Forum: CAT Tools Technical Help
Topic: Efficiency of using CAT tools in comparison to using none
Poster: neilmac
Post title: One drawback
As I see it, one of the pitfalls of using a CAT tool could be that you might end up endlessly tinkering with its features, and so waste a lot of time which would be better dedicated to actually translating. Depending on how complicated/complex the tool is to use, the learning curve may become too onerous.
I use WordFast Classic, one of the most basic (and affordable) that I'm aware of, and even so, I don't leverage all of its features, for example the glossary function. I tend to be rather disorganised in the way I go about things in general, and the segmentation of WFC helps me to work in a more orderly fashion, but other than that, I haven't explored some of the other things that can be done with it.
All you need to do is look at the help forums for CAT tools to see the complexity and technical issues users often have to deal with, which I find really offputting. A lot of the time I don't understand the jargon and abbreviations in these forums, which is also a deterrent. Many of the users seem to spend a lot of time tweaking and fine tuning their tools, and I'm usually too busy actually working to be doing stuff like that.
[Edited at 2018-08-19 08:53 GMT]
Topic: Efficiency of using CAT tools in comparison to using none
Poster: neilmac
Post title: One drawback
As I see it, one of the pitfalls of using a CAT tool could be that you might end up endlessly tinkering with its features, and so waste a lot of time which would be better dedicated to actually translating. Depending on how complicated/complex the tool is to use, the learning curve may become too onerous.
I use WordFast Classic, one of the most basic (and affordable) that I'm aware of, and even so, I don't leverage all of its features, for example the glossary function. I tend to be rather disorganised in the way I go about things in general, and the segmentation of WFC helps me to work in a more orderly fashion, but other than that, I haven't explored some of the other things that can be done with it.
All you need to do is look at the help forums for CAT tools to see the complexity and technical issues users often have to deal with, which I find really offputting. A lot of the time I don't understand the jargon and abbreviations in these forums, which is also a deterrent. Many of the users seem to spend a lot of time tweaking and fine tuning their tools, and I'm usually too busy actually working to be doing stuff like that.
[Edited at 2018-08-19 08:53 GMT]