Forum: CAT Tools Technical Help
Topic: List of standard subject categories for a translation memory (TM) wanted
Poster: Meta Arkadia
Post title: I gave up
When I started using a CAT tool in 1997, I obediently followed the manual (some CAT tools come with a manual), and assigned client and subject to my resources. In those days, you could only connect to 1 TM, 1 termbase, and 1 lexicon/glossary in DejaVu, and I'm pretty sure you couldn't use more resources in other tools. The subject drop-down list looked like this:
It's both too comprehensive and too limited since most jobs I do require more than one subject. Like: General, automotive, marketing. Or: General, automative, workplace. Worse: General, automotive, workplace, ACME, series FooBar. I gave up. All subjects became "General." And I wasn't the only one. Like most DV users, I switched to the Big Mama (general TM), Big Papa (general termbase), and lexicon (project specific glossary) approach. The lexicons could grow from project specific to subject specific, and by that, rather useless as project specific.
More than 10 years later, it became possible to connect to more resources in your CAT tool. I developed a rather sophisticated approach with almost unlimited resources and settings. It works. If you know what resources to use, and I'm pretty sure using a classification system like the ones proposed here, won't work.
So earlier this year, I decided to import all my old lexicons, client termbases, and downloaded stuff (like Michael's glossaries) in an indexed database, arguing that I would be able to easily find the resources I needed, and I even intended write a script to search for them automatically by creating a wordlist from the source document. I gave up. There turned out to be more columns needed than I provided for, or wanted to create.
So I went back to good old desktop search, one for less frequently used, extremely big, or "unidentified" resources.
I can access it from within my CAT tool, and if I have to search it regularly, and if it turns out I often get the hits from the same resource, I can add that resource in the CAT tool for automatic search and auto-assembling.
I don't think "mere translators" can create and maintain a useful (standard) classification system, unless you are highly specialised. And in that case, you hardly need a classification system.
Cheers.
Hans
[Edited at 2015-12-05 00:56 GMT]
Topic: List of standard subject categories for a translation memory (TM) wanted
Poster: Meta Arkadia
Post title: I gave up
When I started using a CAT tool in 1997, I obediently followed the manual (some CAT tools come with a manual), and assigned client and subject to my resources. In those days, you could only connect to 1 TM, 1 termbase, and 1 lexicon/glossary in DejaVu, and I'm pretty sure you couldn't use more resources in other tools. The subject drop-down list looked like this:
It's both too comprehensive and too limited since most jobs I do require more than one subject. Like: General, automotive, marketing. Or: General, automative, workplace. Worse: General, automotive, workplace, ACME, series FooBar. I gave up. All subjects became "General." And I wasn't the only one. Like most DV users, I switched to the Big Mama (general TM), Big Papa (general termbase), and lexicon (project specific glossary) approach. The lexicons could grow from project specific to subject specific, and by that, rather useless as project specific.
More than 10 years later, it became possible to connect to more resources in your CAT tool. I developed a rather sophisticated approach with almost unlimited resources and settings. It works. If you know what resources to use, and I'm pretty sure using a classification system like the ones proposed here, won't work.
So earlier this year, I decided to import all my old lexicons, client termbases, and downloaded stuff (like Michael's glossaries) in an indexed database, arguing that I would be able to easily find the resources I needed, and I even intended write a script to search for them automatically by creating a wordlist from the source document. I gave up. There turned out to be more columns needed than I provided for, or wanted to create.
So I went back to good old desktop search, one for less frequently used, extremely big, or "unidentified" resources.
I can access it from within my CAT tool, and if I have to search it regularly, and if it turns out I often get the hits from the same resource, I can add that resource in the CAT tool for automatic search and auto-assembling.
I don't think "mere translators" can create and maintain a useful (standard) classification system, unless you are highly specialised. And in that case, you hardly need a classification system.
Cheers.
Hans
[Edited at 2015-12-05 00:56 GMT]