| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | Market for German-English legal translations Thread poster: Robert Hess
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Marina Aleyeva 
Israel
Local time: 13:06
Member (2006)
English to Russian
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| High quality seems no longer part of the equation whatever the market segment | Nov 19, 2022 |
Some time ago I was contacted by a huge medical translation company, who were honest enough to tell me they mostly rely on MTPE these days. You would think that medical translation is one of those highly specialised market segments that still have a demand for quality, but it just does not seem the case any more.
I have just fed a relatively simple English medical text into DeepL and got the usual robotic looking and unprofessional crap full of errors, which I would have to re-work ... See more Some time ago I was contacted by a huge medical translation company, who were honest enough to tell me they mostly rely on MTPE these days. You would think that medical translation is one of those highly specialised market segments that still have a demand for quality, but it just does not seem the case any more.
I have just fed a relatively simple English medical text into DeepL and got the usual robotic looking and unprofessional crap full of errors, which I would have to re-work completely if I wanted to make a decent translation out of it. So the claim of being the most accurate translator out there might be just a little, erm, exaggerated.
The problem with machine translation as I see it, at least at this stage, is not how good it is (it's not), but how well it suits the marketing model of grabbing as large a market share as possible by selling cheap, and that is something MT does very well. Our problem is not the advances of machine translation, which remains unfit for any professional purpose, but the marketing strategy that puts revenues first and quality last while taking advantage of the fact that most end clients are unable to tell a good translation from a poor one or don't have the knowledge to prove that something is a low quality translation. Or, for that matter, are willing to put up with low or mediocre quality as long as it comes cheap. Let's face it, most people just don't see the quality of a text as important and are not prepared to pay for it. This is where the demand meets the offer. One might argue there have always been companies that employed that strategy - true, but now they have the tool, and more and more of them are seeing MT as the gold mine and a way to finally reduce that costly budget item of translators to an absolute minimum. Can we swim against the tide? ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thanks for the excellent comments | Nov 19, 2022 |
I really appreciate more voices chiming in. It seems that none of us can be quite sure what exactly is going on with the translation market, including the high-end legal market I am in.
I definitely agree that the state of the German (and global) economy is a major factor. I also agree that, by itself, DeepL can't explain the sudden drop off of translation work I am experiencing. Instead, I would expect DeepL to gradually erode demand for human translations, and I think we can all a... See more I really appreciate more voices chiming in. It seems that none of us can be quite sure what exactly is going on with the translation market, including the high-end legal market I am in.
I definitely agree that the state of the German (and global) economy is a major factor. I also agree that, by itself, DeepL can't explain the sudden drop off of translation work I am experiencing. Instead, I would expect DeepL to gradually erode demand for human translations, and I think we can all agree that DeepL has already done that to a considerable degree.
As far as the need for human legal translators in particular is concerned, yes, it's hard to see how even human-edited DeepL translations could deliver satisfactory results. But we may underestimate clients' pain threshold for subpar legal translations - especially under current economic conditions. In the past 20 years, clients have sent me plenty of in-house English legal translations, mostly done by German attorneys, to translate changes that had been made to the German source documents. Not just some of the translations, but pretty much all of them, were bad to awful. Some were worse than what DeepL would produce. These translations usually had been in existence, and used, for years, and it dawned on me that I probably vastly overestimate the importance of quality. Sure, not all clients fit this picture, but the trend still may run in that direction, now that DeepL provides translations that are both instantly available and extremely cheap or free.
ADDITION: I just read your post, Marina. Your analysis seems right on target to me. The desire of quality is not constant. It shifts with price. As price goes down, clients' tolerance for lower quality goes up. And as you pointed out, many clients cannot tell the difference anyway.
Let me put this question out there: Is there anyone here whose workflow - i.e., jobs involving traditional human translation work - has remained more or less unchanged compared to pre-DeepL times? ▲ Collapse
| | | | | "Companies in Germany are still desperately looking for skilled or even unskilled workers" | Nov 20, 2022 |
Projections for German industry range between unfavorable to disastrous depending on where one looks. The tight labor market reflects existing order backlogs that need to be worked off. New orders, however, have been in free fall, according to industry analysts. And with energy costs going through the roof, the German industrial paradigm is set to change for good, with negative implications for the entire EU.
| | | | Jeff Whittaker
United States
Local time: 06:06
Spanish to English
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| What happens when... | Nov 20, 2022 |
...people start relying on this software. There are only two decent companies to provide MT translation. Then the price will start to go way up! And there will be less and less human translation input to feed the engine with good examples. "Après moi, le déluge"
[Edited at 2022-11-20 15:34 GMT]
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David GAY
Local time: 12:06
English to French
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Justin Trumain wrote:
And there will be less and less human translation input to feed the engine with good examples.
[Edited at 2022-11-20 15:34 GMT]
Don t worry, they already have millions of bilingual documents that have been curated. So no dearth ahead
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Andreas Baranowski wrote:
The tight labor market reflects existing order backlogs that need to be worked off. New orders, however, have been in free fall, according to industry analysts.
I understand and it makes total sense to mass-hire skilled workers (have a look on stepstone.de for service technicians aka Servicetechniker) who need to be trained for at least one year on-site or in the shop before they can contribute to profits for the company. I will ask the CEO of my company tomorrow if he already plans to dismiss me when his order backlogs are done.
| | | | | I will join you... | Nov 20, 2022 |
Dan Lucas wrote:
I have set a reminder to look at this thread in 6 months.
Regards,
Dan
...then (hopefully).
All the best,
Matthias
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:06
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| They don't know either | Nov 20, 2022 |
Matthias Brombach wrote:
I will ask the CEO of my company tomorrow if he already plans to dismiss me when his order backlogs are done.
