Post-editing Machine Pseudo-translations

[Warren Smith]

A friend of mine has been asked to edit a "machine translation," and wrote to me how common this sort of request is becomming.

 

I responded as follows, and thought I would post it for discussion:

 

There is more and more of this happening. It was talked about a lot at a radical leftist translator's conference I spoke in in France (where I kept my political views quiet!)

 

The consensus there was that there is no such thing as "machine translation," and we ought to assertively take control of the language to make this clear: This is no more than machine "pseudo-translation."

 

I never edit a pseudo-translation, nor should any competent translator -- a pseudo-translation slows me down. When I have looked at pseudo-translations, I have ended up spending my time puzzling over the English, trying to reverse-engineer the Japanese to figure out what is going on. Much faster to just read the bloody Japanese, with a much higher level of comprehension of what was meant! Pseudo-translations are somewhat useful to people who don't know the source language, but not so much to a professonal translator.

 

I put it to the client like this -- If I wanted to build a nice house on a piece of land, I wouldn't hire some hack to build a shabby shack first, and then try to reuse it, build around it, and incorporate it in any way into the final building. The unacceptable structure would just get in the way. I would want to clear the land first, and start over from scratch. This is true for pseudo-translations -- they just get in the way.

 

That being said, I find that translation tools, and even pseudo-translation tools, are useful in some limited circumstances (such as using Google Translate for lists of chemicals -- but even then, each chemical name has to be examined, as there are many errors). But I have never found a pseudo-translation to be useful aside from as a vocabulary reference.

 

Warren

[Geoffrey Trousselot]

My passing thought is editing a "machine translation" is like using a shipping container to make a house. If the original design is based on using the container, then perhaps it could be a useful way of building the house. But if a property development company started delivering containers to building contractors and expected them to just modify the containers and offer a discount...

Any time a translator is asked to do a translation, they are at liberty to use a machine translation if it so helps. Considering that it is a resource available to the translator, what is the reasoning for offering the machine translation for editing? I think a firm refusal is the only reasonable response. Unless there is absolutely no risk that these documents are perfectly designed for the "containers" or vice versa.

Geoffrey Trousselot

A friend of mine has been asked to edit a "machine translation," and wrote to me how common this sort of request is becoming.

[Natalie Cumming]

Interesting topic. Having done a small amount of MT editing work during slow times, I completely agree with the building analogy. 

 MT editing is tedious in the extreme, since the clauses are all muddled up, and some of the words are wrong.  As you said, it's much easier just reading the Japanese.

You could also think of it as getting high school students to do dodgy tax returns, then asking accountants to fix them up, for a discounted fee. Or the same with legal contacts.

Somehow I can't imagine accountants or lawyers accepting such an offer!

It would be great if all professional translators could collectively agree to reject MT editing job offers, which would result in all such work being of a lower quality than human translation.

But somehow I think economic imperatives mean that is unlikely.

Natalie Cumming

Ocha Translations

www.ochatranslations.com.au

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Honyaku E<>J translation list" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to honyaku+u...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Warren Smith]

Natalie wrote:

You could also think of it as getting high school students to do dodgy tax returns, then asking accountants to fix them up, for a discounted fee. Or the same with legal contacts.

======

 

Brilliant! I will use this example (a lot).

 

Thanks.

Warren

 

[Natalie Cumming]

My pleasure. Just use "contracts" rather than "contacts" please ;)

--

[Warren Smith]

What about "filming a high-school drama production and 'editing' it into a Hollywood blockbuster"?

 

W

---

From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Natalie Cumming
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2015 1:29 AM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Post-editing Machine Pseudo-translations

[Jerry Pietrzak]

What about "filming a high-school drama production and 'editing' it into a Hollywood blockbuster"?

 

Ah. That explains Star Wars Episodes 1-3.

(Sorry if that's too off topic; I couldn't help myself.)

Jerry Pietrzak

Beppu, Oita