Lots of clients seem confused by the terms MT and CAT, given that both terms sound quite similar and the lack of familiarity gives room tomisunderstanding; but the difference in results is very obvious

Machine Translation is fast and cheap, but seldom accurate

A very well-known example is Google Translate; the said translation is accomplished by feeding a text to a computer algorithm that would render the translated version in seconds. There is no human agency involved.

It has several advantages, such as speed and cost, and it has been improving its accuracy in certain language combinations, such as Swedish to English, or Spanish to English. But for longer or convoluted texts the results are far from optimal. Likewise for many other language combinations, such as Burmese or Mongolian where there is obviously much less text available online and the algorithm can render some risible results.

The tendency of hiring a “post-translation editor” to analyze the draft translation and correct the errors is understandable but in many instances the said editors would request the original text in order to make sense of the text they have before them, wasting everyone’s time in the process.

Machine translation, as its current stage, is only useful to derive the gist of meaning from an article or posting, but if you want to derive the accurate meaning of a given text, you would need a human being to be part of it

Here is where Computed-Assisted Translation comes in. In essence, it is human translation that is enhanced by computerized tools.

Many of the said tools are already present all word processors and web browsers, who have built-in spell-checkers or automatic correctors. But the more complex translation tools include memory tools, which are databases of texts in multiple languages, terminology managers that ensure consistency throughout the entire text, terminology databases purposely built for specific domains and many more

Hope the above clarifies the difference between Machine Translation and Computer-Assisted Translation

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According to news reports , Institut Terjemahan dan Buku Malaysia Bhd (ITBM), a Malaysian GLC, is mentioned in the list of entities and organizations issued by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission ( MACC ) as recipients of funds originating from ill-fated sovereign fund 1MBD.

The funds, disbursed in 2011 and amounting to 975,000 ringgit in total, ought to be returned to the MACC within two weeks from the compound notice issued to them by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

ITBM has issued a statement refuting any ill-intention or wrongdoing regarding the said emoluments.

According to MSN News, the anti-graft body gave them two weeks to pay the fine under the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001.

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North Korean interpreter sent to labour camp for mistranslating for Kim Jong Un during the failed Summit in Hanoi on Feb 2019:

Most viewers are familiar with Trump’s Korean interpreter
during the first US-North Korea Summit in Singapore on June 2018.
Her lesser-known male counterpart in the DPKR delegation was Kim Ju-song.
However, the said korean interpreter was not present during the second summit held on February 27th & 28th; Instead, press and observers were told that President Kim Jong Un would be attending the gala dinner with a young female interpreter, Sin Hye-yong ( pic ).
Upon return from Hanoi, the entire delegation suffered severe reprisals, from the head of the negotiating team, who was allegedly executed, to interpreter Sin who ,according to reports, has been sent to a labour camp.
From our humble blog post, we hereby appeal to the North Korean leadership to set aside the punishment that may await our colleague Sin Hye-yong on account of the tremendous pressure the interpreter may have been subjected to before and during the Hanoi summit. It would have been overbearing for any interpreter, regardless of loyalty, to almost single-handedly manage all the flow of statements, formulations and verbal exchanges during the Summit and the days prior to it.
Interpreters are prone to make mistakes when are overworked and they cant recuse themselves of await the respite of rotating with another colleague; as in the case of top-level bilateral meetings whereby the same interpreter is retained from the beginning to the end.
Please give her another chance

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Translation agencies, currently known as Language Services Providers or LSP, May not meet your definition of a typical office environment; besides the multiplicity of languages spoken from 9 to 5 in the office one must add the unpredictability of the day, as it is not unusual to have the most weird requests for language services:

One of the most unusual request of this year was the following:

A German husband and his Indonesian-born German wife were travelling in Malaysia the past month; she was expecting and, after spending a few bad days, decided to check with a doctor who informed them that they would induce labor and deliver the child here. She delivered a healthy baby shortly afterwards

However, Malaysian authorities refused to issue the newborn a proper birth certificate unless and until the parents proved that they were legally married. All their documentation, (German & Indonesian birth certificates, marriage certificate issue in PRC) has to be translated in a hurry from German, Indonesian & Mandarin to English and they were forced to lengthen their stay here for a while but, after spending several days in Kuala Lumpur, they have decided to move to Malaysia and start a new life here.

Needless to say, we also translated the newborn’s birth certificate from Malay to German!

