The debate over the effectiveness of artificial intelligence (AI) vs. human capabilities is more relevant than ever. While it’s easy to fall into the trap of viewing them as rivals, the real question is how the two can work together to be more effective. A recent conversation inside Monterey Language Service highlighted this future trend, revealing the crucial role that human expertise plays in AI development.

Humans can make AI better

In copy editing, AI can analyze text for grammatical errors, and even adjust tone and style based on the context. However, as Gary pointed out, AI may handle at best 80-90% of the editing process, but the last step often requires a human touch: flexible, context-aware, and capable of grasping nuances that AI might overlook.

Mei-Ling, on the other hand, argued that the focus should be not on the limitations of AI copy editing but on celebrating its rapid development and the role humans can play in enhancing AI capabilities.

The Path Forward: Enhancing AI with Human Expertise

Mei-Ling emphasized the idea that humans can make AI even better by providing it with high-quality training data. This is an important insight: the future of AI doesn’t lie solely in its inherent capabilities but in its integration with humans.

While refining AI’s editing capabilities, we need to provide it with a variety of professional materials to cut its teeth on. There are several ways that humans can do this, and it all begins with giving AI high quality writing to train on.

But what specific steps should be taken to move forward? There are many things we can do including, but not limited to the following:

• Clearly sharing context information with AI concerning the relevant conversation or the audience
• Exposing AI to detailed examples of human conversation, including informal language, idioms, and regional dialects
• Training AI to recognize and respond to emotional cues
• Sharing cultural nuances and social norms
• Guiding AI to better understand references and humor
• To model turn-taking and back-and-forth dialogue to AI
• Helping AI understand the tone, rhythm and flow of human conversation
• Feeding high quality content to AI
• Providing feedback on how the AI’s responses come across

By combining these approaches, professional linguists can play a vital role in shaping AI. More than ever, we as human translators and interpreters have a lot of work to do, particularly in connection with individual creativity and uniqueness.

Our Previous Blogs about AI

Monterey Language Services has constantly kept an eye on AI development. Our blog series since August of 2023 has been aimed at showing how the synergy of human creativity can elevate AI performance.

Check out our previous blogs about AI:

Professional Copyediting after Content Creation: Staying ahead of the AI curve

Blue and White Porcelain: The Joy of Translation from Behind the Scenes

A Love Letter to Chinese Culture — Blue and White Porcelain Lyrics

Advice to Future Interpreters

Interpreters and Music: Translation Accuracy

Interpreters and Voices: On Human Aura

Interpreters and Voices: On Human Recording

AI Performing Music: On Human Individuality

Diversity and Richness: Interpreters and Music

Thoughts about AI: Interpreters and Music

AI and Translation

These blogs discuss AI’s capabilities, how we have worked with it and what our expectations are.

“AI is able to follow patterns to come up with solutions that others may have thought of and implemented before, but without managing to achieve such originality on their own. Is it possible for AI to progress towards greater individuality and uniqueness?” ( AI Performing Music: On Human Individuality)

“AI is capable, but then can AI interpret our tones, our feelings, our energy, our life, our passion, our emotions, and our sense of mission that professional interpreters have shared?” ( Thoughts about AI: Interpreters and Music)

 Conclusion

Rather than debating whether humans or AI did better in copy editing, the blog is intended to celebrate the collaborative efforts that can make AI development and human creativity progress together. Ultimately, it’s essential to value partnership over competition. The future of copy editing will depend on our ability to combine human expertise with artificial intelligence to create something truly remarkable.

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl0vHQPHXA8

Though the industry has been working to have AI better replicate emotion, the current AI is still very monotonous and one-note in terms of its ability to express emotion. As our Chinese colleague Yingjie, who has been involved in natural language AI, commented: It is too early to talk about AI mimicking human emotions.

Exactly because diversity and richness have been the areas where humans outperform AI, this behind the scenes post will be unavoidable lengthier than our usual blogs. In other words, we would like to take the time to discuss diversity and richness and focus on the human side of stories rather than music genres or instruments.

