By Carlos de Paula
In the early part of my career as a translator I did quite a bit of proofreading. Most of the time I was told to
stick to spelling, but I faced, not seldom, poorly written sentences,
grammatical mistakes, and often ended up editing the text, after getting
clearance from the client which were usually translation agencies. A few were so terrible they became
rewrites.
Now the practice of submitting translations
to a proofreader or editor mostly disappeared from the industry, even though
agency clients are often told text is edited. Translations truly edited
by a competent human editor were costly, so “edit” normally consisted of the document
being looked over by a project manager that did not speak the language. This
meant quality declined, even though word processing software spellcheckers improved
(they still have flaws, including changing what should not be changed), as prices dropped.
That explains the ambiguous, horrible, dry and downright
incorrect writing found in brochures, sales materials in general, websites and
the like, produced by translators who have to self edit and work at unreasonable
pace to make some money.
With AI, the role of competent editors has risen from the ashes full
power. Although clients would like to think that AI can produce excellent and
precise translations for no cost, the output is often subpar. You get what paid for.
Translators may dislike the idea they will now become mere
editors, and fear they are fighting for their professional life, however, editing
is not really a bad thing. Although one apparently makes less money than
translating from scratch, that may not be true for seasoned editors such as me,
whose experience allows greater productivity. Novices may struggle, though.
See it as opportunity, rather than doom.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top Brazilian Portuguese
translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top Portuguese AI Translation
editor as well.
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