Do translators have a future?

[Magnet952]

Any translators out there? Would you advise an interested 20-something to do a translation MA in the hope of working as a freelance translator (German / French / Spanish to English) or is AI translation advancing so rapidly that you don't see much call for human translators in the future?
Thank you for any insights.

I think there's a few languages (Japanese springs to mind) where AI translation is still poor. But it's only a question of time.
Interpreters are still needed but probably a shelf life on those too tbh

Arabic and German or a Scandinavian language maybe.

Chinese - English is easy for MT.

Legal don't care about tone of voice etc so generally [PE]MT is also OK. As someone said up thread, marketing is actually more human led as brands don't all want to sound like AI.

As ever be careful taking career advice from strangers on mumsnet - including me.

The op enquired about German, Spanish and French. I assume they are the languages they have acquired. So Mandarin or Japanese aren’t in the mix. She won’t get up to speed in translating them any time soon, It’s also a job native speakers get to do - at the UN etc.

I would simply look for a better job and not worry about using MFLs. My DD doesn’t use hers. She used her degree as a vehicle for another career. As vast numbers do. She didn’t see the degree as vocational, As people studying MFLs have declined, anyone translating has declined too. Unis train anyone who pays the fees. They won’t care one bit about jobs. It’s very much buyer beware.

As you mention it’s an MA, this suggests that she already has an undergraduate BA? Would be interesting to understand what her course-mates are doing.

I have undergraduate French and Spanish from the 90s, plus business level Portuguese acquired through living for a time in Brazil. I work as a lawyer and I use all three of my languages regularly, but in a more informal way. Our common language at work is English. All our native speaker French and Latin American clients speak and write business English but my language allow me to read source documents with having them translated, or to strengthen relationships through small talk. Eg something happened recently in Brazil that was relevant to my work and I was able to follow the story in the Brazilian media whereas my colleagues without Portuguese could not have done that quite so easily (Google will now translate web pages so well that they probably could have managed, but I was better with the Portuguese search terms needed and I knew what publications were out there). The benefits are all pretty marginal though.
We use official translations for court documents. I haven’t commissioned one for a while but I know we are very very tight and get the agencies to undercut each other all the time.

AI translation is staggeringly good, I have used it for a court judgment in French that I could read but needed to share with non French-speaking colleagues and it captured the judicial writing style beautifully.
To answer a pp, AI does now manage pretty well with humour and idiom. It learns it the same way that human beings learn it.

I now use my languages much more on holiday than at work.

I would suggest something a bit left-field- coding and software development. If your DD is good at languages with logical structures then she may also take to coding language well. A contemporary of mine at university who studied 2 obscure Slavic languages did well that way. I am involved in some IT development projects now at work so have first-hand experience.

Of course, AI now does coding as well, so it’s important to understand how it is affecting career paths there too, but that should be an advantage for someone with no computer science background as it is opening up development jobs to people with less in-depth knowledge because AI and low code platforms do the hard bits. Perhaps she could get involved in the technical side of AI translation products?

Suerte/Bonne chance to her!

@HotCrossBunplease My DD became a barrister. Uses MFLs to chat to a few colleagues with MFL degrees. That’s all. Often these MFL degrees are a vehicle to another career.

My DD would have run a mile from coding. She likes people. She advocates for people and it changes their lives. Coding would be very dull. For a 20 something (Op or DD?) I would honestly try and get better careers advice. If she is paying for the MA, why not look at the GDL? Why not look at other professional jobs, eg HR or Marketing and do a useful qualification for them? Employers do see MFLs as useful if you can demonstrate other skills. There’s lots of ways into business without seeing MFLs as vocational, Most of DDs MFL grad friends are now in general business or teaching. Quite a few law friends did MFLs though. None are native speakers and maybe that’s why they didn’t want translation or interpreting jobs?

Sorry @TizerorFizz I’m not quite following why the fact that your daughter would not have enjoyed coding means my suggestion for DD’s daughter is bad careers advice? That’s a bit rude and there was really no need to rubbish what I said in order to make your own recommendations.

