(Cri8iversary) Webinar - Professional Translations for your services

Webinar: Professional translations for your services

Find out why professional translations are so important in reaching a broader clientele

Find out why you should choose professional translations instead of machine translating or, worse still, resorting to Artificial Intelligence to translate your contents.

Ever since Cri8ive's beginnings, but also a long time prior, I translated a quantity of texts to and from Italian and English alike; legal documents, blog posts, reviews, articles, but also magazines, books and booklets. Yet  nowadays it's quite common to overlook this pivotal step for the growth of a business or a clientele. The reasons given are for the most part a disheartening "I'll have Google Translate do it", but also, alarmingly often as of late, "I use ChatGPT for my translations". In this Webinar (also available as a video below) I'll explain why this approach is deeply wrong and why you should be avoiding machine translation, seeking out professional translation services like Cri8ive's.

Internet has deeply changed the world of digital communications as we know it. Nowadays, companies and freelances alike can reach new clients all over the globe in a matter of instants. Hence the need for high-performing and involving communications on all levels.

Many people mistakenly think that translating a text from one language to another is no more complicated than a school assignment where you translate one word at a time, looking up each term in a dictionary, and that's it. Nothing could be farther from the truth! This kind of translation may loosely convey the gist of what you're trying to say, but will be nowhere as effective as the original content. A too literal translation might also completely overrid the "tone of voice", and thus alienate your worldwide audience.

In order to correctly translate a written text you need more than just a dictionary and a rough knowledge of grammar rules. You must also know what background the sender and the receiver come from, as sectorial languages are sometimes very specific with their unique turns of phrases and linguistic conventions. Many times, one or more sentences (or paragraphs) need to be adapted and partially rewritten, so as to best appeal to the target audience. Before you ask, no - this does not mean that a translation will change the content and message of your texts. Rather, the wording will need be adapted to the context and the audience in a way that conveys all the expressive force of the original in the new language.

Why you shouldn't be using automatic translators

When it comes to translating single words and short sentences, the Internet offers a plethora of tools that may be of use, from online dictionaries to automatic translators. The most popular by far is Google Translate, but older platforms - such as Babelfish - offered barebones translation of words and phrases already twenty years ago.

Recently, however, even Google Translate's popularity has been dimmed by the ever-expanding reach of Artificial Intelligences. With their more articulate phrasing and extended vocabularies, AI models like ChatGPT seemingly offer cost-free instant translations of any text and documents - with a catch. The resulting translations are often amateurish, and a trained eye will immediately notice tell-tale signs of an artificial creation, such as the dull style, random turns of phrases, and comparisons and metaphors that don't quite cut it at best and make no sense at worst. In this case, as the saying goes, what you get is what you pay for.

Find out why you shouldn't be using machine translation for work projects

You could think translators are "biased" against Artificial Intelligence as it takes away their work and earnings. And you wouldn't be entirely wrong. However, in this Webinar I won't delve on whether it's more ethical to hire a human being who needs a living or use a free machine; I feel the subject deserves to be expanded upon in a dedicated blog post that will go up in the coming weeks. For now, I'll focus on the technical problems arising from the use of Google Translate or any AI-generated translations.

• Machine translation is often literal. The context isn't always recognized and can be misinterpreted, especially when words with more than one meaning are involved. "Bow", for example, is both a noun and a verb, and machine translation might not correctly understand when to use one or the other in a sentence like "the guests bow to the King". Worse still, if you're not already well-versed in the target language, you might fail to notice such mistakes yourselves. But you can rest assured that a dull, incorrect translation will stand out to the eyes of your clients - and reflect poorly on your projects and endeavors.
• Machine translation is also impersonal. Since the various softwares translate one word at a time, the tone of voice may get completely lost in translation. This is particularly true for Google Translate; Artificial Intelligence has since promised to find a way around the problem with its more natural-sounding generative texts. You might think an Artificial Intelligence translation has a better flow, but don't be misled. AI tends to repeat premade sentences with the same structure over and over, changing only a few choice words to give a faux appearance of "style" when in fact, there is none. Additionally, AI generated translations (or any texts) are often full of bizzare turns of phrases and out-of-the-blue metaphors which are a tell-tale sign of the sterile, artificial nature of said text. As a result, these translations often read in a way that flows naturally but fails to engage and keep the reader's attention.
• Artificial Intelligence is unreliable. While Google Translate and other machine software may produce more impersonal results, while AI attempts to sound more "genuine" and simulate various socio-linguistic registers, the catch is that its translations are very likely to contain inaccurate - and sometimes, completely made up - facts. The more generic your prompt will be, the more freedom the AI will take in generating non-existent contents. In the last few months there have been several instances of lawyers using AI-generated citations in court cases, only to find out that an alarming bulk of the contents had been flat out invented from ChatGPT. Even worse, you might not have reason to suspect the contents is fake unless you have an excellent knowledge of your target language and/or the cultural background that your audience comes from. Conversely, a professional translator will always double-check their sources.

