| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | finding work in 2025 Thread poster: edward o loughlin
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Nicholas Isard 
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:40
Spanyol menyang Inggris
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Coming back to this, yes, I number of direct clients have simply started using ChatGPT or similar to translate new and blog pieces. They then simply upload them to their website. This used to constitute thousands of words a week for me to translate, but completely dried up last month.
I'm not overly sure how translators can say this is a positive development or "progress", certainly not from our perspective.
Yes, I could try to educate them, but if they're saving thousa... See more Coming back to this, yes, I number of direct clients have simply started using ChatGPT or similar to translate new and blog pieces. They then simply upload them to their website. This used to constitute thousands of words a week for me to translate, but completely dried up last month.
I'm not overly sure how translators can say this is a positive development or "progress", certainly not from our perspective.
Yes, I could try to educate them, but if they're saving thousands a month, having stilted, AI-sounding texts on their website (especially if their audience isn't native English speakers) probably won't bother them too much. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Vladimir Pochinov
Russian Federation
Local time: 10:40
Member
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| AI developments: progress and translators | May 2 |
Nicholas Isard wrote:
Coming back to this, yes, I number of direct clients have simply started using ChatGPT or similar to translate new and blog pieces. They then simply upload them to their website. This used to constitute thousands of words a week for me to translate, but completely dried up last month.
I'm not overly sure how translators can say this is a positive development or "progress", certainly not from our perspective.
Progress means moving forward for the human race, regardless of how it affects certain groups, such as translators (unless you're a modern Luddite, of course). AI developments show that disruptions in many industries and occupations are inevitable (think about copywriters, accountants, lawyers, drivers, teachers, you name it). People will just have to adapt to the new working environment.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 10:40
Member (2009)
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| Yes, adapt or leave | May 2 |
They won’t have to adapt, they can choose to leave for a different work environment. Some can choose to adapt, if it’s feasible for them. Let’s see how long it lasts for them, my predictions are not optimistic.
| | | | Nicholas Isard
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:40
Spanyol menyang Inggris
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Lingua 5B wrote:
They won’t have to adapt, they can choose to leave for a different work environment. Some can choose to adapt, if it’s feasible for them. Let’s see how long it lasts for them, my predictions are not optimistic.
I agree. Whilst you are definetely free to adapt, if that means competing with hundreds of other translators for peanuts, I don't see the point. Of course a few translators will make it through the other side - just as there are still a few thatchers around. However, I can't see it being worth it for most.
Also, I would add that yes, you can adapt, but my prediction is that give it 10 years and AI will be able to produce a traslation equivalent to human quality, except in a few extremely rare cases. I think on the whole translation isn't very well respected by end clients (my feeling is that they begrudgingly pay for it), so any way of cutting that cost will be welcome.
[Edited at 2025-05-02 13:47 GMT]
[Edited at 2025-05-02 13:49 GMT]
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Vladimir Pochinov
Russian Federation
Local time: 10:40
Member
Inggris menyang Rusia
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| Competition between MT post-editors | May 2 |
If you are an expert in law, medicine, nuclear physics, etc., you will not have to compete for peanuts on MTPE projects. You'll be able to secure higher MTPE rates.
| | | | Nicholas Isard
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:40
Spanyol menyang Inggris
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Vladimir Pochinov wrote:
If you are an expert in law, medicine, nuclear physics, etc., you will not have to compete for peanuts on MTPE projects. You'll be able to secure higher MTPE rates.
I agree, but this does not apply to 98% of translators. Even those who say they specialise in medicine often don't have extensive knowledge in the field. I know this as I would go through hundreds of CVs when I was a PM and many would say they specialise in say medicine, but no one really had the qualifications to back it up. Same goes for law, etc.
You're right - I think the future belongs to lawyers, doctors, etc. who decide to bring their knowledge and expertise into translation. I managed to find one doctor in the whole of Spain who was also a translator and she was fantastic, and commanded good rates.
[Edited at 2025-05-02 13:59 GMT]
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 10:40
Member (2009)
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Vladimir Pochinov wrote:
If you are an expert in law, medicine, nuclear physics, etc., you will not have to compete for peanuts on MTPE projects. You'll be able to secure higher MTPE rates.
Yes, but what’s the volume in these niches? I imagine for nuclear physics in Russian it may be feasible, but in my pair most certainly not. Wow, getting one nuclear physics text in ten years, really worth specializing for.
It’s about the demand in a certain pair, not someone’s superior translation skills (sorry for dashing dreams of translator superiority). If those skills mattered, the market wouldn’t be flooded with dilettantes, and now AI. Medical translation in my pair pays below 3 cents, and lately there’s severe use of AI for patient questionnaires, with a 1 cent PE rate.
