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WEBSITE TO VISIT: https://brauertraining.com
Remote Interpreting: Feeling Our Way into the Future Published by The ATA Chronicle New communications technologies make interpreting available where it wasn’t in the past. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the way we will work remotely, because what’s going on is game changing and shaking our profession from top to bottom. In April […]
via Remote Interpreting: The Elephant in the Room — A Word In Your Ear
For translators and interpreters, words are literally the tools of our trade. It is with words, through words, in words, by words that we communicate. Thus, we must always be looking to expand our vocabulary. In this context, In April 2013 I will again join forces with ProZ.com to train translators and interpreters in the basic vocabulary of healthcare, finance, business and legal settings. I will also have a very special session called “chasing terms online”, where I explain the many tricks I have learned over the years finding the appropriate translation of terms in the Internet, and a final session on how to build your own glossaries. Each one of these sessions is 90 minutes long and will be available live at noon every Tuesday in April and after that by recorded video that you may see in your own schedule.
The first session provides the basic information and terminology used in the healthcare industry. Topics include information on the medical and healthcare professionals, anatomy and physiology, the main body systems and organs, diseases and illness, common medical conditions, symptoms, treatment options, and diagnostic tests, amongst others.
In the second session, you will get acquainted with the terms most commonly used in the (U.S.) courts, as well as the penal and law enforcement systems, immigration, and the major legal business systems and law specialties, with more than 500 commonly used terms.
The third session will provide the basic information and resources to study the terminology used in business settings and the financial industry. Topics include business concepts, organizational structures, human resources, contracts, marketing and sales, accounting, financial statements, multinational business, and global acronyms, amongst many others.
In the fourth session, you will learn to use the many free online glossaries and translation databases available for translators and interpreters; harness the power of the internet and make your search easier, faster, more productive and consistent, with some of the basic tricks of term research online in the 21st Century: Where to find the meaning of terms, how to combine words and phrases to retrieve information that is valuable to your search; where and how to search the internet; how to bookmark and create your lists of favorite FREE sites for easy search in the future. 
Topics include Web search operations, online glossaries, databases and other freebies, reliable resources, how to find the strongest source and bookmarking for future use.
Finally, the bundle wraps-up with a session on how to create your personal glossaries, making it easier for you to work on translations or prepare for your interpreting assignments, while ensuring consistency and accuracy for the future. You will learn a basic methodology to search for terms, working with your own template, creating and gradually accumulating your personal glossary by client or domain; learn what, when, and how to enter and retrieve information, change and update it. You may later use it online or print it for your own translations and interpretation, or you may wish to share it with your clients.
PREPARATION materials will be shared BEFORE each session, and HANDS-ON exercises to be completed AFTER each session. Each student is expected to be fully engaged with ACTIVE listening, individual thinking and processing of information, as well as hands-on note-taking and interactive activities. Every one of these is a fast-pace session with an upbeat and lively mood, requiring full engagement on the part of the participant.
Join me for this exciting bundle of knowledge!
This is a reprint of an October/2012 article I published in IMIA Viewpoints Online Newsletter (http://www.imiaweb.org/members/viewpoints.asp)
I recently read that “utility is valued over eloquence as a measure of translation quality”(1) by some of the big TECH companies entering the translation and interpreting field, including Intel, Microsoft, Asia Online and Spoken Translation. The Taus report that talked about that was specifically referring to the “coming of age” of “real-time multilingual chat”, which is part of an entirely new array of products that are already being offered by high-tech translation automation companies; these new products are changing the landscape of bilingual and multilingual output (and translation/interpreting) in the Global Village of the 21st Century.
If this is the new industry trend, “quality” will become a “value added” –not a core requirement– sought by “some” (read “few”) companies. Thus, the new industry concept of “utility” is becoming more important than “eloquence” –which to date has been our measure of quality— and this paradigm shift will totally change the roles of the players in this industry, including us, professional translators and interpreters.
I will not discuss here the “good or evil” nature of the recent automation developments in the translation industry, as there are fervent supporters of one and the other position. My view is that the 21st Century has arrived and many translators and interpreters seem to be at odds with that simple fact. So, in my opinion, fighting technology will not serve the cause of the industry. Unless we become part – and an active part – of the conversation, we will not have a say in its development.