When Mei-Ling casually recorded herself during a relaxing weekend, her intention was for this to serve as a demo for interpreters to participate in and show that the contributions can be just as light and candid as hers. She didn’t expect the video to be so diversified at the global level.

An ASL interpreter Kendra gave us the initial idea to include interpreters whose native language is ASL and interpreters of color. Originally, she was thinking to represent our local bay area communities. But then it was only natural that it evolved to include greater representation of the world communities. Besides interpreters from all over the United States including Hawaii, we have participation from China, Congo-Brazzaville, Egypt, and Israel.

We are so honored to have received contributions from all types: freshly recorded contributions from Davy, Fadhma, Oscar, and Mei-Ling just for this project; good times contributions from Qianxi, Sameh, Flower, and Nia; nostalgic contributions from Christy and Soheir; formal and elegant performances from Laura and Ayumi. Last but certainly not least, Jody contributed an easy-to-understand ASL presentation, and Sharon for giving us such a powerful contribution that we, as members of the global community, can all relate to. What a wonderful group of interpreters!

As you may have noticed, we have kept the audience very busy all the way: They have to watch clips, hear music, read storylines, listen to words from interpreters as well as from voices in the background, think about messages delivered, and all of these are meant to be done simultaneously. This is because we want to create an opportunity for the audience to experience what an interpreter has to go through when interpreting. After all, interpretation does require a bit of talent!

It’s natural to think that interpreters and music are all about performances. However, our perception changed after we received Fadhma’s contribution. We realized that it helped balance what we have been doing, which is listening. It cannot be understated the diversity that Fadhma brought to the project and how she expanded our horizons.

We are also so proud that we have the younger generation’s participation. Oscar’s son, Santiago, sings, plays the piano and the ukelele. Interestingly, he has occasionally interpreted spontaneously for family and relatives, and he is good according to Oscar. In Santiago, we see the hope of our profession and believe the interpretation profession will continue to prevail over AI for many years to come. In addition to Oscar and his son’s duet, we were blown away to watch the contribution from Davy with 3 sons during their family time. Davy’s 3 sons are so adorable, moving along with the music rhythm so naturally that I see the future of our beautiful world in the children of music lovers like Davy. What a beautiful family from Congo-Brazzaville!

Sharon has a huge heart to write such lyrics in her original song Safe Harbor: “No matter what your faith might be, the color of your skin, who you love or who you flee, I will take you in.”  These words cover the full span for world peace and harmony. We are glad to have Sharon whose lyrics have added breadth and depth to this video project!

Flower was celebrating her major birthday and decided the theme to be “Around the World.” We are so appreciative of the richness that has flown out of her clips. The presentation of Mexican, Spanish, American, and Chinese elements in the song, dance, and outfits is both culturally and visually global. What a music and cultural feast to share with us!

Sameh is an Egyptian residing in Egypt and was giving training in Kenya at the African Translators Association. In his singing, we hear “mighty place to be”, so we inserted a scenery background of Kenya, which adds the exotic feel that interpreters experience when they travel to places for assignments. Sameh did professional singing during his last 2 years at college, and he does a lot of styles, ranging from country music to jazz, that explain why he sang so freely and we really enjoy it and admire him!

We cannot thank Nia enough for selecting such a great song for the world community. It perfectly concluded the video project that we have explained in our Part 1 Behind the Scenes blog post. We’d like to thank Qianxi for thinking of us while having a good time during a karaoke party on a small island in south-eastern China. We thank Jody for providing such a wonderful piece for everyone to understand, a clip of her ASL interpretation performance of the star spangled banner. We also want to express our heartfelt thanks to the nostalgia and wonderful past that Christy and Soheir’s contributions did, bringing us back in time and allowing us to relive the past. We would also be remiss if we didn’t give a fond shoutout to Laura and Ayumi’s performances, which represented some of the finest and most expressive types of music, played at the highest level. All of these interpreters have brought the video to a broader, and higher level, ultimately adding much more enjoyment to the audience. Thank you so much!

