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Knowledge Centre on Translation and Interpretation

AI and New Language Technologies

A forum for exchanging knowledge and ideas on the use of technology in interpreting, translation, and training. This is a space to explore initiatives, research, and practices at the intersection of language and technology, bringing together professionals, researchers, and trainers to discuss the benefits and challenges of ongoing developments.

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I recently came across this Tedx talk and I think her topic of research is very interesting! We often hear about how AI may replace human translators and interpreters, but we don't often hear about how...

I recently came across this Tedx talk and I think her topic of research is very interesting! We often hear about how AI may replace human translators and interpreters, but we don't often hear about how being exposed to machine translation is affecting our own use of language right now; maybe even making it less varied and spontaneous. I also tend to agree with Lise Volkart's assertion that 'AI hype often outstrips performance'. From what I could find out online, her research is still in progress. Do you have any recommendations about other research on the topic? Or maybe other presentations that go into a little more detail, general observations, etc...? Thanks!

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Hello,

I’m sharing below some upcoming conferences on new technologies are how they are shaping interpretation and translation. I hope you find them interesting. Feel free to share any other events you're aware of :)

  1. Traduction...

Hello,

I’m sharing below some upcoming conferences on new technologies are how they are shaping interpretation and translation. I hope you find them interesting. Feel free to share any other events you're aware of :)

  1. Traduction & Qualité 2026: How to Stay Creative in the Era of Machines? - Lille, 30 January 2026
  2. Artificial Intelligence and Audiovisual Translation: Challenges and New Horizons - Palermo, 23-24 April 2026
  3. New Research in Translation and Interpreting Studies 2026 - Tarragona, 26-27 June 2026
  4. NeTTIT 2026: International Conference ‘New Trends in Translation and Interpreting Technology’- Dubrovnik, 24-27 June 2026
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Thank you! I would like to add another conference on this topic:Convergence 2026: Human-AI Integration for Multilingual and Accessible Communication - Guildford, UK, 17 - 19 June 2026

The second edition of the Convergence conference...

Thank you! I would like to add another conference on this topic:Convergence 2026: Human-AI Integration for Multilingual and Accessible Communication - Guildford, UK, 17 - 19 June 2026

The second edition of the Convergence conference will create an opportunity to bring together innovative research on the evolving landscape of AI in the context of multilingual and accessible communication, reflecting on the complexity and effects of using AI-driven technologies in these fields. The conference will foster a multidisciplinary dialogue that will generate new theoretical perspectives and practical research, focusing on themes such as the ethical aspects of AI in translation and interpreting, AI-enabled digital accessibility and societal inclusion, and the impact of Generative AI on language mediation. We will also examine the evolving role of language professionals, the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) in supporting multilingual communication, and the crucial need for responsible use of language AI in the public sector. The conference will publish full papers in open access proceedings with assigned ISBN and DOI.

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This looks great, thank you!We can add it to the Events section of the KCTI to give it more visibility. Would you be interested in that?

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The KCTI Research Corners are events where you can present research and studies to an active and engaged audience. We had already two very successful editions this year, both about AI, with over 300 participants, joining...

The KCTI Research Corners are events where you can present research and studies to an active and engaged audience. We had already two very successful editions this year, both about AI, with over 300 participants, joining the streaming from all around the world:

  1. AI tools in the booth and cognitive load with Bart Defranq and Ana-Maria Pleșca in April
  2. Introducing the LT-LiDER Project with Alina Secară, Dragoș Ciobanu and Miguel Rios Gaona in October

We are always looking for more academic projects to cover, so if you would like to present your research, get in touch with us!

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Dear Ivano,

at TH Köln (Cologne University of Applied Sciences) we are currently building a self-learning platform on AI in interpreting, co-funded by the EU. Might this be a project you would like to present?

Best wishes

Anja

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Dear Anja,

Thanks for your message! Indeed, it would be interesting and relevant. I'm sending you a follow up email so we can discuss it in more detail.

Best,

Ivano

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On February 29, 2020, AIIC Switzerland hosted a seminar on remote interpreting featuring Klaus Ziegler, Kilian Seeber, Amy Brady and Monica Varela Garcia.

The summary I wrote with Jéssica Ayala and Sébastien Longhurst is now online:...

On February 29, 2020, AIIC Switzerland hosted a seminar on remote interpreting featuring Klaus Ziegler, Kilian Seeber, Amy Brady and Monica Varela Garcia.

The summary I wrote with Jéssica Ayala and Sébastien Longhurst is now online: https://aiic.ch/press/remote-interpreting-ws2/

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Thanks for sharing this here and in our thread on conference reports!

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I recently recorded a wide-ranging episode on interpreting technologies for the Troublesome Terps podcast. Feel free to check it out!

https://www.troubleterps.com/45

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I really enjoyed the discussion. It amazes me that so much was covered, and yet so much wasn't even mentioned! And the feedback shows that interpreters are really interested in the topic.

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I'm currently looking into upgrading our facilities and wondered if colleagues had experiences this wished to share on technologies, or they felt warrant praise in classroom settings.

