I doubt machine translation will reach professional translators. Some things are hard to translate. Sometimes you should explain cultural differences. Sometimes you have to replace a concept/thing with a completely different one, but consistently.
It’s already happening. I know someone who is a translator of legal documents and international contracts, and almost all the jobs are gone and replaced with AI already.
It’s only cheaper if the mistakes it makes cost less to fix than paying a human to do it in the first place. That said, shifting operating costs to operating risk usually looks good on paper because the risks don’t get quantified properly or at all.
I can’t even imagine what it costs for a big, international company to handle the fallout from a system that’s implemented wrong due to errors in the translation of the contract.
Japanese to English is pretty tricky, in part because it’s more standard in Japanese to fully omit words instead of using a pronoun when something is known from context. A response to “What are you doing with that book?” in English might be “I’m going to return it,” but in Japanese you’d just say “Return” (返す。). So a machine translator would probably have to be very good at context to guess right a lot of the time.
It’s the same in German.
Also, remember the meme “Poland cannot into space”? Syntax-wise, that’s a completely valid sentence in German because at times, you don’t need a main verb and the auxiliary one will do.
That’s interesting to learn, thanks for teaching me! I would like to add my observation that informal English works pretty similarly. The example conversation turning into:
“Whatcha gonna do with that book?”
“Return it.”
seems normal to my ears. I guess the difference is that the object “it” is still mandatory which is pretty helpful context for a translation machine.
This is an issue in professional translations of animes and third person pronouns. Time restraints probably also play a role. Some issues could be solved by asking the author or reading manga translations, which also could’ve gotten it wrong.
I don’t speak Japanese, but it seems to use gender in different places and uses pronouns less frequently.
For this Japanese to German is even harder than Japanese to English because even words like “translator” are gendered.
In Tensura’s English dub they addressed Beretta with “she/her”.
In some translations of the Light novel Beretta is referred to with either gender-neutral or male pronouns. In the English translations of Manga, Anime and ISEKAI Memories Beretta is referred to with male or androgynous pronouns. In one instance of the English dub of Season 2 specifically when Ramiris mentioning if something happened to Rimuru what will happen to Beretta, in that instance Beretta is referred to with female pronouns, likely due to Beretta’s long hair and feminine voice used that ended up confusing the translators when dubbing, the sub and dub for Season 3 also referred Beretta as female too. That would lead to Beretta being put in female character category in various Anime polls because of it.
Even German to English and the other way around can be tricky if you don’t have enough context.
For “I’m the translator” German has to gender translator: “Ich bin der Übersetzer”/“Ich bin die Übersetzerin”
English can struggle with sentences, where it has to use madam or sir with second person, since German has a polite second person that is neutral. “Ich danke Ihnen” to “Thank you, sir”/“Thank you, madam”
I doubt machine translation will reach professional translators. Some things are hard to translate. Sometimes you should explain cultural differences. Sometimes you have to replace a concept/thing with a completely different one, but consistently.
It’s a lot easier for manuals etc
AI will replace professional translators not because it’s better but because it’s cheaper
It’s already happening. I know someone who is a translator of legal documents and international contracts, and almost all the jobs are gone and replaced with AI already.
It’s only cheaper if the mistakes it makes cost less to fix than paying a human to do it in the first place. That said, shifting operating costs to operating risk usually looks good on paper because the risks don’t get quantified properly or at all.
You’re not wrong!
I can’t even imagine what it costs for a big, international company to handle the fallout from a system that’s implemented wrong due to errors in the translation of the contract.
We don’t always get the cheapest stuff. Poorly made CGI animes still get avoided afaik
Machine translators seem to do an especially poor job with Japanese, very often using the wrong pronoun.
Japanese to English is pretty tricky, in part because it’s more standard in Japanese to fully omit words instead of using a pronoun when something is known from context. A response to “What are you doing with that book?” in English might be “I’m going to return it,” but in Japanese you’d just say “Return” (返す。). So a machine translator would probably have to be very good at context to guess right a lot of the time.
It’s the same in German.
Also, remember the meme “Poland cannot into space”? Syntax-wise, that’s a completely valid sentence in German because at times, you don’t need a main verb and the auxiliary one will do.
I have never heard of this meme before.
That’s interesting to learn, thanks for teaching me! I would like to add my observation that informal English works pretty similarly. The example conversation turning into:
“Whatcha gonna do with that book?”
“Return it.”
seems normal to my ears. I guess the difference is that the object “it” is still mandatory which is pretty helpful context for a translation machine.
This is an issue in professional translations of animes and third person pronouns. Time restraints probably also play a role. Some issues could be solved by asking the author or reading manga translations, which also could’ve gotten it wrong.
I don’t speak Japanese, but it seems to use gender in different places and uses pronouns less frequently.
For this Japanese to German is even harder than Japanese to English because even words like “translator” are gendered.
In Tensura’s English dub they addressed Beretta with “she/her”.
https://antifandom.com/tensura/wiki/Beretta#Trivia
Even German to English and the other way around can be tricky if you don’t have enough context.
For “I’m the translator” German has to gender translator: “Ich bin der Übersetzer”/“Ich bin die Übersetzerin”
English can struggle with sentences, where it has to use madam or sir with second person, since German has a polite second person that is neutral. “Ich danke Ihnen” to “Thank you, sir”/“Thank you, madam”