We need to start participating in the technological revolution by voicing our stand (other than mere “opposition”, which will just delay the inevitable), and making POSITIVE contributions so that we make ourselves indispensable to and remain part of the industry…. otherwise, the geeks will try –and probably succeed in time — in replicating what we do (remember quality is no longer the driver for a large portion of the users of the outputs of our industry).
I believe the tech industry has been rather successful at creating algorithms and software and have been pretty good at the basics of language transfer. They have not figured out how to transfer content yet, but they are getting there. As I see it, the fact that most of the software still outputs low-quality products is just a matter of “infancy”. This child will “mature” faster than you think. Few people at the height of the industrial revolution believed that automation would cause the displacement of millions of manufacturing jobs. So we, standing at the beginning of the digital/mobile communication revolution, must learn from history and anticipate the changes that will most probably happen, and participate in them today, so that we may partake in their advancements and help drive and shape their future.
The paradigm shift comes about from the fact that the truths we held sacred in translation and interpreting may be on the verge of disappearing. Mainstream needs, the advent of mobile technologies, the incursion of the TECH industry in the world of translation and interpreting is changing the basic parameters of the entire translation and interpreting industry. The basic assumptions we hold dear and which are comfortably embedded in our way of doing things are starting to fade away. Winners of battles write the history of those battles. I certainly would like to be part of those who write the history of translation and interpreting in the 21st century.
Just as the debate in the translation industry centers around the use of TM and MT, the debate in the interpreting industry is around the use of phone-interpreting, video-interpreting, web-based-interpreting, and interpreting for mobile digital users, among others. I believe the discussion cannot continue being “if” but must shift to “how” we will participate (i.e., not if we should use these technologies, but how can we use them and what do we need as an industry for consistency). We have to be aware of the changes occurring in the industry if we want to remain relevant. Any change we wish for (or wish to avoid) is ours to fight for.
So, in this fast-pace world of the 21st Century, “instant” is the concept of choice in service provision, and based on this, the larger companies coming from the software and hardware industries, from the video and gaming industries, are penetrating the language industries. They are having initial success as the newcomer competitors of traditional translators and interpreters. Their final products are years away from the “Eloquence” by which we have measured our products during thousands of years but rather, they are now striving to achieve “Utility” — the usefulness of instant access that these automated services are providing.
The silver lining is that, although these providers of technical solutions are slowly but surely gaining wider margins of market share, in doing so they have expanded the actual market size to levels unimaginable just a few years ago. So, although they are taking more and more of the market as a percentage, their own presence has multiplied the marketplace several times in size (and will continue doing so). In this way, translators and interpreters are in higher demand than they have ever been in history and our services are being recognized by mainstream as “vital” to the functioning of this new multilingual and multicultural world.
The crumbling down of geographic barriers allows for the provision of services in ways we could never have anticipated. The downside: we are no longer an elite group of intellectuals or artists but are now part of a larger group of artisans. As always in history, there is room for those who wish to remain being artists and intellectuals, to continue rendering high-quality services to the few buyers who will continue to exist. The rest of us will now be a mainstream trade, maybe at the level of law or medicine (i.e., there is the Judge and there is the paralegal, there is the surgeon and there is the home health attendant…. and everything in between).
The future is here. There is no such thing as “it will not happen”. It is happening. Translators are being replaced by machine translation at an alarming speed. Those translators who fail to see the trend will be left without a job in a matter of a decade. Post-MT editing is strongly becoming the trend in the “normal” industry and now, with this latest concept –changing eloquence for utility– the trend will change faster than ever as machine translation becomes more and more common, easier to access and “acceptable” in terms of its output. What I am reading here is that the end-users of translation products are accepting a mediocre product provided it is cheap, fast (machine-translation produced) and relatively accurate (the last hurdle yet to be achieved by new technologies, but fast on the way to getting there).