Not sure if you're being serious or sarcastic, but Andreas makes a reasonable point (I guess he is referring to headlines such as these).
Both he and I analysed listed companies for many years. An important part of that work consisted of talking directly to corporate managements (including CEOs) about their industries and markets. I will not put words in Andreas' mouth, but this experience taught me personally that companies really have no idea what is coming down the road. They may have bullish expansion and recruitment plans, but those do not in themselves mean that the economy is healthy.
Managements rely on backward-looking indicators, such as sales, or forward-looking indicators such as orders that are not reliable (order cancellations and push-outs do happen). In the good times they get foolishly optimistic. In the bad times their pessimism knows no bounds. One month you call them and they're cheerfully talking about record shipments. Four weeks later they start sounding circumspect. Six months after that and they're despairing. A few months further on the cycle bottoms and off it all goes again.
So while your CEO may be a great guy, I'm also pretty sure he has no better idea than anybody else about what is going to happen. (It's also possible, of course, to have small and scattered bright spots even during a recession - perhaps this explains strength in certain types of recruitment.)
I still think companies are beginning to curb spending and that this is probably the largest driver of what appears to be a fall-off in orders in certain translation markets, but we will have to wait and see. The future is hard to predict. Maybe the global economy will avoid a downturn. If a recession does not materialise but translation orders remain depressed, then there will be a much stronger case for arguing that it is MT rather than the economic cycle that is causing problems.
Regards,
Dan
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| Excellent analysis | Nov 20, 2022 |
Excellent analysis, Dan. The bottom line is that, at the very minimum, there is virtually unprecedented uncertainty on the market. No one knows what's going to happen next year. So, companies assume a hedgehog position and dig in for tough times.
Still, I would love to hear from other translators, if any, who have not been affected (much) by recent trends, whether economic or MT-related. Is there really no one?
Thanks,
Robert
| | | | | German employment rebounds after COVID - Not indicative of baseline strength | Nov 21, 2022 |
Matthias Brombach wrote:
"...[M]ass-hire skilled workers ... who need to be trained for at least one year on-site or in the shop before they can contribute to profits for the company.
Not every vacancy calls for an engineer, and German vocational training has a good reputation, so most people can at least turn a screwdriver. Training for autoworker line jobs, for example, typically lasts only a few weeks.
The sustainability of this employment boom is all the more doubtful since its main driver appears to be the removal of COVID restrictions. Economic research institutes' reports draw a gloomy picture for the time ahead.
https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2022-10-25/ifo-business-climate-remains-gloomy-october-2022
| | | | | ...while just one mouse-click away... | Nov 21, 2022 |
...even Clemens Fuest, President of the quoted ifo Institute, admits that the downward movement is not as drastically as expected. Nevertheless, he has to speak of a recession coming, while you, Andreas, are going to spread pessimistic rumors that are not justified. Anyway, whether a recession is to come or not, you cannot deny the influence AI based translation systems like DeepL already have and will increasingly have also on your field of expertise and language combination. That's my prediction, based on my own experience in the past three years and based on the comments and reports here on proz made by our fellow translators. I wish that you all are right and that our or at least your business continues as in times before DeepL and before the Russian-Ukrainian war, but that is not going to happen, even in the domain of legal translations.
[Bearbeitet am 2022-11-21 07:26 GMT]
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I haven’t been affected until now, summer months were even exceptionally good, but (there’s always a but), November has been a disaster. Anyway, I have been translating for over 40 years and having lived through several crisis I like to think I know a little bit about surviving: keep calm and carry on!
P.S. I know nothing about the DE-EN legal translation market!
[Edited at 2022-11-21 17:34 GMT]
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| Thank you Maria | Nov 21, 2022 |
It's good to know that not one everyone has been affected by DeepL and/or economic factors for months on end, even if your November has so far been a disaster. Like you, I have, of course, been through quite a few downturns, some of which lasted several months. But this one feels, and is, different. My last translation job was on October 15. That's crazy.
Robert
| | | | | Barking up the wrong tree? | Nov 22, 2022 |
Matthias Brombach wrote:
Anyway, whether a recession is to come or not, you cannot deny the influence AI based translation systems like DeepL already have and will increasingly have also on your field of expertise and language combination.
[Bearbeitet am 2022-11-21 07:26 GMT]
Matthias, as for MT/AI, I have been variously criticized on this forum for expressing my misgivings about the impact of MT on our profession, which I believe will prove nothing short of devastating. I hasten to stress that this only my personal opinion.
On the economic outlook, economic research institutes’ assessments vary depending on their research directors' dispositions, political and otherwise. Thus, while Ifo takes a soft approach, IfW Kiel (which has a sterling reputation) in its Joint Economic Forecast (https://www.ifw-kiel.de/) prognosticates “Inflation, recession and welfare loss - The German economy is being hit hard by the crisis on the gas markets. The country is facing a permanent loss of prosperity.” I consider this assessment more realistic than others – not because it is harsher but because it takes a longer view and comes to the correct conclusions. Not dissimilar to what a realistic assessment of MT/AI would require.
In the coming years, I expect the going to get tougher yet. Mental preparedness and personal savings will be in demand, and possibly also exit strategies.
| | | | Jan Truper
Germany
Local time: 12:06
Member (2016)
English to German
Robert Hess wrote:
Still, I would love to hear from other translators, if any, who have not been affected (much) by recent trends, whether economic or MT-related. Is there really no one?
Thanks,
Robert
My translation work has not (yet) been negatively effected much by economic or MT-related factors.
I translate mostly entertainment-related texts (games, subtitles) where context plays such a huge role that MT is not a serious option, and even in tough economic times people will spend money on entertainment.
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