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In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), foreign language learning can seem like it’s becoming obsolete. Why invest the time and effort to learn another language when technology can do it for you?
There are now translation tools to understand song lyrics, translate websites and to enable automated captions when watching foreign videos and movies. Our phones can instantly translate spoken words.
At the same time, foreign language programs are closing at New Zealand and Australian universities.
But while technology can translate messages, it misses an important component of human communication—the cultural nuances behind the words.
So, while AI translation might bridge language barriers and promote communication because of its accessibility, it’s important to be clear about the benefits and challenges it presents. Merely relying on technology to translate between languages will ultimately lead to misunderstandings and a less rich human experience.
A stop sign in English, French and Inuktut syllabics is seen in Iqaluit, on April 25, 2015. One of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages in this country is now available through Google’s translation service, the first time the tech giant has included a First Nations, Métis or Inuit language spoken in Canada on its platform. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
By Brittany Hobson, The Canadian Press
Posted October 17, 2024 9:00 am.
Last Updated October 17, 2024 4:10 pm.
One of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages in this country is now available through Google’s translation service, the first time the tech giant has included a First Nations, Métis or Inuit language spoken in Canada on its platform.
Inuktut, a broad term encompassing different dialects spoken by Inuit in Canada, Greenland and Alaska, has been added to Google Translate, which translates text, documents and websites from one language into another.
The latest addition is part of a Google initiative to develop a single artificial intelligence language model to support 1,000 of the most spoken languages in the world.
There are roughly 40,000 Inuktut speakers in Canada, data from Statistics Canada suggests.
The number of speakers alone is not enough to determine whether a language can be included in Google Translate, said Isaac Caswell, a senior software engineer with the platform.
There also has to be enough online text data to pull from to create a language model.
Other Indigenous languages in Canada have “had simply too little data to have any usable machine translation model,” said Caswell.
For example, engineers looked at adding Cree, which is spoken by more than 86,000 people in Canada, but there were fewer websites in the language to pull from.
“We don’t want to put anything on the product which just produces broken text or nonsense,” said Caswell.
Han Kang is lucky to have a translator as gifted and prominent as Deborah Smith, who enabled Han’s works to cross the borders of her country and meet foreign readers.
SEOUL – The news that novelist Han Kang has won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature came as a wonderful surprise to the Korean people. We feel it’s been a long time coming: Whereas Japan already has three Nobel laureates in literature and China has two, Korea had none until last week. At last, Korea has become a country with a Nobel Prize winner in literature.
These days, Korea is well known to the world, thanks to the immense popularity of Hallyu. In a sign of this recognition, McDonald’s sold BTS Meals for some time, and Coca-Cola is now selling a K-wave zero sugar product. In 2020, the Korean movie “Parasite” received six Academy Awards. In addition to the fame of its pop culture, Korea has now impressed the world with its literary works, too, which was acknowledged by the Nobel Prize, thereby accomplishing for Hallyu a “rondure complete,” as Walt Whitman might have put it.
To become universal, literature requires translation, because unlike music, dance or art, it can only be accessed through written language. Therefore, an excellent translation is a crucial prerequisite for a literary work to be read and praised around the world. Indeed, the famous Italian writer Italo Calvino said, “Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally. He introduces me to the world.”
Han Kang is lucky to have a translator as gifted and prominent as Deborah Smith, who enabled Han’s works to cross the borders of her country and meet foreign readers. People say that had it not been for the superb translator Edward Seidensticker, Japanese novelist Yasunary Kawabata could not have received the Nobel Prize in Literature. The same thing may apply to Deborah Smith and Han Kang, because no matter how great a writer is, he or she cannot be known overseas without translation.
Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba has invested heavily in its fast-growing international business as growth slows for its China-focused Taobao and Tmall business.
BEIJING — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s international arm on Wednesday launched an updated version of its artificial intelligence-powered translation tool that, it says, is better than products offered by Google, DeepL and ChatGPT.
Alibaba’s fast-growing international unit released the AI translation product as an update to one unveiled about a year ago, which it says already has 500,000 merchant users. Sellers based in one country can use the translation tool to create product pages in the language of the target market.
