| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Trados - Is it really necessary? Thread poster: HCProv
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Desi_vdb
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:06
Dutch to English
+ ...
| replacing words!!??? | Jul 22, 2004 |
So what happens if you replace first:
and = et
and then you want to replace all occurences of
stand-by
which will not be there anymore, because they will all have turned into: stet-by
Secondly, a word will not always have the same meaning in every context. So replacing is very dangerous.
I think seeing the original & translation in their context (which is what trados does) is more practical. You can then determine if ... See more So what happens if you replace first:
and = et
and then you want to replace all occurences of
stand-by
which will not be there anymore, because they will all have turned into: stet-by
Secondly, a word will not always have the same meaning in every context. So replacing is very dangerous.
I think seeing the original & translation in their context (which is what trados does) is more practical. You can then determine if the suggested word is the right one in this context and insert it, or give another, better one.
As for the comment:
"I also should mention before I go to bed and on a slightly different note that CAT tools will follow the sentence structure in the source language slavishly,"
No, they don't. They follow the sentence structure in the way you set it up. Play around with the settings. You can tell it to make a new segment after a comma, or tell it not to. And if you come accross a "strange segment" when translating, you can manually adjust it. Of course, all this takes some study, but for me it is part of my job as professional translator to know the tools I work with. And the better you get to know them, the more helpful they become! I am a real trados fan by now, but I hope I will have a chance in the future to try other cat tools too. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | CAT in your tank? | Jul 22, 2004 |
"So what happens if you replace first: and = et and then you want to replace all occurrences of stand-by, which will not be there anymore, because they will all have turned into: stet-by"
No, if you read my original comment, you will see I mention that you isolate the word itself by putting spaces around it, or if the replacement word is typically followed by a punctuation mark, then use that instead of whitespace.
"Secondly, a word will not always have the same meaning... See more "So what happens if you replace first: and = et and then you want to replace all occurrences of stand-by, which will not be there anymore, because they will all have turned into: stet-by"
No, if you read my original comment, you will see I mention that you isolate the word itself by putting spaces around it, or if the replacement word is typically followed by a punctuation mark, then use that instead of whitespace.
"Secondly, a word will not always have the same meaning in every context. So replacing is very dangerous."
I was talking about the most frequent words, which mostly carry the same meaning, but you may want to use another word, that is true, even for those. At any rate, it is mostly clear what the original word was, you don't have to see the original to figure it out.
Take for example a warning message. It is usually repeated several times over in the document. You can simply cut and paste, and globally replace the whole bit, as you come across it, the second or third time. As for more complex words, a "lawnmower" will always be whatever it is in the target text.
"I think seeing the original & translation in their context (which is what Trados does) is more practical. You can then determine if the suggested word is the right one in this context and insert it, or give another, better one."
You will of course do these operations not in the original file, but in a file extended, e.g., (translated). If it is unclear what the original text was, you will press Alt Tab to see the original document, if it's next in the task-switching queue.
"As for the comment:
"I also should mention before I go to bed and on a slightly different note that CAT tools will follow the sentence structure in the source language slavishly,"
No, they don't. They follow the sentence structure in the way you set it up. Play around with the settings. You can tell it to make a new segment after a comma, or tell it not to. And if you come across a "strange segment" when translating, you can manually adjust it."
Well, then it will follow whatever segmented structure you set slavishly, will it not?
"Of course, all this takes some study, but for me it is part of my job as professional translator to know the tools I work with. And the better you get to know them, the more helpful they become! I am a real Trados fan by now, but I hope I will have a chance in the future to try other cat tools too."
I am not averse to Trados or other alignment/localization tools, I'm just saying the added benefit is slight compared to the cost of acquiring, say, a top-of-the-line product such as Trados, especially if one only charges 6 eurocents or thereabouts for sub-50 percent matches and then downhill from there on up.
What CAT tools mostly put out is sub-80 percent matches, which are pretty useless, or annoying. I realize you can probably tell them at what level they should start, i.e., discarding below-level matches.
I learn here that you are now actually using a WP program such as Word as a sort of interface, layered on top of the CAT tool, except when hypertext is concerned. Some WP programs will guess or anticipate what it is you are trying to write, based on previous keystrokes. They are in that regard embryonic or budding CAT tools already.
Translation is a creative process, seeing a document with fresh eyes every day is actually a plus. A CAT tool will sometimes prompt you back into the old groove, which may be okay or not.
Okay, enough said. I have more urgent things to attend to now.
[Edited at 2004-07-23 13:30] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Desi_vdb
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:06
Dutch to English
+ ...
| expensive yes | Jul 23, 2004 |
Yes, you're absolutely right that the software is outrageously expensive.
I like the discussion by the way. Just one thing I want to answer to (I don't think we'll ever convince each other, we just seem to have different preferences).
About the slavish segments:
If I can tell what I want the segment to be, it is not slavishly following anything but my mind. And isn't that what translating is about? (I like to work with sentences. And you can decide to make two se... See more Yes, you're absolutely right that the software is outrageously expensive.
