Let them eat cake (in translation)!

Ya really gotta wonder what kind of Kool Aid is guzzled by those social anarchists mistakenly called "conservatives". No outrage is beyond them, no depraved indignity too great in the Pursuit of Capital. We look askance at North Korea, rightly so, but fail to notice that particular interests have long since stepped in to offer their puppet Great Leaders to the sheeple afraid of a freedom which tolerates difference and calls for a minimum of respect.

In the wake of the US Supreme Courts astounding, radical declaration that the "religious rights" of registered businesses trump the rights of the wage slaves they keep, when women who feel they should have a right to use an IUD for birth control and have it covered by the same health insurance that covers Viagra and vasectomies are casually called Nazis and perhaps worse, ya really gotta wonder what latter-day Kesey is running around spiking the juice in the Cuckoo's Nest.

We have our share of those in translation too. More than our share, as a friend in Bairro da Câmara rightly observed. Todos os tradutores são loucos. Not all perhaps. Yet. Give the hamstermeisters in the Big Agencies a little more time to MpT your brains and the day will come. Their acolytes have been ejaculating in prayer for a long time now in service of their algorithmic subcommunicative gods of pseudotranslation and professional degradation. Yoga instructors have even joined their cause to teach wordworkers to bend over just a little farther to receive their labor's rewards.

In her eagerness to show flexibility in her professional standards and squash the "unfounded rumors" that there might have been some quality issues, such as machine-translated content or just general sloppy garbage on the web site of voracious venture capital consumer Smartling, Ms. Bell wrote:

January 16, 2014, German translator Kevin Lossner Tweeted that a business in our space was “toxic waste” and “a load of crap” because he thought the company had machine translated its site (they hadn’t)

Screenshots from Smartling's web site taken on January 16, 2014. Jus' mah 'magination?

Namaste.

What can be done about the rising tide of mediocratizers and profiteering liars who give the many good eggs in translation technology a whiff of rotten odor? Recently in a PuffPo piece, Smartling apologist Nataly Kelly tried to claim how that "so many" translators hate translation technology. Her perspective might be skewed given that many do in fact hate the dysfunctional, browser-based translation interface offered by the aggressive venture capital guzzler Smartling, her employer, but the truth is that as support technologies for translation have improved and early misconceptions based on the primitive functions of old technologies like Trados Workbench and Wordfast Classic are slowly displaced by real knowledge of modern productivity tools, many "technophobes" have casually embraced what might have once seemed a daunting technology. But the same person who brought you the argument that translators will soon go the way of blacksmiths, to be replaced by the technology her owner offers, has a certain pecuniary interest in making us all seem like dippy, frightened housespouses desperate to pick up a little mad money for shoes or to get the kiddies' over-sugared teeth fixed. Really, Jayne Fox said it better and in touch with reality.

The desperation of the MpT interests, the clownsourcers and other linguistic riffraff has been growing visibly in recent months, as their attacks escalate on "haters and naysayers", who oppose the greedy cabal by suggesting that translation quality is still possible by emptying your mind of MpT thoughts. It all so much resembles the desperation of COBOL programmers at the dawn of a new millennium, scamming in those Y2K bucks as fast as they could before their Emperor's knockoff duds were revealed for what they are and the limits of their 2 cm caralhos of competence became all too apparent. MT hasn't gone where it claims it will in more than 50 years and it's not going now where the carnival barkers claim it will if you part with six or seven figures of major Western currency cash. Or as some would have it and go cheap by gargling your confidential translations and following the advice of some "gurus" to throw out considerations of law and ethics.

What can be done? Stop listening to the relentless propaganda of the commercial interests who have neither the interests of language service providers like translators, editors, writers and interpreters at heart nor the interests of the successful clientele whom the good ones serve with pleasure and skill. Most importantly, unplug the noise machines of "professional translator associations" who are too often becoming sellout puppets to commercial interests and are too often merely adding their wheezing voices to the chaos of the translation profiteering echo chamber. In their own separate ways, newer organizations and watering holes for wordwalkers like Stridonium and IAPTI are taking necessary risks to ensure that a place will remain in the future of translation for ethical service of the quality needed to move beyond the bulk market bog.

I'll be talking about a few of these matters in between shots of ouzo and poetry slams at IAPTI's 2nd International Conference in Athens, Greece on September 20th & 21st. Get to know the professionals with backgrounds in engineering, physics, law and other disciplines who get under the skin of the hamstermeisters so much that one recently called them "Shiites". That reminds me of an agency friend who for years has referred to my direct clients (and many of my agencies) as Die Ahnungslosen, because they foolishly pay a mere freelance translator more than that company's clients will usually give to a "full service" agency. There are other places to run with your language business than the HAMPsTr wheel. Come to Athens or come to a Stridonium event and see a much brighter side of translation.