The new version is based only on large language models, allowing it to draw on contextual clues such as culture or industry-specific terms, Kaifu Zhang, vice president of Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group and head of the business’ artificial intelligence initiative, told CNBC in an interview Tuesday.
“The idea is that we want this AI tool to help the bottom line of the merchants, because if the merchants are doing well, the platform will be doing well,” he said.
Large language models power artificial intelligence applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which can also translate text. The models, trained on massive amounts of data, can generate humanlike responses to user prompts.
Organisations in Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine can apply now and before 11 February 2025 to get funding for the translation, publication, distribution, and promotion of European literary works of fiction. With a budget of €5 million, the EU programme ‘Creative Europe’ will finance about 40 projects under this call.
Interested organisations can apply individually or as a consortium of at least two eligible organisations. Each project must have a sound editorial, distribution and promotion strategy and propose a minimum of five eligible works of fiction written by authors who are nationals of, or residents in, or recognised as part of the literary heritage of an eligible country, including Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine.
Applicants can apply with projects of different sizes: small scale (at least 5 translations of eligible works), medium scale (at least 11 translations), and large scale (at least 21 translations).
The deadline for applications is 11 February 2025.
Han Kang’s Nobel Prize in Literature has not only highlighted her works but also shone a spotlight on the importance of translation. Many say that translating from Korean to English can be challenging due to cultural differences and linguistic complexities. Unique cultural elements like honorifics, for example, may be difficult for English-speaking readers to understand.
Deborah Smith, 37, the British translator who translated Han’s “The Vegetarian” (2007), said she always keeps in mind how a book could be comprehended by native English speakers. In an interview with the Daesan Foundation after winning the International Booker Prize in 2016 with Han, she said that English readers may be unlikely to understand Korea’s social order based on the Confucian hierarchy.
To capture the oppressive atmosphere felt by the protagonist of “The Vegetarian,” who is in conflict with her family over her decision to become a vegetarian,Smith altered relational titles like “sister-in-law’s husband” to “Ji-woo’s mother” in her translation.
Smith translated “The Vegetarian” in 2013, just three years after beginning to learn Korean. She has since translated Han’s “The White Book” (2016), “Human Acts,” (2014) and “Greek Lessons” (2011), with the English version of “The White Book” being shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2018.
For a few years now, AI has been reshaping how audiovisual content is localized and used.
From AI-automated subtitling and captioning to AI dubbing and advancements in sign language, AI-generated audio description, and many other services, audiovisual translation (AVT) presents both exciting opportunities and challenges for language service providers (LSPs).
Data from the 2024 Slator Pro Guide: Audiovisual Translation shows that most established providers of AVT services already use AI tools in their workflow or are considering their implementation in the short to medium term.
In fact, over a third of LSPs surveyed by Slator now offer AI voiceover and subtitling services, with a quarter providing AI dubbing. This trend is driven partly by end clients actively asking for more efficient and scalable solutions.
As Ofir Krakowski, Co-Founder and CEO of Deepdub, aptly pointed out during a SlatorPod episode, we live in an age dominated by audiovisual content.
As it happens, today (October 10), there’s similar shortlist anticipation from another prominent book award, the United Kingdom’s Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction, where executive director Toby Mundy, intends to research and report—on his own choice of timing and criteria after his awards—the impact of a Baillie Gifford Prize win.
In the aggregate, efforts of these kinds—to discern and evaluate the marketplce effects of a prize win—can establish some parameters of expecatation and actual influence, leading, presumably, to more clear-eyed enthusiasm—an honest appraisal of the impact of a “golden sticker” on a book cover, in terms of how much awards actually count.
And with ALTA’s focus on translation, particularly in the United States, it could be instructive to know if and how much an award might influence marketplace perceptions of translated work. The value of translation in literature has never been self-evident to broad swaths of many populations, and having actual numbers on how much an award might impact print-runs, unit sales, and so on, could be invaluable.