OP didn't say her daughter wanted to become a lawyer so the factors about advocating for people and changing their lives are not ones that influenced my comment. That said, I’d actually argue that good software developed with proper understanding of the end user can change people’s lives (for example my friend works at the forefront of developing digital strategy for the NHS) , but it seems you are rather stuck in the mindset that computers are dull. I’m afraid I’d say the same about marketing and HR.

We use translators at work all the time. I think
it probably depends on the language you can translate. We use mainly Arabic, Bulgarian and Romanian, sometimes we use Spanish/Italian but much less often.

@HotCrossBunplease I think it’s somewhat presumptive to think a job usually done by people with an interest in maths, and almost certainly love coding, is what a MFL grad should do evonus thinkjng about translation. How do you pick up a coding skill enough to work in it?

I don’t see the connection and certainly DD doesn’t have MFL grad friends doing this. It’s a bit of a left field suggestion. I think the OP should consider all her skills but often a MFL grad and coding aren’t synonymous and I think the MFL brain isn’t necessarily a coding one. I don’t see it as rude. It’s an opinion. As yours is. Have you surveyed coders to look at their backgrounds?

I would imagine in the legal and medical professions then a human translator would definitely be needed.

1. did you miss the bit where I said my MFL course mate from University went into it?
2. I specifically said it was left-field.
3. I actually said “software development and coding” and explained that the pure coding bit is now more and more AI-enabled allowing entry by people who do not have a pure computer science skillset.
4. My friend working in NHS digital is also an MFL course mate (French and Italian). Her role is around policy and strategy but requires an understanding of the technical side to work closely with the developers.
5. I am an MFL graduate myself and I find it interesting.
6. It’s actually a bit offensive to suggest that those working in coding do not like or care about people. In order to develop a good, intuitive system you have to understand habits and psychology and there can be a lot of contact with users during the testing process.
7. You don’t just “pick up coding skills”, you do a qualification, which is what the OP’s DD is thinking of doing in translation.
8. I’m really surprised that you doubled down instead of just acknowledging that you came across as a bit rude and dismissive. It’s possible for us all to make suggestions without slagging each other off!

A friend has had a very good career as a simultaneous interpreter ( plus some translation work of written papers) at international conferences and exhibitions. The bottom fell out of the market with Covid and the consequent speeding up of the technology for virtual group meetings. Still need for the formal side but the networking demand is no longer there.

Learn BSL.

The nature of signed languages means I doubt machine translation will ever take over.

It does matter what language. A translation to or from English is easily done by AI. Swahili to Urdu, for example, is much less successful. As there is so much natural English text on the internet and so many texts translated to and from English, there is a huge amount for AI to draw on. It becomes much more difficult when it tries to translate between lesser used languages.

However, assuming OP is talking about a native English speaker then my above point is irrelevant to the OP.

That would have been years ago.

That would have been years ago.

That’s interesting. Do you think in the next few years languages will no longer be taught?

Presumably your organisation hasn't cottoned on to how good Deep-L is. It may well do so soon.

I think human translators have no future in their career.
I don't see why language teaching would stop.

Human proof reader more likely.

Am glad DD did the additional qualification as a conference interpreter. She likes working as a team and the buzz from being at events. Most of her time is currently in Brussels with occasional events in Strasbourg although in the future she should have the opportunity to work at EU events in different parts of the world.

In a world where we churn out cs grads, and some of them cannot get jobs, I don’t see the mfl link at all. We all know people who go left field for jobs. These software jobs are not traditionally working with the public on a daily basis. I doubt you would find many MFL degrees listing software and coding as what their grads do. More likely to do law!

I hate to break it to you but the vast majority of lawyers do not work with the public on a daily basis either. Unless you mean that corporate clients are “the public” in which case software development teams absolutely do work with those.

I’m baffled at your dogged insistence that we can only recommend “standard” routes to OP and her DD. I am speaking from actual experience, which you seem determined to belittle. Isn’t the point of asking on a board like this to go beyond the lists of careers churned out by the universities?

I think they are being complacent. AI can understand cultural implications. As I said, I think public sector will be the last to go as they have a dedicated budget whereas the private sector is profit driven, but it will also go.

Yes, a few more years for interpreters.

Without wanting to stereotype, people good at languages are often not as techy as the people who become software developers.

Interpreters are still going to be required long term at places like the UN and EU particularly in conferences.