Video link: https://youtu.be/dATBteNQ-zY?si=bgPDXw-3FblyfnaW

Picking up where we left off on our previous behind the scenes diversity blog, we are certain that there is one thing that AI has yet to really accomplish. AI’s inability to generate something unique in music and in interpretation is something interesting to explore.

We have started to show the video, Interpreter and Music, to our closer circle of colleagues and friends in order to gather feedback. One colleague sent us a video from Kuban Music on YouTube about AI singing a Chinese song. Our initial reaction was of surprise at how impressive it is that an AI was able to sing like that. Our director of translation Mei-Ling thinks it’s so cool that she started to learn the song from the AI. But the more we listen to it, the more we begin to realize that there’s something lacking in its composition and performance. After repeated listening, Mei-Ling, who is not even close to be called a singer, feels the urge to record herself to challenge the AI singer. She said it was a therapeutic experience, because she feels that she has something unique that the AI is lacking — heart and liveliness. There is something special from hearing a human singing that an AI voice couldn’t produce. For comparison, please see both the AI and the human samples below. We are sure if we were to invite 100 humans to sing, they will come out all differently with their own individual uniqueness, while AI variations will most likely be limited.

Everyone knows that AI is a result of big data, “aggregating” from others to generate its materials. It’s trained in a way to mimic humans. Notice that’s humans, plural. This is because it’s not trained to mimic individual people, but a general populace. It essentially crowdsources behavior from the resources it’s trained on, and becomes not just one person, but many. Though the programmers may have the AI come up with clever phrases, such as AI shedding tears, to make it sound like its own person, it isn’t nearly as unique and diverse as humans. It’s inherently impossible for that to happen because of the origin of the AI’s nature.

On the contrary to that, with our interpreter and music video, individuality is one thing that we really wanted to express. 15 individual contributions from around the world bring in incredibly vast diversity and inclusion, yet no interpreters were instructed on what exactly to be contributed. Every piece comes out of interpreter’s individuality with each interpreter’s own language, culture, thoughts, feelings, circumstances and education that leads to how they act. In this sense, everyone is as unique as a fingerprint—there really is nobody like each one of them in the world.

For music, it’s always about expressing oneself with human emotions and energy, and AI may be struggling to do that because it doesn’t have a sense of self. The ability to have your emotions flow out is something that AI is not able to replicate, at least not in present times. AI is always searching for the “right” answer, but there isn’t one with creative media like music or abstract concepts like human energy.

AI is unable to think outside of the box and improvise like humans can. They’re trained to think on pre-existing thoughts and opinions. Anything outside of that scope is not something that they are able to even perceive. That’s why, for example, AI will never truly be able to replicate jazz. Jazz is a collaborative performance where innovation and creativity are key elements. At any given minute, the tempo and melody can change to something entirely different, and it’s up to the musicians to keep up and complement each other so that it doesn’t sound like complete chaos. AI is very exciting technology, but there’s nothing quite as thrilling as watching jazz musicians collaborate or excellent interpreters work.

More often than not, interpretation is similar to Jazz where interpreters often need to improvise and come up with creative solutions to their on-the-spot translation. AI is able to follow patterns to come up with solutions that others have thought of and have done before, but they’re not able to come up with these types of originality their own. AI singing or interpreting at the current stage may serve as a gist of ideas, a prototype, or a machine for learning a song. Still, it will be important for humans to intervene, and add the kind of individuality or human touch that will help it sparkle and make it shine and standout as a piece of unique individual work.

In the future, the methodology used to create AI may change. Is it possible that AI will get closer to having more individuality and uniqueness? We’d love to hear our colleague’s thoughts on the topic because everyone brings their own unique perspective. There are multiple answers to this question and we’re happy to start the discussion and see where it leads us since this is such an important topic in this day and age!

AI singing sample: (Listen Here)

Human singing sample: (Listen Here)

Monterey Language Services is offering a full-time project management position, to manage translation and interpretation projects in a large number of languages.

We are looking for a MATURE, ENERGETIC, SELF-MOTIVATED, AND RESPONSIBLE person with the following experience/requirements:

• At least one year of experience handling multilingual projects in the TRANSLATION & INTERPRETATION business
• Has a great sense of responsibility and passion about working as Project Manager
• Able to cooperate with others as well as work independently
• Good English communication skills – both written and verbal
• Experience using SDL Trados or similar as a Project Manager
• Experience using interpreter scheduling software is welcomed
• Likes working with technology and tools

If you are interested, please email your COVER LETTER, Resume and recent salary history to Mei-Ling Chen, Director of Translation, at mei-ling@montereylanguages.com

Monterey Language Services
www.montereylanguages.com

Since its creation, Twitter has been a worldwide phenomenon that has connected everyday people with their favorite celebrities, friends, and everyone in between.  Although the service has been provided worldwide, the company has been trying to translate the business tools into 33 languages in order to reach an even broader audience.