Nicholas Isard wrote:
Vladimir Pochinov wrote:
If you are an expert in law, medicine, nuclear physics, etc., you will not have to compete for peanuts on MTPE projects. You'll be able to secure higher MTPE rates.
I agree, but this does not apply to 98% of translators. Even those who say they specialise in medicine often don't have extensive knowledge in the field. I know this as I would go through hundreds of CVs when I was a PM and many would say they specialise in say medicine, but no one really had the qualifications to back it up. Same goes for law, etc.
You're right - I think the future belongs to lawyers, doctors, etc. who decide to bring their knowledge and expertise into translation. I managed to find one doctor in the whole of Spain who was also a translator and she was fantastic, and commanded good rates. [Edited at 2025-05-02 13:59 GMT]
I also know a couple of doctors who do it. But they have very narrow subspecializations, and their translations are in the research context. Usually subspecialists have more free time on their hands, as the patient frequency tends to be lower. So their translation is a scientific research-translation blend.
It means lawyers will have two jobs in the future, and translators will have none? I don’t think lawyers are that idle, they have practice and clients to tend to. However, if they spot an opportunity to earn some extra cash by ignoring professional translation, they’ll do it, even if sloppy, as you said previously. Poor clients, the lawyers will bill them the full rate for translation, then run their legal documentation through GPT.
[Edited at 2025-05-02 14:35 GMT]
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:40
Member (2014)
Jepang menyang Inggris
Lieven Malaise wrote:
If I'm not mistaken he mentioned that the large majority of his customers were direct clients.
I think the issue was that - as he honestly admitted some time ago - he was unable to get clients (agency or direct) that paid well for normal translation and he found MTPE to be a workable solution to lowering costs to a level his price-sensitive clients found acceptable, at least for a while. (And who can blame him? He has a family to feed. We do what we must.)
But the problem is that, if you are working with clients at the low end for whom quality is not necessarily the determining factor, you are always going to be vulnerable to price/cost pressure. The day that MT reliably creates a translation that is roughly as good as yours, you're done.
And just in general, people in this conversation harping on quality seem to be forgetting that companies and their customers have been putting up with terrible or even zero translations for decades. Probably only a small fraction of total translations require a four-eyes level of quality, and only one pair of eyes need be human.
Maybe that day will come for all of us, I don't know. So far I still have some PMs at huge clients who occasionally send me raw Word documents, so they are not always using CAT, let alone MT. This leads me to hope that the day I am superseded is still some way off.
Incidentally, it's certainly not just about the pair - there are plenty of people in JP-EN struggling to get work - but also about the specialization and the person. Individual superiority of one kind or another is certainly one piece in the puzzle.
Regards,
Dan
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Mario Chávez
United States
Local time: 04:40
Member (2024)
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| Progress...or sped-up processes? | May 3 |
Globalization didn't turn out to be the great economic equalizer they promised. As it happens, globalization serves rich corporations and leaves the rest to fight for the scraps and leftovers.
Others have mentioned fast food, doing things faster for the sake of speed (I'm paraphrasing, in case someone feels curmudgeony enough to ask for quotable sources). I don't conflate progress with technology that makes things go increasingly faster. Just because things can be sourced from cheap... See more Globalization didn't turn out to be the great economic equalizer they promised. As it happens, globalization serves rich corporations and leaves the rest to fight for the scraps and leftovers.
Others have mentioned fast food, doing things faster for the sake of speed (I'm paraphrasing, in case someone feels curmudgeony enough to ask for quotable sources). I don't conflate progress with technology that makes things go increasingly faster. Just because things can be sourced from cheaper factories, assembled faster and sold at cheaper prices doesn't mean we're seeing progress. That's the opposite of progress.
Translation courses, translation opportunities are floundering in general. I don't see our profession as having a future anymore, except in certain niche areas. Universities are now corporate entities treating their students as paying clients, caring more about certificates and diplomas and little about careers.
And I wouldn't dismiss the old translator in the 2000s who preferred to write his translations on a typewriter rather than on a PC's keyboard. If a translator thinks he or she can render better work only if using the latest technology, that translator misunderstands the concept.
Vladimir Pochinov wrote:
Dan Lucas wrote:
Ultimately I guess that translators who don't use MTPE will be like those who don't use CAT - the work will dry up to a trickle except in very specific niches
I’ve just remembered a topic here as far back as early 2000, with one older British translator stating that he would never replace his typewriter with a PC. By the way, he used to deliver his translations by riding a bike. I don’t think he could get any international clients with his business setup.  ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:40
Member (2014)
Jepang menyang Inggris
Mario Chávez wrote:
If a translator thinks he or she can render better work only if using the latest technology, that translator misunderstands the concept.
I don't think most of us who use the latest technology think that way, and I personally agree with some of your points.
I imagine most of us do think that not being open to using such technology drastically limits the addressable market in 2025, perhaps to the point where translation work is no longer viable.