I'm specifically interested in hearing about classroom management solutions...

I'm currently looking into upgrading our facilities and wondered if colleagues had experiences this wished to share on technologies, or they felt warrant praise in classroom settings.

I'm specifically interested in hearing about classroom management solutions. I’ve found that interpreting hardware is ubiquitous but managing the recording of booths, having playback through the system, having dual playback, all managed at a trainer’s desk seems to baffle the AV providers. Have any of you managed to clear the fog and find an ideal solution?

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Hi Susan!

I've experienced similar problems with our AV-technicians. According to them the problem lies in how cables can feed into computers. But I think Barbara Ahrens in Cologne found a soulution to that when they...

Hi Susan!

I've experienced similar problems with our AV-technicians. According to them the problem lies in how cables can feed into computers. But I think Barbara Ahrens in Cologne found a soulution to that when they installed their system couple of years ago.

In Stockholm we have resorted to having students plug in mp3 players to their own console and thereby recording themselves on two channels, only works with live speaker though. As soon as we want to do it with a recording from e.g. Speech Repository we have the sound mixed on the two channels.

That's all I have,

Elisabet

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Thanks for your response Elisabet. Not being a technician myself I had no idea that what I was asking to do was so difficult to express to AV and to have them understand.

The current crisis...

Thanks for your response Elisabet. Not being a technician myself I had no idea that what I was asking to do was so difficult to express to AV and to have them understand.

The current crisis leaves me wondering how to do the same, when conducting a SIM exam online. Assessment of two different recordings of the original and the interpreter, is not the same as assessing the overlaid tracks. Recording both when both are live, simultaneous and in remote locations (their self-isolated homes) is also difficult (to my limited knowledge)!!

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Surprising that this is so difficult. I would have expected that language learning tech has all these bases covered. Maybe a bring-your-own-device can help? Recording yourself as an interpreter is easy, of course. Those recordings (and...

Surprising that this is so difficult. I would have expected that language learning tech has all these bases covered. Maybe a bring-your-own-device can help? Recording yourself as an interpreter is easy, of course. Those recordings (and the speech, either pre-recorded video or self-recorded by speaker) could then be uploaded quickly to a central location (LMS? Cloud storage?) But my understanding is you want both source and target aligned for comparison? Ideally on two separate channels or at least left and right in stereo spectrum? Practice platforms like the SCIC Speech Repository or Interpreters' Help already do this, but do not currently allow a direct upload of your own source and target material - I could imagine a spin-off tool that does exactly this.

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Isn’t it so surprising? When I saw that AV were agog at my “simple request” I wondered if I had lost my grip on reality. I think it was my grip on technology however!

Everyone brings...

Isn’t it so surprising? When I saw that AV were agog at my “simple request” I wondered if I had lost my grip on reality. I think it was my grip on technology however!

Everyone brings their own device but a centralised system to record both in real time is the angle I’m after. Dual track recording and playback so that you can skip back to a specific timestamp and see what was said by the speaker, what was said by the student and then you can assess the why and the when of matters. Then, to listen to another attempt the same passage to observe approaches, styles, techniques, successes and errors is useful for peer learning in the latter stages of training especially. To do this from the comfort of a screen in front of you rather than plugging in and out cables is top of the list.

Left and right in stereo spectrum would work for a single student but limits the multiple student approach.

A spin off of SCIC Rec is exactly the type of tool required!

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It is indeed complex and requires some planning when designing your solution. Bart Defrancq worked together closely with Televic for the UGent redesign. We can now record with just one click both source (live speaker or...

It is indeed complex and requires some planning when designing your solution. Bart Defrancq worked together closely with Televic for the UGent redesign. We can now record with just one click both source (live speaker or video source) and the student booths (all 10). Afterwards, we can listen to both tracks for evaluation and feedback (source right and student rendition left). I don't think we can compare two student versions as easily. The recordings are stored on the local server, not in the cloud. I understand this is due to large file sizes. Drawback is that recordings are not accessible remotely so if we want students to listen back to them, we need to upload them manually to WeTransfer, for example. Feasible but time-consuming.

BYOD is what we used to do before we had our new lab. Students would record their own performances on smartphones, tablets or laptops. It's a workaround but it clearly has its limits. Now that we have the new lab, I'm am blown away by how useful it is to listen to both versions simultaneously. More insights gained by students and trainers lead to immensely improved feedback. Being able to pick up on increasing décalage, omissions, use of intonation, etc. It really makes it a lot easier to pick up what happened, identify the cause and suggest fixes and strategies for the future.

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Amen Tom! Giving live context to feedback with replay of the efforts and suggestions for improvement! I had assumed this was already a thing but discovered it's still an idea albeit one that we can build...

Amen Tom! Giving live context to feedback with replay of the efforts and suggestions for improvement! I had assumed this was already a thing but discovered it's still an idea albeit one that we can build upon if we correctly convey the right message to the right designers.

