Trad Online

"From conversations with colleagues, I have heard of instances in which Google has returned 100% perfect matches on translation units containing proprietary client information (including company names). That means that somebody somewhere had already used Google Translate while working on sensitive documents."

So many conferences have been organized, associations established, lectures given, and academic papers written about standards in the translation and language industries. All of this has certainly been necessary and relevant. But at the same time it seems to be ignoring the simple truth about standards.

As I have no experience, I was wondering: does literary translation involve a little interpretation of the text? Thank you all!

Doit-on forcément aimer les livres que l'on traduit ? Dans cet article de la NYRB, Jonathan Raban rend compte de la toute dernière traduction de Madame Bovary en anglais [...]

I am working as a translator since about 3 years...I have heard of softwares that help to translate from one language to another..also, companies are developing translation tools that are domain/customer/country/language-specific, and entire folders filled with multiple files can be translated within minutes..and they are actually good!! [...]

Nice historical summary of MT from CCaps

Interesting article from the New York Times on the role of linguists in counter-terrorism.

Bonjour à toutes et à tous ! J'ai besoin de votre aide, de votre perception, de votre impression : Je viens de créer un blog pour le monde de l'entreprise ! [...]

I agree with your idea that it comes from pronounciation because in French this spelling variant doesn't exist - probably because in English minuscule and miniscule sound the same whereas in French you would hear the difference. Saying aloud "miniscule" is quite funny in my language, really :-) I have to imagine what a "scule" is and see myself looking at it through a magnifying glass.

I'd argue that for "high-value, life-saving information", and I'm thinking medical-related information particularly, having it translated by machines could be more dangerous than anything else, for when it's in your own language you tend to be confident that it's accurate. In 2007, in France, 4500 people were exposed to massive doses of X-rays because of wrongly-translated instructions for adjusting the device. Full story here, in French : http://www.lepost.fr/article/2007/09/13/1018000_des-notices-en-francais-c-est-imperatif.html Although I think MT could change the work of translators just like computers changed how Disney draftsmen work (in a positive way), I'm not sure that on its own MT would be so helpful and safe. But I must say that it's refreshing for once to have someone in favour of MT :-)

Interestingly, a study carried out by a French trade union for translators this year states that almost 40% of the 1000 translators who responded don't have any kind of degree in translation/interpretation, and that having followed a course in translation/interpretation does not guarantee higher prices. Even more : on average, translators who don't have such a degree have a turnover that is 16% superior to the others. Here's the original post I wrote with a link to the study http://tinyurl.com/35mutk5 - it makes you wonder whether this kind of theoretical knowledge on translation in even a plus…

I have developed this short questionnaire to ascertain the views of professional translators towards the new trends of openness, sharing and collaboration associated with web 2.0 technologies. [...]

Or any online multilingual law dictionaries that you may be able to recommend??

I would like to introduce to the translators community WikIdioms, the new project aimed at creating multi-lingual glossaries of different kinds. We have started with idiomatic expressions, thus the name. [...]

Cette étude est en anglais, mais je tenais à vous informer de sa publication : Conduite par WinterGreen Research, son titre : "Language Translation Software and Services Market Shares Strategies, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2009 to 2015" [...]

Oui, bien sûr, on commence par en rire. Ça fait du bien. Certes, mais ça amène aussi de l'eau à notre moulin. Je propose de stocker ce genre d'articles, d'en faire notre "anti-press book" [...]

I would like to share with you some thoughts about our future as translators in relation to recent major improvements in automated translation technology. Google Translate has emerged from the twilight zone from being a quick way to get the meaning of a language you don't know into an extremely useful tool to automate professional translations for you and me, saving time and effort. [...]

A few weeks ago, I published a survey on translation certification in my Facebook page. Would you be so kind as to leave your opinion on the theme? I will publish the results. Thank you all in advance for your participation

"Translation - getting it right" by Chris Durban, in English and several languages

As a translator, are you working freelance ? If so, what are the pros and cons and would you recommend it ?