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Until fairly recently, evaluating translation has been like evaluating art: most people agree that some art is better than other art, but there are few hard-and-fast criteria for objectively evaluating quality. This is also true for machine translation- how can we consistently and objectively evaluate machine translation output across various levels of quality and style? It’s not enough to say that one is simply “better” or “worse”, because that doesn’t give us any useful information about how to improve quality.

Here are some examples from art. On the left is a mural of two hands on the side of a building in Berlin. On the right is a set of two photographs of a hand hanging in the Münchner Stadtmuseum. Which one of these two images is better art? Why? You likely have your preference, but what are the determining factors? Is black and white better than color? Is photography better than paint? Is a small print better than a large mural?

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In undergrad, I minored in political science. My senior year I had a political theory class, and every week the professor expected a two-page critical response to the assigned reading. It was dense stuff, from Plato to Emma Goldman, and a lot of my classmates were tearing their hair out every week trying to complete the reading and then write an intelligent response to it. I didn’t want to spend more time on this assignment than I had to, so I came up with a system, which I’m sharing with you.

Iris’s 6-Step Guide to Writing Short Papers

1. While reading, write down (or copy and paste into a document) quotes that jump out at you for any reason. Include page numbers.
2. When you’re done with your reading, look through the quotes you’ve written down.
3. Identify the general theme among the quotes you’ve selected. Read more

Cloud-based translation management systems (TMSs) have many of the same advantages and disadvantages as other cloud-based services, with industry-specific additions. Cloud-based TMSs require far less storage space on individual machines, outsourcing the storage capacity to the cloud. They are accessible from any computer anywhere in the world, and translators and editors can be sure that they are accessing the most up-to-date version of the document and other resources, like databases and translation memory (TM).

So, should your business use a cloud-based TMS?

If you’re looking for a flexible, scalable system where you only pay for what you use, AND your translators and editors have strong, reliable internet connections, the answer is yes.

However, if your translators are accustomed to traditional, high-powered centralized TMSs like SDL Trados and your company works with highly sensitive data, switching to a cloud-based system can actually reduce productivity, as well as putting your and your clients’ data at risk.

That’s the short answer. Let’s dig deeper.

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On Monday night I went to an alumnae* happy hour for the Girl’s Middle School (GMS), which I attended more than a decade ago. Attending GMS was a formative experience for me, with its focus on empowering girls and encouraging them to pursue a STEM education. I benefited greatly from the low student-teacher ratios and personalized educational experience, and I know my classmates did as well. Other aspects of my GMS education that I particularly appreciated were the focus on learning over scores (no grades) and the entrepreneurial program in 7th grade (at age 12).

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This past Thursday I attended the Women in Localization Bay Area chapter’s holiday party at Metro City in Sunnyvale. This wonderful event was hosted by Lionbridge, who in addition to providing the space, food and drinks also gave out these adorable Lionbridge lion magnets.

I met a lot of interesting women, who are very gracious and welcoming to newcomers. This was my second time attending a Women in Localization event and it confirmed my impression that this is an excellent community dedicated to supporting each other’s growth.

My favorite part of the evening was learning about PanLex (https://panlex.org/). One of the reasons I decided to join the localization industry in the first place was my desire to break down linguistic barriers that prevent people from exercising their rights and accessing resources that should be available to them. PanLex is building one-to-one glossary lists for as many rare languages as they can, a fascinating and vital project.

I’m excited to learn more about all the cool projects people are working on at the next Women in Localization meeting!

I will be attending the career fair hosted by MIIS on September 14th, 2017. I hope to see you there!