Professional translations; characteristics, costs, timings

What are the characteristics of a professional translation? How much time does it take to translate a textual project, and how much may it cost you?

You have to keep in mind that there is no such thing as two identical translations - even when the subject is the same. The level of difficulty and precision required may change upon a variety of factors, including the audience, the sectorial language used, the tone of voice and the purpose. Thus, there's no such thing as an universal ETA or price list. A translator's first task is to examine the text they are going to work on, finding out what makes it unique and how to translate it in the closest way possible.

A professional translation mirrors the original text's style and tone of voice; the occasional changes of phrasing or adaptations have the sole purpose of making the resulting text sound cohesive for the audience. Each sentence is examined thoroughly, from its context to the synthax, metric and phonetics. As you'll see, these last two features are especially meaningful when translating audiovisuals.

It goes without saying that each translation might have a different ETA of its own. However, it's safe to assume that the more complex and specific the subject, the more time and effort will be required from the translator. This time can double up significantly in cases where an audio/video synchronization (such as lip sync) is also required.

Translating costs likewise depend a lot on the amount of work required. There are no set price tables or "fixed" minimum wages for translators. Some professionals may charge you by word count; for long-term assignments such as the translation of the bulk of blog posts, or for longer texts, it may be possible to charge a hourly fee, or pay each project individually (or in bundle).

Lastly, a word of caution about sites that offer "cost-free e-book translations" on the premise of translators later earning their share off the book-sales. These platforms usually pay the translators only a few cents for their work, as the marketing of the translated book will befall entirely on the translator himself (or herself). Thus, you'll rarely run into professionals, and the resulting work might be sub-par at best; in the worst case scenarios, you might be dealing with "improvised" translators who will run your book through a quick AI-generated translation. And readers who might pick up your book will find dull, drab and incorrect texts, which will likely lead them to think that the flaws were in your original version to begin with. It goes without saying that your sales are going to reflect that.

Wordplay, riddles, songs and lip sync; the challenges of professional translations

Wordplays, ridddles and rhymes (eg. songs and poems) can be particularly tricky to translate. In this case the translator must be fully accustomed not just with the target language, grammar, metrics and phonetic but also with the culture that said language originates from.

A specific text, a nursery rhyme or a riddle might not make sense in the destination language - which, however, might have its own variant, similar in meaning yet worded somewhat differently. 

Wordplays often pose a challenge for translators

For example, Agatha Christie's famous play "Mousetrap" is named after a very popular English nursery rhyme... which does not have an exact countepart in Italian. An amateur translator might liken it with the more popular Italian rhyme about "Three owls on the closet" as they both involve the number three; but that would be off the mark, as the original english song is actually somewhat darker and, according to some theories, may be even inspired by Queen Mary I Tudor's persecution of three Protestant bishops. This backdrop can be only explained through a translating note or a caption, but would have no match with the silly Italian rhymes about the owls.

Wordplays and riddles can't be always translated from one language to another. Sometimes the meaning is simply too literal and would get lost in translation. The translator must be able to determine when this is the case - such as with the Mousetrap example above.

Yet more complex are the translations of audiovisuals, such as the dubbing of movies, TV series, or music scores. In all these scenarios, a further work of adaptation is required. The translated meaning must reflect the original as closely as possible... but also reflect the lip sync, with the words in the new language matching the mouth movements on-screen. An additional difficulty arises from having to maintain the metric and rhythm, both when it comes to dialogues and (most importantly) songs. These kind translations are far more time-consuming and, by necessity, more costly as well.