Translating Europe Forum 2019

For a while now, I have wanted to start writing. But not just for myself. Wondering how best to start and what to write about, I attended the Translating Europe Forum last week and was inspired. Passionate professionals in their field imparting knowledge and sharing best practice with fellow professionals. What more can we ask for?

However, I have already identified a potential pitfall. Who really has the time to read a full blog post or article with all of the information that is out there on the web? So, in the interest of actually wanting people to read, rather than skim, my posts, I will endeavour to be succinct.

On that note, I would like to write about the highly interesting and informative two days I spent in Brussels last week. I won't give you a detailed account of the event, but rather I would like to share my key takeaways.

Here we go!

EU Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, Günther Oettinger, kicked proceedings off with a talk in which he summed up the current political climate in one sentence I found to speak the truth: "The EU is divided into countries that know they are small, and those that are small but don't know it". Brexit anyone?

He was followed by keynote speaker, David Jemielity, who had a great number of pearls of wisdom to share in his speech (I was listening so intently that I have no photos...) and I would highly recommend you watch his talk on YouTube, but two things really stuck with me. One of them I will share later this post (as it was a recurring theme throughout the event) but here is the other: We need to raise the bar when translating. Rather than asking ourselves if this is a good translation, we need to ask whether it is effective communication.

During the parallel session on healthcare, Clio Schils held up the notice of a certain medication. What's most important here? Readability!

There was a lot to learn at the newcomer's event, even for seasoned translators, but I could not have been more surprised to see so few hands go up when asked who had business cards! Anyway, once I got over my shock, I did manage to take some interesting notes, but I think the most crucial takeaway from this session is the following: It's all about quality. Do you want more clients? Provide high quality translations to your existing clients. Word of mouth will follow. Do you want to up your rates? If you give it your all every time, and provide top quality, that shouldn't be a problem. Without quality, you have nothing.

Now we can't discuss the Translating Europe Forum without mentioning machine translation, which was a central topic of debate throughout the event. It's not all doom and gloom though (although the machines are getting better and starting to reach human parity!). No, the key message here is that we need to be aware and adapt. As (human) translators, we need to specialise and target the premium end of the market (and this is also what David Jemielity gave as his main piece of advice). Machine translation will soon be able to cater for the masses and replace generalist translators, but they will not be able to guarantee the top quality that the premium end of the market requires. That's where we come in! So don't lose hope. There is space for everyone.

On this note, Marta Aragao struck a few nerves with her comment about translation being too expensive (imagine how that went down in a room full of 500 professional translators!). But she has a point. Translation comes with a cost (as it should), but that cost locks many people out of the market. By making it available to the masses through machine translation, we can further break down language barriers and encourage integration. This is not a bad thing for translators. Do you want to go on a date with two people who just need that little bit of extra help for cross-cultural communication? Personally, that would be a bit too awkward for me. I am quite happy letting them use their apps to help when the talking gets tough. (True story!)

This event was mainly focused on written translation, but Claudio Fantinuoli had some fascinating insights into changes in interpreting, specifically regarding CAI tools (computer assisted interpreting). He showed us a demo of a CAI tool prompting an interpreter with "units of interest" (numbers, terminology, named entities) while simultaneously interpreting a speech. I have a couple of conflicting views on this. What about teamwork in a booth? But, the machine is much quicker than your boothmate is at writing. Will this actually be helpful, or a distraction? I'm not too sure. If you trust the computer fully, then it should be helpful, but if you feel the need to check, then it would be a distraction. It will be interesting to see how this evolves and I would love to hear your views.

Finally (and I have gone on for longer than I wanted, but there is just so much I have to share!) I come to the last keynote speech, by trend watcher and futurist Farid Tabarki. He talked about how our society has become a liquid society which means two things: 1. change is the only permanence; 2. uncertainty is the only certainty. So we just need to jump on board. One way we can do this is by really focusing on our human side. Listen. Show empathy. Be there.