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Post-editing is for chumps
Thread poster: Michael Beijer
Richard Purdom
Richard Purdom  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 18:06
Dutch to English
+ ...
MT Dutch -English, haha Jul 8, 2015

Hey Michael, try this one in Google Translate

'Mocht u vragen hebben, dan kunt u uiteraard contact opnemen met Michael.'

It gives

'Should you have any questions, please do not contact Michael.'

meaning is quite the opposite so don't trust Google!


 
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:06
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
One of my favorities Jul 8, 2015

French: Investir en bon père de famille

MT: Invest in a good father.

So hilarious and yet so scary.

* For those who don't speak French "en bon père de famille" is with due diligence, properly, in a responsible manner, etc.

If you are buying post-edited translation at a cheap rate, you'd probably be better off just flushing your money down the toilet because they are probably selling you crap wrapped up in a pretty package and if you are purch
... See more
French: Investir en bon père de famille

MT: Invest in a good father.

So hilarious and yet so scary.

* For those who don't speak French "en bon père de famille" is with due diligence, properly, in a responsible manner, etc.

If you are buying post-edited translation at a cheap rate, you'd probably be better off just flushing your money down the toilet because they are probably selling you crap wrapped up in a pretty package and if you are purchasing a translation of anything important and choose to take these kinds of shortcuts, you'd better have an attorney on retainer.

[Edited at 2015-07-08 15:33 GMT]
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Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:06
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
more Jul 8, 2015

English: The woman and the man walk.
GT into Portuguese: A mulher eo homem a pé. (Or "The woman andthe man on foot).

English: The cat is not small.
GT into Portuguese: O gato não é pequena. (incorrect adjective ending on pequena).

[Edited at 2015-07-08 18:15 GMT]


 
Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.)
Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.)  Identity Verified
Thailand
Local time: 01:06
English to Thai
+ ...
MT algorithm Jul 13, 2015

For EN>TH projects, MT mistakes are rather repetitive and my post-editing is based on knowledge of how MT works (e.g. Google Translate outputs). It is quite productive and consumes less mental exhaustness.

Soonthon L.


 
Nele Van den Broeck
Nele Van den Broeck  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 19:06
French to Dutch
+ ...
Did anyone already notice... Jul 13, 2015

I don't know if it's just a coincidence or not, but I do have the impression that most of the times Google translate does a slightly better job translating into English than out of it.

Does anyone else share the same impression?


 
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:06
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Perhaps this is because most of the data Jul 13, 2015

used to find translated matches is the original ENGLISH that has been human-translated into the other languages (for which there is a larger corpus and they are easier for the monolingual? U.S. programmers to find), rather than the other way around.

Nele Van den Broeck wrote:

I don't know if it's just a coincidence or not, but I do have the impression that most of the times Google translate does a slightly better job translating into English than out of it.

Does anyone else share the same impression?



 
Jessica Noyes
Jessica Noyes  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:06
Member
Spanish to English
+ ...
My favorite machine translation Jul 13, 2015

I once received a proposed post-editing IT job where "hébergement du serveur" (server hosting) was translated as "barman's lodging."

 
Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:06
English to German
+ ...
Outsourcers are certainly at it still - some advice for newcomers to this task Feb 8, 2017

Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:

A very, very large Italian translation agency just sent me the following ridiculous email:

~

Hi All,

I need a translator for a 3337 words postediting job from Dutch > English.

Subject: finance. See attached for reference only

Deadline: tomorrow at 11am Rome time

Payment: 0.03€/source word

Please, let me know ASAP if you can help me with this.

Thanks


Here is my reply:

Hi Valencia,

The file you sent me is a memoQ bilingual table containing a 100% Google translation
(I just checked at https://translate.google.co.uk/ ).

Why in god's name would I want to translate a pure Google translation for 0.03€/source word?

Kind regards,

Michael


---------------------
I usually charge €0.12 for stuff like this, which would come to €400.44 (3337 x 0.12).

This company, however, wants me to do it for €100.11 (3337 x 0.03), of course by tomorrow (and it's already 17:30 here in the UK today, so this would be a late night), because they went through the trouble of running the text through Google Translate, and probably even violating an NDA in the process.

I have a mortgage to pay and a 2-month old baby in the room next door. What is wrong with these people?

