| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | "POST-EDITING" (yes or no) Thread poster: Michael Beijer
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David Howard (X) 
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:34
French to English
+ ...
| If MT were that good... | May 4, 2011 |
...we'd be using it ourselves to save time. The fact is it often takes longer to re-write poor English than to translate directly.
| | | | | Say no to post-editing | May 4, 2011 |
David Howard wrote:
...we'd be using it ourselves to save time. The fact is it often takes longer to re-write poor English than to translate directly.
Agree! And moreover, the outcome from post-editing is still of lower quality than if the client had ordered a human translation right away.
For some years now, quite a few agencies have been asking us not to charge for 100 % matches in translations done with CAT (but they still want us to check up these matches). Post-editing seems to be the next step towards reducing the prices for translations. Any translator with a professional view of his/her work either has to say no to post-editing, or charge a decent hourly rate.
| | | | | Couldn't agree more | May 4, 2011 |
Selcuk Akyuz wrote:
Tom in London wrote:
I agree completely. Foolishly I recently accepted a job like this, for half of my usual rate, and ended up doing a major rewrite.
If in future I ever accept such work again I will charge 90% of my usual rate.
One should even ask for 120 or 130% of the full rate because you will first read the original, then read the MT, sometimes delete all the sentence, replace the terms or change the word order.
That's what I do. Interestingly, no-one has ever assigned me a PE job after learning my rates.
| | | | Jenn Mercer
United States
Local time: 01:34
Member (2009)
French to English
| In house only | May 4, 2011 |
Clive Phillips wrote:
I agree there's nothing more disheartening, nay infuriating, than a post-editing job that becomes a re-write. And if it's not properly remunerated, you're not likely ever to want to do post-editing again.
Where it can be satisfying though, and I realise this is of little interest to freelances, is for a salaried in-house translator regularly post-editing texts in a limited specialist subject area. Over time, her/his "corrections" will improve the performance of the (procured) in-house machine translation program (Systran or whatever) as post-editing effort gradually reduces. This has been my experience in the past.
While I see machine translation as a freelance's tool to be used with circumspection, I have much sympathy with the thrust of Michael's argument, especially as I feel a freelance should be paid at a level commensurate with her/his track record, experience, qualifications and skills, against the background of prevailing market rates.
I have to agree with this sentiment, not only in terms of practicality, but also pay. This takes away the conflict over how much to charge as an in-house translator would presumably be salaried. If the right software (i.e. not just google translator) were used, the material could be kept confidential.
As a freelance translator, this is a non-starter for me. I have no interest in being paid pennies on the dollar for a work that may very well need to be restarted from scratch. The quality will vary not just from job to job, but from phrase to phrase because the topics are so variable. In addition, being paid per hour only helps so much as the MT jobs I have been offered assume that the hours to work are sharply limited.
From a personal standpoint, I have no interest in MT work as it is essentially editing and I prefer the "writing" side of translation. This is not an argument against the field itself as much as it is a matter of taste. I would just warn those who do like this type of fiddly work to make sure they are well-compensated.
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Allison Wright (X)
Portugal
Local time: 06:34
When Google translate manages a successful De-En translation of the "lassen etwas ... zu werden" construction, and similar, then perhaps. Until then, an emphatic no!
I have noticed that Google can produce some very nice sounding paragraphs. The only problem is that their meaning is substantially different from the source text (on a deep structure level to boot!). Oh well, as long as it sounds nice.
| | | | | Perfect timing! | May 4, 2011 |
Minutes before seeing this forum topic, I received an email from a very good client of mine, asking if I would be interested in editing 35k words this month at 1000 words/hour at a relatively low hourly rate. I've translated lots of documents for the same end client, so I'm a logical choice for them.
While I'm sympathetic to my client, even telling myself that the rate isn't as bad when I factor in the current EUR-USD exchange rate, my workload is always high. I can't imagine having... See more Minutes before seeing this forum topic, I received an email from a very good client of mine, asking if I would be interested in editing 35k words this month at 1000 words/hour at a relatively low hourly rate. I've translated lots of documents for the same end client, so I'm a logical choice for them.
While I'm sympathetic to my client, even telling myself that the rate isn't as bad when I factor in the current EUR-USD exchange rate, my workload is always high. I can't imagine having to turn down enjoyable, more rewarding work later because I'm busy working on this mess.
I'm turning down the project. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:34
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Excellent point | May 4, 2011 |
David Howard wrote:
...we'd be using it ourselves to save time.
Excellent point, David - that thought hadn't occurred to me !
[Edited at 2011-05-04 21:18 GMT]
| | | | Laurent KRAULAND (X)
France
Local time: 07:34
French to German
+ ...
| Pushing this a little further... | May 4, 2011 |
Tom in London wrote:
David Howard wrote:
...we'd be using it ourselves to save time.
Excellent point, David - that thought hadn't occurred to me !
If MT were that good, we would already be looking for other occupations.
[Edited at 2011-05-04 23:21 GMT]
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Steven Capsuto
United States
Local time: 01:34
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| MT vs translation | May 5, 2011 |
I don't accept jobs post-editing MT. For years, I explained to clients that it takes longer to fix a bad translation than to do a good one from scratch.
Recently, I decided to test whether my subjective impression about that was true. I did some experiments to see which process was faster: machine translation + post editing or translating texts from scratch myself. Obviously the results are anecdotal and can't be generalized, but here's what I found:
In four of my langu... See more I don't accept jobs post-editing MT. For years, I explained to clients that it takes longer to fix a bad translation than to do a good one from scratch.
Recently, I decided to test whether my subjective impression about that was true. I did some experiments to see which process was faster: machine translation + post editing or translating texts from scratch myself. Obviously the results are anecdotal and can't be generalized, but here's what I found:
In four of my language pairs, translating from scratch was significantly faster and produced a more natural, flowing target text.
