Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
One wonders is the ultimate destination will just be everyone speaks English (American). Chinese is too hard to learn.
Nonsense. If you're only speaking and listening, Chinese is much easier. Especially if you speak anything other than Indo-European.
Is that true? No idea, but the Chinese script has always put me off.
Most are better off saving by putting more into their pension than getting a shares isa which is why it’s not used so much
True, particularly given the tax reliefs, though depends on when you want to access it too, and how much you have available.
I don’t think its a bad idea generally to put as much as you can in your pension, keep a few months’ worth of outgoings + a bit of a top up for any unforeseen expenses eg home disrepair in cash, and anything left over / that you feel might be needed before you can draw your pension in equities (using ISA allowances where possible). And sticking to the general rule that any equity investment should ideally be for 5 yr + and appropriately diversified.
The squeamishness that many feel from investing in equities largely arises from a lack of education/confidence in that space. I know a lot of people who are terrified it will wipe out their savings - if we are in a situation where there is such a significant crash of stocks then we are all in much bigger trouble than just worrying about personal savings - it will impact on pensions and the whole financial system.
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor.
I think many see finances in 3 pots:
1) Housing: get as big a mortgage as you can afford and pay it off before retirement 2) Pension: by default heavily invested in equities for DC pensions most have now. 3) Buffer: typically in low returning cash ISAs
I suspect most people never have the financial resources to get past these 3 pots. And when they have excess, it either tops up the cash ISA or gets spent on expensive new cars / holidays / refurb kitchen / larger house etc. Or maybe buy to let another property. Which are all either "consumption" or piling more money into pot number 1. Hence as a country we have low savings rates, high consumption and housing obsessed.
What we could, as a country, do with more people doing is using that excess (where it exists) and investing it in equities or other risk assets. They would personally mostly end up better off as a result (there's risk but on average you get above inflation returns) and can ultimately spend more.
...which is what they do in the US. We should have better financial education so people can make the decision easily as to whether or not they want to do that here.
Most of the high performing investment opportunities in the UK are not open to the hoi poli. PE investment works on IRR of 33% and is less risky than chasing some VC backed alchemy. If PE guys come to see you, sit and listen.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
It’d be as wrong to tax machine translation as it would have been to tax machine calculation.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
Taxing machine language translation...how would that even work? You can outsource all of this, its already built into google, into ChatGPT, etc. We would have to go all Great Firewall of China. Its like saying you will tax companies for using LLMs to assist with software development, its not feasible.
What we have found is that the moat for LLMs isn't actually anywhere near as big as was thought and particularly if all you care about is a very specific language task you can win at that without having to have $50bn data centres runing 500k H100 GPUs. And of course you can run open source LLMs locally.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
The democratisation of culture has certainly, or so it seems, led to the pre-eminence of the low-brow. But maybe it was always like that? No doubt, there has always been parallel demotic and high brow. Light relief from Shakespeare and Marlowe, but no-one reads or watches it nowadays, or even shortly thereafter.
Politics is surely different tho, with the extension of the franchise. We have got collectively dumber. Gladstone used to give 2 hour speeches on the stump, and the Bulgarian atrocities galvanised a well-informed electorate. Not so much now.
Shakespeare was low brow. The theatre attendees weren’t (mostly) The High And Mighty.
The Gettysburg address was mocked as being a five minute speech, rather than the proper 2 hours oratory was supposed to take.
Yeah, that I suppose is the point. A general audience was prepared to sit through three hours of Hamlet or King Lear. Not exactly Coronation St or Game of Thrones, despite the odd stabbing, eye-gouging and occasional comic relief.
And, yes, Gettysburg was a miracle of compression. What's telling was the demand for more. I suspect many of the MAGA crowd struggle to get to the end of some of DJT's more prolix TruthSocials.
Taxing machine translation...how would that even work? You can outsource all of this, its already built into google, into ChatGPT, etc. We would have to go all Great Firewall of China. Its like saying you will tax companies for using LLMs to assist with software development, its not feasible.
The poor translators are merely the first row of soldiers to be mowed down. Most other cerebral jobs will follow - what then? This is coming at us very very fast and no one has a clue what to do
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
One wonders is the ultimate destination will just be everyone speaks English (American). Chinese is too hard to learn.
Nonsense. If you're only speaking and listening, Chinese is much easier. Especially if you speak anything other than Indo-European.
Is that true? No idea, but the Chinese script has always put me off.