Language AI tools are transforming the industry, boosting efficiency, cutting costs, and driving growth – with DeepL usage far outpacing Google, Microsoft and more
COLOGNE, Germany, Oct. 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — DeepL, a leading global Language AI company, has been named the #1 most-used machine translation (MT) provider among global language service companies in a new 2024 ALC Industry Survey report by the Association of Language Companies (ALC) and Slator. The company’s rise to market leadership, coupled with its exponential growth – DeepL now serves over 100,000 business and government customers worldwide – highlights the growing significance of AI-powered translation solutions in transforming industries, including language services, manufacturing, legal, healthcare and more.
“This exciting milestone highlights the accuracy and reliability of DeepL’s specialized Language AI platform, which is trusted by businesses worldwide for critical translation projects. It also is a testament to our positive impact on their cost savings, efficiency, and growth,” said Jarek Kutylowski, CEO and Founder, DeepL. “As AI in language services gains in popularity, we are honored to be the industry’s preferred Language AI partner and are committed to providing industry-leading, cutting-edge, specialized tools for translation, AI-driven content creation, and more.”
The new ALC report surveyed 127 language service companies (LSCs) from 28 countries*. The results underscore the expanding role of machine translation in the services offered by LSCS to key industries such as healthcare, law, and education.
The role that interpreters play in health care is complex, difficult and largely unacknowledged. We couldn’t do our job without them.
The first patient arrives, flustered and tightly wound. She’s a refugee six months post-arrival in Australia. The initial flush of finally getting here has started to fade, the winter is getting colder and her children have to take three buses to school. She has increasing requests from her employment services provider to complete English classes and think about looking for work. In the country she left, the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate and the messages from family left behind are less frequent but more distressing. She’s ostensibly here to follow up on some outstanding blood results from her new arrival refugee health assessment, but it’s clear from the outset there’s going to be a lot more to manage here.
Like almost all of our consults, this appointment is made possible through the Translating and Interpreting Services (TIS National). We dial in, provide some details and — almost miraculously, within minutes — are connected to someone who speaks English and the language of the patient in front of us.
Communication between the patient and doctor is perhaps the foundation of medicine. International Translation Day falls on 30 September, formalised by the United Nations in 2017 to acknowledge the work of all language professionals and their role in world peace and security. The date was chosen in honour of Saint Jerome, a priest from Northern Italy known primarily for translating the Bible into Latin from Greek and Hebrew and considered the patron saint of translators. We want to celebrate the daily contribution of a largely unacknowledged workforce in the clinical space, the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS National).
The nature of the refugee health service where we work means we use mostly on-call telephone interpreters rather than pre-booked or face-to-face services. Although the interpreters are rostered on to take calls, they are going about their day — sometimes with washing dishes, barking dogs or pedestrian crossings in the background — when we’re connected by the operator, they step out of their worlds and immediately into the intimacy of a consult room.
Torino’s international book fair presents its fourth annual conference for translators, featuring Italian books ready for business.
On Frankfurt Wednesday Morning
Dall’italiano al mondo means “From Italy to the World,” and this year’s iteration of the translation conference at Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 16 to 20) starts at 9 a.m. on the first day of the fair.
This year in its fourth iteration, the program, which targets translators, is to be an in-person event rather than digital, and the goal is “to support the translation of Italian litrature abroad and to promote networking between translators all over the world.” That of course is perfectly aligned with the mission of Guest of Honor Italy.
And this program has the patronage of CEATL, the Conseil Européen des Associations de Traducteurs Littéraires, which, as our readers know, is now in the middle of its own three-day translation conference in Strasbourg.
Language watchdog insists French labelling requirements apply to all products, including musical instruments.
Xavier Twigg, owner of Twigg Musique Montréal, says instrument companies generally only create one product label in one language, English.(Steve Rukavina/CBC)
The president of a nationwide chain of musical instrument stores says a whole new twist on D-Day is coming to Quebec next June.
That’s when the province has promised to crack down on product labelling, ensuring everything has French wording emblazoned, inscribed or stickered on. The new law, known as Bill 96, requires any label or writing on musical instruments, products or packaging to have a French translation.
“When we get to D-Day, unless there’s some changes, it’s going to be very traumatic for our stores,” said Steve Long, president of Long & McQuade Musical Instruments, which has 100 locations from British Columbia to Newfoundland.
“We won’t be able to operate in Quebec.”
