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I have always wondered how the world perceives us, translators. How the world perceives our profession of translation. Earlier today I spoke with a client who needed a four-page letter translated from Italian. It was a military discharge document bearing his grandfather’s name and it mentioned a large sum of money. His father and grandfather are Italian and he spoke a few words as well, so he could get the gist of it.

I asked him if he needed an official translation to submit to the government, but he did not need that. So I reduced the quote. He was stunned at the cost and said he might as well have it translated by Google. I mentioned he could certainly do that. Usually machine translation is not entirely accurate, but we also offered a post-editing service, if he needed that all. A post-editing service checks and polishes machine translations. Usually this includes re-translation of large parts, as a machine is still not a human.

I slashed our quote even further, to a rate so low I would not even find a monkey willing to translate for such peanuts. At this stage he became annoyed and said he might as well get one of his friends to translate it for him. I wondered why he had come to a professional translation service for a quote. I then replied that we are a professional translation service, and that our translators are highly qualified and skilled professionals. We need to make a living too, you know, and no, we are not a charity.

So what are we? Why does the perception exist that translation should be instant and, worse even, free? Only a few hundred years ago, the translation profession was one of the most respected professions in society. Now, one would think, with globalisation and all, it’s even more important. I think it will become harder and harder in this age of machine translation to educate the people of the world that translators are actually still important. Nothing beats the semantic understanding of a human… yet.

Machine Translation (MT) has been around for some time now. The first experiment with Machine Translation started in 1954. The IBM – Georgetown experiment involved the fully automatic translation of more than sixty Russian sentences into English. The experiment was a great success and ushered in an era of significant funding for machine translation research in the United States.

The US Scientists claimed that within 3-5 years machine translation would be a solved problem. Around the same time, work started in Moscow on similar projects. The emphasis in both countries was the translation of Russian-English pairs. It is a well-known fact that war fare and defence drives technology and this was certainly the case in getting MT off the ground.

Real progress, however, was much slower. In the 1966 the ALPAC report found that 10 years of research had failed to fulfil the early promise. The increase in computing power in the 1980’s generated more interest in Statistical MT.

Moving forward another 30 years, we still don’t have a definitive MT tool but there are many programs now available that are capable of providing useful output within strict constraints; several of them are available online, such as Google Translate and BableFish.

As we can see, MT has developed from a tool used by Cold War spies into a widely used tool available to everyone. A back-packer in the outer reaches of Vietnam can now type a phrase into Google Translate and ask for a beer and a meal in Vietnamese. It may not be totally correct but with the ability to hear the phrase spoken the boundaries of language between people are disappearing. This can only be a good thing.

As a translation agency embrace this new technology. There are many advantages that it can offer to us and our clients. MT is a useful and extremely productive tool if used the correct way.
Large multi-national companies such as Microsoft, Symantec and Caterpillar have used MT successfully for a few years now. These organisations are using MT solutions for making large volumes of text available to their global customers in their local language without involving any human translators in the process. The Microsoft Knowledge Base, which contains more than 200,000 documents in English, is a well-known example of a text repository where the number of machine-translated documents by far exceeds the number of those translated by humans. Cost alone would prohibit these larger companies using a human translator to translate the after-sales documents that would be useful to their international customers.

But it is not only larger companies that can utilise the productivity gains afforded by MT. A CAT tool already integrates MT and it can translate text very fast. Is it perfect? No, but the answer is to have a human translator proof the text and spot the mistakes. A human translator working without a CAT tool can translate approx. 2,000 words per day. The same translator can produce an additional 2,000 words if they work with CAT or edit a machine translated text. Human translators can produce a first draft of the material using MT and then refine and edit it by hand. The cost of translation is now looking more affordable for customers in the global marketplace.

Sub-Saharan Africa has gone through a remarkable decade of economic transformation. The continent is abuzz with talk of new investment, new cities, new airports and new refineries. A new, more confident and self-affirming Africa is taking shape.

The new millennium saw per capita incomes in Africa rise faster than high-income countries for the first time since the 1970s. Poverty and inequality remain, but for a score of countries the income gap has narrowed with wealthier OECD countries. The World Bank expects that most African countries will reach middle income status (defined as at least US$1,000 per person a year) by 2025 if current growth rates continue.

As the growth in Africa has been driven mainly by services and not manufacturing or agriculture, it has been growth without jobs and without reduction in poverty levels. In fact, the food security crisis of 2008 which took place on the heels of the global financial crisis, has pushed back 100 million people into food insecurity. Mining, oil, and gas contribute significantly to Africa’s GDP, but these sectors employ less than 1 per cent of the workforce.

CHALLENGES

For those venturing into Africa for the first time there are several headwinds to confront, not least of which is the great diversity of tongues drawn from several language families. But also education, ICT infrastructure and the ongoing instability across the continent are challenges vital to recognise.