I like the discussion by the way. Just one thing I want to answer to (I don't think we'll ever convince each other, we just seem to have different preferences).
About the slavish segments:
If I can tell what I want the segment to be, it is not slavishly following anything but my mind. And isn't that what translating is about? (I like to work with sentences. And you can decide to make two sentences instead of one, or the other way around). You also do this dividing up sentences when you do not use a cat tool, it is just easier to see with one.
Also no formatting problems later on (it keeps the original formatting for you), no risk to miss a line or lines. Good overview. Apart from way too expensive, I still like it very much ▲ Collapse
| | | | Marc P (X) 
Local time: 06:06
German to English
+ ...
| Trados - Is it really necessary? | Jul 23, 2004 |
Yngve,
You are not really serious about this suggestion of replacing simple words like "and" throughout the text, are you? I thought you were joking.
If not, you could by the same token claim that there is no point buying specialist dictionaries, which typically have a three-figure Euro price tag. Why bother? You can buy a cheap pocket dictionary for 10 Euros, and wahey!!! It contains 80% of all the words in my specialist texts!
Trouble is, that's a solutio... See more Yngve,
You are not really serious about this suggestion of replacing simple words like "and" throughout the text, are you? I thought you were joking.
If not, you could by the same token claim that there is no point buying specialist dictionaries, which typically have a three-figure Euro price tag. Why bother? You can buy a cheap pocket dictionary for 10 Euros, and wahey!!! It contains 80% of all the words in my specialist texts!
Trouble is, that's a solution to a problem that I don't have. My problem is more likely to be that I'm translating a German text and I encounter the sentence "Verwenden Sie hierfür den Schlarkenbongenverkritschnungsentwubbler." If I've followed your advice, I might already have "Verwenden you hierfür the Schlarkenbongenverkritschnungsentwubbler." But what use is that to me? The word I want a translation for isn't "Sie" or "den", but, you guessed it, "Schlarkenbongenverkritschnungsentwubbler". What's more, the word looks vaguely familiar, I must have translated it before... but I have a lousy memory, and I can't remember what it means.
It's not in any of my dictionaries, and even if it were, it would take me a few minutes to find. It's in an old translation, on my hard drive somewhere. But where? Of course, there are tools that will find any word for you, anywhere on your hard drive. But there's a lot of data on my drive, and it will take a few minutes to search. When I've found the word, I have to open the file it's in - and then I have to open the file containing the translation, and then I have to find the point in the two files... it's possible - but it all takes TIME.
But not if I did the original translation with translation memory! I mark the word, hit the relevant shortcut (Control-F in OmegaT), and hey presto, a little box pops up saying
"Nichts geht über einen Schlarkenbongenverkritschnungsentwubbler!"
"Nothing beats a de-wubbler for slark bong critchings!"
Some people have photographic memories, and others are very conscientious and dutifully note down every word they come across and enter it in a carefully maintained glossary. I'm not in either category. And I don't need to be - because I have translation memory.
As for whether CAT tools are expensive, I don't believe it for one minute. You only have to work out how much money they would save you if they increase your overall efficiency by as little as 5%. Many translators now use CAT tools (the surveys I have seen suggest between 40% and 60% in western Europe), and the preference is for the more expensive products such as Trados, Deja Vu and SDLX. If these products really are so expensive, why aren't more people using OmegaT, which is free? OmegaT is quite usable, but people are obviously prepared to pay several hundred Euros for the extra features of products like Trados.
Marc ▲ Collapse
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| Trados or not followup. | Jul 24, 2004 |
You'd be surprised how many keystrokes you actually save by replacing a word such as and globally with its translated equivalent. No doubt you are familiar with the process of translating files already in electronic format. You've got to delete the source text as you move ahead, pushing the untranslated text ahead of you. At some point that's got to go. Reaching a globally replaced word or phrase is as good a place as any to begin highlighting and deleting the intervening text. That works f... See more You'd be surprised how many keystrokes you actually save by replacing a word such as and globally with its translated equivalent. No doubt you are familiar with the process of translating files already in electronic format. You've got to delete the source text as you move ahead, pushing the untranslated text ahead of you. At some point that's got to go. Reaching a globally replaced word or phrase is as good a place as any to begin highlighting and deleting the intervening text. That works for me.
Translators don't have lousy memories; they've got excellent memory, just think how many German words you already know, probably a hundred thousand or more. Knowing two or more languages is no small memory feat.
If a word is not in your electronic dictionary you put it in there. As you can imagine, I already punched in Schlarkenbongenverkritschnungsentwubbler and it is not there, which means it must be quite an unusual word, and so you research and/or google. Entering the result of your efforts it an electronic dictionary is trivial compared to this. Not all electronic dictionaries allow you to insert new words, but some do, and some let you set up your own customized dictionaries, as well. Most e-dictionaries, however, allow you to add notes to lexical items already in there.