Owen Jones has had his Labour Conference pass cancelled, apparently he is a safe guarding threat. Not a great look.
Pretty poor from labour
They also cancelled the pass of Paul Bristow the Tory mayor of P'Boro/Cambridgeshire even though he was there representing his area as per normal practice (Burnham has been to the Tory conference for example) They're frit
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
One wonders is the ultimate destination will just be everyone speaks English (American). Chinese is too hard to learn.
Nonsense. If you're only speaking and listening, Chinese is much easier. Especially if you speak anything other than Indo-European.
Is that true? No idea, but the Chinese script has always put me off.
Very much so.
How is it taught? Can you bypass the script issue?
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
The democratisation of culture has certainly, or so it seems, led to the pre-eminence of the low-brow. But maybe it was always like that? No doubt, there has always been parallel demotic and high brow. Light relief from Shakespeare and Marlowe, but no-one reads or watches it nowadays, or even shortly thereafter.
Politics is surely different tho, with the extension of the franchise. We have got collectively dumber. Gladstone used to give 2 hour speeches on the stump, and the Bulgarian atrocities galvanised a well-informed electorate. Not so much now.
Shakespeare was low brow. The theatre attendees weren’t (mostly) The High And Mighty.
Not really true. His genius was to make an amalgam of the two things.
A bit like Radiohead ;-)
More like Kdrama, which also has its rude mechanicals, and a mix of high and low discourse.
I have just nipped out for lunch here in Heanor and the town's lamp posts are bedecked with mainly flags of St George, but a few Union flags and even a private house with the flag of Wales. The High Street and market square are resplendent with red, white and blue bunting. The best f*** off "forrinners" display I have seen on my travels.
I won't be available to comment on Starmer's speech at 2.00, but I don't want to miss out on the fun so can I say now that it was absolute traitorous garbage, and where's Andy Burnham when we need him?
Lake North (a suburb of Sandown and not particularly nice) is a repeat election as it turned out that the Reform winner of the previous by-election didn't really want to be a councillor and probably didn't even have his main residence on the island. Despite all this, Reform may win again, although the Tories are making an effort to win it back.
Taxing machine translation...how would that even work? You can outsource all of this, its already built into google, into ChatGPT, etc. We would have to go all Great Firewall of China. Its like saying you will tax companies for using LLMs to assist with software development, its not feasible.
The poor translators are merely the first row of soldiers to be mowed down. Most other cerebral jobs will follow - what then? This is coming at us very very fast and no one has a clue what to do
I do accept Francis's point but yours is what I was getting at. In theory, AI will present more general opportunities at grand strategy level, and merely do the grunt work, and there's something in that for a while, but I'd suspect not for very long. In principle it's wonderful, but at the individual careers advice level more problematic. "Study something that either requires understanding of people (e.g. psychology) or requires hand and brain coordination (e.g. engineering)" is the best I've been able to come up with.
That said, many companies seem to take graduates on the basis that they've proved they can think coherently over a period of years, rather than expecting them to arrive with total expertise in the specific area of work.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
The fact I provided - that language translation and interpretation is a growing employment sector - up until 2024 at least - in the US, appears to be correct.
Taxing machine translation...how would that even work? You can outsource all of this, its already built into google, into ChatGPT, etc. We would have to go all Great Firewall of China. Its like saying you will tax companies for using LLMs to assist with software development, its not feasible.
The poor translators are merely the first row of soldiers to be mowed down. Most other cerebral jobs will follow - what then? This is coming at us very very fast and no one has a clue what to do
I suppose poetry "translation" will hold up. But that's because it isn't really translation. It's writing a new poem based on an existing one. The heirs to Ezra Pound et al can rest easy. Not too many job opportunities tho.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
The fact I provided - that language translation and interpretation is a growing employment sector - up until 2024 at least - in the US, appears to be correct.
If you seriously think “translation is a growing industry” then it puts all your other observations in a new context. You’re a nutter
@NickPalmer does this - did this - as a job. He’s just told you
I know professional literary translators in my work. Same story. Falling incomes, shrinking opportunities
Most are better off saving by putting more into their pension than getting a shares isa which is why it’s not used so much
True, particularly given the tax reliefs, though depends on when you want to access it too, and how much you have available.