Oh yea, and click around on those pics above for your reading pleasure....

Translation on tap(ioca)

In last autumn's technotwit gathering in Portland, Oregon, TAUS proposed that translation is becoming a utility. In their world I suppose that may be true, perhaps in their world the translation bill will be an addendum to the one for water, electricity or garbage services, because as many of us know, in certain circles, Arbeit macht frei is still common wisdom. For some, that is A Phrase Which Must Not Be Spoken, but I think we all owe it to those who have been involuntarily subject to such freedom in the past to consider its implications in the present. For many of us, translation work can become an obsession, an easy fix for many things which quickly hooks and enslaves us worse than many a coca habit. And the Brave New Future of Translation envisioned by our technocrats is merely a new instance of that opiate religion, used like so many others in the past to win hearts and minds for the habit and exact a terrible tribute from most for the benefit of a few to feed their own ravenous, rapacious habits. There is no honor among thieves. Ye shall reap what ye sow.

It is rumored that the Unholy Alliance of the Common Nonsense Advisory, TAUS, the corporates who control the ATA and ensure that its Code of Ethics does not offend the offenders, thepigturd, and other usual suspects have a secret join venture to develop a revolutionary new line of juicers based on HAMPsTr processes and their proven ability to squeeze more blood from stones.

There is some controversy involving the ganz besonderer Saft which the bleeders of the translation crave from their hamsters. Juice itself is often controversial without MpT promises of drudging survival, and we must, for the sake of our health, take care with our levels of its consumption. As a rule, fruit is a better alternative to the juices made from it; the fiber and other elements lost when the squeeze is applied can help maintain our health in times of tribulation. 

I prefer my fruit with pudding, sweet and smooth, but please, without sugar. Being the Anti-Vegan of Translation, I also try to keep bees enslaved and buzzing for my benefit, so after those amazing, negative calorie Alentejan feasts, I replenish my energies with something good like this perfect tapioca preparation:

1/3 cup small tapioca 
3 cups milk
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon zest
Fresh fruit as garnish (strawberries, raspberries, kiwi, whatever)

1. Let tapioca soak overnight in 1 cup milk and the lemon zest in a medium pot in the fridge
2. Then next day, whisk in the rest of the milk, egg yolk, salt, vanilla and honey, and salt. 
3. Bring the pot slowly to a boil on low to medium, stir to avoid scorching.
4. When it boils, put heat on low and simmer for 15 minutes with frequent stirring.
5. Remove from heat, cool for at least 10+ minutes, add fruit garnish and serve hot or chilled.

Coming clean on dirty machine translation

Click the tweet shot to decode his babble

Well, well. I started to dream in Portuguese two nights ago, and it happened again tonight in a dream where I discussed the sentimental value of some old items on their way to another life or recycling. One of these was the first color computer I bought and why; no idea why I should be telling my daughter all these things in Portuguese. I'm supposed to write a letter in English to minha noiva and have it translated into Portuguese by a friend to be sure that no meaning is lost, because I'm too far from mastering all but the most primitive grammar. I think maybe instead I had better just do it in the language in which it will be received, and message will come through as well or better than any translation, though certainly it will be checked. Maybe not. We'll see.

I responded to the incessant, poisonous spew of Luigi Muzii (@ilbarbaro) on Twitter last night, because the little puffed toad obnoxiously insists on croaking nonsense in debates (mostly with himself) which the dim bulb of his mind can never illuminate, and he does so in a tortured, incomprehensible and of course incorrect English which leaves readers I know unimpressed and utterly baffled, which has made him a frequent poster child for nonsense examples at conference presentations and which has convinced some that the man knows no English at all and merely machine translates his disordered thoughts from Italian.

Communication is seldom about the correctness of language or the degree of its mastery. Certainly it can be useful for some of us to command the subtleties of grammar, and I'm one of the guilty who enjoy that fine edge to carve patterns which will sometimes be appreciated by almost none. But sometimes the most eloquent expression can be in the most broken speech, supplemented by tone and gesture and scribbles on paper, signs in the air. And the howls of a dog. I realized this last night as I sat at a table with my Portuguese tutor and one of her many nephews, telling and understanding jokes and completely at ease in their language and culture in our negotiated register, where two weeks before I could do little more than say my dog doesn't bite, order 200 or 300 grams of anything at a butcher's counter (pointing at the item) or perhaps get half a dozen eggs, coffee and some pastry. I remember the eloquence of a Greek mechanic who shared tea with me on the floor of his shop years ago and told wonderful, funny stories I understood and laughed at though I knew about five words of his language.