Apropos this, I was just reading an article in the Swedish Translators Association's journal about all the hassles and hang-ups that can happen wih Trados, a far cry from the rosy scenario depicted by some. Definitely, not for the fainthearted. Any time saved with these tools could go out the window having to deal with compatibility issues of the strangest kind.
I think I tried briefly to download Omega T from a US point, Reston VA. I failed in installing it. Pressing a .jar file did nothing on my computer. Maybe it's a java file - it was the closest to an executable file I could find in the folder that was created upon unzipping the downloaded file.
People spend money on Trados because there is little room for alternatives, sort of like Microsoft having a monopoly in the operating systems field. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Marc P (X)
Local time: 06:06
German to English
+ ...
| Trados - Is it really necessary? | Jul 24, 2004 |
Yngve Roennike wrote:
No doubt you are familiar with the process of translating files already in electronic format. You've got to delete the source text as you move ahead, pushing the untranslated text ahead of you. At some point that's got to go. Reaching a globally replaced word or phrase is as good a place as any to begin highlighting and deleting the intervening text.
Yes, but I delete the source with Shift-cursor down - End.Deleting up to the word "and", jumping over it, and so on, is no time saving for me.
There is a benefit in replacing individual words throughout the text: when you have a specialist term that you may not remember next time you encounter it, it's easier to replace it throughout.
Then it's translated for you when you next encounter it.
Translators don't have lousy memories
Speak for yourself.
If a word is not in your electronic dictionary you put it in there.
To do this consistently is a huge amount of work. To do so inconsistently means that the word you want always happens to be one you didn't enter.
Apropos this, I was just reading an article in the Swedish Translators Association's journal about all the hassles and hang-ups that can happen wih Trados
"Trados" is not a synonym for "translation memory". You wanna sell me a Toyota? How do I know it won't break down? I'm sticking to my bicycle. I tell you, my friend's cousin, she had a Yugo, and do you know...
Any time saved with these tools could go out the window having to deal with compatibility issues of the strangest kind.
... it was in the shop at least once a month with the strangest problems, I'm sticking to my bicycle, I don't want no Toyota, and all that hassle, you know it takes my friend fifteen minutes just to fill up with gas, and I can cycle two miles in that time.
Pressing a .jar file did nothing on my computer. Maybe it's a java file - it was the closest to an executable ile I could find in the folder that was created upon unzipping the downloaded file.
Aha - the "click it and see" philosophy of computer operation. Yes, I agree, OmegaT is not for you; it's intended for people who subscribe to the "read the instructions" school of computer operation.
People spend money on Trados because there is little room for alternatives, sort of like Microsoft having a monopoly in the operating systems field.
There are plenty of alternatives. There are fifteen to twenty CAT tools besides Trados, and plenty of people using them. And there are people like me, using Linux instead of Windows.
Marc
| | | | | A translator's driver's license or not? | Jul 24, 2004 |
My suggestion would be to get better dictionaries then, rather than spending money on a raft of CAT tools. It is indeed rare these days that words cannot be located in a dictionary, either online, in soft or e-format on your hard drive, or in the old fashion hard-copy version. To muster a phalanx of previously translated jobs to locate where you might have done a previous translation of a particular word or phrase does not sound efficient to me in the least.
"Aha - the "click it ... See more My suggestion would be to get better dictionaries then, rather than spending money on a raft of CAT tools. It is indeed rare these days that words cannot be located in a dictionary, either online, in soft or e-format on your hard drive, or in the old fashion hard-copy version. To muster a phalanx of previously translated jobs to locate where you might have done a previous translation of a particular word or phrase does not sound efficient to me in the least.
"Aha - the "click it and see" philosophy of computer operation. Yes, I agree, OmegaT is not for you; it's intended for people who subscribe to the "read the instructions" school of computer operation."
Right, any program that does not open immediately with a wizard to guide me through the installation is history, as far as I'm concerned.
"There are plenty of alternatives. There are fifteen to twenty CAT tools besides Trados, and plenty of people using them. And there are people like me, using Linux instead of Windows."
You can use all the programs you like, provided you don't have to share your files with others. If your client insists on getting your file in Trados format, and most will apparently, what will you do? Wait, I know you will tell me that there are programs out there that will convert this way and that, meaning more manuals to read, time down the sinkhole, so you might as well buy the real McCoy. I see a risk here that Trados, or other CAT tools for that matter, attain the status of some sort of a driver's license for translators, and nothing could be further from the truth.
[Edited at 2004-07-24 21:33] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | A question for Yngve | Jul 25, 2004 |
Since you are so dead set against CAT tools, why do you list them in your profile? (I can see at least Trados and SDLX)
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| Roger and out. | Jul 25, 2004 |
Well, I got plenty of software (some I use, some I don't, some I do occasionally), just like dictionaries. Would this answer your question?
Actually, if you read my messages, you will see that I am no dead set against CAT tools, I was responding to the questioner whether they are really necessary.
Yngve, roger and out for now.
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