Reflection on Escort English
Sep. 2021 ~ Jan. 2022
1. Q：In the past, have you used Google Translate before? If so, what did you use it for?
I have used GT before this course; however, I didn’t use it to translate a long text but phrases and words. Also, most of time I prefer to use dictionary such as Collin, Cambridge, and EC Dict (a phone app) for word and phrase translation. Since Sherry’s course in last semester, I started to translate a long passage by GT, which I found it a fast and easy way.
2. Q：One Gt training session was conducted in the beginning of the semester. Was it enough for you?
I think it the beginning it was enough for me. But I didn’t remember the usage of GT Phrasebook.
3. Q：What strategies did you employ when you use GT for subtitle translation?
In subtitle translation, I used A). Translate Based on different unit. Because I found the results are different if translating a long text at once or translating unit by unit. Therefore, if the original sentence is an informal sentence, such as contains many redundant words, I would use GT to translate each little set of word. Also, I used B). Perform inversed translation. Even though I think this step is unnecessary because the results simply show the corresponded word choice from data base instead of showing the errors that human would make, I still conduct this process. I assume that since I am familiar with English and Chinese, when I translate Chinese to English the performance of inversed translation may not be significant. In contrast, if I am translating Chinese into a less familiar language such as Spanish, I need to inverse translate in order to double check the word changes and the word meaning of those changed words to make sure the text conveys my thought properly
4. Q：Based on the translation generated by GT, how did you try to refine your translation? Do you think peer discussions and teacher feedback were helpful when you refined the GT output?
I will read through the whole text again. Meanwhile, peer discussion helps a lot. Thought we are all English major students, somehow our comprehension of words and word choices may differ from one to another. It’s useful that we have peer review in class, and we can directly point out the problems and concerns.
5. Q：When was GT most helpful for the translation tasks that you’ve practiced in this course?
The most helpful part of GT must goes for the time saving part. When using GT, I become a reviewer, who only need to focus on the word choices and the meaning throughout the whole text. Actually, I am not good in grammar, but I do trust the grammar in GT. I find myself trust more computer calculation than my brain!
6. Q：Overall, how did you feel about using GT to assist translation in this course?
Overall, I think GT is useful. If I want to make my words be more advanced or I simply want to emphasize on a particular part, I can simply use other dictionary to look up for more word choices. In my view, GT won’t make the work outstanding but it saves time and is around 90% accurate translation in terms of words and meaning (if the sentences to be translated are clear and grammatical).