Translating and transcribing TED videos on regular basis
July 2014
Browsing through the TED Talks that did not have a Latvian translation, I stumbled upon a video on a particularly intriguing concept - a new type of thinking that may be considered hybrid. The speech, given by the scientist, inventor and futurist, Ray Kurzweil, focuses on evolution and functions of the neocortex - a part of the mammalian brain responsible for many cognitive processes that distinguish mammals from some lower animals. Basing predictions on several evolutionary patterns and current technological development, Kurzweil suggests that in the following decades humans will be able to access information outside their brain, in the cloud, directly from the neocortex, which - despite the 'evidence' he provides - seems quite unrealistic to me. Still, my opinion did not keep me from translating this TEDTalk from English to Latvian.
While I appreciated the innovative ideas presented in this speech, a feature that made translating even more enjoyable was the relatively high number of biologically specific terminology employed by the speaker. While I was familiar with most of the terms, I did not always know the exact Latvian translation, and having to look it up was certainly useful as I learned more than was actually in the speech. Also, even if two entirely different speeches and the obstacles encountered whilst translating cannot be objectively compared, writing a Latvian version of this nine and a half minute video did not take me as much time as translating The hunt for unexpected genetic heroes of similar length less than a month ago. I must admit that, regarding the sentence structures, the language used by Ray Kurzweil was simpler, and, of course it might have facilitated the process of translation, though I would like to think that my skills have improved at least a little. Yet, since the saying 'practice makes perfect', however cliché, is essentially true, I plan to keep translating at least one TED video every month.
This fascinating TEDTalk as well as my Latvian translation can be seen HERE.
Ray Kurzweil: Get ready for hybrid thinking
August 2014
Being well aware of my lack of in-depth understanding of many physical concepts, I was happy to find a truly captivating TEDTalk, related to both Physics and Medicine or, more precisely, to a solution of a Physics problem which has, for centuries, heightened the risk of the medical procedure - puncture. The speaker, Nikolai Begg, a mechanical engineer, has spent years developing a mechanism that allows a surgeon to puncture a patient's tissue without risking to damage the organs and blood vessels below. In this speech he introduces the result of his work, explains his reasoning as well as encourages the members of the audience to keep an eye out for some similarly underestimated, yet serious problems present in their own daily lives.
Since I was looking not only for a TED video that fascinated me, but for one I could translate with my current skills and experience, before taking on the task I evaluated the breadth and specificity of the vocabulary used in the speech. As a result, while I did have to look up the Latvian translation for some medically-specific words, such as "laparoscopic surgery" and "trocar", I also did not have to invent an accurate and still well-sounding translation myself. In addition, as the speaker was neither stuttering nor rushing the speech, I was saved the trouble of having to excessively compress the subtitles for them to fit the 42 character per line and 21 character per second rules. Hence, because of the fluency and coherence of the speech, I was able to thoroughly understand the medical and even the physical processes Mr Begg described, and take pleasure in it. In fact, I realized that I have actually been a victim of the needle taking the plunge before the doctor could react when, after a lumbar puncture, I experienced painful complications.
Since I was looking not only for a TED video that fascinated me, but for one I could translate with my current skills and experience, before taking on the task I evaluated the breadth and specificity of the vocabulary used in the speech. As a result, while I did have to look up the Latvian translation for some medically-specific words, such as "laparoscopic surgery" and "trocar", I also did not have to invent an accurate and still well-sounding translation myself. In addition, as the speaker was neither stuttering nor rushing the speech, I was saved the trouble of having to excessively compress the subtitles for them to fit the 42 character per line and 21 character per second rules. Hence, because of the fluency and coherence of the speech, I was able to thoroughly understand the medical and even the physical processes Mr Begg described, and take pleasure in it. In fact, I realized that I have actually been a victim of the needle taking the plunge before the doctor could react when, after a lumbar puncture, I experienced painful complications.
Furthermore, compared to the last two months, communication between myself and the reviewers of my translations has notably improved for apparently they have already noted that I like to be informed what and why, if anything, has been edited in my translations. Thereby, this time we effectively discussed the differences in our opinions and eventually compromised, which, I hope, we will be able to do in the future as well.
