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Wouter VERKERKEN asked for more details: <<Though I see your point(s)
-and you obviously have expertise in this area-, you didn't answer my
question. What if a company decided to use machine translation (not the
one I'm working for, obviously)? IMHO these are the options: - Edit the
source: don't use gerund+noun combinations. - Edit the translation:
repair gerund+noun translations, in multiple languages. - Store as many
gerund+noun combinations in the translation memory as possible.>>
It depends on what you mean by machine translation. If you mean blind,
fully automated translation without human supervision, the solution is
simple: don't do it. It doesn't work, and it won't work for another
decade, at least. I'm unaware of any current or imminent software that
understands context and nuance (i.e., semantics), and thus, no software
that can do an acceptable job without considerable human input. The
more mechanistic and predictable and standardized the wording, the
better a job the software can do, but some human input (often a very
large amount) remains necessary.
If you're talking about computer-assisted translation, in which the
translator works with the software and selects the appropriate
translation from a translation memory (i.e., a list of approved stock
phrases), the problem doesn't arise very often because the translator
sees both the original text (in context) and the list of proposed
translations, and can either choose the appropriate option or create a
new one if no existing option works. Caveat: I haven't worked with this
software, only read descriptions, so I can't provide details of how
this works.
Of your options, the "don't use" option is an overly strict
proscription; forbidding syntax that is broadly accepted and understood
with no problems cripples a language. Simplified English offers a
compromise that you may find acceptable, since it constrains word
choice and syntax fairly rigorously, and thus makes automated
translation much easier. Edit the translation is wise no matter how you
do the translation (see next paragraph). And "improve the translation
memory" is something you should be doing as you go--continuous quality
improvement, and each improvement offers payback in all future work.
In any event, wise translators always hire an editor to look over what
they've done. It's not that translators are less competent than writers
or editors, but rather that we're human and also make mistakes. Because
translation is in many ways as significant an act of creation as the
one that created the original document, the translator is serving as a
writer in many ways, and all writers need to be edited. (I say this as
the veteran of more than 300 published articles. I'm constantly amazed
by what I missed and by what my editors catch.)
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