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A translation iteration experiment: looking for English-Spanish & Spanish-English translators
Thread poster: Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 02:00
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
10% complete! Jan 28, 2010

The experiment continues. 10% (one iteration) is complete now. I had answered the survey myself before the iteration was complete, just to avoid changing my mind along time.

 
Pablo Bouvier
Pablo Bouvier  Identity Verified
Local time: 02:00
German to Spanish
+ ...
Survey about the translation iteration experiment Jan 28, 2010

Lucia Colombino wrote:

You are a gentleman! I asked Tomás who was taking the bets...


Edited to add: Done

[Edited at 2010-01-28 17:40 GMT]


Hi Lucia: Errrr, I am just collecting the money. (Tomás does not know...)
But, I hope to be able to flee to some latin-american country that hasn't already any extradition agreement with the EC...


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Dear colleagues: Please, complete the survey about the translation iteration experiment here.

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[Editado a las 2010-01-28 19:25 GMT]


 
Ligia Dias Costa
Ligia Dias Costa  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 01:00
English to Portuguese
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Congrats, Tomás Jan 28, 2010

Pablo Bouvier wrote:

Lucia Colombino wrote:

You are a gentleman! I asked Tomás who was taking the bets...


Edited to add: Done

[Edited at 2010-01-28 17:40 GMT]


Hi Lucia: Errrr, I am just collecting the money. (Tomás does not know...)
But, I hope to be able to flee to some latin-american country that hasn't already any extradition agreement with the EC...


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear colleagues: Please, complete the survey about the translation iteration experiment here.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



[Editado a las 2010-01-28 19:25 GMT]


I have been reading this thread with great interest. Congrats, Tomás for the great idea!

As to Pablo, you made my day! I am still laughing!

PS- I completed the survey!

Have a great evening you all!

Ligia


 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 02:00
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
20% complete! Jan 30, 2010

Hi there everyone. This is just to tell you that the experiment goes on. 2 iterations are now ready. The workflow is advancing a bit more slowly than I had anticipated, but of course work must come first and I am happy to see that everybody is really busy!

I will keep you all posted via the forum. I can't wait to report what the evolution of the text has been and comment on the experience!


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 02:00
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
My comment Jan 31, 2010

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
The idea is to take an English text on a current topic from a magazine (so that we all very much know what it is about), have it translated by a translator into Spanish, take the result and have it translated in the opposite direction, and iterate the process 10 times.


If I may say so, it would be better to use a variety of smaller texts than a single, large text. If you use a single text, some types of mistranslation may or may not occur, because of the nature of the text. But if you use different texts, you have a greater chance of catching more types of mistranslation.

For a next time, how about using 10 independent paragraphs of 5 sentences each?

For my own language combination I predict that the result would not be spectacular, because the two languages are so similar. But if there were a third language in-between, the results would probably be more telling. If I were to do something like this, I'd probably do EN > AF > EN > NL > EN > AF > EN > NL > EN etc.

Why not post each iteration here in the forums?


 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 02:00
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks for the feedback! Jan 31, 2010

Thanks for your opinion Samuel. Let me comment on it below.

Samuel Murray wrote:
If I may say so, it would be better to use a variety of smaller texts than a single, large text. If you use a single text, some types of mistranslation may or may not occur, because of the nature of the text. But if you use different texts, you have a greater chance of catching more types of mistranslation.

Yes, probably. However, the question is not necessarily to see what kind of mistranslations could occur, but how the text evolves in general and not only because of potential mistranslations. The text is not meant to be a piece in which high translation skills are necessary. It is just a matter of seeing what happens with the text (does it get more or less verbose, how different it is in style/register/time, how does each translator's perception of the difficulty of the text influence the end result, etc.).
Samuel Murray wrote:
For a next time, how about using 10 independent paragraphs of 5 sentences each?

I think that would be too long a text for this first experiment. It would delay the whole experiment a lot, I think, as people would need to dedicate several hours to translate the text and that is already serious time for a quick experiment. My idea was a text that could be easily translated by a professional translator in 15-20 minutes.

Samuel Murray wrote:
Why not post each iteration here in the forums?

I think it would be against the idea of showing what happens from one point to the next. It is probably best to show the text at the start and end, but I am of course open to suggestions from the participants about this. We can always discuss this later on.

Take care!


 
Jacques DP
Jacques DP  Identity Verified
Switzerland
Local time: 02:00
English to French
Glitch in survey form Feb 3, 2010

Interesting experiment!

Pablo, there's a bug in your form, in question 3 the answer D (Other) cannot be selected.


 
Pablo Bouvier
Pablo Bouvier  Identity Verified
Local time: 02:00
German to Spanish
+ ...
A translation iteration experiment: looking for English-Spanish & Spanish-English translators Feb 3, 2010

Jacques DP wrote:

Interesting experiment!

Pablo, there's a bug in your form, in question 3 the answer D (Other) cannot be selected.


Hi: Jacques: You are right. As I designed the survey, I did not know I had the option to create open options like comments. The option "Others" has been replaced by the option "Comments" in each question to give more flexibility and I forgot to delete this option from the draft of the third question.

I am sorry for this, but once the survey has results, it is not possible to make any correction.



[Editado a las 2010-02-03 14:43 GMT]


 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 02:00
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Experiment continues! Feb 3, 2010

Yes, the experiment keeps advancing. As I want to respect the order of participants as chosen at random by Excel, in some cases receiving the translation takes several days, despite the fact that it is rather short, as most of participants are really busy these days. I just wanted to tell you that the experiment continues! 4 iterations are ready now.

 
Jacques DP
Jacques DP  Identity Verified
Switzerland
Local time: 02:00
English to French
Any news on this? Aug 18, 2010

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

Yes, the experiment keeps advancing. As I want to respect the order of participants as chosen at random by Excel, in some cases receiving the translation takes several days, despite the fact that it is rather short, as most of participants are really busy these days. I just wanted to tell you that the experiment continues! 4 iterations are ready now.


What happened with this project? Were the results documented in some other post or was it abandoned?

Thanks.


 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 02:00
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Experiment was completed! Aug 18, 2010

Jacques DP wrote:
What happened with this project? Were the results documented in some other post or was it abandoned?

Hi Jacques. Thanks a million for asking. Indeed the experiment was completed. I posted the results to a new forum just for more clarity. Sorry if this looked confusing! I hope you find the results interesting.


 
Jacques DP
Jacques DP  Identity Verified
Switzerland
Local time: 02:00
English to French
Great, thanks Aug 18, 2010

I look forward to reading this.

 
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A translation iteration experiment: looking for English-Spanish & Spanish-English translators







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