Forum: CAT Tools Technical Help
Topic: Segment length analysis?
Poster: Philippe Etienne
Post title: MeToo
[quote]Samuel Murray wrote:
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It takes me (generally) just as long to translate a 1-word segment as a 3-word segment or even a 5-word segment. So for me, if I had wanted the weighted word count to be an accurate indication of the amount of time it will take to do the job, all segments of 5 words or less should be counted as 5 words.
...[/quote]
While opposed to potentially getting weighted wordcounts higher than the actual wordcount for philosophical reasons, I see the point. In all fairness, small segments shouldn't be "discounted".
Simpler to visualise than segment wordcount breakdown, I think such a weighted wordcount would already lead to a much more accurate anticipation of the translation time required.
But CAT tool makers, when coming up with "partial matches", "analyses", "non-existing matches that will exist later", "tags/numbers that don't count" and stuff, haven't implemented a kind of threshold (I also think that around 3-5 words is realistic) below which the contents of small segments are reported as full words, neither weighted, nor discounted.
If there are only a few mini-segments, the buyer would "lose" a few pennies, and it there are a lot, the translator would actually be paid for the extra-time needed.
However, I am aware that weighted wordcounts have long lost their primary function of anticipating the time required: for instance, 80% discounts on 95-99% concordance matches seem to be common practice with a certain type of agencies, whereas 15 years ago, most used a single discount rate for all 75-99% matches.
To actually anticipate the time needed, I use a slightly amended historical version of the three-thirds 33/66/100, with fuzzies in the 75-99% concordance band.
Besides, I can't imagine any CAT tool maker implementing any small-segment threshold, because its analyses would consistently yield higher weighted wordcounts compared to the competition. Hardly a selling argument in the agency market, which to a significant extent shapes what translators buy as CAT tools.
After almost 20 years of daily use of CAT tools, I've never seen any "ground-breaking", "innovating" or "killer" feature increase weighted wordcounts! And don't start me on the "significant productivity gains" to justify the downward trend of weighted wordcounts together with the downward trend of discount grids together with the stagnation of the unit rate.
Philippe