Introduction
Before this class, I was only familiar with a couple of machine translation tools. I didn't know about CAT tools, or how many there were readily available online. I didn't know how differently CAT tools would work compared to Google Translate for example, or how much better their translation would be, so I was eager to discover these differences in this class.
In this class, I was able to develop translation projects using a combination of CAT tools and MT tools, about a variety of different texts and topics; during the classes, I presented the projects to the professor, to explain my process and to see if I had any mistakes. I could also develop tests on Moodle about concepts and information that the projects were based on. The links to all the projects are below.
List of Projects
Project 1a - Science Article (ES - EN): translation of an article explaining why bats hardly suffer from cancer (link here).
Project 1b - Science Article (EN - ES): translation of an article explaining how jellyfish learn without a central brain (link here).
Project 2 - Medical Article: translation of an article describing vaccine availability in Africa (link here).
Project 3 - Legal Article: translation of a text explaining divorce laws in Texas (link here).
Project 4 - Speech to Text: translation of a video excerpt transcribed into text using a speech to text tool (link here).
Project 5 - Literary: translation of an excerpt from 'El Diablo Desinteresado' by Amado Nervo (link here).
Optional Project - Gisting: gisting into Spanish and English of a Punjabi article about education in third world countries (link here).
Conclusion
By far the most interesting and useful activities for my learning were the translation projects. With them, I learned how to use CAT tools, and could compare the differences between CAT tools and MT tools; I discovered that not one tool is better than another in every way, which is why it's important to use more than one tool to check different options. It's also important to not fully rely on the translation tools and revise the translations yourself. When there's two different translation options, the human can decide which option is the most accurate. Additionally, both tools can make the same mistake, or not translate entirely accurately, so the human can correct these mistakes or adapt the translations to make them more accurate. It was also useful to develop these projects about different topics, to familiarize myself with a variety of technical terms I didn't know before.
I felt that the Moodle tests weren't as useful as the projects. Since the projects took up most of the time of the classes, the topics that the tests were based on weren't discussed or explained during the class. This could be a benefit to some people, allowing them to learn at their own pace, but to me these activities would've been more engaging if those topics were covered during the class. Maybe having a few classes in between the presentations to explain the topics could be better.
Overall, this was a very useful class that helped me learn more about a side of translation I didn't know much about.