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    Google Translator Toolkit: Should the professional translator be very scared?

    Tuesday, 15 September 2009, 05:12 PM
    by James Phillips
    Edited by James Phillips, Wednesday, 30 September 2009, 12:38 AM
    Visible to anyone in the world
    Hello everybody,
    Today I would like to discuss the Google Translator Toolkit. In a nutshell I wish to work out whether the Google Translator Toolkit is good news or bad news for the professional translator. What is the long term effect of this kind of technology likely to be on translation as a profession? Before we can work this out, we need to look at what this technology is and how it works. However, before we begin it will be helpful to first answer a few questions that will help to clarify why Google have gone to great trouble to provide this free service in the first place. What are they up to? And the cynic in me asks "what is in it for them?"

    Demographics

    The main motivation behind this technology is one of demographics. Let us start by asking the following question:

    What percentage of the Internet is in English?

    It may come as something of a surprise to learn that around 80% of the content provided on the Internet is in English.




    Other sources provide lower figures for this number but even the lower figures are in the mid-sixties.

    This brings me to the next question:

    What percentage of Internet users are native speakers of English?

    This is typically quoted as being around 28%. Although the number of native English speakers using the Internet is growing fairly rapidly, it is not growing nearly as fast as say, the number of native Russian-speaking or Chinese-speaking users.

    As you can see, there is something of a disparity here. Google, never a company to think small, is therefore attempting to address this situation by providing a free tool to assist in the translation of existing English web pages. This is obviously very much in Google's interests and in the interests of their pay per click business model, with more pages providing more locations for them to provide more adverts to rapidly growing markets.

    Let us now take a look at the product itself, and what better way to do that than by watching the man in the green t-shirt.



    You can actually try it yourself by either creating a Google account or, if you already have a Google account, going to the following web page:

    Google Translator Toolkit

    The first thing you will notice is that it only translates from English into other languages. It is my personal opinion that this is for the reasons stated above and is therefore unlikely to change. I could be very wrong about this though.

    The next important thing to look at is the TOS (Terms of Service).

    The first thing to note with horror is that, in true "facebook" tradition, the TOS can be changed at any time. This doesn't mean to say that this will happen, but it also means you can never rule it out.

    The next deal breaker is the phrase "you grant Google the permission to use your content permanently to promote, improve or offer the Services". Oh dear. Well that rules out pretty much anything of a mildly confidential such as pretty much any kind of work that you are actually getting paid for.

    So where does that leave us? With a tool that is fantastic for translating existing material that is already in the public domain such as a Wikipedia article, but not really practical as a tool for the professional translator to perform work on.

    So what is it good for?

    Well, it would be a great way to study translation, providing the translations in the public domain are treated with a liberal pinch of salt. It may also serve as a possibly useful way to turn up suggestions for terminology that may not have appeared through any other means. Passages that are often very similar, such as, for example, a privacy policy on a multilingual website may also be translated more easily, meaning that large translation companies that may have formerly "leveraged" their in-house translation memories may no longer be able to do so. It may be useful for translating materials that may not otherwise have been translated for cost reasons, such as tourism-related and promotional materials. It is also a great introduction to the newbie as an example of how translation memory tools work and exactly what they do.

    What effect is it likely to have?

    Well, it is likely to make the bottom end of the market even less profitable as it lowers the barriers yet again in the most repetetive section of the industry such as translation of manuals. However, I am going to stick my neck out here and say that it is likely to be good for the high-end of the market. The likelihood is that it may be used to translate materials such as promotional materials for company products into languages it may not otherwise have reached. This is likely to lower barriers to promoting such products and possibly make trade a little easier. Should this happen, then such companies will eventually need higher-end translation, such as a new, snazier website, translation of contracts to do business in the newer domains, and translation of any intellectual property-related materials. But then I do tend to be a glass half-full kind of person.

    Unleashing the potential?

    For me, the danger to the future of the translation industry per se is not so much the Google Translator Toolkit itself but rather the potential that lies within it that Google may eventually unlock. Algorithms and the analysis of mind-boggling amounts of text have always been their strong points and they are likely to have a truly enormous translation memory to add to their humungous records of however many billions of searches have been made in however many languages over the last few years. If they can correlate all that information in some new, magical way, then the box the president whips out and turns on the day aliens eventually land to start speaking will almost definitely have the word "Google" on the side.
    Tags: translation google translator toolkit google translation memory
    Me!

