Being a trained translator nowadays, in a Google era, is not an easy task…

The frenetic pace at which technology advances challenges more and more the future of our area of expertise.

I came to start to question myself…how can a certified translator compete with this new reality?

In my humble opinion, the key points in a human-translated work are:

  • Great accuracy
  • Understanding of the context, the target audience & the client’s expectations
  • Technical Savvy!!!

Yes, Google translation service is free, instantaneous and offered in a broad range of languages.

But, will it really replace human translators someday?

The short-term answer is NO. Not completely. And definitely not in its actual costless form.

The importance of contextual setting, the degree of complexity of certain documents, the cultural background needed for some other translations are just few reasons why it still requires, for the moment at least, the human grasp.

Nevertheless, I must say that I also believe in diversifying one’s skills, and in my case, in fields such as project management, project planning and team management to fight against the huge popularity of machine-aided & fully automated translation.

I might be an old-timer translator, but I still see clearly enough not to bury my head in the sand…

Any comments or questions? Feel free to share your thoughts, experiences and provide us with your feedback!