Every individual contribution represents how the human brain works. We didn’t dictate what each individual would do in their contribution. It was completely up to them and their free choice. And yet, all of the individual contributions have aggregated as a whole to give us a very good sense of our mission and what we are capable of as professional interpreters. As Oscar put it, how uplifting and positive for us all as interpreters!

And then, we wondered what would happen if this topic was taken by an AI without any intervention—what would an AI party resemble without human intervention? Would it be as diversified and rich, or as enjoyable and heartfelt, or as uplifting and positive for us all as interpreters, as if it’d been done solely by humans and their individuality?

Video Link: https://youtu.be/yl0vHQPHXA8

After watching the video, don’t you go thinking that we only sing and dance as interpreters! One of the interpreters featured in the video, Fadhma, was so inspirational with her words, and prompted us to write the behind the scenes story.

Interpretation is such an abstract concept, so we were trying to figure out how we could explain it. Ultimately, we realized that we could demonstrate it using something relatable and timeless like music. It’s something that everyone is familiar with and likes. This is why we link interpreters to music and we are proud to say that through the collaboration of our fellow interpreters around the world, we have vividly drawn various analogies between our interpretation profession and music.

That’s right! The role of interpreters is as important as music to all of us! In the video, we pose a question: Imagine what the world would be like without interpreters? And then the voice on the background answers to it exactly “on all those faces, what do they say?” We are amazed by how our colleague Hina has wonderfully found that line of monologue from one of Nia’s contributions. That basic answer provides the core foundation for our mission as interpreters.

We then asked a Chat AI: Answer simply on what the world would be like without interpreters? The answer was: Without interpreters, the world would face significant communication barriers and misunderstandings. Interactions between people speaking different languages would become extremely challenging, hindering international cooperation, business transactions, and cultural exchange. Traveling and understanding different cultures would also become more difficult, resulting in a more isolated and divided world.

The Chat AI’s reply is decent, but it is insufficient as it only gives an answer about the consequences. How do you go straight to the core like a professional interpreter in answering the question and allowing us to use the answer in a fast yet must catch all video? This is one aspect in the production that professional interpreters can distinguish ourselves from AI!

We cannot stress enough the significance of interpreters weaving diversity and unity through communities. Again, the video background voice champions and answers right to the heart – “Yeah…ah! The colors of the rainbow, so pretty… in the sky.” The hues of the rainbow so unbelievably fit into the messages we would like to deliver, and we felt like they are a godsend.

This video has certainly re-ignited our sense of mission and the mission must go on even further in spite of AI technophobia. AI is capable, but then can AI interpret our tones, our feelings, our energy, our life, our passion, our emotions, and our sense of mission that professional interpreters have shared? Seeing this video, we are reminded once again that interpreters who are full of life with a good sense of mission will continue to prevail over AI! We are thrilled and honored to connect with all the amazing interpreters in the world! At this point of conclusion, the messages of the video become clear that these are real life, real energy, real interpreters, and real interpretation that AI can not replace, at least not in our lifetime! Being surrounded by the predominant AI waves today, this video serves as a therapeutic piece to relax the minds of human interpreters, so let’s go sing and dance!

To celebrate interpreters’ success stories, Monterey Language Services has put together a video showcasing the friendliness, professional, expertise, and different roles of our interpreters in shaping the harmonious community of our nation.  You can view the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYxpYyoC7z0

Interpreters can spend years honing their skills to become subject matter experts in their fields, such as healthcare, education, or the legal sphere. Some have even worked in these fields as doctors, nurses, teachers, paralegals, and more before becoming language experts.

Interpreters believe in the fidelity and fairness of their work. Interpreters ensure that information is relayed accurately between the parties involved, making sure that nothing is omitted or erroneously said and everyone is on the same page. This is incredibly important in medical and legal settings.

