, but it is unsuitable for a professional translation in any field.
You should do anything for a translation, trudge the highs and lows of the Internet, dredge the depths of thesauri, language databases, corpora, and other abstruse resources, but don’t do that.
If you wish to learn about the shortcuts that can benefit and ease your workload or get you through a tight deadline faster, you should read What Makes a Good Translator. For those just starting your journey as translators, you might want to check Tips to successfully translate online, or How much time does a translator need to change a lightbulb, or why not to become a translator?. Those who are a little more seasoned might benefit from reading Why are CATs Awesome, Why Do They Dislike Google Translate? or Which CATs Are Awesome?. This post was written by Manca Oletič, a translator who along with Petar are translating online with their online business. Subscribe for more business, sales and investing posts. Have a lovely day.
