On this episode of VistaTalks, host Priscillia Charles discusses Machine Translation (MT) with Paula Manzur, an MT Specialist at Vistatec.

Paula explains her language journey and how she became an MT expert. As a translator, Paula shared the challenges of deadlines. With Neural MT,
she discusses how to do things faster and more efficiently. She is a big supporter of MT, language, technology, and localization.

One of the most popular questions in the language industry is if machines will ever replace humans? Paula discusses her views and perspective on the subject.

MT is undoubtedly here to stay, and it is improving. “It is important that there are professionals who can follow the trends, keep on investigating and be ready to face all these challenges,” comments Paula.

MT is an essential technological change for the localization industry. There are many new trends and technologies in development. MT is changing the industry landscape, particularly as we look out over the next five to ten years. Paula shares how MT will become more integrated into one place and how linguists will probably not know where the sentence comes from, whether from Translation Memory or MT. Linguists will be doing their jobs as subject matter experts (rather than as translators) to bring the translation up to the quality level required for the customer and how this will become the ‘new normal.’

The discussion touches on methodology and the areas to consider before fully migrating into a machine translation, post-editing workflow. Paula shares
that there are many considerations you have to take into account. Which often includes the technology, the CAT tool and whether the machine translation engine is supported, and many other factors. It is a process, and there are several critical stages.

Paula shares her views of the Think Global Awards and how she loves them! “There are so many people to be recognized and acknowledged in this world.
So I think this is a great contribution to the community; that’s why I fully support these types of events,” comments Paula. Ulrich Henes won the Language Industry Person of the Year Award, and Paula highlights this and the inspiring keynote delivered by double Olympian Shane Ryan at the recent awards ceremony.

Finally, Paula shares what is currently keeping her busy, including speaking on industry panels and writing papers and plans for upcoming MT events

About VistaTalks

VistaTalks is a leading industry podcast from Vistatec. VistaTalks focuses on interesting discussions with interesting people from around the world. VistaTalks has a growing list of guests and topics. The podcast has a strong focus on international communication, content, language, non-profit, business, and culture.