Interpreters describe their work as rewarding and fulfilling. Many times, the act of interpreting contains an emphasis on helping those limited or non-English speakers or hearing disabled persons who are in need, such as to help with healthcare or education. This gives many interpreters great satisfaction in giving back to the community and keeps them looking forward to their work.

Monterey Language Services has the pleasure working with so many talented, devoted, professional interpreters, providing excellent service for your needs, whether your event is large, small, private, or a personal matter.

Thank you so much to our interpreters for working with us for all these years, and for the years to come.

To keep an online presence. This might seem a little strange, but think about it this way: if you are looking to accept a car ride from someone, would you go with the person who has a five star rating, many customer reviews, a profile picture, and a little blurb about who they are? Or would you go with the person who has no profile picture, no rating, no reviews, and no profile picture? Obviously, you would go with the former. You would have many reservations about going with someone you have no information about. It’s the same thing with work. Having an online presence will help people who don’t even know you quickly get a feel for who you are and how you operate. Just make sure that you keep your presence online professional and active.

With a good online presence, you can also network. Networking is incredibly important for many reasons, but the most important one goes back to the previous example of a driver who you can easily read up about versus a complete stranger. When you submit your resume and cover letter to a company, especially a big company, they have to make a decision based off of the information you give them. If you don’t give them enough information, they will give the position to the person who they have a better picture of. Networking helps to get your foot in the door since you will have an opportunity to display who you are in a different, more informal setting. Networking will also help get your name into conversations making it easier for prospective clients or companies to identify you in the midst of other applicants.

You should be sure to start off small and get as much experience as you can under your belt. You would be surprised what an opportunity here or there will be able to get you in the future. Just be sure that when you do the work, you always treat it with as much care as possible. This means taking the time to ensure you have no errors, have translated everything perfectly and do not have any formatting issues. Just in case, you should have someone proofread your translation. Even if you are confident with the translation you have put out, it would be a good idea to have a pair of fresh eyes go over the work that you have done. They might have a new perspective or be able to point out some simple errors that you might have glossed over.

The last tip for this post is to set aside a specific time to do your translation. This might seem simple, but you do not want to be spending too much time or too little time on the translation. It is better to have a set time to work on the assignment than to just do it whenever you feel like it. With a schedule, you will be more committed to finishing the job, and will have clear boundaries where you can ensure you are not interrupted or distracted.

Starting out as a translator or interpreter is simultaneously exciting and frightening, but no matter where you start, you are sure to end in a good position if you persist. These tips are to provide a good starting point as well as a good base to build off of. We hope this helps anyone looking to break into the industry.

With the right words, we can share ideas with depth and precision. People are much more likely to understand and empathize with us if we use the appropriate words. The ability to choose our words well can affect our personal relationships and professional success. It can even make the difference between increasing our client base or declining client loyalty.

Here at Monterey Language Services, we know how important words can be. Ideas are great, but words are what make them really come to life. This is especially true when it comes to translation and interpretation. Professional translators and interpreters always make sure that they are using the proper words that will communicate clients’ ideas exactly as they are communicated in the original language.

Many people don’t realize the level of thought that a translator puts into selecting the perfect word, or the research that an interpreter does to create a personal well of words that they can draw from at a moment’s notice. We work with translators and interpreters who are passionate about finding the perfect word that will best express the ideas of the client. For example, Monterey Language Services specializes in medical translation and interpretation; we recently worked on a translation project going from English into Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Punjabi. It was intended to help pregnant women manage their prenatal health. This translation included the term “dull pressure,” which is a tricky term to define in English, let alone another language. Our translators had to discuss with each other in order to bring out the true meaning of this term using words that expectant mothers can understand completely.

In a broader sense, translators and interpreters use words to facilitate interactions and bring different groups together. It is important for all people to be able to listen and be heard, whether it is during a doctor appointment, a loved one’s graduation, or a public meeting. This is why language services like translation and interpretation are crucial when it comes to helping non-native speakers, low-English proficiency (LEP) and hearing- or vision-impaired communities. Facilitating communication is one way that language service providers bring people, communities, and worlds together.