Past week saw an unusual amount of activity in the field of community and industrial interpreting;

Our calendar looked like this:

• Monday 15^th: French-English interpreting at Magistrate Court
• Tuesday 16^th: Urdu-English interpreting with a relief organization
• Wednesday 17^th: Nepalese-English interpreting – factory visit
• Thursday 18^th: Urdu-English interpreting with a relief organization (cont.)
• Friday 19^th: Japanese- English interpreting for food manufacturing TNC

And what could the next one bring? For the moment we just have an inquiry for Monday to interpret at a press conference called by a big sports organization from Spain

And that is a typical week in the life of an interpreter or a consultant interpreter; one always starts the weekend with the satisfaction of having been able to lower the language barrier and improve the understanding and conflict resolution for a good amount of people

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History & Interpreting

Home / History & Interpreting

Nuremberg & IBM

Most people think real-time interpreting has been around since the dawn of mankind and language; however, that is inaccurate as the birth of simultaneous interpreting can be traced back to the Nuremberg Trials set up in November 1945 to document and prosecute nazi crimes. However, there is an earlier precedent to simultaneous interpreting, namely;

February 1^st, 1933 which saw the first instance of real-time, seamless interpreting during the broadcast of Adolf Hitler’s speech after his appointment as Germany’s Chancellor when he proclaimed the Reich Government to the German people. His speech was translated into French for the entire nation to hear. It was an ominous sign of things to come as France heard the worlds of Hitler in off-mode and the subsequent French version of his inflammatory rhetoric. The transcript of his first radio address can be found in:

https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-5/hitlers-first-radio-address

It is fair to say, therefore, that one of the most interesting and intellectually rewarding professions emerged from the ashes of one of the most inhumane and cruel chapters in History

Colonel Dostert, a linguist from the US Army became chief of the Translation Division at Nuremberg employing a score of interpreters to use the System

The most challenging part was the technology, which did not exist as we know it today.

It was IBM and its engineers who, on the top floor of the Nuremberg Court building, tested for the first time what was to become the Simultaneous Interpreting System that we know today. Using and combining telephone lines and exchanges they were able to set up a network in which all 4 languages –floor language plus additional 3- could be segregated and the renditions synchronized, saving enormous amount of time to the legal process. Nuremberg trials would have been four times as long without this ingenious system

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The fight against wildlife trafficking was the theme of the 2 days workshop held at the Academy of the Royal Malaysian Customs Academy AKMAL, located in the outskirts of Malacca city on 21^st & 22^nd March.

As it was an event sponsored by the State Department of the USA, UNODC, Interpol and other outfits, the presence of a team of competent French interpreters was an essential need to bring the language barrier down and enable participants and speakers from the French-speaking regions of the world to capitalize on their visit as much as possible. Working under very stringent working conditions and with no prior material available for the interpreters, on account of the confidentiality of the seminar, our SIS equipment, site manager and interpreting team were congratulated repeatedly for the excellent performance despite the logistic and thematic challenges.

Being a small meeting of like-minded people made simultaneous interpreting even harder, as the latency of the translated rendition has to be kept short in order to avoid misunderstandings among participants, which is no mean feat when arguments are thrown back and forth in hurried fashion.

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Kuala Lumpur was graced with cultural activists, artists, policy-makers and other stakeholders from the arts that gathered at a unique venue, KL PAC an abandoned railway station reconverted into a cultural space surrounded by tress and a lake.

Our teams of Spanish and French interpreters, that were brought in from Malaysia, Thailand and India, had a lot of preparatory work in their hands on account of the convoluted nature of the assignment that lasted from the 12^th to 14^th of March. For the first time in a very long time our teams found themselves reading social psychology and philosophy to prepare for the theme and spirit of this event, where the plenary session reunited more than 600 attendees from all other the world. The new Malaysia became the perfect background for an event oriented in increasing the visibility of the Arts and their importance in nation-building in the North as well as the South

Most sessions took place at the Plenary Hall but there were several breakout sessions subdivided by themes of interest or world regions; some of the said breakout sessions also had simultaneous interpreting.

Our teams received standing ovations and a lot of recognition on account of the difficulty of some sessions and the fluidity by which interpreters were able to deliver a real-time version of the proceedings.  We facilitated a total of 400 headsets and four teams of interpreters, two Spanish and two French. The floor language was mainly English

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One of our main specialty is the provision of interpreting service for strategic or sensitive projects

In that line, b-lingo.com was the organizer of interpreting services for several events of that nature, namely:

• The workshop that took part in early January, organized by PDRM, Interpol and UNODC, to deal with the issue of FTF and international jihadism prevalent in Southern Philippines.

• the Seminar on corruption in sports organized by Interpol and IOC in Kuala Lumpur, on the 16 & 17 of October

The said seminar was attended by more than 100 participants from law enforcement ( Royal Malaysian Police, Royal Customs, Anti-Corruption Agency ) international, regional and local sports organizations ( FIFA, FIBA, ITF, BWF ) and members of the press corps. Delegates came from several SE Asian countries, notably Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries

It was a big success and, linguistically speaking, we felt our contribution was best suited to enhance the degree of understanding this menace represents for all competitive sports

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Y.B. Dato’ Saifuddin Abdullah has been appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia in the new Administration constituted by Tun Mahathir Mohamad.

It is a source of pride to all Malaysia-based translators and we wish Y.B. the best of luck in his undertakings as Minister.

We fervently hope this would be a good example to raise the profile of the Translation Industry  in Malaysia\

Hidup Harapan!

27 June 2018

As reported in the Slator, a senior UK judge predicts the end of interpreters within the next few years due to the emergence of AI and instant translation processes. What are your thoughts on that?