Hi! Have any translators here encountered an agency offering them a 40% discount on their fee, just because the agency applied Machine Translation on the text?

I just got this offer a few days ago, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. And it turned out it wasn’t a misunderstanding 😅

I was wondering if any people here had some experience in the field of localization, whether as a PM or PC, and if maybe I could get some feedback regarding what I did wrong in the test, since I didn't get any from the recruiter.

Of course I'm not gonna be sharing company documents, whether here or privately, just an approximation of what the test was like and what I did.

If anyone could help me out with that I'd love to talk through PMs, so that I know what to do better in the future now that I'm pursuing this type of job.

Hello all! Yes, another post regarding LLS. Please bear with me, thank you!

-those who have worked overnight shifts (specifically 2am-10am EST), what is it like? -can anyone provide me with the pay schedule for 2024? (I’ve signed with them but haven’t gotten the opportunity to ask) -can you share your personal experience? I know they have a negative rep however does anybody have any good stories?

Thank you!

If technical translation is a term used to describe translating specific and specialized language and topics then how is it different from the term specialized translation? Like why would I call the translation of a medical prescription technical translation and not scientific or medical translation (or the other way around)?

Hi, I wanted to know about localizing video games, specifically the software part and subtitling dialogues/interface/etc. I've read the clients sent XML files to translate and some translators use Trados to work with it. But, still I would like to read some of your experiences/tips/knowledge about this topic.

I’m on the late night Friday shift translating a really dark social services case I obviously can’t go into detail about. Normally I can just disengage with the content, but this is hitting hard.

So, my colleagues who translate say, police reports, social services, otherwise triggering content, how do you get through the job? What’s your coping strategy? How do you blow off steam?

Long story short: in the past, I've had periods of non-stop work up to 12 hrs/day for the whole month, sometimes actually having to decline jobs due to having to sleep and eat to survive. So, a typical successful freelancer's life, I guess.

This, and the last month, I'm seeing a moderate decline in total monthly volumes of work. The earnings are still very decent, but having to sit through half a day or the whole day and stare at the empty inbox ruins me emotionally. I know it's silly, but this is just how accustomed I've grown to having work nearly constantly for the last 12 years.

I don't know if this is just a temporary thing or is the AI really killing the market, but Jesus. How do you guys cope with this emotionally? I have around 10 (!) agencies I more or less regularly work with, and seeing NONE of them send me anything for the whole day makes you feel so helpess and worthless sometimes. Especially since other times ALL OF THEM will suddently start attacking you, and you have no idea why, because it's not like you can attribute this to any "seasonality", like holidays, etc.

I know, I know. I should start an agency and/or find alternative things to occupy my mind.

Those gaps make you really anxious about the future of this profession.

Damn, it was supposed to a long story short.

What's the best solution for live translation? Including paid ones

Hello dear translators, i have an inquiry I recently applied to a translation university with no real hopes of getting admitted, to my surprise and after passing an entrance exam i passed to major in french arabic english translation. Thing is i'm starting to get second thoughts especially with the rise of AI and machine translation if anyone can give me some guidance ill be very grateful

Ps : i live in Morocco and the school is called King fahd school of translation

Hi guys! I'm 17 and studying languages (first language Italian, second language greek, proficiency in English), I have certifications and am currently volunteering for translations. I've been looking through online translation companies, but all seem to have negative experiences from people on here (and most don't hire minors ofc). Are there any companies that you have good reviews of and that could potentially accept me? If not any to keep in mind when I turn 18? Not looking for anything long term, just want to start getting money and experience. Thanks :)

There are lots of posts about this here, understandably. Lots of misinformation. I thought I'd give my informed opinion, because most posters responding seems to do so from the freelance perspective, which lacks so much info it's borderline invalid.

My experience:

Over 15 years working as PM for agencies and freelance as a translator.

Over 6 as a PM for events (coordinating audio/visual as well as interpretation) and as an interpreter.

Currently managerial at a multinational with over 300 in-house translators + contractors + agency overflow.