Now then, Interpreting still may hold a couple of decades more of life “as we know it” because it is a bit more complex… or is it? I have lately seen text to voice produce some amazing results… yes, one language only, but once they figure out the “magic” element – and they will (the question is When) – then development will go ballistic….
So, it is predictable that in the future (which in many places is today), people will not care about construction of the sentences or grammar or inherent meaning of the source language, or even nuances. They will just want to get the “general idea” and that is all they want. Well, at least the larger portion of buyers of translation and interpreting services. Of course there will be many others out there that will still strive for quality. Moreover, for which quality becomes even MORE important than before (thankfully, the healthcare industry seems to be one of them…. the question is… until when? Market forces drive industries, whether we like it or not).
So, for me, the issue is, how are we, the professional interpreters and translators, helping to shape the industry we will be working in? Other than complaining, what are we doing? Other than opposing progress, what positive contributions are we presenting? What levels of “association with” the developers of the new world are we engaging? Where is our strength as part of the “knowledge” pool of services in the world? How can we harness that power?
As I see it, the extraordinary growth of machine translation resources is evidence of the exponential improvement in quality in the past decade. I do not use the term exponential lightly. Growth and improvements in our industry are being exponential. So, I believe that quality translation might be achieved in one or two decades with machine translation. Quality interpreting might take a little longer, but not too much.
Yes, I know this is blasphemy. But believe me, it is reality. Once upon a time, about 15 years ago I thought Translation Memories were garbage and would go nowhere. I thought this day, when TMs are almost a requirement for the job, would never
come. Well, it is here. So, let’s face reality. There are some robots in Japan that are already capable of basic interpreting. Yes, very basic. Just as TM was so basic 10 years ago.
The future of the translation industry is being taken over by the big software companies that are creating software capable of penetrating the “magic” of translation. Once they get there, it will be like any other industry of the 19th century. Replicate, replicate, replicate.
Therefore, here is my proposal: We, the original translators and interpreters, who understand and drive “Eloquence” and not just “Utility” – we – must become very active in designing the strategies of our own future. We have to unite to create international infrastructures that support the “Eloquence” and not just the “Utility” — but not fighting with the software giants, that is a lost cause, rather providing alternatives to improve their products. Common infrastructure and common protocols should be our mantra now as an industry. A dispersed group of individuals will not achieve much.
What is the profession going to look like in 20 years? We have to start answering that question from a perspective of the current reality (mobile millenials) and not from the perspective of what we would “ideally” believe “should” be. Should does not work any more. Could is here to stay. We need to wake up to our new reality as a profession and set out to design the future that could be for us in this new Global Village of the 21st Century.
(1)
http://www.translationautomation.com/joomla15/index.php?option=com_content&vie w=article&id=680&catid=3&Itemid=85
ProZ.com jut released a very important brief on the state of the translation industry. Let me quote one of the important sections therein:
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Demand and growth
Indicators here are fairly positive. Almost 70% of translators asked are handling more volume now than just two years ago (around 12% were unsure if the volume had increased or not), and just under 70% report steady or increasing volume from 2011 to 2012 (5% were unsure).
According to Common Sense Advisory, the market for outsourced language services is worth US$33.523 billion in 2012, and it is calculated that the language services market is growing at an annual rate of 12.17% (up from 7.41% in 2011). The US Department of Labor estimates that “employment of interpreters and translators is expected to grow 42 percent from 2010 to 2020, much faster than the average for all occupations.” EMSI, in a recent report, stated that translation and interpretation services have grown by approximately 50% since 2007 in the US.
These indicators would seem to match with the concept of a “flat world” in translation as we saw at the beginning of this report. Demand is healthy, growth has increased. How is this affecting freelance translators in terms of their own income and growth?”
I recommend that all translators and interpreters take a look at this important document @ http://www.proz.com/industry-report/2012.
If translators and interpreters do not become part of the digital revolution occurring in the second decade of this new millennium, we will be left out of the loop of progress… just what happened a few decades ago to those office workers and freelancers (including translators) who refused to learn how to use a computer … they quickly became professionally obsolete because they were no longer able to interact in the modern interconnected world. Today, we need to learn about the new tools that have been quickly becoming an intrinsic part of the modern world.
