During the past year 2020, the unexpected global lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on every industry, forcing the society to rethink of how the world does business.
One industry that has managed to find opportunity amid crisis is the translation sector. In fact, according to 2020 European Language Industry Survey, language services providers were better prepared than most to deal with the effects and consequences of the pandemic.
As a result, the translation industry is attracting more would-be translators, interpreters, copywriters and proofreaders than in previous years.
Now we are still welcoming this new year, it’s the perfect time to take a look at what trends are likely to take hold in the translation business in 2021.
#1 Video Remote Interpreting (VRI)
Although it’s been around for years, remote interpreting enjoyed an unprecedented boom when the pandemic started. VRI, which allows events to be hosted online while the interpreters are digitally present, will remain a key trend in 2021. With social distancing guidelines in place in all industries, remote interpreters have been able and will still be able to help with everything from international business meetings and medical appointments to court cases as well.
#2 Online Video Marketing
Due to wireless coverage and the rise of social media platforms, people now expect to watch videos on their smartphones from any location. In addition, it has been found that 87% of marketing professionals now use video as a key marketing tool. Much of this video content comes with subtitles that have to be translated and transcribed into many different languages, apart from pitches, storyboards, scripts, press material and posts. Translators won’t be short of work this 2021!
#3 Machine Translation, Human editing
Last but not least, this is the big one. Machine Translation (MT) has gained strength during the last decade, but it will certainly become an integral part of the translation industry in the next few years. Human editors, however, will continue to be crucial and as integral to the translation process than ever. No matter how good MT becomes, a good text will always be about working with the human touch too.