I don’t think its a bad idea generally to put as much as you can in your pension, keep a few months’ worth of outgoings + a bit of a top up for any unforeseen expenses eg home disrepair in cash, and anything left over / that you feel might be needed before you can draw your pension in equities (using ISA allowances where possible). And sticking to the general rule that any equity investment should ideally be for 5 yr + and appropriately diversified.
The squeamishness that many feel from investing in equities largely arises from a lack of education/confidence in that space. I know a lot of people who are terrified it will wipe out their savings - if we are in a situation where there is such a significant crash of stocks then we are all in much bigger trouble than just worrying about personal savings - it will impact on pensions and the whole financial system.
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor.
I think many see finances in 3 pots:
1) Housing: get as big a mortgage as you can afford and pay it off before retirement 2) Pension: by default heavily invested in equities for DC pensions most have now. 3) Buffer: typically in low returning cash ISAs
I suspect most people never have the financial resources to get past these 3 pots. And when they have excess, it either tops up the cash ISA or gets spent on expensive new cars / holidays / refurb kitchen / larger house etc. Or maybe buy to let another property. Which are all either "consumption" or piling more money into pot number 1. Hence as a country we have low savings rates, high consumption and housing obsessed.
What we could, as a country, do with more people doing is using that excess (where it exists) and investing it in equities or other risk assets. They would personally mostly end up better off as a result (there's risk but on average you get above inflation returns) and can ultimately spend more.
...which is what they do in the US. We should have better financial education so people can make the decision easily as to whether or not they want to do that here.
Most of the high performing investment opportunities in the UK are not open to the hoi poli. PE investment works on IRR of 33% and is less risky than chasing some VC backed alchemy. If PE guys come to see you, sit and listen.
You need to hunt about a bit. I have a pot of VCTs, bought years back attracted in part by the tax relief, and they're now just like annuities (although they can be sold), paying a steady 6-7% on the original capital cost, year in year out.
And you can get an in to PE through, for example, Oakley Capital Investments, which I have held for years and seems to continue rising (I did see it as a 'topped out' sell tip in one of the Sunday newspapers recently, so DYOR.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
Speaking to a relative who's sprog has just started his first year at Fen Poly, he has gone for Biomed Sci - both for placements and a more likely first job, and for a discipline with a probable future.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure. (snip)
If memory serves, @Big_G_NorthWales has a granddaughter who is learning/has learned an oriental language (I forget which).
For the time being there will still be a market for translators in security sensitive areas where you can’t trust translation models controlled by a foreign power. The possibility of interception is too high.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
The fact I provided - that language translation and interpretation is a growing employment sector - up until 2024 at least - in the US, appears to be correct.
If you seriously think “translation is a growing industry” then it puts all your other observations in a new context. You’re a nutter
@NickPalmer does this - did this - as a job. He’s just told you
I know professional literary translators in my work. Same story. Falling incomes, shrinking opportunities
You're simply flaunting your low IQ again.
I have provided a fact, without any supporting commentary, twice now. The fact appears to be correct.
Taxing machine translation...how would that even work? You can outsource all of this, its already built into google, into ChatGPT, etc. We would have to go all Great Firewall of China. Its like saying you will tax companies for using LLMs to assist with software development, its not feasible.
The poor translators are merely the first row of soldiers to be mowed down. Most other cerebral jobs will follow - what then? This is coming at us very very fast and no one has a clue what to do
I do accept Francis's point but yours is what I was getting at. In theory, AI will present more general opportunities at grand strategy level, and merely do the grunt work, and there's something in that for a while, but I'd suspect not for very long. In principle it's wonderful, but at the individual careers advice level more problematic. "Study something that either requires understanding of people (e.g. psychology) or requires hand and brain coordination (e.g. engineering)" is the best I've been able to come up with.
That said, many companies seem to take graduates on the basis that they've proved they can think coherently over a period of years, rather than expecting them to arrive with total expertise in the specific area of work.
My own daughters - either at uni or entering it - ask me for advice and I don’t know what to say other than “study what you love”
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
One wonders is the ultimate destination will just be everyone speaks English (American). Chinese is too hard to learn.
Nonsense. If you're only speaking and listening, Chinese is much easier. Especially if you speak anything other than Indo-European.
Is that true? No idea, but the Chinese script has always put me off.
Very much so.
How is it taught? Can you bypass the script issue?
If you are happy to not read or write, yes. Grammar is super simple. Vocabulary very small. Only one word for one thing or concept.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
Interestingly (at least to me) - my eldest has just started GCSE's and specifically eschewed any Modern Languages in favour of both Latin and Ancient Greek. In his mind it's more academically interesting, and teaches you about language construction without having to bother with speaking / listening which will become redundant anyway. Not sure that'll be a common approach but potentially...