Dan
| | | | Vladimir Pochinov
Russian Federation
Local time: 10:40
Member
Inggris menyang Rusia
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| How freelance translators can combine current trends into one huge opportunity | May 4 |
Below are the main points from the article by James Hallett, a Marketing Manager at RWS, titled How freelance translators can combine current trends into one huge opportunity.
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Today, translators are faced with questions of how to meet client demands around speed, quality and cos... See more Below are the main points from the article by James Hallett, a Marketing Manager at RWS, titled How freelance translators can combine current trends into one huge opportunity.
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Today, translators are faced with questions of how to meet client demands around speed, quality and cost, as well as how emerging technologies will disrupt their business. The right approach can turn these challenges into opportunity. Let’s consider the key trends bearing down on the industry.
Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLM)
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Generative AI can support language professionals with tasks like transcreation, eliminating gender bias, and adapting content to specific sentence lengths.
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Machine translation now plays an integral role in the translation process – and eventually the same will be said for Gen AI and LLMS. So, we suggest keeping informed, embracing AI and using these technological enhancements to your advantage.
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Goodbye translators. And hello Language Specialists
The transformative influence of technology on the translator's role cannot be overstated. Once limited to bridging linguistic gaps and translating text, today's translators have evolved into versatile professionals. The majority now navigate a dynamic digital landscape, diverse formats, cultural intricacies, and regulatory frameworks – all while maintaining a need for speed.
This evolution demands new skills, utilization of advanced tools, and innovative approaches to work. Everything has undergone a paradigm shift for today's language professionals, which means the traditional role of the translator is changing. Yet, amidst these transformations, there's always been one constant: the job title. It's time to bid farewell to "translators" and embrace the era of "Language Specialists".
AI crowdsourcing
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DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) in the workforce continues to be a top priority for businesses...
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What does this mean for the translator? Well, as with hyper-localization, there are opportunities for translators who can help organizations to reflect their DEI values when they localize content. This can be particularly important in assessing the quality of MT or any AI-powered translation, because machines are notorious for reflecting biases of the past.
How cloud-first working and the subject matter expert became best friends
The adoption of cloud-first working is gaining traction in the localization industry, particularly in functions benefiting from the accessibility of centralized, cloud-stored linguistic assets and cloud-managed processes. A prevalent combination involves cloud-based translation management coupled with a desktop-based translation or post-editing tool.
With the ease of deploying and accessing cloud solutions and the notable improvement in machine translation (MT) quality, there's a noticeable shift towards cloud-based translation review by subject matter experts (SMEs) who aren't necessarily translation professionals.
This trend is more prominent in subject areas demanding specialized knowledge and precise use of terminology. Organizations are increasingly exploring the 'SME-as-post-editor' model, relying on MT with SMEs editing as needed, with Large Language Models (LLMs) accelerating this trend.
And there's no reason this trend can't also be leveraged by IT-savvy freelancers. For this model to work, somebody needs to organize the SME-only workflow, create templates, organize TMs, oversee MT/AI finetuning, develop prompts or train SMEs in prompt engineering, and generally offer the appropriate level of support. Who would suit this role better than a freelance translator with a deep knowledge of translation technology? Freelancers can act as the gatekeepers to help on-board SMEs with the correct processes.
However, specialist freelance translators may be questioning what this means for them and their careers. With the amount of translatable content continuing to rise, we believe there will be a steady flow of work for everyone, regardless of which model you support.
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The bottom line (as I see it) is that you need either to take it (and adapt accordingly) or leave it. Whether we like it or not. Because these new trends are here to stay and evolve further. Personally, I'm prepared to post-edit MT- or linguistic AI-generated output. I think it would be better than editing horrible translations produced by some humans ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mario Chávez
United States
Local time: 04:40
Member (2024)
Inggris menyang Spanyol
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| Your definition of progress | May 4 |
...sounds a tad fatalistic to me. To resign to a particular set of circumstances has nothing to do with progress. And progress doesn't necessarily depend on technologies. Surely we can make some distinctions here: effective vaccines against a host of diseases is certainly progress for everyone, not just the ill. Better salaries for employees in a variety of sectors so that they can make a decent living for themselves and their families, that's progress for humanity.
But technologie... See more ...sounds a tad fatalistic to me. To resign to a particular set of circumstances has nothing to do with progress. And progress doesn't necessarily depend on technologies. Surely we can make some distinctions here: effective vaccines against a host of diseases is certainly progress for everyone, not just the ill. Better salaries for employees in a variety of sectors so that they can make a decent living for themselves and their families, that's progress for humanity.
But technologies that are designed to enrich a few, that's not progress.