“A good interpreter is a master of speech and a good translator is a master of the written code.”(Alfredo Vargas). Though both require a distinct set of skills, both also have a shared set of traits. Most of the concepts below also apply to translation, or may be slightly modified to fit the written word.
Interpreting is one of the most complex roles in the world. And it is highly underestimated by society at large. The role of a professional interpreter is to convey faithfully and completely the content of the source language by finding adequate equivalent concepts and terms in the target language, and doing this in seconds, literally. The professional interpreter can make very fast decisions and improvise creatively. He or she must have great interpersonal skills, including great patience and empathy. We must be intimately familiarity with both cultures of the working languages to ensure that each concept AND each term used are thorough, accurate, adequate and is correctly used and expressed in the context of the conversation.
As an interpreter, you need to develop a wide array of technical skills. However, I believe that at the basis of interpreting we need the following: First and foremost, obviously, you need to be fully bilingual. You need to have full command of at least two languages. Next, you need to be a very creative person. You need to love to improvise. To create something from nothing. To switch gears at the drop of a pin. Interpreting is all about being attuned with your environment and adjusting immediately to any change in the environment. Creativity is, in my opinion, at the core of any interpreter’s traits. I believe that if you are not a highly creative human being who feels very comfortable improvising and adapting, it will be extremely difficult to be an interpreter. All the other skills you can learn. Creativity, you have to be. So, my first recommendation would be to ask yourself: am I creative and can I improvise? Or am I a more rigid methodical thinker? Because interpreters are also methodical thinkers, second, improvisers first.
Next, you should develop other non-technical skills, that are: listening, acquisition of knowledge, public speaking, note taking, and memory.
After that, the first thing is to learn how to listen. The interpreter needs, above all, be an extraordinary listener. Listen to what the person is saying, not what you think the person is saying , but what they are really truly saying. You need to learn to grasp the meaning behind the speakers works, the message being conveyed, the context in which that message is being rendered. To do that, you need to hone on your listening skills. My recommendation. Listen to the news on TV and Radio. Just sit and listen. Don’t try to translate or jot down. Sit and listen, during hours and hours. That is your first task. To learn to listen. To learn not to make assumptions. Not to guess what the person is going to say. Not to judge what has been said. Just listen to the words and message of the person talking. To concentrate and keep your thought process centered on the source of the messages, not on your own thoughts. And do this in both languages of your language pair.
Second, be knowledgeable. Read a lot. Read all sort of newspapers, either on the computer or printed. Read magazines about the world. Follow international affairs. Increase your general knowledge in the areas you plan to interpreter. If you can, go and live in the countries where your language pairs are mostly spoken. Learn about the local cultures. If you cannot go and live there, use the internet, watch youtube videos about those countries and regarding those cultures, watch movies, listen to the news, if you have cable TV, get those countries news, buy the magazines that center on those cultures. If you are going to be an interpreter, for example in healthcare, read all sorts of medical magazines. Go to your doctor’s office and read all the brochures, all the magazines. Go to the internet and read read read the blogs on medical and clinical information. Read the websites on healthcare. If it you are going to translate in the legal field, watch all the TV programs you can where there is any type of police or investigative reporting. Watch cop movies. Read law mystery books. And so on.
Third, you need to convey your thoughts appropriately. You need to learn to be very efficient with words. You need to build up your vocabulary. Know about as many subjects as you possibly can. Read glossaries. Make the reading of glossaries your passion. Stop reading just for the pleasure of reading and give meaning to your reading habits. Concentrate on downloading glossaries from the internet on the subjects of your interest and read them. Don’t try to memorize them, just put them in the hard drive of your brain where you will have access to the information when you need it.
Enroll in public speaking groups. Practice speaking out loud. Don’t hold your thoughts, start expressing your thoughts in the shower, in the car, when you are cleaning your home. Talk talk talk, specially in your second language. Become progressively fluent and comfortable expressing your thoughts. Learn to react very fast, to strengthen the connection between your thoughts and your tongue. Every day in the morning and at night try translating the local news for about half an hour. Do not judge yourself. Just let the words come out. It does not matter if at the beginning you don’t get it right. Learning to swim or ride a bike takes time. And the only way to learn it is doing it. If you don’t do it you will never learn it. The same is true for interpreting.You need to develop excellent communication skills, with the ability to express thoughts understandably, delivering your speech in such a way that it is clear and concise in all registers and at varying levels of formality or informality as be required. Do not judge yourself. Just do it, right or wrong, many times. Expertise will come with practice. The more you do it, the better you will improve your skills.