Languages

The first challenge is the great variety of languages spoken across the continent. Estimates vary on the number of tongues spoken, whistled and even drummed in Africa from 2000 to over 3000. Some languages in North East Africa have their own alphabets; in West Africa, scripts now adapted to Latin were originally written in Arabic; other languages have only recently been written down, especially in the southern parts of the continent.
The main languages families are:

• Afro-Asiatic (Hamito-Semitic) spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel
• Nilo-Saharan centered on Sudan and Chad
• Niger–Congo (Bantu) covering West, Central, and Southeast Africa
• Khoe concentrated in the deserts of Namibia and Botswana
• Austronesian on Madagascar
• Indo-European in the south

Languages spoken by millions of people such as Arabic, Igbo, Somali, Swahili, Hausa, Amharic and Yoruba are used for interethnic communication. Twelve of the more similar languages are spoken by 75% of the people and fifteen of these are spoken by 85% as a first or second language.

While English, French – and to a lesser degree Arabic and Portuguese – are spoken in many of the countries that were colonized in the past, there is a clear need for local languages when selling services or goods in these markets. Angola is the exception as over 60% of the people speak Portuguese and this is increasing among the youth.

Education
A second challenge is the fact that education in most countries has lagged, with only a small percentage of the more affluent sectors of society achieving university status during the 20th century, thus creating a lack of suitably trained persons.

Although literacy rates have greatly improved over the last few decades, approximately 40% of Africans over the age of 15 and 50% of women above the age of 25 remain illiterate. Thus many sub-Saharan African countries have low rates of participation in formal education. Schools lack basic facilities and universities often suffer from overcrowding. Universities have difficulties retaining qualified staff attracted by higher pay and better conditions overseas. According to a report published by Friedrich Huebler in March 2008, 36.9% of school-aged children in Africa do not attend primary school.

ICT infrastructure
A third challenge is the lack of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in many African countries. Internet connectivity is frequently not of good quality, making it difficult to work online, or the costs are extremely high. Ongoing electricity outages compound the situation in too many of the countries. One bright spot is East Africa, with the development of the new undersea optical fibre cable in 2009.

Innovation in ICT is a vital component of an economy’s dynamism and competitiveness. While Africa lags behind in terms of fixed-line telephony, new technologies and business models are circumventing market inefficiencies and institutional bottlenecks. The number of applications is rising, with e-banking setting the pace and other services such as e-health, e-education, and e-government following closely.

So the outlook for ICT in Africa is immense; there are many opportunities for enterprising overseas companies to tap into vibrant sectors such as the mobile money industry, which has taken East Africa by storm. Africa could easily transform ICT development around the world because there is a lot to learn from hard to reach regions, which leapfrog past their Western counterparts due to local factors forcing them to think outside the box.

Instability
The fourth challenge is the ongoing conflicts and coups that affect a number of the countries in West and Central Africa, and more recently Sudan and South Sudan.

Most African countries have enjoyed more than a decade of economic growth at rates the West can only dream about. At the same time Congo has suffered the most murderous conflict since World War II. Next door in Uganda, the capital Kampala has boomed, while less than 200 miles to the north, the Lord’s Resistance Army has abducted children and committed appalling atrocities. Africa is so big and so diverse that it contains both horrendous disasters and extraordinary successes.

OPPORTUNITIES

Africa has gone through a remarkable decade of economic transformation. Africa’s economy—with expanding trade, English language skills, improving literacy and education, availability of splendid resources and cheaper labour force—is expected to continue to perform better into the future.

End of post-colonial era
Before the talk was in dollars. Now leaders speak equally of Chinese renminbi, Indian rupees and Brazilian reals. Are the last shackles of colonialism finally being broken? Or is another form of dependence taking over, this time based on commodity-hungry emerging markets?

According to the African Economic Outlook, trade between Africa and its new partners is now worth USD 673.4 billion a year. Africa is benefiting from investment, trade and aid, but also from the macroeconomic, political and strategic advantages that the rise of emerging countries has produced. Africa’s top five emerging partners are China, India and Brazil — along with Korea and Turkey.

The shift in global wealth has ended post-colonialism and the broadening of Africa’s partnerships reflects the normalisation of its international relations. Pessimists say the emerging economic giants are plundering Africa. Optimists see Africa already belonging to the emerging powers club.

Demographic shift
Africa will experience a “demographic dividend” by 2035, when its young and growing labour force will have fewer children and retired people as dependents as a proportion of the population, making it more demographically comparable to the US and Europe. It is becoming a more educated labour force, with nearly half expected to have some secondary-level education by 2020.

A consumer class is also emerging in Africa and is expected to keep booming. Africa has around 90 million people with household incomes exceeding $5,000, meaning that they can direct more than half of their income towards discretionary spending rather than necessities. This number could reach a projected 128 million by 2020.

Jobs
To reap the benefits of its positive demographics and advancements in education, Africa needs to quickly create more and stable jobs that are the route to lasting prosperity and an expanding consuming class. Africa needs a jobs strategy, not just a growth strategy. Four sectors have a proven capacity to create jobs and can do so in the future: agriculture, manufacturing, retail and hospitality.

