#51 RWS’ Plans for SDL, Top 10 NMT Papers, Graduating Translation in 2020

The special guest for episode #51 is Slator’s very own Monica Jamieson, a new translation grad who joins the Pod to talk about why today’s 20-somethings are studying languages, and to offer tips on language industry job hunting during Covid-19.

Esther shares her key takeaways from SlatorCon Remote on December 3, 2020, which drew in +250 attendees from 30 countries, who tuned in to watch 6 CEOs, a CMO and 3 enterprise clients provide insights from their vantage points in the language industry.

Florian talks about the top 10 most influential research papers on neural machine translation (NMT), based on Slator’s analysis of citation counts, which sparked some discussion on Twitter.

He also discusses the latest financial results from language data provider Appen, which downgraded its earnings guidance after a disappointing November, and from language service provider (LSP) RWS, which outlined its plans to integrate former rival SDL.

00:00:00 Agenda and Intro
00:01:45 SlatorCon Remote Highlights
00:14:17 Top 10 Neural Machine Translation Papers
00:21:13 Appen Downgrades 2020 Outlook
00:22:32 RWS's Plans for SDL
00:28:53 Monica joins the pod
00:30:47 Structure of an MA in Translation program
00:32:56 How much industry expertise should academic programs teach
00:34:52 State of job market for recent translation grads
00:37:27 Recent grads' thoughts on AI
00:39:20 Tips for grads on the job hunt