Tecnología

We all want to live longer, happier, and healthier lives, but reaching a ripe old age fit as a fiddle takes effort and work. As well as caring for our bodies and minds, mainly by means of physical exercise and healthy eating, doctors and psychologists agree that the best way to avoid cognitive decline in adulthood is by developing new mental and physical abilities.

Surveys* have shown that a stunning 50 per cent of adults over the age of 40 do not learn information on a weekly basis, but being able to survive as an independent adult in today’s constantly changing world entails keeping up with a world that changes each day, particularly in so far as technological advances. Healthcare providers are moving towards remote appointments, online billing and shopping are now standard, and entertainment is moving online. This means that a failure to learn these skills fosters functional dependence. We simply have no alternative but to embrace the modern world and all the complications that come with it.

Learning a new skill is a natural four-stage process. The first stage involves you acknowledging that you do not know something. Imagine you get a puppy, and you do not know how to house train it. If you do not realise that this is something you have to learn, you could end up blaming the puppy.

Stage two is conscious incompetence. You know you need to learn or want to do something, but you do not know how to do it. Imagine your friend bakes a delicious cake and you really want to make one yourself. This desire and awareness can give you the momentum and motivation to learn. You will probably make a few mistakes during this stage, but it is all part of the great learning experience. I once sent blank pieces of paper around the world on a fax machine (I was putting them in the wrong way up) and on another occasion, I made a coat and sewed the sleeves on back to front!

In stage three, you have learned what you need to do, but it does not come naturally, at least not yet. You are now in the conscious competence stage. This is similar to when you have passed your driving test, but you still have an L in the rear window of your car. You can drive, but every trip is an adventure! A lot of language learners get stuck in this phase. Language students know what to say, understand a lot of what is being said, but still find speaking to be quite a struggle. They have to listen very closely to follow a conversation. Many people give up in the conscious competence stage because they do not believe they can progress and get where they want to go.

Lastly comes stage four, which is unconscious competence. Your skill is now automatic. Also, now you are in stage four, it can be difficult to explain and teach learners how to acquire your skill because it is now second nature and you must try to put yourself in their shoes.

It’s never too late to gain a new skill or hobby, so, what would you like to learn to do?

* Source: 2017 AARP Cognitive Activity and Brain Health Survey.

These days, most translators work with special computer programmes that help them to work more accurately and efficiently. I am not talking about machine translation, which still has a long way to go before it can rival human work, rather software that breaks the text down into sections, allowing the translator to focus on one sentence at a time.

As you type and confirm each sentence, your work is stored in a kind of database called a translation memory, which you can use as a reference when you do similar work in the future. This means that when you have looked up or researched a term or concept once, you will never have to do it again because it is stored in your translation memory.

Another advantage is that the translator does not have to type in repeated sentences, which pop up automatically for you to accept or amend. When texts contain a lot of repetition and the translator works with these tools, you may be able to get a discount on the translation price because the work will be less time-consuming.

Computer-assisted translation software makes it easier to provide better quality, more consistent work because it is easy to keep track of terminology as you translate. You can also create an automatic termbase, so that the programme can suggest translations for specific words as you go along.

If you will be translating materials over a long period of time, you should insist that your translators use these tools, to ensure quality coherence among your documents, and to reduce your translation costs.

Ask us about the translation tools we use to provide our clients with premium services.

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