Forum: CAT Tools Technical Help
Topic: Building TM from scratch
Poster: Sheila Wilson
Post title: Some non-technical stuff
[quote]Redmarien wrote:
my work regularly asks me to translate things for them (from random private stuff to actual company documents). Doing this manually, is indeed a long process, hence going for CAT.[/quote]
Hmm. Alarm bells have started ringing. A CAT doesn't actually do the work; it just reminds us of our own past work, and our/our clients' preferences.
[quote]My question towards TM: I have doc A in English, translate it to doc A in German/Dutch. Now doc B English needs translating. Will a CAT Tool translate what is can and the rest I have to do manually?[/quote]
The only time the CAT will "translate" anything is when you've already had an identical, or nealy identical sentence come up before. Well, not necessarily a sentence, but it often is. So, if you're translating loads of websites, you'll find expressions like "Please click here for more information" might come up time and time again, although sometimes the writer may have used "press" rather than "click", or "help" in place of "information". Then your CAT will step in and say "Here's one you made yesterday". Individual repeated words and ideas are only leveraged if you've put them into the glossary/termbase, although there's also a very useful thing called a concordance search, which allows you to search through your TM for pretty much anything. TBH, a CAT isn't likely to save you any time on the second text you translate, unless it's almost identical. It will probably take you longer as there's quite a learning curve to them. You normally have to do a lot of translations before you start finding loads of matches. In my own experience, most clients give me work that doesn't have anything more than a few percent of "fuzzy" (imperfect) matches, even after building my TMs for many years. But then I get the odd client with a regular, repetitive job where the matches, even 100% ones, go sky high.
[quote]And if yes, the new translations will be added to the existing TM or a new one?[/quote]
That's entirely up to you. You would often need specific TMs for a particular client, for a particular sector or even for a particular project. But you might also maintain a big TM containing everything, to be used in the background, i.e. as an additional reference.
[quote]I asked it in this specific way because there are so many TMs out there but only for something specific e.g: manuals for webcams, technical translations...[/quote]
Well yes, because "context is king!". You don't want similar sentences being proposed if the context is very different, because the translation will need to be different.
I would say that a CAT tool can be used for one of two major purposes (and lots of minor ones):
1. To save time. The prime example is if you're updating manuals that you yourself translated a while back, but you can save time on other jobs, to a lesser extent. Or you can find it takes a little longer than "translating manually".
2. To improve consistency and quality. For me, that's the major reason I use a CAT. As a marketing specialist, I don't actually WANT to repeat most things; in fact, I may go out of my way not to, even if the source is repetitive. But clients do need consistency, and they do need quality. And a CAT can help in both areas if you're careful how you use one. If you buy/collect third-party TMs or bring the dreaded MT (Machine Translation) into the picture, then quality is likely to go out of the window. At best, you're going to spend longer, to achieve quality, as you'll first have to read the rubbish your CAT proposes, then delete it all and do the job yourself.
Some people have instant recall of their previous work and can always start typing immediately. In that case they may find little use for a CAT, although I think there are still benefits to using one. Personally, at my age :(, I sometimes search for words even when I know them perfectly well (even in my native language). That's why I find the concordance search so useful - it's a great memory-jogger.
Topic: Building TM from scratch
Poster: Sheila Wilson
Post title: Some non-technical stuff
[quote]Redmarien wrote:
my work regularly asks me to translate things for them (from random private stuff to actual company documents). Doing this manually, is indeed a long process, hence going for CAT.[/quote]
Hmm. Alarm bells have started ringing. A CAT doesn't actually do the work; it just reminds us of our own past work, and our/our clients' preferences.
[quote]My question towards TM: I have doc A in English, translate it to doc A in German/Dutch. Now doc B English needs translating. Will a CAT Tool translate what is can and the rest I have to do manually?[/quote]
The only time the CAT will "translate" anything is when you've already had an identical, or nealy identical sentence come up before. Well, not necessarily a sentence, but it often is. So, if you're translating loads of websites, you'll find expressions like "Please click here for more information" might come up time and time again, although sometimes the writer may have used "press" rather than "click", or "help" in place of "information". Then your CAT will step in and say "Here's one you made yesterday". Individual repeated words and ideas are only leveraged if you've put them into the glossary/termbase, although there's also a very useful thing called a concordance search, which allows you to search through your TM for pretty much anything. TBH, a CAT isn't likely to save you any time on the second text you translate, unless it's almost identical. It will probably take you longer as there's quite a learning curve to them. You normally have to do a lot of translations before you start finding loads of matches. In my own experience, most clients give me work that doesn't have anything more than a few percent of "fuzzy" (imperfect) matches, even after building my TMs for many years. But then I get the odd client with a regular, repetitive job where the matches, even 100% ones, go sky high.
[quote]And if yes, the new translations will be added to the existing TM or a new one?[/quote]
That's entirely up to you. You would often need specific TMs for a particular client, for a particular sector or even for a particular project. But you might also maintain a big TM containing everything, to be used in the background, i.e. as an additional reference.
[quote]I asked it in this specific way because there are so many TMs out there but only for something specific e.g: manuals for webcams, technical translations...[/quote]
Well yes, because "context is king!". You don't want similar sentences being proposed if the context is very different, because the translation will need to be different.
I would say that a CAT tool can be used for one of two major purposes (and lots of minor ones):
1. To save time. The prime example is if you're updating manuals that you yourself translated a while back, but you can save time on other jobs, to a lesser extent. Or you can find it takes a little longer than "translating manually".
2. To improve consistency and quality. For me, that's the major reason I use a CAT. As a marketing specialist, I don't actually WANT to repeat most things; in fact, I may go out of my way not to, even if the source is repetitive. But clients do need consistency, and they do need quality. And a CAT can help in both areas if you're careful how you use one. If you buy/collect third-party TMs or bring the dreaded MT (Machine Translation) into the picture, then quality is likely to go out of the window. At best, you're going to spend longer, to achieve quality, as you'll first have to read the rubbish your CAT proposes, then delete it all and do the job yourself.
Some people have instant recall of their previous work and can always start typing immediately. In that case they may find little use for a CAT, although I think there are still benefits to using one. Personally, at my age :(, I sometimes search for words even when I know them perfectly well (even in my native language). That's why I find the concordance search so useful - it's a great memory-jogger.