Forum: CAT Tools Technical Help
Topic: A CAT tool for translation into simple language
Poster: Gary Evans
Post title: Monolingual translations
Hi Michael,
In English there seems to be simple English (i.e. Wikipedia artcticles) as well as Basic English, which uses a limited vocabulary. In German there are two variants I am aware of:
1. Leichte Sprache - Strict rules ensure people with learning difficulties can read this. People, for example with Downs Syndrome proofread such texts for understandability. They effectively invented this variant. The responsible German organisation is called Mensch zuerst (people first). See: [url removed] ;
2. Einfache Sprache - The rules are not so strict here and the text is adapted to specific target audiences such as second language learners.
CAT tools can be of use in certain ways. While there are no machine translation (MT) engines which can offer this kind of translation, an extensive term base (TM) would surely be of benefit. Further, a translation memory (TM) would help when it comes to phrases, idioms etc.
Instead of an MT, the best alternative must be crowd sourcing IMO. That's what I'm interested in right now. We have developed a browser-based tool named FoundCAT which can offer this. See: [url removed]
FoundCAT is accessible for people with visual impairment (my partner is blind). We are looking for people & organisations to help develop FoundCAT further, so please join us on the FoundCAT forum if you are interested. Here's the link:
[url removed]
Regards,
Gary
[quote]Michael Wetzel wrote:
Are you talking about monolingual (German > Leichte Sprache) or multilingual translation (English > Leichte Sprache)?
I think there are already editing tools for rule-based writing out there and there are certainly English spellcheckers that mark anything which is not on a given word list as misspelled. I don't think a CAT would really be the right foundation to build on. TMs aren't really relevant: The whole point is to develop and adhere to a rule-based language. While glossaries would be helpful, I think there are already tools out there adapted specifically to the needs of controlled languages.
And "Leichte Sprache" seems like more or less a mess to me: A lot of the rules seem like someone just adopted them from Basic English & Co. without putting any thought into the differences between the two languages. The deliberate use of misspelling and clumsy grammar also hardly seems productive. The worst part is probably that they seem to have gone with generalizing guidelines about vocabulary instead of a core list of words.
[/quote]
[Edited at 2018-03-22 10:52 GMT]
Topic: A CAT tool for translation into simple language
Poster: Gary Evans
Post title: Monolingual translations
Hi Michael,
In English there seems to be simple English (i.e. Wikipedia artcticles) as well as Basic English, which uses a limited vocabulary. In German there are two variants I am aware of:
1. Leichte Sprache - Strict rules ensure people with learning difficulties can read this. People, for example with Downs Syndrome proofread such texts for understandability. They effectively invented this variant. The responsible German organisation is called Mensch zuerst (people first). See: [url removed] ;
2. Einfache Sprache - The rules are not so strict here and the text is adapted to specific target audiences such as second language learners.
CAT tools can be of use in certain ways. While there are no machine translation (MT) engines which can offer this kind of translation, an extensive term base (TM) would surely be of benefit. Further, a translation memory (TM) would help when it comes to phrases, idioms etc.
Instead of an MT, the best alternative must be crowd sourcing IMO. That's what I'm interested in right now. We have developed a browser-based tool named FoundCAT which can offer this. See: [url removed]
FoundCAT is accessible for people with visual impairment (my partner is blind). We are looking for people & organisations to help develop FoundCAT further, so please join us on the FoundCAT forum if you are interested. Here's the link:
[url removed]
Regards,
Gary
[quote]Michael Wetzel wrote:
Are you talking about monolingual (German > Leichte Sprache) or multilingual translation (English > Leichte Sprache)?
I think there are already editing tools for rule-based writing out there and there are certainly English spellcheckers that mark anything which is not on a given word list as misspelled. I don't think a CAT would really be the right foundation to build on. TMs aren't really relevant: The whole point is to develop and adhere to a rule-based language. While glossaries would be helpful, I think there are already tools out there adapted specifically to the needs of controlled languages.
And "Leichte Sprache" seems like more or less a mess to me: A lot of the rules seem like someone just adopted them from Basic English & Co. without putting any thought into the differences between the two languages. The deliberate use of misspelling and clumsy grammar also hardly seems productive. The worst part is probably that they seem to have gone with generalizing guidelines about vocabulary instead of a core list of words.
[/quote]
[Edited at 2018-03-22 10:52 GMT]