Tammy Yu-Ting Chiang

江鈺婷

Tag: teaching

  • book translation #10

    《當AI取得話語權，人類還剩下什麼？：以當代哲學與溝通理論探討AI的語言、意識與作者權威性問題》
    Communicative AI: A Critical Introduction to Large Language Models
    by Mark Coeckelbergh and David J. Gunkel

    “How has AI impacted your career?”
    “Um I translated a book about it…?”

    /

    My translation project baby #10 was officially born 🔔

    當所有產業都被AI大大影響，文字工作者更是開始深感飯碗被搶走⋯⋯？
    Reaching a sort of milestone with a book of this theme is actually prophetic, especially when it taps into the relationship between AI and authorship.

    /

    After having moved to Berlin at the end of 2024, I have attended several social events and met many new people. The first question I would get after them hearing that I’m a translator would 90% be: How has AI impacted your career? The topic of this book, needless to say, is very relevant to me, so when my editor asked me whether I was interested in this project, I said yes immediately – so that I can hopefully answer people’s question better.
    And honestly, the answer has been prominently evolving over the course of 2025, all the way to this point – the “impact” has been hitting harder and harder. In my localization projects, for example, my role has largely transformed from “translator” to “editor” who only post-edits machine translation. In fact, one of the biggest impacts I’ve experienced in the wake of AI is the change of mindsets of those who pay. Some would believe that machine translation would already suffice for their purposes and naturally cut the budget originally for human translators.

    /

    This book provides a critical introduction to LLMs and brings in philosophical, social and political perspectives – a nice interdisciplinary discussion on the topic of AI to bridge Humanities and IT. Knowing how LLMs fundamentally work sheds much light on the ethics with regard to AI usage.

    /

    Oh on a lighter note regarding AI – Austin and I were joking about how a contemporary love story could be titled “I Told ChatGPT About You” (in reference to I Told Sunset About You แปลรักฉันด้วยใจเธอ).

    /

    Just still trying to be the digital nomad I dream of in this economy 🥹

    • Peniche, Portugal, June 2025
    • Biel, Switzerland, August 2025
    • Berlin, Germany, September 2025
    • Bologna, Italy, October 2025
    • Helsinki, Finland, October 2025
    • Dahab, Egypt, November 2025

  • book translation #9

    《教出自主學習的孩子：德國名師教你使用成長型學習思維，找回孩子主動學習的動機與專注力》

    My translation project baby #9 is out, which means it’s time to update my personal website yay.

    適合身邊所有在教學現場或開始踏上育兒之路的朋朋，但對於自身的終身學習其實也很有幫助🤓

    /

    In retrospect, this book might have come to me at the most fitting time. It talks about how learning works for children and teenagers in particular but also about how developing the growth mindset would tremendously help with lifelong learning.

    /

    So I briefly became a student again in February. That experience itself was interesting, for after my own teaching experience I started to see “my” teachers’ teaching also from a different perspective, from a teacher’s shoes. That period of time roughly matched with the early stage of this book project, where I got to do a long retrospect of my learning experience as a kid. How could I do this well? Ah that technique was lowkey what I did! Meanwhile, I also examined and reflected on my own way of teaching as a high school teacher. It was informative and provided a ground for me to reflect what I did well and what not. (A particular moment popped up — a kid told me to also comment on the good parts, for it could be quite disheartening otherwise.)

    /

    I went to Spain in April. The trip inspired me in an unexpected way, reminding me how many more potentials I may have other than just being a translator. I started to draw again in May; I noticed how many former students and friends would reach out to me when they needed advice or consolation; new ideas gushed out, reigniting my passion for academic research. All to a point where I somehow got lost, in the sea of too many intriguing ideas and things that I had always carried and yearned to do. Then, a later part of the book covers how someone saw the author’s talents and passion for teaching before she even identified it herself. This part, surprisingly, somehow healed the part of me that wasn’t appreciated enough and couldn’t exert all she’d got. Once again, I was reminded: I can be whatever I want to be.

    /

    ถ้าเราอยากเป็นอะไร ก็เป็นได้ทุกอย่างเลยนะ

    不可能每次翻譯一本新的書都是在自我療癒🥰

    • Copenhagen, March 2025
    • Madrid, April 2025
    • Cordoba, April 2025
    • Barcelona, April 2025
    • Vienna, May 2025
  • Life Is But a Dream: Year in Review 2023

    Life Is But a Dream: Year in Review 2023

    • photo taken in Coron, Philippines, October 2023

    人生如夢。

    Life is but a dream.

    /

    I’ve been thinking how to put my 2023 into words. A crazy year, been all over the Great Pacific, taking planes as if they were MRTs. So many things happened, yet they somehow felt so far away from me right away.

    Life just keeps rolling in. One moment I’m still working in the boonieland, the next I’m spending my weekend in Taiwan with my parents. One moment I’m diving around Beqa to see sharks in Fiji, the next I’m doing the Nevis Bungy and freefalling for 134m in New Zealand. One moment I’m experiencing an unprecedented euphoria on Koh Phangan, the next I’m swimming peacefully alongside a dugong in Coron, Palawan. One moment I’m trying to figure out visa for our move-in plan, the next I’m told we shouldn’t be seeing each other again.

    /

    This was also my last year before entering my thirties. “How was your 29?” I like to ask people this. So how was mine? It started off amazingly but had a bizarre, almost surreal turn towards the end. Someone wrote me, “You are like heroin and I’m an addict and I have no sense of self control,” which can almost be the best caption for my 29, too. So really, I believe it’s the universe helping me detox, may it be the tumor found in my right breast or the major source of emotional drainage, aligning with the theme I set for myself over the last new years: 🪬

    Perhaps this year is finally putting an end to my naïvety, my “teenage” state of mind. Looking back to this decade, a lot of things seemed to have lagged on my timeline. I might have enjoyed too long of a “fortune advance” in my early twenties, smooth and free from heartbreaks. Life then took a major plunge in my 26, which surprisingly led me into a dream life that I was almost going to sabotage for whom I thought was everything. That was also when I started to live most freely ever; got piercings and tattoos, learned how to smoke and whatnots, things I’d label as what people do in their teens or early adulthood. That year, I learned about blessing in disguise.

    Then this wide-eyed girl got to see the world on her own. Found a version of herself that she likes the most, and a “home” that she’d miss on the road. In fact, everything in life has been perfect, nothing much to complain about regarding work (let’s just not go into workplace politics), a lot of love wherever I go (and really, I’m grateful for the luxury I have to go wherever I want to go). But I’ve also learned it the hard way: how malicious the world can be to fail your sincerity, how destiny can bring you to something seemingly beautiful but you’re in fact only here to pay the debt you owed from previous lives, and how nightmares can be simply dressed like daydreams. But again, I hardly regret a thing. If I could choose, I would just do it all over again. After all, never try never know, it is what it is (bread bread cheese cheese), and I never for a moment fail my own heart. I’ve also learned a whole lot about myself, what past trauma has caused me and what I want and need in all sorts of relationships.

    /

    So of course I would say, that was yet another happiest year of my life. But Sharky Tammy may have had some very exciting plans for her landmark year already 🤭 I guess we’ll all just stay tuned! Because I don’t know either where life is going to take me 💖 I’ve already started to feel a new level of confidence and empowerment that people told me belongs to the big 30. And I aim to break the myth that everything will suddenly go downhill upon the entry of the club 😆

    So now, cheers to my new decade first 🍻 (spoiler alert? tihi)