Expert Patent Translator He Zhixin Lectures at CTI SISU

On October 30,2020, Mr. He Zhixin, a technical literature translation expert, patent attorney, and graduate supervisor of the German Department of Sichuan International Studies University, delivered his first of a series of lectures on translation project management to the 2020 class of MTI students of CTI,SISU, in the electronic reading room on the second floor of the library. The lecture is titled as Artificial Intelligence and the Development of Translation.

Before the lecture, Ms. Zhu Haiyan, associate professor of the Translation and Interpreting Department introduced Mr. He to the students who warmly welcomed the lecturer.

In the lecture, Mr.He pointed out where the career prospects of translators lie in face of the threat of AI translation and put forward that AI cannot replace translators in the short term. In addition, He gave some examples to analyze the advantages of human translation over AI translation. First, artificial intelligence is feed with translation works done by translation experts. Second, even when AI can translate the whole text, translators are needed to polish the translation. Third, most of machine translation software (such as Google Translate) still cannot handle complex sentences. However, as AI is increasingly evolving, translation learnersare sure to confront unprecedented challenges ahead.

On top of that,he provided suggestions on the future career of the students. Besides this, he gave them a close look at the nature of the translation industry, and the concept and application of natural language processing. At last, he shared what he had learned from his working experience: each and every job, including translation, calls for the most possible prudence and teamwork spirit.

In the Q & A session, Mr. He answered questions about how to integrate translation skills with knowledge in other industries, how to learn legal translation and find translation internship opportunities. He stressed the need for translators to master the basic theoretical knowledge of relevant industries in addition to the acquisition of translation skills.

The lecture ended with a round of warm applause, and professor Zhu and several student representatives took a group photo with Mr. He .