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
The fact I provided - that language translation and interpretation is a growing employment sector - up until 2024 at least - in the US, appears to be correct.
If you seriously think “translation is a growing industry” then it puts all your other observations in a new context. You’re a nutter
@NickPalmer does this - did this - as a job. He’s just told you
I know professional literary translators in my work. Same story. Falling incomes, shrinking opportunities
I suspect translating Trump into any form of coherence is beyond any AI system and, indeed, most humans. Some things genuinely are just too hard.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure. (snip)
If memory serves, @Big_G_NorthWales has a granddaughter who is learning/has learned an oriental language (I forget which).
My granddaughter is fluent in Welsh, Japanese, Italian and French with a degree in Italian and is about to join the HMRC
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure. (snip)
If memory serves, @Big_G_NorthWales has a granddaughter who is learning/has learned an oriental language (I forget which).
My granddaughter is fluent in Welsh, Japanese, Italian and French with a degree in Italian and is about to join the HMRC
Doesn't sound like she will find it particularly taxing.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure. (snip)
If memory serves, @Big_G_NorthWales has a granddaughter who is learning/has learned an oriental language (I forget which).
My granddaughter is fluent in Welsh, Japanese, Italian and French with a degree in Italian and is about to join the HMRC
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure. (snip)
If memory serves, @Big_G_NorthWales has a granddaughter who is learning/has learned an oriental language (I forget which).
My granddaughter is fluent in Welsh, Japanese, Italian and French with a degree in Italian and is about to join the HMRC
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
Speaking to a relative who's sprog has just started his first year at Fen Poly, he has gone for Biomed Sci - both for placements and a more likely first job, and for a discipline with a probable future.
Most wise. We need to consider where the future jobs are going to be and focus there
Plenty of talk, rightly, about the impact on jobs of AI. Driving for instance.
Little thought of how we replace the taxes lost when these jobs go
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure. (snip)
If memory serves, @Big_G_NorthWales has a granddaughter who is learning/has learned an oriental language (I forget which).
My granddaughter is fluent in Welsh, Japanese, Italian and French with a degree in Italian and is about to join the HMRC
Doesn't sound like she will find it particularly taxing.
Two more gone (suspended under investigation) - that makes 22 since May:
Two Reform councillors suspended in conduct probe
Northumberland County Councillors Nicole Brooke and Patrick Lambert had the "whip suspended pending investigation for breaching the Reform council group rules in a manner that could be detrimental to the party's interests", a statement read.
It follows the suspension of another Northumberland Reform UK councillor, John Allen, earlier this month.
Lambert, who represents the Norham and Islandshires ward, has been approached for comment. Brooke, who represents Berwick North, declined to provide a statement. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yj927wje5o
The reasons are mysterious. Did they speak to a newspaper?
Two more gone (suspended under investigation) - that makes 22 since May:
Two Reform councillors suspended in conduct probe
Northumberland County Councillors Nicole Brooke and Patrick Lambert had the "whip suspended pending investigation for breaching the Reform council group rules in a manner that could be detrimental to the party's interests", a statement read.
It follows the suspension of another Northumberland Reform UK councillor, John Allen, earlier this month.
Lambert, who represents the Norham and Islandshires ward, has been approached for comment. Brooke, who represents Berwick North, declined to provide a statement. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yj927wje5o
The reasons are mysterious. Did they speak to a newspaper?
You Reform obsessive are slacking a bit. Saw this on Facebook yesterday. Thought it would be all over here yesterday. It wasn’t !!!!
(They are arguing preparatory to a possible Judicial Review afaics - "the decision was irrational".)
Wednesbury .. but then a lot of Reform's Wednesbury-type decisions will soon become apparent. Enemies of the People I hear you cry while climbing up a lamppost clutching a flag.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
The democratisation of culture has certainly, or so it seems, led to the pre-eminence of the low-brow. But maybe it was always like that? No doubt, there has always been parallel demotic and high brow. Light relief from Shakespeare and Marlowe, but no-one reads or watches it nowadays, or even shortly thereafter.
Politics is surely different tho, with the extension of the franchise. We have got collectively dumber. Gladstone used to give 2 hour speeches on the stump, and the Bulgarian atrocities galvanised a well-informed electorate. Not so much now.
