The UK’s Association of Translation Companies (ATC) is holding its annual conference in Manchester this year.
Entitled “The 2015 Language Industry Summit”, the conference will address the latest developments in the field, whether technological or connected to automated translation.
While the spectre of machine translation still looms over serious translation companies and freelancers, there is no question of its value in a globalised world where everything needs to be translated, especially on the Internet (which is humanly impossible) – and in a climate of increasingly tight budgets. Nonetheless, machine translation should be handled with care, and used only after serious reflection.
Various aspects of this theme will be addressed during the conference.
Incidentally, it is amusing to note that Skype, which has launched an automated interpreting feature based on the recordings of a large number of conversations, has sometimes come up with improbably vulgar phrases.
An example:
Instead of correctly translating the sentence “It’s nice to talk to you”, the software evidently misinterpreted the speaker’s words and rendered them in Chinese as “It’s f*cking nice to f*ck you”.
It is true that conversations on Skype are not always of an intellectual order – and given that the system is based on optimising recorded conversations…
Returning to the 2015 Language Industry Summit in Manchester:
Another theme will be the human factor and the close relationship that translation companies and freelancers ought to maintain. Starting from the observation that neither can live without the other, and that cooperation must come before any possible rivalry, Miklos Ban (Chairman of the Hungarian Association of Professional Language Service Providers) will relate the details of the agreement concluded between independent translators and his association – a win/win deal making for a positive and harmonious relationship between the two parties.
Extending this kind of agreement to Europe as a whole would be an important step for our profession.
We sometimes forget that competence and intuitu personae are interdependent when it comes to the quality of a translation.
Naturally the topic of social networks and their related activities will also be addressed.
The ATC conference is always a great place to exchange ideas. CG Traduction & Interprétation has decided to sponsor this event and develop a partnership despite not being able to participate this year.
In the same vein, next month will see CG get involved with the annual conference organised in New York by the Globalization and localization Association (GALA).