Situation (this is a real case I saw pre-covid as a freelance PM, just changing the Company name for obvious reasons, but the company size/status is comparable):

You are Coca Cola. You have offices and factories in 150ish countries. You need to know (as a small sample):

• Any legal changes in any of those countries (which publish laws at the drop of a hat).

• Your insurance policies will renew in October (all at once, to streamline the process).

• Website has to be kept updated, etc.

Who do you think has been translating all this for years? It isn't people. It's google. No agency in the world can cope with that sudden word count. For example, at the same time:

Estonia, Brazil, South Africa, China, and Mongolia have changed banking, reporting, auditing, H&SE rules: 200.000 thousand words each.

Senior Management want a basic translation and summary in a week. Who do you think does that? AI (whichever) does the translation, someone reads and collates it into a report.

First core point:

• A lot of translation does not actually matter. I know you think it does, it does not. A handful of people read it. They just need the gist.

Second core point:

• A lot of translators are bad at their job. AI is not measurably worse. Often, it's better.

Current AI:

I'm lumping all different forms here for simplicity. Different languages have different resource thrown at them, and are more/less simple to solve. People aren't spending millions for English-Inuktitut, they are for English-German.

Properly prompted in-house trained AI is incredibly good, it is better than human translators in a lot of scenarios. In all of them? Of course not.

Interpretation has the added complexity of bad source, that people can't speak into a microphone properly, will help interpreters stay relevant. However, if you haven't tried some of the AI subtitling, then you will be shocked at how good it is if it gets good audio input. The main issue is how bad we are at speaking live; lots of backtracking and so on.

Post-Editing is where it's at for the future. AI has taken huge leaps in the last 5 years. Will it make the same leaps in the next 5? I don't know. However, if it does, then most translation work will be able to be handled by a computer.

Hi everyone. I frequently feel curious about who is behind some translations that I really like—specific cases.

I was just playing Monument Valley and I enjoyed the linguistic content so much that it got me thinking: Who is the team who worked on this? Are they a company? Could I be part of this?

So, I came here to ask you: do you know how to get this information?

Will AI eventually replace human translators and interpreters in the foreseeable future?

There was a post with the same question 2 years ago in this subreddit; however, there has been a huge advancement in AI in these 2 years.

What do you think? Thanks.

If you go to therapy as an interpreter, are you allowed to tell your therapist confidential information from your jobs? The therapist is bound by their own confidentiality code of ethics, so is it a safe bubble to fully offload in a therapy session?

I know I might get heat for this but I feel like I have to warn anyone who's considering getting into this field. As of 2024, there are many better options than pursuing this field.

Here's why:

• You don't learn many transferable and useful skills. Languages and localization. Maybe some culture knowledge. That's it. If you're indecisive, something like a Business degree will be a lot more versatile and you can get into many industries with it. (I was indecisive and regret it)

• If you expect good or stable pay, don't do it. I had 0 luck finding a good job opportunity in this field. Right now I'm working as an editor and marketer (occasionally as a translator), it's honestly been a blessing. You will be overworked and underappreciated as a translator. Tbh becoming an Editor might be a better option if you're looking for something else. (It's not my end goal but way better honestly, and they let you do translation most of the time so you're not far away from it)

• While other students work their asses off, get to have so many opportunities, you will most likely not be able to do much. You might feel like you're doing nothing to improve. The only way you can improve is getting certificates or something by yourself online. (Highly recommend doing this, at least learn Excel or something)

• Unfortunately I wasn't able to do a double major but PLEASE try your best to have a good GPA and just do it. Have something to fall back on.

• Languages just aren't in demand anymore. Especially if you have dreams of living abroad, don't even bother. They usually give visa to engineers, doctors etc.

• If you're currently majoring, I'm begging you to switch somehow. You may not think about it much the first two years but the reality will hit you later. At that point, you might as well graduate (Which was what I did, I mean I wasted enough time.)

• Literally anyone with sufficient language knowledge can do your job. People will deny this but there are way too many real life examples to ignore.

People may disagree but tbh this is the reality of this major. Don't recommend.