Shakespeare was low brow. The theatre attendees weren’t (mostly) The High And Mighty.
The Gettysburg address was mocked as being a five minute speech, rather than the proper 2 hours oratory was supposed to take.
Yeah, that I suppose is the point. A general audience was prepared to sit through three hours of Hamlet or King Lear. Not exactly Coronation St or Game of Thrones, despite the odd stabbing, eye-gouging and occasional comic relief.
And, yes, Gettysburg was a miracle of compression. What's telling was the demand for more. I suspect many of the MAGA crowd struggle to get to the end of some of DJT's more prolix TruthSocials.
As we discussed the other day, we have doomscrolling 30-seconds TikTok videos, and meanwhile podcasts and films go on for hours.
They are really pushing it. I agree that’s close to libel
Do they actually want to provoke Farage into legal action? Feels like it
Leondarmus KC there.
I think the "snake oil salesman" is readily defensible.
The "comparable to Andrew Tate" is more tricky. Farage was citing Tate as a role model after Tate had been charged with rape, but that does not speak to "comparable to".
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
The fact I provided - that language translation and interpretation is a growing employment sector - up until 2024 at least - in the US, appears to be correct.
If you seriously think “translation is a growing industry” then it puts all your other observations in a new context. You’re a nutter
@NickPalmer does this - did this - as a job. He’s just told you
I know professional literary translators in my work. Same story. Falling incomes, shrinking opportunities
You're simply flaunting your low IQ again.
I have provided a fact, without any supporting commentary, twice now. The fact appears to be correct.
I have arrived in Naples, Italy, after my arduous flight from Gatwick. I’m settled in a glamorous apartment in the Quattro Spagnoli, the old romantic Spanish quarters where Vespas fizz over the cobbles and the laundry hangs like flags of endless Italian surrender
I’ve got my AirPods3 in their shiny new pod. I’m ready to do my grand even futuristic experiment: do they really work as Babelfish? Does the translate function truly allow you to move smoothly through foreign languages, understanding everything, instantly?
Only problem: I’ve just discovered that Apple doesn’t offer instant Italian translation, yet. And you aren’t allowed to use these things in the EU, by law, so you can’t download the software
Situation excellent: avanti!
Should have invited my granddaughter along, as she is fluent in Italian and spent a year at Turin University !!!!
Not sure you’ve entirely grasped the purpose of my experiment
Do the AirPods translate what you say too? Or how does that side of the conversation go? Presumably because you are English, if the Italians don't understand you just shout louder until they do?
Nope. Which is a major drawback. The other person has to be wearing them as well
I’ve found some Spanish people and tried it and the translation is laggy and glitchy - but it works. So you can see that eventually - 2 years? - this tech will be transformative
The chat with an Ai expert last week said what I think you have said AI is as bad now as it will ever be - it will only improve. I'm setting a literature review this morning for 3rd year students. I will be explicitly telling them to use AI and reflect on its use. Eventually assessment will need to go back to the old style viva voce.
(Quick whilst the wifi works) My translator friend tells me that AI knows nothing & cares less about copyright and confidentiality. Secrets in, use any time anywhere in the future.
My German class at school lasted for 5 years and at the end of that time most of the people in the class could barely string together the simplest of German sentences. How is that possible? 5 years to learn almost nothing. It's mindboggling when you think about it.
My German class at school lasted for 5 years and at the end of that time most of the people in the class could barely string together the simplest of German sentences. How is that possible? 5 years to learn almost nothing. It's mindboggling when you think about it.
My German class at school lasted for 5 years and at the end of that time most of the people in the class could barely string together the simplest of German sentences. How is that possible? 5 years to learn almost nothing. It's mindboggling when you think about it.
I went through 11 years of compulsory Welsh in school. Picked up absolutely nothing. To be fair in secondary school the teachers pretty much gave up and we spent the lesson watching This Morning.
My German class at school lasted for 5 years and at the end of that time most of the people in the class could barely string together the simplest of German sentences. How is that possible? 5 years to learn almost nothing. It's mindboggling when you think about it.
I went through 11 years of compulsory Welsh in school. Picked up absolutely nothing. To be fair in secondary school the teachers pretty much gave up and we spent the lesson watching This Morning.
Learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult and that's probably how it should be. There's never going to be any shortcuts. I've totally failed at learning any of them.
No one will bother learning foreign languages. Not now. Why make all that mental effort when a bit of plastic takes away the need?
