And the winner is: A translation battle

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Previously we brought you a story that should put to bed (for the time being at least) who is more superior when it comes to translation services, man or machine? The showdown that was organised by the International Interpretation Translation Association in conjunction with Sejong Cyber University in order to get a real feel of how machine translations are when compared to traditional human translators. With all the advancements in translation technology of the past year alone such as the neural machine translation or NMT which self learns from over a million examples of over 100 languages and allows for a more holistic translation of sentences rather than word by word so would be perfect for those seeking say Portuguese translation services for non-professional reasons.

Just a reminder the human translators were represented by four professional translators who were pitted against three artificial intelligent (AI) machine translators which consisted of the western world behemoth Google translate from Google Inc. based in the USA, the self-learning hybrid translation software Systran machine translator from Systran International and Naver’s Papago from Naver Inc. which is Korea’s leading internet provider. All seven competitors were given 50 minutes to translate two random English articles into Korean and then two Korean articles to translate into English.

So standing in the red corner, they have been walking this Earth for roughly 200,000 years, they have risen to the top of the food chain, countless languages spoken and an unknown amount created; we have the Human “Homo sapiens” Translators! (CHEERS) And in the blue corner we have the younger, faster, and created by humans but maybe better than humans; Machine “Robot” Translators! (Boo’s obviously.) LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLEEEE!!!! Of course that’s not really how it happened but that’s how we like to think it might have happened.

It was tense, it was difficult, it was one hell of a battle, after all the pride of all translators and professional translation agencies and humans everywhere was on the line. But just as the bookies predicted the fan favourites, and still the champions of the translation world, the Humans did in fact come out on top. With the professional translators delivering the knockout blows by scoring an average out of 30, a massive 25 on the scorecard whilst the AI/machine translators scoring only between 10 and 15 for Korean translation services.

But man’s triumph over machine may not last so long, with more advancement the gap will surely be closing, with the NMT progressing and learning more it is only a matter of time before the machines take over hopefully not any time soon.

Should robots be taxed the same as humans?

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We all know how much technology has advanced over the last few decades at a rapid pace that even the fastest man on the planet Usain bolt cannot match! It’s sometimes hard to believe that 10 years ago the majority of us needed to physically go into a shop to purchase mobile phone credit or have to go into a local bank branch to make a payment or transfer money between accounts, friends and family or even more painful sit on the phone for hours waiting to get through to an actual human being whilst listening to the entire Abba catalogue as hold music. Gone are the days of such hassles with features such as mobile banking on 4G networks and WIFI allowing us to perform the same activities we had to leave our warm and cosy homes during the winter mornings which could have taken us a few hours to actually achieve what we intended, to now being able to do the same within minutes and within the pleasure and comfort of our homes.

As much as this type of technological advancement has occurred as with most things in life there is a downside. Many industries have automated their processes and as a result have had benefits such as increased productivity and reduced costs to the expense of human workers. Some reports have even suggested that in the USA robots will eliminate 6% of all jobs by 2021.

With the likes of driverless cars likely to be in full force in the future eliminating jobs for the likes of taxi drivers, drones being tipped to be the new delivery guys and advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) software such as computer assisted translation services which will have an impact on the way a translation agency manages its translations, these examples although benefit companies highly pose problems for employees in these positions.

Now that we have discussed touched on the potential threats that technology advancement may have on humans a topic of debate is whether such technology should be taxed the same as humans? Well technically speaking if a robot is replacing a human being who is now unemployed as a result then realistically you would think that the “robot” or the company using the robot should pay some type of tax on that wouldn’t you? It all really depends on the point of view that you are looking at this from.

From a company’s point of view you are more than likely to disregard this notion completely as this will save you money and although some may argue that an increased productivity means more profits therefore more company tax paid, this is not always the case as there are several ways companies enable themselves to pay less taxes as any accountant would tell you. Even the richest man in the world Bill Gates recently stated that he believes robots that steal human jobs should pay taxes, although European Union lawmakers rejected such a proposal in the past.

What are your thoughts on the idea of robots being taxed the same as humans?

Image by: European Space Agency ESA–G. Porter | Flickr

The ultimate translation showdown is here

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As one of the most talked about topics in the language translation and interpreting community, this issue of human translators versus machine translators is still a very undecided issue with some claiming that with all the advancements in technology giving machines the capabilities to translate from language to language without human interaction, that machine translations are the way to go. Whereas others are adamant that computers will not be able to reach the levels of human translators any time soon. If machines were to overtake human translators, what would this mean for the professional translation agency whose businesses are based on providing professional translation services? Or even worse what will happen to all the translators whose livelihoods are at stake?