The speech with the Latvian subtitles can be found HERE, although the translation is not yet officially accepted by the TEDLatvia supervisors.
September 2014
The speech with the Latvian subtitles can be found HERE, although the translation is not yet officially accepted by the TEDLatvia supervisors.
Nikolai Begg: A tool to fix one of the most dangerous moments in surgery
September 2014
Having recently read a book on the functions of the human brain that contained a truly fascinating chapter about consciousness, the "inner narrator", I was very happy to find a TED Talk on a somewhat similar topic. Contrary to the book, which attempted to explain consciousness with respect to the anatomy of the brain, the speech is slightly futuristic, focusing on the possibility of inventing a distinct form of science - a science of consciousness. Still, the David Chalmers's speech was so interesting that, despite it being 19 minutes long, I did not hesitate to sign up for the task to write Latvian subtitles.
Looking back at all the other videos I have translated so far, I believe this was the most complex due to both length and the vocabulary incorporated by the speaker. While the speech was not rushed and I did not have any trouble with synchronizing the subtitles, some specific words, though essential to the idea, had no direct translation in Latvian. The most notable and, because of their frequent use, even ironic example would be the concept of consciousness, the state of a person being 'conscious', that, in Latvian, cannot be described with a single word. After consulting several sources, knowledgeable in both languages - Latvian and English, I decided against using the most direct translation ('samaņa') for it relates solely to the physical state of having consciousness at all and being physically able to perceive reality. Instead I settled on a more vague translation ('apziņa'), which, regardless of having some additional meanings in Latvian, at least does not discard any important connotations implied by the word 'consciousness'.
On the bright side, I can finally feel improvements in my translating skills, particularly regarding the relative ease with which I was performing this challenging task. A couple of months ago subtitling a video of the same length would have taken twice as long, but my success with this speech proves that, in future, the length of a video is not nearly the most important aspect to consider when deciding whether or not to take on a certain task. Of course, I still have to reread the subtitles very carefully before submitting the translation, as, even this time, I found a line where I had failed to translate an "and", although I doubt the possibility of mastering any skill to the level of being able not to double-check my work.
For the subtitled TEDTalk click HERE.
Looking back at all the other videos I have translated so far, I believe this was the most complex due to both length and the vocabulary incorporated by the speaker. While the speech was not rushed and I did not have any trouble with synchronizing the subtitles, some specific words, though essential to the idea, had no direct translation in Latvian. The most notable and, because of their frequent use, even ironic example would be the concept of consciousness, the state of a person being 'conscious', that, in Latvian, cannot be described with a single word. After consulting several sources, knowledgeable in both languages - Latvian and English, I decided against using the most direct translation ('samaņa') for it relates solely to the physical state of having consciousness at all and being physically able to perceive reality. Instead I settled on a more vague translation ('apziņa'), which, regardless of having some additional meanings in Latvian, at least does not discard any important connotations implied by the word 'consciousness'.
On the bright side, I can finally feel improvements in my translating skills, particularly regarding the relative ease with which I was performing this challenging task. A couple of months ago subtitling a video of the same length would have taken twice as long, but my success with this speech proves that, in future, the length of a video is not nearly the most important aspect to consider when deciding whether or not to take on a certain task. Of course, I still have to reread the subtitles very carefully before submitting the translation, as, even this time, I found a line where I had failed to translate an "and", although I doubt the possibility of mastering any skill to the level of being able not to double-check my work.
For the subtitled TEDTalk click HERE.
David Chalmer: How do you explain consciousness?
October 2014
Even though I was entirely fascinated by Nancy Kanwisher's speech on the currently existing knowledge about the human brain, I did not want to translate two 19-minute videos in a row, especially as I had not yet received feedback on the first one. Thus, I decided to translate the moving speech "Am I dying?" The honest answer by Matthew O'Reilly. In just five minutes Mr O'Reilly shares his experience at working as an emergency medical technician and solving a true ethical dilemma when asked whether the patient is going to die. Oddly, I, too, could associate myself with those people mentioned by the speaker who, until now, believed that the dying panicked when given an honest answer. So, the speech was both surprising and relieving.