Long & McQuade has 18 stores in the province.
Long is among those raising concerns about the new law’s Article 51. It says every inscription on a product, its container, its wrapping or on any document or object supplied with it — including the directions for use and the warranty certificates — must be drafted in French.
Most of these products are imported, and English is the industry-standard language.
Lilt CEO Spence Green’s observation on SlatorPod that localization has become one of the key use cases to show return on investment in AI is something most people in the industry can agree with. And when some big names like Reddit not only make AI-enabled localization part of their growth strategy, but also make good on their intent, as they announced in September 2024, the skeptics ought to notice, too.
The technology is certainly there for all who wish to open the door to automation of multiple localization tasks.
Transformed content workflows and customization of target outputs via trained/fine-tuned large language models (LLMs) are just two examples of what can now be done. But there is a lot more.
What retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and AI orchestration can help accomplish, and the ability to process ultra-mega-massive volumes of content using AI, are also great ways to boost that precious ROI… even automating quality assurance to different degrees based on the type of content.
Still, quality assurance remains one of those subjects for experimentation and debate. For that and much more, it is humans who need to get their heads around retooling processes, roles, and the back office so that no new problems are unnecessarily created as AI is implemented.
We asked readers if AI (LLMs included) has changed their day-to-day work in the past 24 months. Over a third of respondents (37.5%) said that has not happened at all (!). A little less than a quarter (23.6%) are on the opposite end of the spectrum saying it has done so radically. The rest, two equal groups (19.4% each respectively), said it has somewhat changed it or just a bit.
NEW YORK (United Nations) — The United Nations celebrates this Monday the International Translation Day, honoring language specialists and highlighting their crucial role in bringing nations together, promoting development and bolstering global peace and security.
Through its resolution 71/288, adopted on 24 May 2017, the General Assembly designated September 30 as International Translation Day, stressing the crucial role of language specialists in bringing nations closer together and promoting peace, understanding and development.
This year’s theme, “Translation, an art worth protecting: Moral and material rights for indigenous languages,” will focus on key ethical issues related to copyright, data collection and the use of translated works.
The event will shed light on the practical challenges our multifaceted global community encounters when collecting data and translating indigenous languages, as well as the strategies employed to tackle these challenges in line with industry best practices.
Professional translation, encompassing written translation, interpretation, and terminology work, involves conveying literary, scientific, or technical concepts across languages. This practice is crucial for ensuring clear communication, fostering a positive atmosphere and driving forward discussions in both international public discourse and personal interactions.
We haven’t been able to test Meta’s live translation, so we can’t say how seamless it will be. But development of these products is coming fast.
Justin Dawes
The Ray-Ban Meta AI-powered glasses are getting a feature for live voice translation.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Meta, demonstrated the new feature and a slew of other updates during the keynote speech of the Meta Connect developer conference, streaming from the company’s main campus in California.
When talking to someone who speaks Spanish, French, or Italian, the user wearing Ray-Bans should be able to hear a real-time English translation through a speaker in the glasses, he said. The user then replies in English, and a mic in the glasses picks up the voice and transfers it to the user’s connected mobile app. The translation from English to the other language is voiced aloud through the app for the other person to hear.
The implications for travel are obvious, and a press release from Meta about the upgrade said as much: “Not only is this great for traveling, it should help break down language barriers and bring people closer together.”
The company did not say when the update is coming but said it would be soon. The company plans to add more languages in the future.
Meta earlier this year said that it was integrating voice-activated AI into the glasses, which meant it could translate menus and answer questions about landmarks seen through the lenses.
Zuckerberg demonstrated the new translation feature with Brandon Moreno, former two-time UFC Flyweight Champion. Moreno spoke in Spanish to Zuckerberg, and Zuckerberg responded in English to Moreno.
The demo was brief, but the chatbot was able to translate in real time despite some slang and pauses.
– New research shows that 94% of multilingual event planning professionals said they would consider using AI as part of the live translation services at their events. –
New research announced today has revealed that an overwhelming majority of event planning professionals (94%) said they would consider using AI as part of the live translation services at their events.
