| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: Have you noticed an increase in requests from clients for post-editing? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Have you noticed an increase in requests from clients for post-editing?".
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| | | | Adnan Özdemir 
Türkiye
Local time: 17:59
Member (2007)
German to Turkish
+ ...
| What is post-editing? | Feb 14, 2011 |
What is post-editing?
I wish to be informed from Prozian translators (Turkish: ''Prozköylü çevirmenler'').
Thank you very much
Saludos desde Anatolia
Anadolu'dan selamlar
[Edited at 2011-02-14 08:24 GMT]
| | | | Aude Sylvain
France
Local time: 16:59
English to French
+ ...
Adnan Özdemir wrote:
What is post-editing?
I wish to be informed from Prozian translators (Turkish: ''Prozköylü çevirmenler'').
Thank you very much
Saludos desde Anatolia
Anadolu'dan selamlar
[Edited at 2011-02-14 08:24 GMT]
Hello Adnan,
Post-editing = editing of a machine-translated text.
| | | | simon tanner
Italy
Local time: 16:59
Italian to English
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| why the question? | Feb 14, 2011 |
Not the sort of question that comes to mind spontaneously - you presumably think there has been such an increase. I definitely have noticed this trend, albeit to a small extent, I imagine due to machine translation being more widely used. However, I turn down this kind of job - more trouble than it's worth (time-wise, in terms of job satisfaction and economically). I have tried out machine translation on various kinds of texts (sounding out the competition, as it were), from technical, legal and... See more Not the sort of question that comes to mind spontaneously - you presumably think there has been such an increase. I definitely have noticed this trend, albeit to a small extent, I imagine due to machine translation being more widely used. However, I turn down this kind of job - more trouble than it's worth (time-wise, in terms of job satisfaction and economically). I have tried out machine translation on various kinds of texts (sounding out the competition, as it were), from technical, legal and financial to literature and informal letters. At present I don't feel threatened. At least not in terms of the quality of the end result.
The problem is rather the aggressive marketing used by MT vendors, which makes it hard to compete. My solution is to specialise as much as possible, thus only attracting customers who are prepared to pay for expertise and style. I hope there will continue to be such customers for a good while yet.
The area where I think translators are most at risk are probably technical and financial. What is already beginning to happen is that texts which it is known from the outset will be translated are starting to be written with this in mind. Some financial (balance sheets and annual reports) and technical texts (manuals for consumer goods) can be very formulaic, and if technical writers follow translation-oriented style guides, these texts are perfect fodder for MT. Indeed, many of the electrical appliance instruction manuals I have at home look just like raw MT output with little or no post-editing.
I expect fields like law (where mistranslation can be very costly), and literature (where style, nuance, idioms, culture-bound references etc.) make MT unviable, will be safe for a fair while yet, but we definitely need to keep our antennae well tuned.... ▲ Collapse
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inkweaver
Germany
Local time: 16:59
French to German
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And it's not the sort of job I would normally do.
However, one of my very good agency clients recently asked me to do a post-editing job for a company who had noticed that MT really isn't all it's cracked up to be. Since the paid fairly well for it, I decided to do it, but as I said, I would not normally do it, especially given the fact that some agencies seem to think they can even pay less than the normal proofreading rate (which is simply ridiculous since it is definitely more w... See more And it's not the sort of job I would normally do.
However, one of my very good agency clients recently asked me to do a post-editing job for a company who had noticed that MT really isn't all it's cracked up to be. Since the paid fairly well for it, I decided to do it, but as I said, I would not normally do it, especially given the fact that some agencies seem to think they can even pay less than the normal proofreading rate (which is simply ridiculous since it is definitely more work than a normal proofreading job would require). ▲ Collapse
| | | | Interlangue (X)
Angola
Local time: 16:59
English to French
+ ...
| Hourly rates | Feb 14, 2011 |
inkweaver wrote:
And it's not the sort of job I would normally do.
(...)
I would not normally do it, especially given the fact that some agencies seem to think they can even pay less than the normal proofreading rate (which is simply ridiculous since it is definitely more work than a normal proofreading job would require).
That is why I charge an hourly rate for anything that is not translation. When asked how long it will take me to do a revision job (usually the translation of a colleague or the original writing by someone who is not necessarily a native speaker), I suggest that the client read the text out loud and double his time. When doing a thorough revision, I need to understand what I am delivering.
My hourly rate is the same as the one charged by a garage nearby (Japanese cars), which is much higher than what most colleagues charge (and my European car garage charges even more
| | | | Adnan Özdemir
Türkiye
Local time: 17:59
Member (2007)
German to Turkish
+ ...
Selam Aude,
Thank you very much for your information.
Best wishes
Aude Sylvain wrote: Adnan Özdemir wrote:
What is post-editing?
I wish to be informed from Prozian translators (Turkish: ''Prozköylü çevirmenler'').
Thank you very much
Saludos desde Anatolia
Anadolu'dan selamlar
[Edited at 2011-02-14 08:24 GMT] Hello Adnan, Post-editing = editing of a machine-translated text.
| | | | telefpro
Local time: 20:29
Portuguese to English
+ ...
| machine translations!!! | Feb 14, 2011 |
It is quite irritating to correct machine translations. Even, the so - called decent machine translations are often atrocious.
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samah A. fattah
Egypt
Local time: 16:59
Member (2009)
English to Arabic
+ ...
| machin translation | Feb 14, 2011 |
Dear
Because of machine translation and TM
By the way
How many standard proofreading words per hour?
How many standard translating words per hour?
to set an hourly rate
samah
[Edited at 2011-02-14 10:42 GMT]
| | | | | Not from my customers | Feb 14, 2011 |
My customer know better than to ask me about that.