Well thankfully for the moment at least it is not something we have to really worry about, it is not more than a hot debate in this present time because in truth although machine translations have advanced a great deal in the past couple of years thanks to the development of NMY (“neural machine translation.”), it’s fair to say machines are still somewhat lagging behind their human counterparts. This is because the sheer complexity of languages and even though machines can translate words and sentences in a select number of languages, it is not fluent yet and grammatical errors still occur as well as not taking issues such as localisation services into account, maybe one day it will be the norm but that is for the future.

To prove who is on top at the moment Korea’s International Interpretation Translation Association along with Sejong Cyber University are holding a competition pitting a professional human translator from Ewha Woman’s University against three machine translators in the shape of Naver’s Papago (a Korean translation app specialising in English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese), Systran’s machine translation solution (a self-learning hybrid translation software) and Google translate (probably the best known free translation software in the western world).

The big translation showdown will commence on Tuesday 21st February 2017 on the Sejong Cyber University website. Each contender will be given the task to translate two random English articles into Korean and two Korean articles into English with a time limit of 30 minutes per paragraph. The human translator for now is considered as the favourite but in the future machines and AI translations will become more and more prevalent, for example who wouldn’t want their Romanian translation services carried out in a matter of minutes and at a fraction of the cost? But hopefully like any industry the translation agencies and translators can find a way to adapt and live side by side with machine translations.

Why your business needs interpreting services

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In a modern world where the internet is making everything smaller as the days go by; making things like being able to communicate with loved ones or extended family from the other side of the world less of a hassle than going next door to talk to your neighbour, being able to have the ability to learn more things than you’ll ever learn in school or university, making things like a trip to the shops a thing of the past thanks to online shopping, but most importantly the internet has enabled small businesses to be able to compete with much larger businesses due to global accessibility.

Businesses can now be run from your bedroom by just one person alone. The rise of the small business has been possible because the internet has allowed them to do so. Many people are profiting off of buying and selling, creating apps, small scale retailing, translation services, investing in stocks to name a few and as a result are earning thousands if not millions of pounds with teams of less than 5 in some cases.

But with the massive rise of small businesses being set up every day most do not make it past the first year whether its due to poor planning, underestimating the financial translation and cost of running the business, how many customer numbers will be achieved or simply overestimating the success of the business and making a loss.

There is however one way that could skyrocket a business’s success and that is through the means of global marketing. Today businesses are able to have virtual offices anywhere in the world in order to gain a foothold in foreign markets. But virtual offices are not enough to help a business work and this is where translation and interpreting services can help. We have previously discussed how translation services can have a big impact on how your business is run but interpreting services could also have a major impact on your businesses’ success.

Imagine you are just about to put the finishing touches to a project for a new and potentially game changing client for your business that is the result of months of work and charming, and all you have to do is do is have a face-to-face interview with the director to seal the deal but there’s a problem your potential new clients director is from Israel and speaks mostly in Hebrew what do you do? Luckily for you, you have already been using professional Hebrew translation services from a professional translation agency and with this in mind you hire an esteemed Hebrew interpreter to mediate between English and Hebrew thus finalising the contract and boosting your businesses international standing.

This is just one way interpreting services can be used for your business. It is not only a fast translation service but it also gives your business a voice in another language.

Robots to Aid 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea

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Winter Olympics who watches that you may ask? It may be a surprise to many but the Winter Olympics may be more popular than you would imagine them to be. The first winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France in 1924 and have since grown to be a popular global event in the sporting world. In truth the Winter Olympics attracts viewer numbers in excess of 20 million across multiple platforms.

Winter Olympics traditionally includes sports that are practiced on snow and ice, sports such as ice hockey and snowboarding. Over the years the Winter Olympic Games have included events such as free skiing on a skip also known as Freestyle Mongul Skiing attracting more countries to participate and as a result increased interest in the sport from a wider audience.

The forthcoming winter Olympics due to be held in PyeongChang, South Korea between 9-25th Feb 2018 are expected to include 2500 competing athletes from 90 competing nations. Usually during these types of events a need for professional translation services or interpreting services are higly valuable to aid good communication for participants and the audience to help avoid embarrassing situations similar to what transpired during the 2015 Women’s FIFA World Cup where a twitter hashtag suggesting “Gonorrhoea for Sweden” was misinterpreted.

