Big Project

Project Proposal/Plan

For my project I am very interested in researching and learning more about the procedures that are taken to do General Conference/Ensign translations, and/or any other church translations (scriptures, manuals, hymn books, etc.). I am very curious to know what type of computer technology (if any) is used in this process.

            My main goals are: 1.) Find out if computer technology is used. 2.) What and how this technology is used and accompanied by human-based translation/assistance. 3.) Compare how the translation processes have changed over the past 40-50 years.

            I have already emailed Dr. Marvin Gardner who worked with translation services dealing with the Ensign for many years. He responded and informed me that he hasn’t worked there since 2005 and that things have changed a lot since that time. He gave me the number of the translation office up in Salt Lake City to contact. I called and was informed that I need to speak with a woman (I can’t remember her name at this time) who is over the world-wide transition of the church. The secretary took my name and said that she will call me in a few days. A few days have already passed so I will try and contact her again this week and see what information I can get.

            I plan to do some online research to see what information I can find about the church translation services there. I have already found a very interesting article from 1974 that projected the use of translation technology and talked about some benefits of the usage of such technology. That was almost 40 years ago. I would love to see how things have changed since then, using this article as a base. There are quite a few names in this article of the men that were head of the translation department back then. It might be interesting to research them and see what information I can find about them and any changes that were made to the department during their service.

            This project might entail a lot of online research or perhaps even going up to Salt Lake City to interview and see firsthand what the translation department consists of. If I cannot tie this project into computer translation my backup plan is to look into Lingotek’s project dealing with the translation of things on the FamilySearch webpage.

Project Paper

Interview with LDS Church Spanish Translation Department

            I have always been very interested in learning about how the church handles their translation/interpretation services. Having the background that I do as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and knowing that it is a world-wide church, I had an idea of how much work it went in to translating but was curious to learn more and especially learn what types of translation technologies are used and under what circumstances.

            In order to research this topic, I started out on the internet to see what information I could find there. There was little information about what types of technologies are used now and how it has advanced throughout the years, however, I did find a very interesting article on lds.org about the hope for greater use of machine translation in the future. The article was written in 1974 and discusses a lot about how the translation procedures function (these functions could be very similar to today but have surely changed as well), as well as the vision of machine translation in the then near future. Dr. Lytle, who developed much of the translation technology at BYU, said that the first evaluations of MT use were done in 1975 into English, French, German and Spanish and he said at that time that he foresaw these systems being fully in use in 5 years (by 1980). There is a quote that he shares as well that is quite touching about machine translation, he says, “Our own General Authorities have predicted that automatic translation will be a reality. Whenever I have doubted, the Spirit has reconfirmed my feeling. It can be done. It will come to pass.”

            After reading that article, I had really high expectations for the use of machine translation in the church today. In order to learn more, I was able to go up to Salt Lake City and visit with Enrique Resek, the director of the Spanish Translation Department at church headquarters. I was very surprised to hear that the church still uses translation technology very little. Brother Resek told us that it is really only used for quick things, like news or statements that come in all of a sudden and need to be translated quickly. As far as Ensign articles, manuals, subtitles, web-sites, they use mostly human translation. He did share with us that last February they did some new testing with the use of Machine Translation, a program that is called Idiomworld Server. When they do use MT, this is the system that they use.

            When asked why it isn’t used more Brother Resek told us that their biggest problem is the licensing and money. He said that he is 100% in favor of using Idiomworld Server to save them time with their translations, but it is not fully available yet due to these logistical issues. He said that there is talk of using more well-known programs in the future such as SDL Trados, but for now there isn’t the money or licenses to use it. He did seem very positive about Idiomworld Server and showed us the workbench. It looks very easy to use and one can learn it in no time which are a few of the perks that Brother Resek has found in using this system.

            While discussing the use of other forms of technology that are used in the office, he did tell us that e-mail has become a thing of the past. He explained the old process of e-mailing the translations back and forth to check in on how much was completed and explained that this is how they would pass the translations back and forth to allow for revision. However, nowadays they use tracking tools. These tracking tolls allow the supervisors to open a page that will show how much of a translation has been translated and why there might be any hold-ups on getting it submitted on time. That way they do not have to wait for e-mails to go back and forth, but everyone can keep this page updated and use it to stay on track.

            In talking about the history of machine translation in the church, Brother Resek shared with us that when he started working for the church 18 years ago, the main form of technology that they used was Word Perfect. They then moved to Microsoft and their main usage of technology was with Word, Power Point and Excel. In other countries, the translators were using Wordfast.

            Brother Resek believes that in five years’ time 80-90% of the work done in translation will be done by machines. He believes that the role of a translator will become more of an editor and reviser than an actual translator. He seems very positive in the capabilities of MT, however, I am a bit more skeptical when it comes to the time frame that he gave us. Considering that in 1974, Brother Lytle was saying that in five years we would begin to see a much greater use of MT and the fact is, it doesn’t seem to have progressed as quickly as he would have thought, I highly doubt that 80-90% will be machine translated within five years. Hopefully they can continue to test and start using these systems more but it seems that in this field people are almost a little too optimistic about when something will be in use completely.

            Some other interesting things that I learned from this interview weren’t necessarily in regards to the technology aspect, but how the church translation office runs in general. When we arrived, I was hoping that we would be shown the location/office of where the translators work. When we asked about it, we were informed that they no longer work there in the office and that just a few months previous they sent all their translators home, to work there, rather than in the church headquarters office. There are about 60 translators in total and they split them up into groups with different “supervisors” to manage their projects. All 60 translators are Hispanic and are from many different countries. He also told us that about 60% of their employees come from the Spanish Translation Program at BYU. One last thing that I found to be very interesting is that only Spanish translation is done in Salt Lake City and the rest of the translations for the church materials going into different languages are all done in the countries of those specific languages. That is something that I would never have guessed. I just assumed that all of the translation work was done there in Salt Lake City.

            We were interested in learning whether or not the church used any type of localization/internationalization procedures with their translations and were told that they do not. He told us that usually by the time they get the Ensign articles that they have 20 days to get the translation done and that it would be too much work to try and localize the translations of the Liahona for specific countries/audiences.

            Overall, the experience of going up to Salt Lake City to do this interview was a good one. It was hard to get in contact with the “right” people that were willing to give us some time and information, so the fact that we got to meet with Enrique Resek in the first place was a great opportunity. It really helped me open up my eyes to the world of translation in the church and some the different processes and procedures that are gone through.  Overall, I do think the day will come when the church uses all machine translation. I don’t see why that day wouldn’t come considering that the materials being translated use a lot of the same vocabulary and phrases (besides some of the stories told). I don’t know how long it will be before that day comes and perhaps there is an element of spirituality that goes into the translations that one wouldn’t get with a machine, but it definitely does seem to be the direction in which we are moving. I stand by Dr. Lytle, that it “will come to pass.”