We are all going to get stupider and stupider
There will still be the need, but it will be much more specialised e.g. legal document translation. But being bilingual for general business purposes isn't going to be a major boost anymore. I remember somebody telling me how they had employed somebody who could speak something like 10 European languages to conversational level and they used them to do converse over email and phone for processing orders etc, that sort of person isn't required.
Yet in the US, ahead of everyone else on AI, the number of people employed in translation and related work is still rising.
Language learning remains a way to gain insight into other cultures and feel less of a tourist, and is excellent exercise for the mind, both in the short term and to fend off the passage of time. Maybe the mental skills so learned spill over into other areas. So it's no more pointless than paying to go to a gym and sitting on some exercise machine.
I used to have freelance translation as a useful second income, but the market has almost completely collapsed in the last 4 years. My niche was legislative translation, which you'd think would be relatively resistant to AI, but all you can get now is a draft AI transation which is 98% correct (which if we're honest is all that most humans could do), and get paid a pittance for looking for the odd gap (AI doesn't put ??? if it's stumped, it just omits the phrase). I've simply retired (I'm 75 and don't need it) but professional translators in their 40s must be looking at a cliff edge. I wouldn't advise anyone to learn languages except for pleasure.
In an ideal world, of course, the government would smooth it out by taxing AI translation and perhaps subsidising alternatives, but the real world doesn't work like that. Advising current students on what to specialise in is very tricky - something with a lot of human interaction and/or a manual trade.
Yes. @IanB2 is quite wrong and you are quite right
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
Speaking to a relative who's sprog has just started his first year at Fen Poly, he has gone for Biomed Sci - both for placements and a more likely first job, and for a discipline with a probable future.
My lad is a month into his first job as an analyst at a private equity company in London after graduating from the other place this summer with a degree in Economics and Managment. It pays well, but he seems to have to work all the hours God sends, poor thing. On the whole he's been pretty lucky though; many of his fellows are still looking for work or have started panic MA/MSc's. The graduate job market is horrendous at the moment.
My German class at school lasted for 5 years and at the end of that time most of the people in the class could barely string together the simplest of German sentences. How is that possible? 5 years to learn almost nothing. It's mindboggling when you think about it.
I went through 11 years of compulsory Welsh in school. Picked up absolutely nothing. To be fair in secondary school the teachers pretty much gave up and we spent the lesson watching This Morning.
In Welsh, I hope
Of all his talents, I don't think Philip Schofield was fluent
Will the Conservative Party conference be as utterly stupid as Labour’s, spitting out Farage and Reform every second sentence?
Yes, yes it will
That's if it goes well. After all, about half of 2024's Conservatives have already jumped into Nigel's embrace, and half of those who remain seem to be wishing they could.
Two more gone (suspended under investigation) - that makes 22 since May:
Two Reform councillors suspended in conduct probe
Northumberland County Councillors Nicole Brooke and Patrick Lambert had the "whip suspended pending investigation for breaching the Reform council group rules in a manner that could be detrimental to the party's interests", a statement read.
It follows the suspension of another Northumberland Reform UK councillor, John Allen, earlier this month.
Lambert, who represents the Norham and Islandshires ward, has been approached for comment. Brooke, who represents Berwick North, declined to provide a statement. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yj927wje5o
The reasons are mysterious. Did they speak to a newspaper?
You Reform obsessive are slacking a bit. Saw this on Facebook yesterday. Thought it would be all over here yesterday. It wasn’t !!!!
I was busy yesterday ; it's wallpaper, and an awful minor fascination. I'm astonished the one-per-week rate is continuing - but Nigel has since reopened selection to eg the people rejected for the General Election.
If it was the Libs, the Cons or the Labs at that percentage rate, they would have lost 75, 100 or 150 councillors by now.
As a story, I'm more interested in George Finch's (the 19 year old RefUK Council Leader of Warwickshire) attempted rejection of already-nationally-funded Active Travel schemes, and how that can be transformed into support.
Comments
The market for human translators and translating has collapsed. I met a girl in Sardinia who speaks six languages and who used to do this - she confirmed it
Even the EU is surrendering
“The European Commission’s translation unit has adopted AI-assisted translation, leading to a 17% staff reduction over the past decade, but human oversight remains irreplaceable. Agencies must integrate AI tools strategically while maintaining human-led post-editing processes.”