Now we know the Japanese are ahead when it comes to technology advancement and this latest reveal does not seem to be slowing them down. Hancom a Seoul based computer software company is set to reveal a new “artificial intelligence (AI) powered robot interpreter” for use at the 2018 Winter Oympic Games according to Korea Times. This human like robot is designed to emulate human-like facial expressions and is to be initially developed to translate 9 languages supporting Chinese translation services, Spanish translation services and French translation services to name a few with plans to expand in the future.

Will this development reduce the need for human translations? Now that is something to debate. Let us know your thoughts?

Image by: YOHNAP NEWS

Instant camera translation services?

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Are you about to go on your travels to experience a whole different culture and way of life but just don’t know the first thing about the language? Have you taken a new job abroad in order to broaden your horizons but have only learnt how to say hello in the native language? Or are you a first generation foreign-born individual who is visiting your parent’s homeland but have never bothered to learn the language of your ancestors? Well you probably should have put some effort into learning these languages but there is some good news for those who don’t have the time or don’t have the patience, these special translation services are perfect for you.

Google have offered us a unique fast translation service for the last year in which all you have to do is take a picture using the camera on your phone of the quote or sentence written in the language you want translated from and then it is instantly translated into whatever language you wish. For example if you were over in China and wanted to order food from a restaurant but had no idea what it was because the menu is written fully in Mandarin. Don’t panic! just whip out your phone head over to Google translate, set your language pairs e.g. Mandarin to English and click the camera icon and just like that you get an English translation and as a result you avoid ordering those prawns you hate. It also works the other way around where you will receive a Mandarin translation from the written English.

Google’s live camera translation feature can be used offline also by downloading the offline translation pack which is around 42MB with Google’s latest update adding the language pairs of Japanese to English and English to Japanese to the growing list of instant image translations. Of course this is never going to replace professional translation services carried out by human translator, but it’s definitely more convenient and useful in certain situations. So if you are ever in Munich reading German directions for some reason, you know you have portable German translation services at your fingertips, Or if you are out in Rome and even though you don’t speak Italian you choose the Italian menu anyway because you know you have Italian translation services in your back pocket.

Image by: Rich DeMuro

 

When a lack of translation services sparked an outrage

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This recent story is a one that highlights perfectly the need for professional translation services and localisation services when you are not familiar with the native language of the country you are operating in. Without the use of some sort of translation service, mistakes are likely to be made and it could result in having a comical effect like seen here, causing misunderstandings much like our previous reported story or even worse cause offence. Sadly the latter is exactly what happened to this restaurant owner in South Carolina, USA.

With all the issues and outrage surrounding immigration and migrants in the midst of Donald Trump’s presidential reign of the US, restaurant owner Sook “Sue” Shin unbeknownst to her had somehow managed to get herself and her restaurant involved into these political debates. Sue was just on the lookout for some new employees of the restaurant when she claims she came across a “help wanted” sign on eBay little did she know that this same sign would later make her restaurant go viral and not for any good reasons.

You see the help wanted sign she purchased had the phrase printed underneath “Minorities need not apply” in plain English along with a Spanish translation. With echoes of President Trump’s election campaign as you could imagine this didn’t go down well with the locals as one customer took a photo of the sign and posted it on Facebook, which of course sparked a massive backlash from the locals to ‘boycott’ the restaurant along with the apparently ‘racist’ owners.

But Sue quickly moved to take down the signs and put up a note to apologise wholeheartedly for any offence caused. Sue a Japanese native explained that English is not her first language, nor her husbands who is Korean and that she did not fully understand what the message had meant. This was further backed up by Melonie Henderson, an employee of two years who said “They thought it meant minors, not minorities,” she than went on to stress that Sue herself is a minority as well as the employees who work there.

Sue had also had to change her voicemail message to explain the situation and again apologise since they were getting abusive phone calls throughout the day. Despite Sue’s best efforts at reconciliation one regular customer of African-American ethnicity explained she was not comfortable eating at the restaurant after this incident. But it now seems that business has been getting back to normal as most customers have acknowledged this simple misunderstanding.

A simple misunderstanding it may be but due to the current political climate along with the migrant scepticism, you can’t help but think this could have all been avoided through a simple translation service. This incident could have major ramifications for the restaurants future due to an innocent mistake on something as menial as a help wanted sign. Or maybe not, but one thing is for sure if you are not fluent in the native language, seek professional services whether it is English, French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese translation services. Let this be a lesson to all businesses around the world.