“I feel somewhat constrained by the raw output…”: a case study on teaching post-editing in translator training

The widespread adoption of neural machine translation (NMT) and large language models (LLMs) has intensified the need to include post-editing (PE) training in translation curricula. Despite the availability of guidelines and skill sets for PE in the existing literature, the teaching of PE presents numerous challenges, particularly for translation students encountering PE for the first time. This paper describes a PE course offered at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in the 2023–2024 academic year for master’s students of translation. Particular attention is given to the approach developed to address students’ initial resistance to PE and the issue of subjectivity in the PE process. Following an overview of the existing literature on PE training, the course objectives and contents are outlined, and the practical tasks proposed to the students are described in detail. These tasks are discussed with reference to the PE-related skills and competences available in the literature, as well as to the challenges encountered by the students. The discussion then focuses on the results of a task-based survey that was carried out to explore students’ acquired attitudes toward PE and its relationship with translation. Finally, the concluding section discusses key considerations for future training.