In one of my language pairs, MT + post editing was faster. However, even in this pair, translating from scratch produced more natural-sounding results than MT+editing.
So for now, MT is not part of my standard workflow and I don't accept post-editing jobs.
[Edited at 2011-05-06 01:11 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Post-editing can be a business opportunity | May 7, 2011 |
Seems there are only negative comments on post-editing. Where are the positives? Are post-editors intimidated to respond???
I've been doing lots of post-editing work on a a large project since 2009. To me, it's proven to be interesting work as I work in my area of specialisation and post-editing has provided me with challenges and business opportunities. And isn't that what freelancing is all about? Running a business and grabbing on opportunity as it arises?
To me, pos... See more Seems there are only negative comments on post-editing. Where are the positives? Are post-editors intimidated to respond???
I've been doing lots of post-editing work on a a large project since 2009. To me, it's proven to be interesting work as I work in my area of specialisation and post-editing has provided me with challenges and business opportunities. And isn't that what freelancing is all about? Running a business and grabbing on opportunity as it arises?
To me, post-editing is a service that freelancers can decide to offer. There is a market for it. One can take advantage of it or not. And just as with translating, one can accept the rates being offered or negotiate one's own.
I agree that a post-edited text may read differently than a text that has been translated and checked by humans. But the purpose of post-edited texts is usually different and the lesser linguistic quality may well be acceptable for the client's purpose. The post-editing guidelines by TAUS describe the different levels of end quality required and the post-editing involved:
http://www.translationautomation.com/machine-translation-post-editing-guidelines.html
[Edited at 2011-05-08 01:17 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | kenny2006woo (X)
Local time: 14:34
English to Chinese
| Would you consider taking the job if the draft translation is not so bad? | May 7, 2011 |
Phil Hand wrote:
In my pair, a lot of translators are native Chinese speakers translating into English. Translation companies try to get away with paying peanuts for a Chinese translator, then peanuts for a native English "polisher". I don't accept these jobs, but a lot of people do.
It’s been my opinion that very few Chinese translators can produce a decent piece of English translation independently. But let’s say if the draft translation is fairly good and the rate is reasonable, would you like to be its polisher?
| | | | | I see no difference for myself | May 7, 2011 |
If I am asked to edit a translation, I ask to see it. (Unless I know the translator and have worked with his/her texts before, in which case I know what level of quality I would get.)
If the translation is at the minimum quality level that I consider worth editing (as opposed to retranslating from scratch), I would send my quote based on the estimated time it would take me to edit it.
It doesn't matter to me whether the translation was produced by a human or by a computer, all I care... See more If I am asked to edit a translation, I ask to see it. (Unless I know the translator and have worked with his/her texts before, in which case I know what level of quality I would get.)
If the translation is at the minimum quality level that I consider worth editing (as opposed to retranslating from scratch), I would send my quote based on the estimated time it would take me to edit it.
It doesn't matter to me whether the translation was produced by a human or by a computer, all I care about is the quality. I have rejected human translations in the past, because they were so bad. I am pretty sure they were human translations, because of the type of mistakes. MT makes different type of mistakes than humans, at least in my language pairs.
I have yet to see good quality MT output in my language pairs, but if it appears, I think I would handle it the same way as any other editing job - see above (not taking it unseen, and charge based on time needed).
Katalin ▲ Collapse
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Phil Hand
China
Local time: 14:34
Chinese to English
| Kenny - under the right circumstances | May 7, 2011 |
I do do some editing/proofing/polishing. I have one ongoing job where I edit medical translations. I'm not competent to do the translation myself, but the translators this agency finds are excellent. Usually they just need some grammar and formatting corrections. So, for highly technical texts, I'm happy to do language clean-up.
The other kind of editing job that I will accept is when a piece has been written directly in English by a non-native speaker.
| | | | Ade Indarta
Indonesia
Local time: 13:34
Member (2007)
English to Indonesian
| Different level of quality | May 9, 2011 |
Tineke Van Beukering wrote:
I agree that a post-edited text may read differently than a text that has been translated and checked by humans. But the purpose of post-edited texts is usually different and the lesser linguistic quality may well be acceptable for the client's purpose. The post-editing guidelines by TAUS describe the different levels of end quality required and the post-editing involved:
http://www.translationautomation.com/machine-translation-post-editing-guidelines.html
[Edited at 2011-05-08 01:17 GMT]
I think Tineke is right. Post-editing is supposed to deliver different level of quality than human translation. The client knows (or should know) about this. So if you are doing post-editing but ends up retranslating the MT, it's your lost.
Regards,
Ade
| | | | Laurent KRAULAND (X)
France
Local time: 07:34
French to German
+ ...
| There would not be such a stern opposition... | May 9, 2011 |
if the clients were honest enough to say clearly and from the beginning that such jobs are actually post-editing and not proofreading.
Furthermore I have yet to meet a client who'd ask for "good enough quality".
Ade Indarta wrote:
Tineke Van Beukering wrote:
I agree that a post-edited text may read differently than a text that has been translated and checked by humans. But the purpose of post-edited texts is usually different and the lesser linguistic quality may well be acceptable for the client's purpose. The post-editing guidelines by TAUS describe the different levels of end quality required and the post-editing involved:
http://www.translationautomation.com/machine-translation-post-editing-guidelines.html
[Edited at 2011-05-08 01:17 GMT]
I think Tineke is right. Post-editing is supposed to deliver different level of quality than human translation. The client knows (or should know) about this. So if you are doing post-editing but ends up retranslating the MT, it's your lost.
Regards,
Ade
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