Translators, interpreters, and more generally professionals of the language industry are always on the lookout for events that allow them to connect with like-minded experts and educate themselves on upcoming challenges in the field. The 9th Asia-Pacific Translation and Interpreting Forum (APTIF9) was no exception for the language enthusiasts who met during the three-day conference that took place at the Hanguk University of Foreign Languages (HUFS) in Seoul, South Korea.

University scholars, developers, and researchers came from around the globe to hear about the evolution of the translation world and the obstacles that the new generation of linguists is confronted with. As technology has continuously evolved throughout the years, we have been made well aware that the industry must adapt and not only rely on human skills anymore. At a time when clients expect premium translations at a fair price and translators have to juggle various translation tools and devices, the APTIF9 gave us a better idea of how linguists have to adjust to these new industry requirements and how we can guide them.

HansemEUG: Where Talented Linguists Meet New Technologies

HansemEUG could not miss the opportunity to participate in such a significant event; we even went the extra mile and set up a booth at the prestigious Obama Hall, which is where President Obama was welcomed back in 2012. The conference garnered a lot of interest at the school, and we were present to answer all of the questions from the visitors who were rushing from stand to stand.

• 

• 

• 

Every Resource Manager knows only too well how challenging it can be to find adequate resources to meet the high expectations of our clients, and it is only becoming more demanding as time goes by. We talked about these difficulties with other LSPs that share a similar vision of the future of recruitment. As an ISO17100-certified provider, we want to offer the highest quality possible with the support of competent, reliable linguists. Our fields of expertise range from highly specialized medical translation for healthcare institutions to marketing transcreation for the IT industry, and we have to comb through countless linguistic platforms in order to find specialized translators, so it was a pleasant surprise to see that HUFS is training their students to focus on major fields from day one.

We also had productive discussions with specialists from other branches of the localization industry, including interpreters and machine translation experts who stressed the importance of new technologies in the localization industry of tomorrow. We were even lucky enough to try out some cutting-edge devices ourselves, which made us realize the impact technology will have in the future.

Not only did we talk with long-time professionals, but we also had interesting conversations with students who are nothing less than the future of the translation industry. They expressed their motivation to join us and bring fresh ideas to our company. Over time, students of the HUFS have learned how to wipe out communication difficulties in cross-cultural talks or at major events, such as the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and we were excited to meet scholars from this prestigious university. We are always happy to welcome new talent and we also hope to continuously provide top-quality services to our clients with the support of skillful linguists.

When things settled down a bit, we took the opportunity to introduce ourselves to the people in our neighboring booths and learn more about their services.

• 

• 

• 

• 

APTIF9 Forum: A Chance to Learn More About the History of Translation

During the conference, every speaker remarked on how much the translation industry has evolved in just the past decade and that it was becoming clear that technology will play a major – if not the main – role in tomorrow’s language industry. The broad variety of subtopics covered in the forum showed how language instructors have to completely rethink their teaching methodologies, students are looking to specialize in fields and languages that weren’t as popular a few years ago, and established experts always have to keep up to date with the new tools on the market.

Our Software Localization Engineer Specialist, HoSup Shin, also had the opportunity to share his tech knowledge. He presented on the latest cloud-based CAT tools and emphasized their importance in the modern world.

HoSup thoroughly explained how cloud-based CAT tools differ from traditional tools and how they can help address modern expectations by saving time and effort of project managers and linguists, letting them take care of larger amount of projects without sacrificing quality. Security issues can be one of the main concerns for clients and translators who do not want their information to be leaked or collected, but improvements will likely be made as the technology evolves. There’s no doubt that translation professionals are going to be keeping a close watch on the cloud-based CAT Tools.

Overall, we had a delightful experience participating to the 9^th Asia-Pacific Translation and Interpreting Forum, the translation industry has a bright future ahead, and I am pretty sure we are still in for some surprises. We were able to socialize with other tech watchers and discuss what we have learned through these past days. Our recruitment strategies are changing as the market evolves and it’s encouraging to see the new generation of linguists is quickly adapting. We thank everyone for their interest in our services and we genuinely hope to create and pursue strong partnerships in the years to come. We are certainly going to keep participating in similar events and will make sure to stay ahead of the competition by always securing competent resources.