(Prague, May, 14th 2010) – Despite the continuing crisis, translation companies and language agencies remain optimistic and are expecting gradual recovery in this sphere and growth of their revenues – concluded the 2nd international conference of the Globalisation and Localisation Association Gala 2010, which has recently taken place in Prague. Particularly the field of information technologies is seen by translators as the future.
According to David Matuška from the Czech translation agency CEET, Europe will, after last year’s decline, begin to recommence those project that have been put on hold due to the crisis. “Foreign companies need large numbers of translations for the target markets. Which is the case of Microsoft, for example“, said Mr. Matuška, and in his opinion the Czech Republic is regarded as the very centre of localisation in this field. Nowadays, almost no translation can do without localisation, as it takes fully into account the local and field specifics.
Nevertheless, the translation business must overcome yet other obstacles. “As a saving measure, some companies have stopped ordering translations from suppliers, and are using their own resources when it comes to translating. However, this is not the way forward. The translation itself may be cheaper, but if you calculate all the other overhead costs of employees, their output per head obviously goes down. It is always necessary to consider whether we are actually creating added value, or are only allocating expenses in order to behave in a sociable way“, says Mr. Matuška. He uses the experience of his colleague Aki Ita from the Japanese TOIN Corporation as an example. “While translators in Europe experienced decrease in their revenues by 15–20 %, the abovementioned company’s revenue plummeted by as much as 45 % in Japan alone. The reason for that was precisely the strong pressure on social politics, which does not allow big corporations to optimize their performance”, Mr. Matuška quoted his Japanese colleague, adding, that he himself considers this experience to be a big warning for Czech companies.
Machine translations: Pros and cons
Translators believe the future to be in the consistent application of technologies, in particular machine translators. “Translators should begin to accept that machine translators will be increasingly irreplaceable, especially in the case of technical translations,” says David Matuška, thus confirming the longstanding practice not only in the use of, but also in the development of new technologies. “Those companies which refuse to accept this, being it the economical or technological aspect of such practises, will simply miss out”, adds Mr Matuška, whose company participates in the development of a machine translator for the European Union – Euromatrix.
Ms. Rebecca Petras from the management of the GALA Association only confirms his words: “New technologies will increasingly became an integral part of the translation industry, whether we like it or not, and translators will have to get used to the fact, at least in the field of technical translations, that they may gradually change into editors and proofreaders, who will be revising machine translated texts.”
Machine translations, however, are far from being applicable to all types of texts. “Machine translations will definitely become necessity in the future, for example when translating manuals. But on the other hand, we have to make clear that machine translators are not an answer to everything. For example in the case of large numbers of marketing translations, the human element is essential. A machine remains only a machine, and the batteries may just run out,” added with a bit of exaggeration Jean-Luc Mazet of Hewlett-Packard on the subject.
Translators gathered at the conference in Prague for the first time in a decade. It was attended by 200 representatives of international language agencies, as well as supranational companies and institutions like the World Bank and Hewlett-Packard. The previous GALA symposium took place last year in Mexico and the next meeting shall be held in Lisbon in 2011.
For more information, please contact:
Jana Švecová
CEET Communication
GSM: 420 739 039 478
E-mail: jana.svecova@ceet.eu
