To be honest, I have never been to such event before in my past. Translation in Taiwan
is not really as prosperous and mature as it is in the U.S.(or at least not popular around my city even though foreign language and literature majors are everywhere) Let alone the localization industry. Thus, when I first heard about this event after coming to MIIS, I was super excited about it. Going to a professional event like this with all the possible future colleagues and employers can’t be any better. I had some expectations in mind before going to the event that day. Guess what? I was actually blown away by everything happened during IMUG the night.
The one I went to was a talk about “The Translation Technology Landscape today” given by Renato Beninatto. Before the event start, I have my first time socializing in such event. I was prepared to step out of my comfort zone and try to properly start a conversation with a random person at the event. Shockingly, that’s not the case. The whole place is filled with MIIS TLM students. Socializing would just be like us student having a usual talk at a different place. Never thought that we MIIS students would dominate a professional event like this. I know we MIIS students are a bunch of pioneers, but I wasn’t expecting it to be that serious. Nonetheless, the atmosphere is still quite different after we got several employers coming in. In the end, we are still able to get the gist of what it’s like to be socializing as an Asian student.
So on to the main talk, Mr. Beninatto started with introducing his own consulting company Nimdzi. Helping us get the idea of what the translation industry is like back in the past and what it is like in modern society. The history of translation technology really broadens my horizon. Thanks to the effort of these senior translators, the CAT tools were able to evolve alongside the technology. But most important of all, he spent some time discussing and emphasizing the idea of whether machine translation will take over the translation industry or not. Which is something I’ve been dealing with.
This has been an hot-debated topic to students who choose to walk down the path as a translator/localizer. People around kept on telling us to drop the idea of becoming translators because that machine translation like Google has been really helpful when it comes to simple translation task like translating a simple word or phrase. To them, the era of human translation has already come to an end. We are stepping into the abyss. On the other hand, we, as a translation major, firmly believe that machine translation is good, but not that good. I found both sides make sense to me so I can’t really tell which side is right or wrong. As a result, I was eager to hear what a current translation entrepreneur has to offer on this topic.
To my surprise, he said,’Yes, machine translation has taken over the role of a human translator. They are capable of providing high-quality translation work. Although there’s still something to be improved, I have to say that the time of human translation is taken over by the machine translation.’ I was shocked at the moment. I didn’t know how to react to it. It feels like I have been making stupid decisions all these time. As if I was wasting my youth and money on a dying industry with no future.
Thankfully, he hasn’t finished his sentence. He continued, “But that only means that there’s a shift to the role of human translators, we no longer need to work on our own, we have machine translation as a solid backup to help make our lives easier. We, as a human translator, are no longer the “translator”. Instead, we’re the modifier of the translation industry. Indeed, Machine translation is good alright, but not that good yet. You young, future translators have my word. Machine translation is our friend, not our enemy. Trust me, there’s no doubt a shift in the translation industry, but it’s an upward change.”
I believe that after hearing what Mr. Beninatto has to say, all of the present MIIS students must have let out a sigh of relief. Thank goodness we’re not wasting our time, instead, we’re actually the pioneer to a whole new era of translation. I got to say that I’m definitely impressed by IMUG. Although Mr. Beninatto had a real potty mouth which really surprises me, participating in such event really can broaden your horizon and clear some of the doubts and worries of yours.
*The new trend of the translation/localization industry
*MT trends