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Rereading Alexander's comment, yours and my reply, I feel I need to clarify: we have ten booths and can record 11 versions: source + 1 per booth. While we cannot listen to two students simultaneously, we...

Rereading Alexander's comment, yours and my reply, I feel I need to clarify: we have ten booths and can record 11 versions: source + 1 per booth. While we cannot listen to two students simultaneously, we can listen to source + student 1 OR source + student 2. Using timestamps, it is indeed easy quickly switch from one student to the other and go and compare different solutions. Extremy useful feature! Quite the eye-opener for many students (and trainers, I must admit).

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Fri, 12/14/2018 - 15:19

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I'm intrigued byapplications like this auXala and whether they could be used for Virtual Classes. At the moment the hardware infrastructure seems cumbersome - often it doesn't work for simultaneous and when it does only one...

I'm intrigued byapplications like this auXala and whether they could be used for Virtual Classes. At the moment the hardware infrastructure seems cumbersome - often it doesn't work for simultaneous and when it does only one student can be listened to at a time. I know the VC department is considering an overhaul of its systems but maybe something like this could be the way forward instead. Would this system enable me to get a number of trainers together in Brussels to listen in to a class of students in Shanghai, with each trainer able to listen to a different student by slecting the appropriate channel on their mobile phone? Or am I being wildly unrealistic? I speak as a total tech-ignoramus so any pointers would be very welcome.

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Hi Andy,

I have used GoReact before https://get.goreact.com/ and it works very well as a on online platform to upload activities, listen to students' recordings and give feedback. It is not perfect, but it is a...

Hi Andy,

I have used GoReact before https://get.goreact.com/ and it works very well as a on online platform to upload activities, listen to students' recordings and give feedback. It is not perfect, but it is a great platform to create different types of assignments (upload webinars, video or audio interpreting assignments, recordings uploaded by yourself, students' presentations, etc.) and the best feature is that it is very interactive. You can provide feedback in different ways (written comments, tags created by yourself to flag up different aspects/criteria, audio feedback, links to videos, etc.). Feedback comments are time coded: students can see when they made that "minor omission" or came up with a beautiful solution that you tagged as "great solution"; they get statistics of the different types of "errors" or good solutions for each recording and course and you can create templates to enter marks. You can set up activities for self assessment, peer assessment and tests.

From a more technical point of you, students need to have a webcam in order to be able to upload recordings, even if they want to upload audio recordings only, but most laptops have one and, alternatively, students can use the app on their phones to access the platform and record themselves.

Each student has to pay around $30, if I remember correctly, unless you have an institutional license. That is a downside, but cheaper than most text books in other disciplines!

I tested it and led its implementation with my former colleague Aída Martínez-Gómez at John Jay a couple of years ago, so happy to answer any questions.

Eloísa

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Andy, you might want to look into one of the remote interpreting platforms (e.g. Voiceboxer), where you can actually switch between interpreting channels. It's audio-only, I think, because with video, it just requires too much bandwidth.

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When you say audio only, you mean that the trainer only gets the audio feed, but students get the video feed of the original? Working from an audio-only source would take us back a few decades.

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Yes, what I mean is that one can hear the interpreters, but not see them. Interpreters on the platform get both video and audio as input.

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Hi Andrew. If a platform can offer a number of languages, i.e. channels, then I am sure it can do the same for a number of interpreting students. So rather than switch between FR, DE, ES...

Hi Andrew. If a platform can offer a number of languages, i.e. channels, then I am sure it can do the same for a number of interpreting students. So rather than switch between FR, DE, ES, EN, PL etc you'd switch between student 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. I'm not an expert, but that would be my guess anyway. The best thing to do would be to contact providers with that query.

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Here's a very brief summary of what Alex Drechsel, Susana Rodríguez and I experienced when we tried out auXala online recently: https://translationcommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Auxala-trial-repo…

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I am currently studying the the feasibility of using auXala as a BYOD solution for a videoconferencing room at the Middlebury Institute. So far, things look promising. I'll let you know how it goes.

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Thanks Barry, sounds interesting.

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Monday, 1 October 2018

Manual

Videos

Courses

Podcasts about interpreting and translation

A big list of podcasts about language in general, linguistics etc. can be found here.

Thursday, 23 January 2020
  • Fantinuoli, Claudio: "Interpreting and technology" (Berlin: Language Science Press 2019) - More info
  • O'Hagan, Minako: "The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology" - More info
  • Corpas Pastor, Gloria; Durán-Muñoz, Isabel: "Trends in E-Tools and Resources for Translators and Interpreters" - More info
  • "Here or There: Research on Interpreting via Video Link" - More info
  • Interpreters vs Machines: Can Interpreters Survive in an AI-Dominated World? - More info
  • Heidi Salaets & Geert Brône: "Linking up with Video. Perspectives on interpreting practice and research" - More info
  • Suzanne Ehrlich & Jemina Napier (eds.): "Interpreter Education in the Digital Age: Innovation, Access, and Change" - More info
Wednesday, 29 January 2020

Content coming this week.

Friday, 31 January 2020

Content coming this week.

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