She had thought until several years ago that
the time when machine translation was useful would never come. The
only good thing about it was that its translation was sometimes so hilarious, but
otherwise, was hideous.
However, she tried it a few days ago, et voila!
It was not so bad....
It made her think about what value a translator
could add to.
She said that it was impossible for humans to compete
with machines in terms of speed. Also, as to quality, the level of translation
machines is currently the same as the TOEIC score of 900 according to some
websites. Wow!! She is now seriously thinking that Japanese people no longer need to
learn English and the Japanese government, which decided to provide English
classes from the third grade, should stop such a waste of money and time.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Sachiko had to make
a choice ten months ago of either becoming a “machine translator,” i.e., translating
as a part-timer who is only evaluated based on the number of pages she translated,
or a kind of legal consultant with experiences of translating a bunch of legal
documents, although she is not a legal professional.
She still does not know which choice was
right, but given such speedy and high-quality machine translation services, the
right choice is obvious, isn’t it, whether she likes or not.
By the way, her purpose of learning English
in the beginning was to make friends all over the world. Speaking English
definitely increases the number of people you can closely communicate with. We can
use a machine in business, but otherwise, at least she does not feel like using
it, she said.
I saw Sachiko struggling and hurt terribly last
year and it was so hard for me just to see her like that. I hope that she will find
a new life in the new environment. I sincerely hope so.
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