I have noticed a rise from companies I've never worked with before, largely from Asia and the US, but that seems to come in waves. A few years ago it was the same way, then quiet for a while, and so on.
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But a very slight increase. Though, I have stopped working for one large translation agency that does quite a lot of post-editing, so it is possible that the demand increases more rapidly than I am able to notice it.
What I noticed is an increase in post-editing jobs posted here on ProZ (some time ago, there were hardly any)
simon tanner wrote:
However, I turn down this kind of job - more trouble than it's worth (time-wise, in terms of job satisfaction and economically). I have tried out machine translation on various kinds of texts (sounding out the competition, as it were), from technical, legal and financial to literature and informal letters. At present I don't feel threatened. At least not in terms of the quality of the end result. Not sure we're talking about the same thing, Simon. As to now, I have never received from an agency a post-editing job that was translated using a system that you as an independent could try on your own. They use proprietary systems that are muuuuuuuch more advanced than what you can try out on your own on the Internet. So it is impossible to compare such things.
I have done a couple of post-editing jobs in the past, in order to know what it is (which now allows me to tell you it has nothing to do with Google Translate). I never had trouble in terms of money/time ratio. The output was surprisingly good and the pay for it was as good and profitable as it would have been for human editing. But I stopped doing that because:
1/ I do not want to support machine translation
2/ it is the most boring task I have ever performed professionally!
| | | | Robert Forstag
United States
Local time: 10:59
Spanish to English
+ ...
I received a few texts like this years ago, but the clients I now regularly work with do not use machine translation.
An interesting side note here is that there is a major non-profit health organization that, at least as of several years ago, was providing machine-translated texts to translators for post-editing and then building their collective translation memory with each new completed project (the idea being that the machine would yield progressively better results over time). ... See more I received a few texts like this years ago, but the clients I now regularly work with do not use machine translation.
An interesting side note here is that there is a major non-profit health organization that, at least as of several years ago, was providing machine-translated texts to translators for post-editing and then building their collective translation memory with each new completed project (the idea being that the machine would yield progressively better results over time).
The last time I did work for this organization was several years ago, and I am curious as to whether this building of translation memory ever actually worked, or if the idea was simply abandoned.
I suspect the latter.
[Edited at 2011-02-14 11:30 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 16:59
Spanish to English
+ ...
I often revise/proof academic papers, and I have noticed that the standard has gone down in the past couple of years. This is obviously due to the widespread availabilty of free online MT programs (GoogleTranslate appears to be the main culprit), and unless wielded by someone savvy, the typical mistakes they make are easy enough to spot.
As for agencies, just the other day an agency approached me (via proz) and offered me a translation in an area I am experienced in. Although I sent off ... See more I often revise/proof academic papers, and I have noticed that the standard has gone down in the past couple of years. This is obviously due to the widespread availabilty of free online MT programs (GoogleTranslate appears to be the main culprit), and unless wielded by someone savvy, the typical mistakes they make are easy enough to spot.
As for agencies, just the other day an agency approached me (via proz) and offered me a translation in an area I am experienced in. Although I sent off my details promptly, they didn't reply until this morning, asking me if I would be prepared to revise/proof the text which they had sent to somebody else for translation. They then proceeded to offer me half of my usual hourly rate (which BTW is the same as my mechanic charges me to repair my motorcycle, so I assume it is fair, as we are both self-employed), so the ensuing shrift was short...
[Edited at 2011-02-14 15:10 GMT]
[Edited at 2011-02-14 15:10 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Valeria Fuma
Argentina
Local time: 11:59
English to Spanish
+ ...
... and thanks God por that!
| | | | | MT from inside | Feb 14, 2011 |
Hi,
I worked for 3 years as an in-house post-editor for the MT department of a large translation company and I can see from the other posts on this topic that there's still a lot of misconceptions about PE, both from translators and smaller agencies.
Two things to distinguish:
- widely available, free MT, which can only be used for what we call "gisting". It helps you get the idea of what a text is about, that's all.
- publishable quality, humanly post-edited and r... See more Hi,
I worked for 3 years as an in-house post-editor for the MT department of a large translation company and I can see from the other posts on this topic that there's still a lot of misconceptions about PE, both from translators and smaller agencies.
Two things to distinguish:
- widely available, free MT, which can only be used for what we call "gisting". It helps you get the idea of what a text is about, that's all.
- publishable quality, humanly post-edited and reviewed machine translation.
People fail to see the difference between the two.
Believe me, machine translation that has been post-edited and reviewed properly is just as good as a conventional translation + review.
What MT does is that, instead of translating segments from scratch, you already have some content in the segments which are below a certain TM match. In the case of rules-based MT, you can be pretty certain that all your terminology will be there, but you'll have to reformulate a little. In the case of statistical MT, the style should be closer to human translation but your terminology has chances of being less accurate.
In both cases, the productivity of an experienced post-editor can be faster up to 25% than on a conventional translation (on the same project).
But of course, these MT systems are only really good when maintained properly by clients who make this commitment. The terminology implemented in dictionaries for RBMT and the corpus used for SMT have to be adequate and specific to each project. Otherwise, we're back to sqaure one, i.e. Google Translate and similar, based on just about anything that ends up on the Web.
All I'm saying is, don't slag off MT in general because you've had experience with companies approaching it the wrong way. Also bear in mind that it's a new skill to learn. Like any learning curve, it takes a bit of time. You won't necessarily see your productivity go up on the first project you'll try, but once you're used to it, it's an absolute breeze.
I urge you to keep an open mind about MT because it's going to get bigger and bigger. Of course, some domains will probably never be suitable for MT, so some of you can shelter in their specialisation and never be exposed to post-editing. But believe me, you'll miss out on something! ▲ Collapse
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