Africa’s employment challenge is daunting, but it is not unique. Many other emerging markets have transformed their employment landscapes and made sweeping gains in economic growth, and with the right policies in place, Africa has the right ingredients to produce similar success. Businesses and investors are beginning to take note of the continent’s potential – not only its wealth of natural resources but its human capital. Africa may prove to be one of the next great global stories.

Feedback by Absolute Translations’ reviewers on a translation sample of approx. 500 words

Norwegian

–         Everything I’ve read sounds translated and some of it might as well have been translated using Google Translate. The language is Norwegian, but the syntax is English. [Norwegian examples provided]

–         Simple errors that should be easy to avoid, like: [Norwegian examples provided]

–         Phrases that look like they’ve been translated by Google, like: [Norwegian examples provided]

–          A truly skilled translator would never use the word “ufordervet” to translate unspoiled nature/landscapes, as “fordervet” actually means spoiled (rotten) as in food that’s gone bad.

–          The quality of the translation as a whole is way below what would be acceptable for a commercial text, and my suggestion is that the client has someone do the translation again from scratch rather than correcting the current translations. I think the result would better and the cost lower.

Danish

–          The translation is too literal, it’s a word for word translation resulting in unidiomatic Danish.

–          It has many style errors and spelling errors.

–          Let’s hope the client decides to have another go at this.  The quality of their English web copy differs quite a lot.

Traditional Chinese

–          Inappropriate wordings such as 體味, which evokes the imagination of body odour.

–          Mistranslations such as 13個標誌性網站. Original says 13 iconic stops along the way, translation says 13 iconic websites.

–          The translation is too literal and needs to be polished extensively to be marketing-worthy.

Simplified Chinese

–          The translator misunderstood the source text in places and as a result it will need to be completely re-translated.

–          The translator seems not a skilled Chinese writer as some of the sentences are just plainly grammatically incorrect.

Korean

–          Unfortunately I had to re-translate the whole thing.  Some sections were too literal and translation-like (therefore comic…). [Korean examples provided]

–          Some transliterations of place names are incorrect. [Korean examples provided]

–          Some expressions are too literal to be marketing materials (not enticing, but rather scaring people off)

Japanese

–          The style of this translation lacks enormously. Like the English source, the Japanese translation should provide exciting and positive images of traveling, and it’s not.

–         The translation is too literal and the word choices are not creative. The text sounds immature and therefore risks giving Japanese visitors an impression of incompetence. [Japanese examples provided]

–          Imperative or prohibition type sentences tend to exude negativity and this translation may not achieve the desired result, i.e. encourage visitors to book your holidays.

It was only by chance that it got discovered.

A couple of months ago, a major Australian tourism and travel operator had their website translated into eight languages, including Dutch. The translations were delivered in Word and as their web developer was uploading the content, he paused when he saw the Dutch version. He knew a bit of Dutch as his wife was Dutch and he asked her to come and have a look. What followed would be every company’s worst nightmare.

The translation was disastrous. It was substandard in every way. The web developer told his client about his discovery and advised them to get a second opinion on all of the translations. If the Dutch translation was that bad, perhaps the others were too?

The web developer happened to be our developer and he knew about our QA procedures and positive client feedback, so he recommended Absolute Translations. My native language is Dutch (being from the northern part of Belgium) and I immediately saw that the Dutch translation was full of errors of all sorts: mistranslations, grammar mistakes, spelling, style, tone, punctuation, capitalisation and the list goes on. To top it off, the translator used truly unidiomatic Dutch while following English syntax. It could as well have been translated by Google. So the client’s nightmare began.

We were asked to start the re-translation process on the Dutch version and review a section of about 500 words on the other translations, so the client could decide whether they were passable or needed re-translation as well.

The feedback was equally bad. The quality of the translations was way below what would be acceptable for a commercial website. It was so bad it was comical, but no-one was laughing…

Click here to read some of the feedback received.

The client had to make the unfortunate decision of having their whole website re-translated, in all of the languages. It cost them not only in money, but also in time and effort. The website had to be up before the start of spring, but it was to take two more months to be completed. A loss of two months’ worth of income cannot be underestimated. The whole situation was painful for everyone involved.

My conclusion is that getting it right the first time around is critical. Your corporate image and reputation are at stake with second rate translations, and you wouldn’t even know about it.

Clearly it’s difficult, but it pays to do your research before embarking on any large translation venture. Testing is vital. All the multinational corporations we are currently working with have tested us prior to engaging our services. It’s obviously a common strategy among larger companies, but seems to be rarer among the smaller ones. I’m sure they’ve had their fingers burned once before and learned their lesson.

If the web developer hadn’t known any Dutch, the client’s sticky situation would have gone unnoticed for who knows how long. A potential customer visiting your website will never alert you of any language issues, they will just navigate away and not give you a time of day.

As the saying goes, only monkeys work for peanuts, so cheapest is not always best. It’s up to you to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Veerle Vanderplasschen