How do we translate in the age of AI
TRANSLATION AT WORDHOUSE
If you’ve ever wrestled with a phrase that just won’t sit right in English, or smiled when you found the perfect word in Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, or Ilocano, you already know translation isn’t mechanical. It’s craft. It’s care. It’s the tug-of-war between meaning and music, between what was said and what was really meant.
You might already be translating without even calling it that: you're helping relatives with government forms, subtitling shows, or switching between two languages at work. And maybe you’ve wondered: with AI and Translation Machine Tools doing translations so fast, does my effort still matter?
Translator's Challenge
In today’s digital world, we appear more connected than ever, yet much of that presence is fleeting, virtual, and surface-level. Translation has always wrestled with technical questions of accuracy and meaning, but in the age of AI, these same questions take on new weight. They are no longer just matters of craft; they demand deeper critical thinking about what it means to create translations that foster genuine connection, human nuance, and cultural integrity.
How should this work be translated so readers can connect with it? In this age of digital connections (messages, posts, streams) it’s easy to feel surrounded yet unseen. For Filipinos, connection is deeply relational: Kumusta ka na? isn’t just small talk—it reflects a concern that reaches beyond the next-door kapitbahay, touching the wider circle of family and community. Translation must reach for that same warmth. It’s more than getting the words right to evoke recognition, memory, and shared humanity. A good translation doesn’t just inform; it makes readers feel spoken to, as if they were back in conversation with family or community.
How do we balance speed (with the help of AI) and depth (through human nuance)? AI and TMs can process massive amounts of text in seconds, giving us speed and accessibility. But nuance is what makes language alive. In Filipino, cadence and punto (accent or regional inflection) shape meaning as much as vocabulary. An Ilocano's quick, fiery tone differs from a Bicolano’s melodic lilt; a Batangueño’s emphatic “Ala pa!” rings differently from an Ilonggo's lilting “Uy, sus!” Even humor is textured. Our play on words, double meanings, and teasing banter carry emotions that don’t always cross cultures. We immediately sense irony, tenderness, hesitation, or anger in ways no algorithm fully grasps. The task is to welcome AI’s efficiency, but preserving our translator’s ear, our ability to hear the sighs, humor, and heartbeats that make our language alive.
How do we carry not just the words, but the world behind them? Every word carries a world. Utang na loob is more than a “debt of gratitude” but speaks of loyalty and reciprocity within community. Expressions like pakikiramay or nakakahiya can’t be reduced to “sympathy” or “shame”; they are lived realities of kinship and belonging. To carry the “world behind the words” means honoring this depth without flattening them into stereotypes, so they stay alive and meaningful for readers everywhere.
A Nudge for Filipino Translators
Think of the native expressions we once heard from our Tito, Tita, Lolo, Lola, Manang, Manong, Ate, or Kuya. Maybe they were proverbs, jokes, or even tender scolding, words that rarely make it into books but live on in our memory.
How do we bring those into another language without losing their flavor? How might bahala na sound in a workplace abroad? How might nakakahiya be felt in a culture where shame carries a different weight?
As Filipino translators, our ears are always tuned to nuance. And it is often the hardest-to-translate words that become our golden treasures, revealing the uniqueness of our heritage and challenging us to build bridges across worlds.
How We Carry Stories Across Languages
In the Philippines, most translations still serve commercial needs—ads, manuals, medical flyers, government circulars, and legal notices. Necessary, yes, but largely functional. Literary translation, on the other hand, is rarer and far more precious.
Think of a Filipino novel written in your own language. To bring it into English is not only to change words, but to carry with it the rhythm of speech, the turns of idiom, the play of humor, and the weight of cultural register. Yet, you'll have to find expressions that will do just those, in the target language. Simple literal transfers, we all know this, will not suffice. In the same way, translating a foreign work into Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray, or Ilocano gives it a new home while allowing it to keep its soul.
This is where the heart of translation lies. The creative, interpretive, and emotional force of a text can so easily be flattened by mechanical transfer. Our task as translators is to resist that loss and keep alive the very pulse of the original.
How You Can Be Part of This Work
AI can draft translations in seconds. But as translators, we strive to register the exact intended meaning, carrying with it all the emotional nuance. At WordHouse, we believe every translator, whether seasoned or just beginning, is a voice helping usher the Filipino language into new worlds.
If you’ve ever translated, or even just thought about trying, we’d love to hear from you. Share your work, your struggles, your discoveries. Let’s create a space where translation is not only about accuracy, but about carrying memory, humor, and heart across languages.
Because even in our globalized world where localization has become the norm, translation at its best is not about putting up walls of difference, but about building bridges of recognition. Our words are meant to connect, not isolate. Translation is the only way to keep alive the ties of culture, memory, and shared humanity across borders.