Fourth, extremely important, learn a fast note-taking technique. Take a shorthand writing course, there are many for free on the internet. Or learn to take your own notes. Practice practice practice taking notes. Do it independently of your exercises in listening or your exercises in speaking or your collection of knowledge. Note taking should be a skill highly developed by all interpreters. It is going to be one of the most valuable skills you can have. Once you feel comfortable taking notes fast, start specializing in taking notes regarding numbers and addresses. Turn on the TV to the financial channel and try to take the notes of all the numbers you hear. Do not judge yourself at first. Just let your skill develop. It will take time and practice. Do it do it do it. You have to practice practice practice.
The fifth essential skill is, of course, memory. The interpreter must have a very good memory or a very good memory to remember what has been said. Although the interpreter will be taking notes of much of what is said, it will be impossible to write down everything, so the interpreter must trust his or her memory to be able to ensure accuracy and completeness. Exercise your memory constantly. However it works for you, find a way to exercise your memory. The brain is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the fitter it will be.
Of course, these are just some of the steps you need to develop to become an interpreter. You will need to study a lot and learn to analyze content and develop fast reactions, you need to learn to build and use glossaries, to manage stress and perform within strict codes of conduct and ethics, to be in total command of your native and non-native languages, to become familiar with the cultures of the countries your languages represent. You will need to learn to maintain a friendly attitude, even in very distressful situations. To exercise tact and judgement with people who are rude and obnoxious. And cultivate your curiosity, it is your best friend. Keep yourself current. Make learning into a hobby. Learning what? Everything, anything. It is essential to develop a sense of patience and humor, as you will most probably have to deal with a lot of human tragedy and the load may become overwhelming unless you can see yourself just as a bridge between two points, and not necessarily the superwoman or superman that can solve all situations you come in contact with.
It is essential that you become proficient with computers and modern technology, as they will make part of our every day life. In time, as you become more proficient in your craft, you will need to ensure you are familiar with colloquialisms, idiomatic expressions and slang in both working languages. You need to develop the ability to identify the difference sin meaning due to dialects and regionalism.
To become a true professional, you need to have an open mind and learn about the roles of the interpreter, and the boundaries that you need to have, applicable laws and procedures, cultural competence, ethical and professional behavior, quick decision making, excellent customer skills, ability to prioritize and multitask, a huge amount of patience and humility, problem solving and flexibility.
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In an interconnected world, the ability to communicate in “my preferred language” (whatever that may be) has become a crucial component of our world. In less than a decade we have gone from simultaneous or consecutive interpreting, to over-the-phone and remote video-interpreting (simultaneous or consecutive), to web-based instant message delivery. Technology is transforming our profession at the speed of light, literally. The term “medical video interpreting” is so new that many in the profession don’t even know of its existence, yet the technology it is based on (and already commercially available) is sure to change the entire profession. Professional associations are scrambling to get to speed with the changes to better serve their members; certification and credentialing is becoming more urgent than ever; education and training are flourishing; and technology surprises us with so many and fast innovations, that it is hard to keep up with it. I believe there is an urgent need for us to be extremely aware of the world in which we live and the fascinating digital revolution taking place around us at the speed of light. I stress the fact that instead of resisting technology, we must embrace it and learn to use it to further our professional advancement and intercultural communication. If we do not become part of the digital revolution, we will soon be left out of the loop of progress… similar to what happened a few decades ago to office workers and freelancers (including translators) who refused to learn how to use a computer … they quickly became professionally obsolete because they were no longer able to interact in the modern interconnected world. This is an attempt to be a “wake-up” call to current and future interpreters about the state of the industry in our Global Village of the 21st century
21st Century Global Village 