    Technology in Translation

    Tuesday, 8 September 2009, 07:54 PM
    by James Phillips
    Edited by James Phillips, Tuesday, 10 November 2009, 01:53 AM
    Visible to anyone in the world
    Hello everybody,
    I have decided to write a number of lengthy columns on the subject of technology in translation. Before doing so, however, I think it is important to give some consideration to the different attitudes towards technology that are held by people in general and consider why many of these attitudes exist. I feel that this is important when considering technology because, particularly in the field of translation, the reaction and attitude of customers and translators to technology can verge on the baffling at times. The following is my attempt to make sense of the myriad of different attitudes towards technology.


    The first question that I feel many people are actually subconsciously asking themselves when they are confronted with new technology is a very basic one. Does this technology actually improve the quality of my life? When the technology in question is, for example, a plough, and formerly you were using hand tools to plough a field, then the answer is fairly obvious. When the technology is a video of a beer glass on an iphone that tilts correctly when you hold it up to your mouth, the benefits are a lot more difficult to discern. The technology appears to be technology just for the sake of it.
    There is also the affect that technology has on the community as a whole to consider. In the distant past communities were tight-knit affairs where everybody knew everybody else and could easily interact daily in the course of their everyday life. Technological changes have enabled people to now be spread far and wide and many such daily interactions have been lost. In my opinion it is no coincidence that many of the so much successful new technology such as skype, facebook, and twitter deals with compensating with this sense of loss. I feel that in many ways people can be separated into those that receive new technology while simultaneously feeling a sense of loss for life before the changes such technology brought about, and those who enthusiastically embrace new technology with no such feeling of loss. Some people love their old stereo record player, while others love their shiny new iphone.
    I feel both attitudes come with both advantages and dangers. For example, the nature of much recent technology makes possible dangers much more difficult to perceive and predict. Technology such as facebook, twitter, and mobile phones, for example, is now widespread, but very little research had been performed into the long term effects of using such technology. What does such technology actually cost in human terms? Facebook might be fun, but it is certainly no replacement for the chat over the garden wall with friends and neighbors. Plus it introduces a host of possible problems that may not be immediately apparent. Musings can now broadcast to ALL of your friends, regardless of whether they wish to hear them or not. And they are there for all time, under the control of somebody else, with no guarantee of what use such information may be put to in the future. States no longer have to compile detailed dossiers on their citizens in the time-honored Orwellian tradition because now citizens are writing their own. Reviews of such technology often come from people with a vested interest in promoting the technology being discussed, be it an advert at the side of the page, or shares in the company, which means that genuinely independent reviews of technology are becoming ever more difficult to find. Are technologies such as the iphone causing attention deficit problems in their users, for example, as is discussed in an entertaining context in the video below? Younger people certainly seem to be less patient to me, although that could just be old age creeping up on me!
    Many of the potential problems described above also apply in slightly different guises to technology for translation. Technology such as the Google translator toolkit which, incidentally, will be the subject of my next blog, may appear to be a gift from heaven, but also has the potential to be a grave mistake on the part of the translator should Google ever change their terms of use for such technology or should errors be made in its use by an over-enthusiastic translator who fails to consider problems such as potential confidentiality issues. Conversely, failure to adapt or take new technology on board could also cause the translator to fall behind and miss out on work that requires some knowledge of translation technology. Will use of such technology effect the way you translate? Will any such effects be beneficial or detrimental?
    My aim is therefore to attempt to answer such questions by taking an open-minded view somewhere in the middle ground. I intend to look carefully and independently at any possible advantages that new technology may provide, while keeping one eye on the concerns of the cautious adopter of technology with regards to possible side-effects or damage that adoption of such technology may cause. Facebook and twitter may be fun but are obviously no substitute for real friends and conversation. By the same token, translations produced by machine translation may have their uses, but they are no substitute for a translation by a real translator and will have specific problems related to the particular system employed. Translation memory can also provide assistance to the translator, but its use will also introduce a further set of possible pitfalls that need to be taken into consideration. My task will be to ignore all the shiny bells and whistles provided by the many products out there and consider the simple question of "does this technology actually help the translator to produce high quality translations more efficiently" by the time you take into account learning curves, running costs and potential damage that may be caused to the value of your skill?


    Speak again soon.
    Best regards,
    James Phillips
    Tags: translation iphone google translator toolkit facebook twitter
    Me!

    Blogs Up and Running!

    Wednesday, 24 June 2009, 11:07 AM
    by James Phillips
    Visible to anyone in the world
    I am pleased to announce that registered members of horsefrog.com can now host their own blogs. I will be adding my own first blog entry shortly on a subject that I know is close to all translator's hearts.
    Tags: blogs horsefrog translation

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