Post #1902365

2026-03-10 21:07 UTC

@cstross @Gargron I have a friend who worked for years as a translator (English to French) but in recent years he found that he was no longer being asked to translate but to "post-edit" machine translations. It was taking him just as long, paying him less, and destroying his soul. He now works as a tour guide.

Replies (5)

@CppGuy@infosec.space 2026-03-10 21:18

@ccferrie @cstross @Gargron I have a friend who used to work as a translator. Just like your friend, she hated being given machine-translated texts to polish up. Edit: typo.

Open ##1902366
@fedithom@social.saarland 2026-03-11 05:29

@ccferrie THIS! Same (on a much smaller case, as translating is "just" my 2nd job on the side, and it's mostly "just" roleplaying games) happens to me as well. I'd never take on such an offer. @cstross @Gargron

Open ##1902367
@gvlx@masto.pt 2026-03-11 09:42

@ccferrie @cstross @Gargron Your friend should have asked for more money, as that was clearly to clean up someone's mess. As you do when asked to clean stupid code. #consulting #pricing

Open ##1902368
@dapangma@mastodon.social 2026-03-11 17:01

@ccferrie @cstross @Gargron my wife translated French to Chinese. She now works on exports inspections from France to Africa.

Open ##1902369
@annehargreaves@ioc.exchange 2026-03-14 16:30

@ccferrie @cstross @Gargron Yep. This is human translators' situation. At least in "major" language pairs where there is masses of data.

Open ##1902370