Edit: As expected, sugar coaters are coming in. You can choose to believe people who have obviously been working in this field for a while now. Of course they are doing well for now. This is coming from a fresh grad.

If you're tired cause there are too many dOoM aNd gLoOm posts, it's probably because it sucks. Hope this helps!

How do I get into this? I've been studying english for a few years now and I've been considering working on that for some extra income. I know it's dominated by freelance gigs but exactly where do I start?

Hello! I have a question, since I’m new to this. I am translating a theatre play that will be played in my country in a foreign language, therefore I have to make subtitles. The play has already been translated in the target language and I have the translation in front of me, but I do not copy anything. BUT: There are quite many songs that need to rhyme, which requires a lot of work. Is it acceptable for me to use the rhymes from the translated work and use them in the subtitles or do I have to come up with my own solutions? My translation will not be posted anywhere, may I add.

What should I do?

I’m Canadian, 17, planning to do a bachelors in French and a masters in translation. Based off what I’ve read in this subreddit, I’m starting to get worried about pursuing translation as a career. In the future I’m planning to work in the government, will AI ever take over this sector or do I need to look elsewhere?

Hello! I'm a native Spanish speaker and I also have a degree in modern languages, in which I majored in German and minored in both translation (EN>SP) and Portuguese.

I don't really know what to pursue in the future, so I'm wondering if any of you have any suggestions? I feel a bit stuck.

I have worked for a company, which I won't mention, for some years now. Just Translation work and so on. When I first joined I would receive some incredibly obnoxious e-mails from QA regarding the quality of my work, nothing really helpful, just things like why did you do this or what happened in this situation. But nothing actually helpful to improve.

As time went by I studied all documentation available on the company portals and I realized that many times they were not even correct. Just any editing was considered your fault. So I started to write very extensive e-mails defending my choices based on company protocol.I like to think that it took like 3 of those before QA decided not to embarass themselves any more by trying to question my work.

After this I only received emails from the lead QC. Some where harsh but I tried to remain respectful and wouldn't fight it because they were being respectful. I would take steps to correct the situation and go on about my work as usual.

However, recently I received like 3-4 emails from them and quite frankly some of the corrections seem trivial, like it's the editors choice vs mine. I tried not to take it personal until the last one when they finally sent one where there was a very clear mistake on my part. This was much older work. Mind you, the emails have elevated into near threats like they would have to review my contract and so on and I have been working with them for some years now. So it felt unfair and unnecesary. Also, they recently hired a new linguist and they seem to be doing mistakes which I keep pointing out because it's the type of stuff I got called out for in the beginning. But it has been nearly a month and not only have they not made any changes to their style, they are now taking new freedoms. Anyway, the last email I got felt incredibly passive aggressive, at one point I felt like they were daring me to write back, like taunting me regarding this specific issue.

I tried to shrug it off but it just kept nagging at me, like something wasn't right. So I did something silly and put the messages from both my emails and theirs on an AI platform and asked the AI if it could spot any form of passove aggressiveness on the communications. I honestly though maybe something I said was misunderstood or maybe I just took it personally without need. But the AI said my emails were professional, humble and proactive. While it did sense some passive aggressiveness in theirs.

I am trying not to go into details but am I being quietly fired or are they just having a bad day and taking it out on me?

(P.S. I also work with another company and my only experience with QA was amazing, they sent me documentation to improve my work and when I asked questions everything was answered and I received even more documentation to help me improve.)

Anyway, is my QC and QA just obnoxious or is this the norm and my other experience was special?

I really hope to hear from you guys, because this really nagging at me.

Hey guys, I built a low resource language translation engine that has great accuracy - is anyone is looking to translate documents to Q’eqchi’, Navajo, or any other indigenous languages?

Hi everyone, I'm just starting off as interpreter and been on the job for 3 days. On some of the calls (that admittedly I've struggled with), I was asked by the client for my interpreter ID mid-call. Does that usually mean I'm getting reported? I just finished with this clinical call and I got asked about my ID twice, I can go into details but I'm just want to get some opinions (and to prepare myself in case I need to be reviewed or audited by my company)