By Nicoletta Sciarrone
Written in June 2018 during the author's Modlingua internship, reflecting on the translation tools of that time.
If we look at the new tools translators have at their disposal to make their work faster, we notice how many more are available today than in the past. These tools help me a great deal, especially in the small, everyday situations of translation work.
The tool I use most is Google Translate, a machine translation tool that accelerates my small but necessary workload. As is well known, it has completely changed the way we work with languages and, consequently, the way professional translators work, thanks to the great reduction in translation time it guarantees. As a first approach to any translation delivered in Word format, Google Translate proves the most useful. It speeds up the first part of my job so much that it can seem the work is already finished. In fact, that is just the beginning, because my real job starts then. I feel proud to identify the mistakes made by the machine; it reinforces my self-esteem, because I can stand up to the situation. I also feel helped in my work despite the heavy revision required. Google Translate works on algorithms and does not recognize the semantic role of a word in a given context, and that is where my knowledge and accuracy come into play. It can be stressful because it lacks terminological accuracy, but it is also good exercise: I have to keep terminology in mind and note it down wherever necessary.
Grammarly is the most innovative tool I use. I found it through my Google email account, and it is very useful when writing a short message in English. Once I have checked and revised my text, Grammarly helps me reformulate sentences in a better way. It eliminates repetitions and unnecessary articles; some languages, and Italian is one, are wordy, and the translated text can turn out redundant. Moreover, the system itself checks that the sentence or paragraph being translated has not already been translated elsewhere, which supports accurate revision. It can identify when a concept has already been expressed and invites you to choose among different vocabulary options. It suggests how to reformulate a sentence better, corrects misspellings, flags punctuation that is not appropriate to the context, and asks whether the concepts expressed are equivalent. I find it especially helpful when translating scientific works, because it dramatically reduces the possibility of making mistakes and assures an accuracy often lacking when typing fast.
In addition, the revision tools of Microsoft Word are very useful: they remind me not to use the passive voice, which is very frequent in Italian; to introduce a new paragraph with a more appropriate linker; and to pay attention to spelling. I always have the chance to follow the suggestion or not.
With such tools, I can work easily and dedicate myself to the true nature of my work: reasoning about the content and expressing it at its best. I also feel more humane, because I know that behind these machines there are talented people who designed them.