All of them will go in the end. Do we employ humans to check the mathematical output of pocket calculators?
What we have found is that the moat for LLMs isn't actually anywhere near as big as was thought and particularly if all you care about is a very specific language task you can win at that without having to have $50bn data centres runing 500k H100 GPUs. And of course you can run open source LLMs locally.
And, yes, Gettysburg was a miracle of compression. What's telling was the demand for more. I suspect many of the MAGA crowd struggle to get to the end of some of DJT's more prolix TruthSocials.
The poor translators are merely the first row of soldiers to be mowed down. Most other cerebral jobs will follow - what then? This is coming at us very very fast and no one has a clue what to do
They're frit
Why isnt Reeves getting credit for this?
I won't be available to comment on Starmer's speech at 2.00, but I don't want to miss out on the fun so can I say now that it was absolute traitorous garbage, and where's Andy Burnham when we need him?
That said, many companies seem to take graduates on the basis that they've proved they can think coherently over a period of years, rather than expecting them to arrive with total expertise in the specific area of work.
Henry Zephman and Sarah Montague are absolutely catastrophising the Labour Party Conference and Starmer's leadership on WATO.
Can StaLLMer now run for an hour without producing random shit like "Release the Sausages!"?
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-economy-grew-03-q2-2025-2025-09-30/
Not too many job opportunities tho.
Nottinghamshire Live launches legal challenge against Reform UK's County Council ban
Nottinghamshire County Council's Reform UK leaders have days to respond to the legal challenge
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/nottinghamshire-live-launches-legal-challenge-10536799
(They are arguing preparatory to a possible Judicial Review afaics - "the decision was irrational".)
@NickPalmer does this - did this - as a job. He’s just told you
I know professional literary translators in my work. Same story. Falling incomes, shrinking opportunities
And you can get an in to PE through, for example, Oakley Capital Investments, which I have held for years and seems to continue rising (I did see it as a 'topped out' sell tip in one of the Sunday newspapers recently, so DYOR.
The politics of this is dire
Not least because I’m here on someone else’s money testing new technology (given me for free) and that’s quite a pleasant task. Chin chin
Why ?
She’s hardly been an achiever in office. House building is not racing ahead
I have provided a fact, without any supporting commentary, twice now. The fact appears to be correct.
Grammar is super simple. Vocabulary very small. Only one word for one thing or concept.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/36qPWluhCto
Nigel Farage a ‘snake oil salesman’ comparable to Andrew Tate, says No 10 chief secretary
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/30/nigel-farage-a-snake-oil-salesman-comparable-to-andrew-tate-says-no-10-chief-secretary
About to do a tour of Spacca Napoli in Spanish - to further test the pods. Then it’s home to write my article and a seafood supper to follow
La Dolce Vita, indeed
Plenty of talk, rightly, about the impact on jobs of AI. Driving for instance.
Little thought of how we replace the taxes lost when these jobs go
Burnham has left the conference before Starmer's speech
Two Reform councillors suspended in conduct probe
Northumberland County Councillors Nicole Brooke and Patrick Lambert had the "whip suspended pending investigation for breaching the Reform council group rules in a manner that could be detrimental to the party's interests", a statement read.
It follows the suspension of another Northumberland Reform UK councillor, John Allen, earlier this month.
Lambert, who represents the Norham and Islandshires ward, has been approached for comment. Brooke, who represents Berwick North, declined to provide a statement.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yj927wje5o
The reasons are mysterious. Did they speak to a newspaper?
Do they actually want to provoke Farage into legal action? Feels like it
C’mon, fellow Republicans, we’re better than this.
https://x.com/JeffFlake/status/1972847566820921573
https://x.com/implausibleblog/status/1972942877933096997?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
If you’re going to use it on me please get the spelling right
The "comparable to Andrew Tate" is more tricky. Farage was citing Tate as a role model after Tate had been charged with rape, but that does not speak to "comparable to".
(And I'll not go further than that, here.)
https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2024/06/18/g-s1-4461/if-ai-is-so-good-why-are-there-still-so-many-jobs-for-translators
Rachel looks like she's about to burst into tears.
If it was the Libs, the Cons or the Labs at that percentage rate, they would have lost 75, 100 or 150 councillors by now.
As a story, I'm more interested in George Finch's (the 19 year old RefUK Council Leader of Warwickshire) attempted rejection of already-nationally-funded Active Travel schemes, and how that can be transformed into support.
Reeves almost in tears again!