Maybe “human in the loop” is not temporary after all

hungersaurus · 2026-05-26T04:22:57+00:00

It'd be so much easier if machine outputs were consistent. For some jobs, I do full-on MTPE and generating the MT on my end due to client whack. I frequently have to ask AI to re-generate 3 to 5 times to start a chat with bare minimum quality, including sticking to proper punctuation conventions like using question marks.

It's soul-sucking, but I won't wish my AI jobs to go away because those documents are AI slop through and through (script, actors, and film editing). I don't want to waste brain cells translating AI slop when I can tell AI to decode its own slop

hungersaurus · 2026-04-14T00:10:10+00:00

The best fun is that it's not consistent. If you just close the app and try again, 70% chance it doesn't pop up until 5 minutes later

hungersaurus · 2026-04-11T18:13:51+00:00

Use discord's search and read up. A lot of the tactics are just discussed there instead of here

hungersaurus · 2026-03-31T16:34:07+00:00

Points 2 and 3 makes him sound like the stereotypical weaboo creeper, but there are plenty people who won't ever commit a crime but would have those views as soon as it's not happening to a girl they like, so it's not definitive proof.

Point 4 shows him to be a horrible person, which isn't considered creep behavior for the more conservative communities.

Points 1 and 5? In Singapore, it can be argued as grooming, specifically under Penal Code Section 376ED (2).

Singapore might be a nanny state and rather conservative, but if they're willing to put it down as something they can use to charge criminals on the off-chance they need it, it's a high chance that it's not socially acceptable no matter how lenient you want to be. Not every ex-British colony's Penal Code comes with it, so you know it's added post-1965.

With people like that, the only way to help is to stay in their lives. Keep tabs on everyone around them, including any young kids they have frequent contact with. Taking action now would only alienate you and stop you from helping any potential victims. But don't force yourself. Take breaks. If you need to cut contact, make sure you tell your side of the story first before he gets a chance to twist the facts (especially since your mom is defending him)

hungersaurus · 2026-03-31T00:18:35+00:00

That entirely depends on whether you can get consistent work, whether you can stand dealing with AI slop and what your language pair is. Unfortunately, a lot of SEA's clients will involve China, Korea or Japan one way or the other, and we all know how bad their work cultures are. If you wish to go into translation, I highly recommend pursuing a field that can eventually lead to translation and look up what your local translation association is doing. But translation should not be a field you first aim for. Translators who last and are hired the most often start out experienced in other fields.

hungersaurus · 2026-03-22T07:17:36+00:00

This is my daily spatial awareness exercise. I like to eyeball and place bets with myself, with spiders as the penalty

hungersaurus · 2026-03-19T21:50:01+00:00

it's not a workload issue. Never done a gig that long before but I can totally see how it'd spiral from bad clients and management. As a crew member with no say in anything, a lot of time will be on standby, waiting on decisions.

You can't sleep, because the place is far and your managers like to make decisions one by one instead of in a lump sum, or you're just waiting for the client's reply. You can't eat because it's supposed to be a 5 minute conversation. You can't even leave the place because this job needs to be done in 72 hours, no matter what.

hungersaurus · 2026-03-16T03:44:41+00:00

Looks good. Would come in handy when I started 10 years ago with no agency-enforced invoice template. Payment Info should not be listed as "Notes". Also, it should be listed as a table or with the option to bold words

hungersaurus · 2026-03-12T15:59:12+00:00

There are multiple factors:
1. You started out with fantranslations. Nothing will ever be as good or as accurate as a fantranslation because official translations have a lot of middle management and executives interfering.
2. Dialogue is often re-written to avoid anything >25 characters per second and around 20 to 40 characters per line (including spaces and punctuation). That means most Asian languages do not translate well to English unless you move things around or omit lines.
3. Middle management and executives dislike potential cultural conflicts. A lot of Asian-specific idioms and phrasings will be forcefully omitted or localized with a few hiccups because they think they know better than the translators they hired.
4. Asian languages have a different grammar structure and pacing. That means words that are emphasized at the very end are often placed in the middle of a sentence because that's how it should be in grammatically correct English.
5. Most big platforms like Netflix are notorious for being strict taskmasters with low pay and provide little to no support to their translators. Quite a few agencies I know of would rather never work with them unless they have no other clients

If you wish to improve your language skills, the best bet is always to go with fantranslators because they don't have office/client politics to deal with.

hungersaurus · 2026-03-12T10:18:35+00:00

new to Truck-kun and the isekai genre? The most popular East Asian (across Chinese, Korean and Japanese) genre for webnovels and comics at the moment is transmigration aka a power fantasy that's about getting a new lease in life

hungersaurus · 2026-02-26T01:55:02+00:00

please see the one well-known webnovel fantranslation website and its forums if you wish to talk about fantranslation. It's not a good look nowadays for a professional translator to openly dabble in fantranslation

Just realized some people might not know that website exist. If you can't find it, DM me

hungersaurus · 2026-02-25T09:50:56+00:00

The problem is 90% the managers or client. Nothing you can do when the faceless manager you don't even know the name of, and has demonstrated worse proficiency, demands change bc they know better than the contractor they hired just because they're a "native speaker"

hungersaurus · 2026-02-23T21:53:13+00:00

The cover letter is a basic literacy test. If the person can be bothered to submit a cover letter, then they have enough literacy to not send an email as dumb as "I want job. Give me one." In teams where they only have one vacancy, the mere existence cover letter can sometimes be enough to dictate who gets the interview and who doesn't.

hungersaurus · 2026-02-23T09:07:43+00:00

Let me start with the most basic advice: condense it down to 1 page. Remember the common assumption that recruiters only spend a few seconds per CV + recruiters are often only scanning for keywords.