Eloquence in multiple languages is a key characteristic of translators and interpreters. As a language company, we also strive for eloquence. We must demonstrate to our clients that we appreciate the impact that words can have. When a client came to us with some concerns, we communicated with her in a way that was clear and professional but also understanding, and she ended up being excited and pleased to work with us. We enjoy it very much when everyone is communicating at the same eloquence level, and this attitude encourages our clients and our translators and interpreters to continue working with us. We think about the importance of words in all aspects of our work and communication; it keeps us going every day and we are doing great!

However, by industry standards, they also have their own distinct professional traits. What do interpreters do that translators don’t? What does a translator need that an interpreter can do without? How different are they really on the job? Here are just a few of the things that set translators and interpreters apart from each other.

1. Work Mode
Professional translators and interpreters sometimes forget that many people outside of the industry often don’t even realize that these are two different professions. To put it as simply as possible, translators write while interpreters speak. A translator takes a text in one language and rewrites it in another language. Interpreters, on the other hand, listen to what someone says in one language and then convey it by speaking in another language.

The fundamental difference in their respective lines of work is this: a translator usually does not speak at a job, but must have excellent writing skills, with all the things this implies: perfect punctuation, spelling, grammar. A successful interpreter needs all the skills required of a good public speaker, delivering messages clearly by speaking.

Translators in general enjoy the luxury of having more time, but that also means they have to be skilled at personal time management and able to focus deeply on one thing for an extended period, whereas interpreters must be quicker on their feet, able to tune out distractions, and have strong multi-tasking skills.

2. Working Environment
Translators and interpreters have different tools in their arsenals, and work in different environments.

A modern translator is computer savvy and skilled with the leading translation software (MemoQ, Trados, Wordfast, Déjà Vu, etc). Translators often have more freedom in terms of where they can do their work, and since translation requires a great deal of focus and time, this means a comfortable space free from distraction, whether it be a home office or a space at the agency or company a translator works for.

Interpreters, by contrast, have much less personalized work areas, since they generally work in spaces that are not their own, although there are interpreters who work over the phone or through video calls from home. Interpreters in many cases also don’t own the equipment they work with: simultaneous interpretation requires microphones, audio transmission equipment, receivers, and headphones, but these are generally provided by the translation company or the client. Interpreters working in the consecutive mode have a more modest toolbox which usually includes just a pen and a notebook. Recently, tablets and digital pens with special features have been making their way into consecutive interpreters’ kits, but are not yet widespread.

3. Dealing With Pressure
Interpreters work under great pressure because what’s being said needs to be interpreted immediately, which doesn’t leave much time to think. For interpreters, time is very precious. If they spend too much time on a certain sentence or word, they run the risk of missing important information that follows.

By comparison, translators are not under immediate pressure but incremental pressure. They spend a long time refining their work and even invite others to edit and proofread it in order to ensure that the final product is as flawless as possible.

Act Now! Register by March 31st and get a $50 discount!

Registration form (click to download)

(no need to pay right away)

Return to Info Center: 40 hr Medical Interpreter Training

Take a glimpse of our instructors…

Instructors are real-world professionals

• Experts in their field
• Work in doctors’ offices and hospitals daily
• Examples are:
  • certified medical interpreters,
  • language access coordinators,
  • Monterey Language Services management

Who should participate?

• Interpreters looking to earn the 40 hour minimum training for state and national certification
• Bilinguals wanting to begin the process of becoming medical interpreters

Feedback from previous training sessions

“I thought I couldn’t make a career of medical interpreting. This workshop has been most encouraging.”

“Even though it’s not a secret field, I have found medical interpretation difficult to get into.”

“It was a most informative workshop and I look forward to learning more.”

Act Now! Register by March 31st and get a $50 discount!

Registration form (click to download)

(no need to pay right away)

Return to Info Center: 40 hr Medical Interpreter Training