Considering that the speech was delivered swiftly, without any major disfluencies, I did not have as much trouble translating the speech as I did when synchronizing the subtitles with the video. To my disappointment, Amara had made some changes to the translation software, again requiring that all slides are translated before allowing to begin synchronization. Sadly, they had not taken into account that sometimes phrases consisting of few words in English are much longer in Latvian, or that any foreign abbreviations ought to be not only translated, but also explained. As a result, after subtitling the whole text and relying on the previously used opportunity to adjust the 'characters per second' index during synchronization, I found that Amara had made this course of action impossible. Hence, I had to temporarily take out some words of the translated text and fill the slides that were to be deleted, to be permitted to synchronize the subtitles at all. As this waste of time caused additional problems and did not facilitate the work in any way, I wrote an appeal to the people responsible for the unpleasing 'improvements' but am still waiting for them to reply.
Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, I enjoyed the subtitling process, and the TED Talk may be found HERE.
Considering that the speech was delivered swiftly, without any major disfluencies, I did not have as much trouble translating the speech as I did when synchronizing the subtitles with the video. To my disappointment, Amara had made some changes to the translation software, again requiring that all slides are translated before allowing to begin synchronization. Sadly, they had not taken into account that sometimes phrases consisting of few words in English are much longer in Latvian, or that any foreign abbreviations ought to be not only translated, but also explained. As a result, after subtitling the whole text and relying on the previously used opportunity to adjust the 'characters per second' index during synchronization, I found that Amara had made this course of action impossible. Hence, I had to temporarily take out some words of the translated text and fill the slides that were to be deleted, to be permitted to synchronize the subtitles at all. As this waste of time caused additional problems and did not facilitate the work in any way, I wrote an appeal to the people responsible for the unpleasing 'improvements' but am still waiting for them to reply.
Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, I enjoyed the subtitling process, and the TED Talk may be found HERE.
Matthew O'Reilly: "Am I dying?" The honest answer.
November 2014
Since I had, in the past few months, mostly translated TED Talks from English to Latvian, this month I decided to give another try to transcribing, that is writing a transcript of a speech, using no resources other than the TED video. Although translating appears to be a comparatively more challenging task, as it demands a lot of creativity from the translator so that the resulting text would neither lose nor add ideas to the original speech, the process of transcribing is more unpredictable. In other words, even though I might struggle to think of a perfectly fitting phrase whilst translating, I can use dictionaries or, at the very least, have a look at the English-Russian translation. When transcribing, however, I have only my own hearing to rely on, and if a single word cannot be deciphered, despite ten minutes of a speech already transcribed, I may find myself suddenly unable to complete the task.
Having encountered this problem when writing a transcript of Dan O'Neill's Economics of Enough speech, I initially intended to choose a speech based primarily on my ability to understand every single word, or idiom, or anecdote used by the speaker. Yet, as I stumbled upon an amazing and inspiring speech on the human brain and its adaptive properties, a topic I am particularly interested in, I decided to take the risk and give my best effort to the fifteen-minute long TEDxCambridge video: Blindness in Just Another Way of Seeing by Lofti Merabet.
In this speech, Mr.Merabet, a neuroscientist, shares his experience as well as describes his findings in research of blindness. In particular, he reveals how the brain of a blind person adapts to rely on other senses and how it creates a mental visual image using the same area in the occipital cortex that sighted people use to process visual stimuli. Although I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the speaker, and the speaker's uncomplicated language greatly facilitated the transcribing process, I still spent around half an hour trying to make out a word which was muttered in between many others. After playing the sentence for at least twenty times and making no progress, I used my contextual understanding of the sentence and looked up various possible synonyms in a dictionary. Ironically, when I had found the correct word, which turned out to be as simple as "driven", I could, all of a sudden, hear it very clearly in the video.
Also, because the speech was, at times, fast-paced, I had to put significant effort into synchronizing the subtitles to the spoken text, ensuring that no slide exceeded the 21 character per second limit. Of course, compared to the despair brought by the mysterious word "driven", which even had me consider giving up on the task, synchronizing was easy, however time-consuming. Yet, because of the latter, I regard this activity as a necessary challenge of my patience, determination and perseverance, which makes me even more glad about the outcome.
The speech and its transcript can be viewed HERE.