The desire to communicate and to understand in ordinary situations of interaction is often a more effective facilitator than technical skill. Sometimes a friend and/or colleague will call my attention with some outrage to a web page or a message with "horrible" errors and I look and see none, only fluid expressions of thought and meaning or at least a fit-for-purpose text. A computer program has no motivation, no matter how great the motivation of its creator. It can have adaptive, event-based routines, but these are seldom adaptive in the way we know for the least of human minds. The messaging of machine pseudo-translation profiteers and their snake oil sidekicks pushing a fix of crowdsourcing, rightsourcing and workflow is quite adaptive to hide the static concepts and rotten nature of the repackaged Gammelfleisch they sell in pretty packages to hungry cost-cutters.

The MpT talking heads, Friend Muzii among them, have turned up the volume of their megaphone marketing lately, offering HAMPsTr'd hope to translation buyers that the lapis philosophorum sold by language carnival barkers can transform merda to gold with just the right six- or seven-figure engineering investment and straightjacketed expression we call controlled language. They babble and bark of so-called professionals who are "scared" but it is those unprofessional and MpT charlatans who are running scared at the thought that, like with the naked emperor in the story, their glorious equipment will be revealed to all and found to be of more limited use and interest than most might imagine.

I use machine pseudo-translation (MpT) every day, effectively, to aid in many critical tasks, and I see great value for it in its proper place. But what is that? Certainly not what the greedy HAMPsTr'izers say it is as they seek fresh mental sacrifices for their unholy altar. I believe there are a number of excellent, honest and profitable applications for MpT processes, and I know some translation agency principals and others who profit clearly and honestly from them, and I can find few points of disagreement with these people. But they are also not the more prominent Jungle Book characters on the international scene singing sweetly "Trust in me...."

Come to the IAPTI conference in Athens this September and hear my confession of how MpT technology has worked for me. Or better yet, go to Athens, skip the conference, get drunk on ouzo and tell the natives how much better their lives will be thanks to the transformative powers of MpT.

Please note: no underage girls were anesthetized and abused in the making of this blog post about the technologies and advocates of the bulk market bog (BMB)!

Be Strong. Buy SDL Trados Studio today!

I've been testing the new memoQ 2014, thinking of all the great features I can and probably should describe, even promised to describe when Kilgray kindly gave me and other bloggers early access to a pre-release version. But, alas, I have a soft heart and cannot help but think of the despair SDL stockholders and employees must feel, the anguish of Studio users when the reality of their plight sinks in and they read the latest news about that apostate tool, memoQ, which just works most of the time instead of making you work for it.

The quote above from a long-suffering member of the SDL Trados beta test team is indicative of the emotions and experience of many veteran Trados users, and that colleague and so many others are fleeing to higher ground, hoping to find a place on Kilgray's software ark before the floods of Big, Dirty Data wash over the land and drown the #sdlinnovators as they desperately tease performance from their "vertical MT". And shocking revelations of translation practices in Maidenhead, UK, as reported by a neighbor and reformed SDL employee with a direct view of the SDL parking lot there, have led many to fear the Days of Revelation for memoQ 2014.

And I think of the SDL consultants and translation IT consultants in Germany who were only following orders when they helped their customers implement Across, and the despair they must feel at the thought of the many memoQ trials now being conducted in their country.

I think of all the things I could show and tell about the new project templates and automation in memoQ 2014, and all the hearts and minds that will break at the realization, the weeping and gnashing of teeth over wasted hours, years... and lives in the shadowed margins of struggling existence, gnawing on classic Wordfast crusts.

Workflow interoperability and general ease of use from Kilgray are threatening diversity in translation technology as the flocks of sheeple move to greener software pastures and eat their fill of easier language service provision and take a greater share of profits better devoted to those kinder, gentler providers of linguistic sausage.

So please, gentle people, do your part, show mercy and invest in endangered translation tools, which seek only to take us down that primrose path, paved with good intentions, to relieve the undue burdens of buyers who sacrifice far too much of their capital on the altar of survival for undeserving freelance translators. Support the Smartling crusade, offer your Maidenhead to SDL, keep your head in the XTM cloud as you practice your Fluency for languages, enjoy that nagging sense of Dejà Vu, source your memory and surf the storm-TAUS'd Big Wave and Google in awe at automatic translation on the active commodity market.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: "Was dich nicht umbringt macht dich nur stärker" ("what does not kill you only makes you stronger"). Be strong. Don't take the easy way out of Translation Tribulations with memoQ 2014. Get your SDL Trados Studio license here instead.