Vladimir Pochinov wrote:
Nicholas Isard wrote:
Coming back to this, yes, I number of direct clients have simply started using ChatGPT or similar to translate new and blog pieces. They then simply upload them to their website. This used to constitute thousands of words a week for me to translate, but completely dried up last month.
I'm not overly sure how translators can say this is a positive development or "progress", certainly not from our perspective.
Progress means moving forward for the human race, regardless of how it affects certain groups, such as translators (unless you're a modern Luddite, of course). AI developments show that disruptions in many industries and occupations are inevitable (think about copywriters, accountants, lawyers, drivers, teachers, you name it). People will just have to adapt to the new working environment. ▲ Collapse
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Nicholas Isard
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:40
Spanyol menyang Inggris
+ ...
| The industry is certainly changing | May 4 |
A lot of very interesting points made here. The way I see it AI is not a bad thing per se, but what really annoys me is the way some big agencies are selling MT as something it's not. That means clients are falling for it without being able to make an informed decision.
Anyway, I personally wouldn't recommend anyone does a BA in Translation or becomes a translator in this climate. Yes, you might make it with a lot of perseverance, but there are many other fields that would give you ... See more A lot of very interesting points made here. The way I see it AI is not a bad thing per se, but what really annoys me is the way some big agencies are selling MT as something it's not. That means clients are falling for it without being able to make an informed decision.
Anyway, I personally wouldn't recommend anyone does a BA in Translation or becomes a translator in this climate. Yes, you might make it with a lot of perseverance, but there are many other fields that would give you better security and a much more secure return on your investment. As I say, after 12 years, last month was the first month I've not had a single project. It's feels like starting out all over again after more than a decade, except unlike in 2010, simply sending CVs off, having a website, etc. doesn't seem to be enough. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:40
Member (2014)
Jepang menyang Inggris
Mario Chávez wrote:
Better salaries for employees in a variety of sectors so that they can make a decent living for themselves and their families, that's progress for humanity.
Not if it means that resources that could be better deployed elsewhere are locked into an industry with low or negative returns. Those resources should be shifted to an area of growth, so that it can go into the salaries of employees who are creating value.
If an industry is not generating decent returns, that is a signal for those involved to go elsewhere.
The fact is, none of us have a right to a decent wage in a particular industry or profession of choice.
The related idea of a priori setting of prices and wages, which has been raised more than once in these forums, is a bad one. Ignoring or destroying price signals (by protecting inefficient companies from their competition, for example) is a recipe for inefficiency and stagnation, and prevents resources getting to where they can be most productively used. That doesn't help humanity.
I also don't see how making AI available to hundreds of millions of people for a nominal cost hurts humanity in general. For most people it's going to be very useful, either directly when used as a tool or indirectly (when somebody else uses it as a tool, for instance to detect that early stage cancer of yours).
I certainly don't mind a few people getting very wealthy on the back of it if that is the outcome, any more than I minded a few people getting very wealthy on the back of the internet. The net benefit to humanity has been tremendous. Why should I be getting envious about the people who made it possible?
Regards,
Dan
| | | | Mario Chávez
United States
Local time: 04:40
Member (2024)
Inggris menyang Spanyol
+ ...
| Yes, the market is changing and so is the profession | May 5 |
It is discouraging. About 25-30 years ago, one could always reach out to agencies over the phone, or refresh professional contacts for opportunities. In 2-3 months, one was again up and running. That was our way of marketing ourselves. None of that personal branding nonsense one hears these days.
I disagree, however, with the mindset of pursuing a career that offers the best way of making a living. That's too utilitarian and heartless in a way. I abhor the corporate universi... See more It is discouraging. About 25-30 years ago, one could always reach out to agencies over the phone, or refresh professional contacts for opportunities. In 2-3 months, one was again up and running. That was our way of marketing ourselves. None of that personal branding nonsense one hears these days.
I disagree, however, with the mindset of pursuing a career that offers the best way of making a living. That's too utilitarian and heartless in a way. I abhor the corporate university. I went to university in the day when I could choose to study what interested me and not worrying whether I could make good money off it.
But if a translator wants to expand his/her horizons with his/her degree, there are other areas for professional fulfillment, especially if that translator doesn't want to be seen as a commodity.
MC
Nicholas Isard wrote:
A lot of very interesting points made here. The way I see it AI is not a bad thing per se, but what really annoys me is the way some big agencies are selling MT as something it's not. That means clients are falling for it without being able to make an informed decision.
Anyway, I personally wouldn't recommend anyone does a BA in Translation or becomes a translator in this climate. Yes, you might make it with a lot of perseverance, but there are many other fields that would give you better security and a much more secure return on your investment. As I say, after 12 years, last month was the first month I've not had a single project. It's feels like starting out all over again after more than a decade, except unlike in 2010, simply sending CVs off, having a website, etc. doesn't seem to be enough. ▲ Collapse
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