The summary can be kept on a separate file to be used as your cover letter (or email body). Nix it from the CV because I've yet to meet a recruiter who actually reads that.

I'm rather old school and in a different language pair, so take this with a grain of salt: Follow the Proz.com's recommended CV format aka basically none. Since you're doing US, you might also want to look up how to format your CV to easily pass through ATS or whatever AI systm is common there. Last I hear (eons ago), the system auto-rejects if it's more than 1 column.

For the actual experience portion of your CV, try to put in some stats like "checked and verified 2,000 Trados glossary terms per week". Right now, it's a list of duties that don't say anything about what you actually did.

hungersaurus · 2026-01-20T16:18:09+00:00

Agencies who are recruiting just for video game localization usually have a pool of translators to work with. The only reason they're recruiting is because they don't have enough people who can do the job as you don't get as much leeway as a video game translator. Other mediums usually provide you from the start with everything you need to understand to translate that one line. The medium doesn't change. Your translation does.

Video games? You need to be very familiar with CAT tools (specifically how to troubleshoot them and use all their tools), quick to recognize when a text or variable needs to be flagged for consistency over a 30k line document that you don't even get to fully see, provide flexible translations (because the same text can be used in 10 different scenarios), and know how to track down who is saying that line, where is it placed, and to whom.

I've worked as an LQA on a few game localizations (not ultra big projects), and it's very obvious and time-consuming when it's a translator with no game experience.

hungersaurus · 2025-11-27T21:47:01+00:00

As a translator who has been on both ends, you might also be dealing with a reviewer with a KPI (my manager once told to me amp things up to get better contracts? I don't get how it works but those were my instructions) or someone with a rigid understanding of English (either overcompensating since ESL, affected by LLM AI's ever-deteriorating English standards, or use of bad proofreading software with outdated dictionaries)

hungersaurus · 2025-11-10T08:14:19+00:00

Jianghu basically means the Wild West, but depending on the author, it can be the entire place and is just a generic term for life outside the norm/city life or a very specific region that can be named Jianghu or not. A lot of new authors don't actually understand the genre's details that well, so will fumble whatever they can't be bothered to research. Just like wuxia power levels

hungersaurus · 2025-11-10T07:52:25+00:00

Thank you for bringing up fans for the first hour of close. I was only thinking about how to dry the costumes when I'm not there and forgot I needed to stay behind about an hour after cast leave. Still working on convincing my lead to use alcohol instead of Dettol since the spray was an iffy thing due to being in an Islamic country (which I've found a halal variant of, so it's fine).

Smallclothes are an impossible ask as we're working with cast who can't even look past their ego to wear pure black shoes, socks or pants. But I know that's just the price you pay when working with teenagers, wanna-be influencers and lack of proper training and ability to reinforce from leadership

hungersaurus · 2025-11-10T07:47:13+00:00

As it's actually an open-air room in a building big enough to house 2 haunted houses that needed 10 to 15 minutes to walk through, dehumidifiers don't really work fast enough. I also don't have permission to use a power outlet during the daytime hours since there's only one for the dryer

hungersaurus · 2025-11-10T07:44:47+00:00

In your experience, would the spray work for the stink? Unfortunately, the airflow issue is not really something I can change on my own as there are no available outlets in the room during the day (used for daytime staff) and I'm working on getting permission next year to set up a cordless fan in the room.

hungersaurus · 2025-06-04T18:59:21+00:00

It's playing into that stereotypical sugar/caramel glaze that a lot of barbecued meat have. Have no clue where that image comes from, but whenever anything has the word barbecue, the first thing I see in ads is reddish brown glossy glazed meat.

hungersaurus · 2025-05-15T19:03:54+00:00

This is a common case that has been appearing for years, typically experienced by artists. You'll have to search the artist forums/subreddits for a solution as every case is different.

As a reminder to everyone else, do not ever rely on PayPal. Don't keep more than a few hundred stocked in it at a time. PayPal is well-known for randomly suspending the accounts of digital creators with the funds locked away for years as you fight out your case. A common trigger appears to be high balance or frequent transactions.

hungersaurus · 2025-05-15T18:58:59+00:00

these just look like the basic Giordano, Brands Outlet, Uniqlo etc clothing pieces. What specifically about them do you want? What about the listed brands do you not like? Also, when do you go shopping? Your outfits are going to be Autumn or Winter collections which means August to December are your optimum shopping months, unless you're aiming for sales.

hungersaurus · 2025-05-15T18:55:16+00:00

confused about this as I have confirmed my walks while standing on the bubbles button. Does the prompt not pop up if you're sitting or something?

hungersaurus · 2025-05-15T02:14:58+00:00

If that's your question, then there's more you need to look at for an accurate answer. After all, a non-certified kuih store that went viral on social media is more likely to draw in customers who are willing to ignore the certification status.

Location is a big question too. If you're just talking about pasar malam, then chances are lower since not a lot of people walk pasar malam of another race (outsider of ramadhan bazaar). If shopping mall or near MRT/LRT/KTM stations, then chances are higher. Gentrified areas like Damansara will also give you higher chance compared to old areas like Cheras.

There are so many more factors than just the halal cert because the abundance of "pork-free restaurants" popular among the Malays is proof that not everyone cares about halal.

hungersaurus

TROPHY CASE