Artificial intelligence (AI) is not a distant future, but a present reality that is reshaping the world as we know it. AI is transforming various industries and sectors, including the language service industry. Will you stay behind?
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In the rapidly evolving landscape of translation and interpreting, the advent of Machine Translation (MT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has brought about a cataclysmic shift that requires professionals to adapt and rethink their roles. Claudia Brauer, a distinguished figure in the industry, will be shedding light on this pressing matter during our Pre-ITD Meetup event: Surviving cataclysms in the language services industry. In this blog post, We'll provide you with additional insights about the subject and explain the significance of watching the Meetup.
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Earlier this year, over a thousand interpreters participated in surveys designed to look at trends, challenges, and opportunities in the current landscape of interpreting. If you are interested in some of the results, along with advice and strategies from experts in the field, be sure you are tuning in to the free online event ProZ.com is hosting for remote interpreters, happening this Tuesday, March 28th.
One question interpreters were asked was:
"What hardware or software would you consider as part of your list of 'must haves' for the modern interpreter?"
A lot of recommendations were made, and so I thought it might be fun to share a compiled list of those recommendations, and maybe also build off it, to create a more or less comprehensive list of tools that anyone can go through to get ideas which might help improve how they work.
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On March 28th, the conference will focus on a selection of learning materials for language professionals and bilinguals interested in entering the remote interpreting market, and resources and platforms to help grow your remote interpreters' business.
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Freelance language professionals' outlooks on the future of their work and careers run the gamut, of course. But in general, positivity is up and negativity is down from 2020. The percentage of language professionals who would recommend their line of work to someone who is currently weighing their career options is also up slightly, which is good-- the industry will need all the new talent it can get.
Let's take a look at freelance language professionals and their clients.
In 2022, a higher percentage of translators reported not having any "regular" clients at the moment: 15%, versus less than 10% in the previous 14 years. Of course, "regular" is somewhat subjective, but it might be slightly more meaningful than a simple total number of clients. The largest group, between 20 and 30% over the last 14 years, report working with 4 to 6 "regular" clients at a time.
So let’s talk money.
One tendency is to focus too sharply on rates. To be fair, a successful freelancer pays attention to their rates, charges accordingly for their work, and sets rates which allow them to deliver good work and make the living they want to make. However, it can be easy to miss the “income forest” if one is staring too hard at an individual “rate tree”.
Because everyone likes a nice chart or graph, right? Here we go.
Years in the industry
Respondents to surveys and other participants in this report are a relatively “mature” crowd in terms of professional experience. Almost half fall into the range of between six and eighteen years in the industry.
Surveys outside of the ProZ.com site indicate the percentage of newer language professionals may be higher than shown here, however, with 10% having been in the industry for just under two years, and another 10% in the 2 - 4 year range.
You win some, you lose some
The percentage of people who are leaving the industry had declined somewhat by 2019. Just under 21% said they were planning on leaving, or had already left the industry. There was a small uptick in this percentage in 2022, to 23%.
Now, bear in mind that these percentages include people who are considering leaving but who have not yet left, and they also likely leave out some who have already left as well. In 2022, roughly 37% of freelance translators and interpreters reported knowing friends or colleagues who had left the industry in the past couple of years.
There was probably a sort of Golden Age of the Interpreter, where technology had gotten good enough to support and facilitate an interpreter’s work, but where for the most part the interpreter needed to be on site. So you saw a lot of interpreters traveling here and there, near and far, to work at conferences, job sites, business meetings, court hearings, and so on. It sounds almost glamorous, doesn’t it?
Tech advances then reached a point where those plane tickets and travel expenses began to dry up, as it became easier and easier and more and more cost effective to bring the interpreter onto the scene either over the phone or virtually. Not only can remote interpreting be more cost effective, it can also be safer-- think of military applications, war zones, language support during epidemics, and so on. Smart phones allowed us to go mobile with a distant interpreter, and platforms geared towards finding and engaging with a distant interpreter began to pop up across the internet.
In a previous industry report, we touched on the dynamic of machine translation and the translator, machine translation and the company or client, as well as the segments of freelance translators who were:
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Embracing MT and MTPE
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Diversifying within the industry
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Diversifying out of the industry
As we saw a moment ago, some translators are getting trained or training themselves in the application of post-editing and dedicating at least some of their work efforts to these projects. Some translators are diversifying the services they offer within the industry, and others are transitioning out of the industry altogether. We’ll look at these last two groups in just a moment, but first, let’s look at this from a different perspective.
Actual post-editing work (MTPE)...
Quotes from language professionals:
I'm training automated translation engines and I therefore know firsthand these need to be 'tweaked' to deliver proper suggestions.
I am used to post editing now more than ever, and that has been a significant contribution to the number of words I am able to translate per day.