However, as it stands for the moment, in-person professional simultaneous interpretation is THE most popular translation service used by 70% of multilingual event planning professionals.
AI-powered speech translation is a close second at 67%, which shows that event planning professionals are already considering which technology is best suited for the event they are organising.
These results are part of an exclusive report published by Interprefy, the multilingual event technology and services partner that surveyed the views of 1000 key decision makers in events, marketing, and project management positions for multinational companies around the world.
The market value of the AI/ machine translation industry is predicted to reach $3 billion by 2026/27. This shift has been fuelled by the adoption of hybrid working and the acceleration of organisations seeking out employees and freelance teams across the world.
Powwows are informal get-togethers of groups of ProZ.com users living in close proximity. The events are organized by local translators, for local translators.This event offers a valuable opportunity to exchange ideas among industry professionals.
Anyone who is registered with ProZ.com may attend, regardless of membership status. In addition, spouses, children and guests of members, as well as translators who are not ProZ.com members, are welcome.
If you’re a linguist, translator, and/or interpreter based in or around the city of La Plata, Argentina you’re invited!
This event is organized by local translators, for local translators.
The powwow is scheduled for September 28th at Green Garden, where we’ll gather over coffee (or beer). Come together with us to share insights and experiences while enjoying the evening.
Looking forward to connecting with you and fostering meaningful connections!
Every time I tell someone that I’m a Chinese and Italian Foreign Languages major, I watch them do a slight double take. It bothers me, I’ll admit, but not for the reasons you’d expect. I’m frustrated that I can’t seem to conjure a response to their unspoken questions.
“Why learn languages you have no personal connection to? Ones spoken by so few people so far away? Why spend hours memorizing conjugation tables when you’ve already met the language requirements?” In short: “Why learn a new language at all?”
I’ve been studying Chinese for practically my whole life, Italian for a little over a year and French and Nepali during high school and my gap year. And still, I find that the more I throw myself into learning languages, the further I am from conjuring any answer to that simple question: Why?
If you have ever sat through lunch with native speakers at Oldenborg, agonized over verb agreements in office hours or even tried to converse with locals or extended family members in a foreign country, then you already know how it feels to exist in a sort of linguistic exile.
On good days, I feel a mix of pride and exhaustion. On bad days, I feel like setting myself to this impossible task is almost comically akin to Sisyphus’ struggle, except that, unlike him, I have a choice.
I’ve learned that however fluent you may think you are, there is no finish line in learning a language: The mountain remains perpetually stretched out before you, and you must continue to push that boulder further and further up.
As in previous years, ProZ.com is hosting a two-day an online event for International Translation Day on September 25-26th, 2024! ITD2024 includes free online streaming webinars and presentations, live Q&A, networking sessions and features sessions from speakers and panels from industry experts and recognized members at ProZ.com.
There are 21 publishers with work represented in the 2024 edition of the American Literary Translators Association awards.
Prose and Poetry Shortlists Are Expected October 10
As the book competitions compete for coverage this autumn, we continue working to catch up with the announcements of longlists, shortlists, and wins.
Today (October 18), we look at he American Literary Translators Association‘s (ALTA) longlist of 24 titles translated into English from a total 17 languages and 21 publishers.
The winning translators in this program’s two categories—for a 10th year, both prose and poetry—are to be named on October 26 at ALTA’s 47th annual conference in Milwaukee, with an intermediary announcement of shortlists on October 10, six days before the opening of Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 16 to 20).
Each of the two winners is to receive US$4,000 in this competition, which was founded in 1998.
In a comment on the release of these longlists, ALTA’s Racheal Daum is quoted, saying, “With works spanning continents and centuries, this year’s longlists continue the National Translation Award’s commitment to celebrating diverse, exciting works in translation.
“ALTA is also extremely grateful to the prize juries, who considered some of the largest batches of submissions in the history of the National Translation Awards. Without their time, expertise, and tireless effort, these prizes would not be possible.”
The translation news daily digest is my daily 'signal' to stop work and find out what's going on in the world of translation before heading back into the world at large! It provides a great overview that I could never get on my own.
susan rose (X)
United States
ProZ.com Translation News daily digest is an e-mail I always look forward to receiving and enjoy reading!
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