Michael



Just came across an example in the English German direction today where the volume of words is high and "therefore" (as is stated) the budget is limited, but the work load is described as alluring, the communication with the outsourcer will be friendly and happy and the payment is swift (well so the post claims, there's no entry anywhere to check past experiences by translators).
This post gets away without posting a rate range but I am sure the outsourcer expects about EUR 0.01 - 0.03/word (not just a wild guess but I've seen rates like that).

2 points.

1. What post-editing is and isn't:

What you have to do is go through the original text, look at its machine translation and start redoing it or, at best, rearranging the translation. From my own experience, there can be quite a few meanings that are the exact opposite of what they should be. And word order can also be way off. Not saying that MT can't help a translator (the suggestions are based on previous texts containing similar sentences/segments). But it's a tool sometimes used within the overall human translation, it does NEVER REPLACE human translation. Even if a "sophisticated" MT engine is used, you can't just expect an easy editing job. Every word of the original text and the MT needs to be carefully read; the actual task is not an editing job that's based on a human translation. It's putting together a human translation based on text that has been generated by a machine based on various algorithms.
So it's certainly not the same as editing a human translator's text and the work involved usually goes way beyond editing/proofing a human translator's translation.
But let's just call it post-editing MT - we know what to expect.

2. Don't do it for a pittance

To expect doing all this for unprofessional and ridiculous rates is wrong. One should not expect to be paid for this based on some standard rates for proofreading a human translation. That becomes even more clear when the MT is simply the result of having run the original text through GT for free.
So whoever reads this and is thinking about expecting a lovely time doing lots of post-editing with lots of happy faces of colleagues and ousourcers and getting paid all that money for lots of work - think twice. You might be working hard but not into your own pocket. Newcomers will find out for themselves - but why waste your time and brain. Heed the advice.




[Edited at 2017-02-08 04:04 GMT]


 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 19:06
French to English
stylistically compelling Feb 8, 2017

I once got tricked into doing some PEMT. It was a list of patent categories. At first glance I saw there were all sorts of weird things so I estimated more time than usual (I was asked to bill by the hour).

At the first weird translation, I googled and found the official website with the categories listed in both source and target languages. I soon realised it would be much quicker to simply translate, lifting as appropriate from the website, rather than checking whether the transl
... See more
I once got tricked into doing some PEMT. It was a list of patent categories. At first glance I saw there were all sorts of weird things so I estimated more time than usual (I was asked to bill by the hour).

At the first weird translation, I googled and found the official website with the categories listed in both source and target languages. I soon realised it would be much quicker to simply translate, lifting as appropriate from the website, rather than checking whether the translation was correct or not. Nothing stylistically compelling involved, and it was a total pain to simply copy and paste each segment.

The agency had not bothered to tell me that it was a machine translation, and they had not bothered to point out anything about the nature of the text let alone the fact that there were official translations that would have to be used, so I didn't bother to tell them that I had found a quicker way of doing the work. I worked out what I would have billed for a translation and converted that into hours for the purposes of billing. That way, they got a better translation than they deserved, for a better rate than they deserved, slightly less than I had estimated. I no longer work for that agency.
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Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:06
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Amazing discovery Feb 8, 2017

Quote from one of the earlier posts in this thread where the client describes "light editing":

"machine-translated texts are linguistically different from those translated by a human translator"

I think I need to go and lie down for a while in a darkened room. What an amazing discovery.


 
Daryo
Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:06
Serbian to English
+ ...
In some cases making an exception should be the rule Feb 9, 2017

Samuel Murray wrote:

Michael Beijer wrote:
It means exactly what I intended it to mean. This person pissed me off, and I wanted them to know it.


Sorry, I did not write my point more comprehensively because I thought it was clear enough: no matter how angry one is with a client, one should remain civil and act professionally.



[Edited at 2015-06-24 20:46 GMT]


"one should remain civil and act professionally."

Yes, being nice to everyone doesn't cost anything and is a very sensible general rule ... BUT

In some cases making an exception should be the rule!

"remain civil and act professionally... no matter how"? NO WAYS - there ARE limits and some would-be "clients" when necessary have to be reminded of the fact in a way that will drill the message home. Trying to pass off so-called "post-editing" of MT garbage as "editing someone's translation" is simply a penny-pinching scam that doesn't warrant any kind of politeness when replying.

One could even argue that a forceful reply IS a sign of professionalism - a sign of respecting your own profession!


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:06
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Effort Feb 10, 2017

Daryo wrote:

"one should remain civil and act professionally."

Yes, being nice to everyone doesn't cost anything and is a very sensible general rule ...


Yes, although sometimes considerable effort is required.


 
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Post-editing is for chumps







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