Having encountered this problem when writing a transcript of Dan O'Neill's Economics of Enough speech, I initially intended to choose a speech based primarily on my ability to understand every single word, or idiom, or anecdote used by the speaker. Yet, as I stumbled upon an amazing and inspiring speech on the human brain and its adaptive properties, a topic I am particularly interested in, I decided to take the risk and give my best effort to the fifteen-minute long TEDxCambridge video: Blindness in Just Another Way of Seeing by Lofti Merabet.
In this speech, Mr.Merabet, a neuroscientist, shares his experience as well as describes his findings in research of blindness. In particular, he reveals how the brain of a blind person adapts to rely on other senses and how it creates a mental visual image using the same area in the occipital cortex that sighted people use to process visual stimuli. Although I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the speaker, and the speaker's uncomplicated language greatly facilitated the transcribing process, I still spent around half an hour trying to make out a word which was muttered in between many others. After playing the sentence for at least twenty times and making no progress, I used my contextual understanding of the sentence and looked up various possible synonyms in a dictionary. Ironically, when I had found the correct word, which turned out to be as simple as "driven", I could, all of a sudden, hear it very clearly in the video.
Also, because the speech was, at times, fast-paced, I had to put significant effort into synchronizing the subtitles to the spoken text, ensuring that no slide exceeded the 21 character per second limit. Of course, compared to the despair brought by the mysterious word "driven", which even had me consider giving up on the task, synchronizing was easy, however time-consuming. Yet, because of the latter, I regard this activity as a necessary challenge of my patience, determination and perseverance, which makes me even more glad about the outcome.
The speech and its transcript can be viewed HERE.
Lofti Merabet: Blindness is Just Another Way of Seeing.
December 2014
Although initially I intended to find an already transcribed TED Talk that requires only translation from English to Latvian, the 17-minute speech delivered by one of the New York's leading cardiologists, Michael Poon, was so captivating that I decided to practise transcription this month as well. In his speech, Dr. Poon states numerous disadvantages of the long and painful process of diagnosing acute chest pain, which, in most hospitals, requires the patient to spend around 14 hours in the Emergency Room. By sharing his personal experience, the cardiologist vividly describes the partly misleading outcome of the currently used procedures, blood tests and EKG, both of which can only distinguish between the potentially deadly angina and benign muscle soreness, but are unable to evaluate the actual condition of the coronary arteries to estimate the probability of one having a heart attack within the next six years. Yet, instead of merely criticizing the standard of healthcare, Dr. Poon comes forward with a new approach - a technologically advanced scanner that can yield accurate pictures of a beating heart within a few seconds, and hence promises tremendous improvements in the diagnostic medicine.
As I have learned from all of my previous work with the TED community, the most important step prior to signing up for a task is careful listening to every word that the speaker uses, in order to discover any hardly discernible phrases that would have to be resolved whilst transcribing. Hence, I listened to the video two times, also trying to estimate whether the rate at which the speech was delivered would not impede the synchronization of the subtitles due to the inflexible character-per-second boundaries set by the Amara subtitling system. Fortunately for me, as I really wanted to tackle this task, both the clarity and tempo of speech appeared good enough to make transcribing a feasible task without having to reduce or modify the text just to comply with the rules.
Yet, even despite my acquired skill to decode the exact wording of phrases that may are not completely clear at first, this TED Talk brought a new problem that I did not know to take notice of before accepting the task. To be more precise - as contextually captivating as this speech was, the language of the speaker did not seem grammatically accurate at all instances, prompting me to decide which feature - direct reflection of the spoken language, or the literal accuracy of the resulting text - is more important for the subtitles to serve their purpose. Eventually, with careful consideration of every specific case, I made the choice in favour of the latter, though, at certain occasions, I did purposefully emit an article just to avoid extending a single thought over several subtitles.
Overall, I am satisfied with the result, especially as I noticed that, compared to the transcribing done back in June, I have improved the speed of my work without the outcome losing its quality. In fact, because my involvement with the TED community is a great way of keeping my knowledge about many scientific discoveries up to date, I intend to continue working in this amazing project and make more noteworthy speeches accessible worldwide even after completing the CAS requirements.
Michael Poon: Treatments using advanced cardiovascular imaging & telemedicine.
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