These languages include: Afrikaans, Arabic, Basque, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Farsi, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Urdu.

At the Twitter Translation Center, translators can sign on using their Twitter account and help translate various blocks of text for the company. The upside for the translator is experience in the field, as well as their name possibly on the “Top Ten Translators” for those who have been translating the most.

The @MRYLanguages Twitter account isn’t in this top ten just yet, but it does connect directly with Director of Translation Mei-Ling Chen where she will gladly answer questions posed about the company, translation services, or any other related topic in the industry.

I was representing Monterey Language Services, making a company presentation at a client site.  The name “Monterey Language Services” pleasantly and surprisingly initiated a big discussion.    ~By Mei-Ling Chen

Why are we called “Monterey Language Services”?  The answers from the audience included:

• We are located in Monterey County.
• John Steinbeck wrote a lot about Cannery Row in Monterey.
• Everybody knows Monterey.
• When asked where you live and you say Monterey, everyone knows which city you are referring to.

The answers began to branch out further:

• The Monterey area is famous for languages because of several renowned higher education language institutions, such as Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) and Defense Language Institute (DLI).
•  Monterey showcases the language history of the area.  Immigrants of almost every ethnicity worked in Cannery Row.
• ·Monterey has the unofficial title of the language capital of the world.

The name “Monterey Language Services” does have its significance to us, just like names such as Oxford, Napa and The Hague have international significance as authorities on academics, wine, and law.

Because of the name, and the fact that many of us are trained and educated here, we are driven to provide high-quality translation and interpretation services. We are committed to keeping high quality as the leading force in the translation and interpretation services industry.

The name “Monterey Language Services” inspires us to serve the community, as well as every other part of the nation and world.  With this commitment in mind, it is no wonder that the name Monterey Language Services attracted so much interest among the audience whom I met locally yesterday.

What a wonderful time to start a new year!  We wish everyone a successful year to come!

by Mei-Ling Chen

A new client commented: “I trust you will get the meaning as well as the words in all translations. It is very important.”

When customers say this to us, as Director of Translation for many years, I understand what they mean.

It is vital to get the correct meaning in translation. Even more important is to know who your author and target audience are. With this information, the experienced translator is able to make a judgment call.    

Then the translation can be written from the point of view and background of the original author. Whether from a CEO to employees; a department of communications to the general public; or a teacher to a student—the tone, style, and presentation will have to vary. This is a powerful difference that an excellent human translator can make!

With due respect to machine translation, I must say that in order to achieve the above requirements, excellent human translators are needed.  These are translators who have good sense, can analyze the text and the background, and successfully conduct research.

Sure, machine translation may be able to get a rough idea of what a passage is about and what languages are involved. But think twice whether it can boost your company’s image, or provide the quality that your company is looking for.      

If you are lucky, things might turn out right; but if a human has to edit or find bugs in the work done by machine translation, what could possibly happen?

– a waste time, resources, energy
– the need to scrap the work, and redo the entire project
– troublesome enough where you may want to smash the machine software!

This is why we believe in real, genuine devotion to quality and research when working on a translation project.

MLS team members are professional, dedicated and passionate about languages and foreign cultures. We are oriented towards finding the best words for the best translations. As individuals, we take pride in being cultural communicators and in promoting international understanding.

Offering translations from every language into English and vice versa, our company plays an important role in cross-border business communication. We provide translation, interpretation, copy-editing, proofreading, website localization, software localization, multimedia transcription, dubbing, subtitling, foreign language desktop publishing, and more.

At MLS, resources abound to work with foreign languages. Our network is global, and yet locally we are within easy reach of the top language experts in the world. The language history of this area is showcased in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, where immigrants of almost every ethnicity worked. The area has developed into a hub of translation and interpretation education and services. MLS captures the essence of what the Monterey Bay Region offers.

The firm’s website www.montereylanguages.com contains numerous blogs by team members.  Here we recount our experiences working with languages and display a wealth of understanding of how language expresses culture in different parts of the world.

MLS handles all your languages needs professionally. For translation of documents, interpretation for diverse settings or for any other language or culture-related services, email us at info@montereylanguages.com and find out how we can help you:

•    optimize and better formulate your ideas, arguments and concepts
•    enrich your personal or your company’s profile, story or presentation
•    increase your personal or your company’s marketability