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CAT - Beware of the beast!
By Sylvain Galibert,
Ampur Muang Chiang Mai,
THAILAND,
English to French translation
Translator and owner of
www.your-translations.com
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Some
translators complain that CATs (Computer
Aided Translations) tend to decrease quality.
While many (dare I say "most"?)
of them don't have a clue what they are
talking about and confuse CAT with machine
translation, it is true that there are also
quality issues involved with the use of
a CAT.
On one hand, CATs help increase consistency, (a part
of quality), keep the original format, protect
code, and handle terminology (and thus help
maintain quality), but then it has some
evils too, and you should know about them.
When you get started with CAT and begin to understand
what can be done, you get excited - at least,
I did. Your productivity increases, translation
is easier, faster and it is very tempting
to translate everything with your CAT.
That's mostly OK, but somewhere in the back of your
mind there should be some awareness that
there are documents that should
NOT be translated with a TM management program.
(And note that I refer only to the TM
engine of a CAT.)
This is my opinion only and is open to discussion.
1.
Powerpoint presentations
- Communication: A translator
translates communication, not text. In a
Powerpoint presentation, the layout is a
very large part of that communication. You
need to see the slides to understand "what"
goes "where" and what the intended
communication is. With a CAT, you typically
translate the text without direct reference
to the slide (unless you look at the slide
each time you translate a segment - but
then you waste a lot of time). This is maybe
not true of all CATs, however.
- Segmentation: Sentences
are often cut in different text boxes, or
with a paragraph mark. Looking at the slide
makes it clear enough, but from a segmentation
viewpoint, (Segmentation is the heart of
a CAT) it's a mess.
Consider this:
"A great new |...| design"
Typical, but, how do you translate "A
great new"? And if you decide to translate
by "a great new design" and "design"
by nothing (note that you have just altered
the design of the slide), your TM will contain
the following entries:
"A great new = A great new design"
and "design = "
Worthless, not to mention dangerous, because
if later on you have "a great new |...|
approach"..., your CAT will proudly
offer "A great new design" as
a 100% match.
- DTP issues: Size. Some
language are typically longer then others.
Let's say French is about 10-20% longer
English in average. On a slide, space is
limited, and you must see the slide to know
just how much space you have. Working with
a CAT may mean a LOT of extra DTP work after
the translation.
To sum it up, CATs can be used to translate
Powerpoint files but overall, I found them
to impede productivity, present quality
related liabilities, mess up TMs and generate
a lot of DTP work.
The exception is when the presentation contains
very large notes or large amounts of text...
in other words, when the presentation is
not really a presentation.
2.
Ads/Marketing copies
Why? Typical CAT segmentation is sentence-based.
This implies that a document can be translated
sentence for sentence, from any language
to any other.
This works great with technical documents,
usually:
"Select the source. Click on whatever.
Select the appropriate options and click
OK..."
What matters most with a technical document
(i.e. a manual) is whether the end user
will be able to understand what to do and
how. "Style" matters little, beyond
clarity and accuracy.
For Ads and Marketing copies however, a
sentence by sentence translation will often
not do. Style/impact on the target audience
is much more important.
Here is a run by the mill example to illustrate
that point. (Sorry, French only.)
Welcome to the
2004 XXXXX Dealer Book.
Voici le catalogue fournisseur
XXXXX 2004.
In keeping with
our 30th Anniversary (1974-2004), this is
the most ambitious publication in our company’s
history.
Pour célébrer notre
30ème anniversaire (1974-2004), voici
la publication la plus ambitieuse de l'histoire
de notre société.
Inside, you’ll
find complete technical information on the
processes, technologies, and products that
make the XXXXX brand what it is.
Vous trouverez à l'intérieur
des informations techniques complètes
sur les processus, les technologies et les
produits qui ont fait de la marque XXXXX
ce qu'elle est devenue.
And here is the result:
Voici le catalogue fournisseur XXXXX
2004. Pour célébrer notre
30ème anniversaire (1974-2004), voici
la publication la plus ambitieuse de l'histoire
de notre société. Vous trouverez
à l'intérieur des informations
techniques complètes sur les processus,
les technologies et les produits qui ont
fait de la marque XXXXX ce qu'elle est devenue.
It is not "bad", but it feels like a translation.
It doesn't flow, which is a logical consequence
of sentence-level segmentation.
Welcome to the 2004 XXXXX Dealer Book. In keeping
with our 30th Anniversary (1974-2004), this
is the most ambitious publication in our
company’s history. Inside, you’ll find complete
technical information on the processes,
technologies, and products that make the
XXXXX brand what it is.
En
célébration de notre 30ème
anniversaire, nous sommes heureux de vous
présenter le catalogue fournisseur
XXXXX 2004, la publication la plus ambitieuse
dans l'histoire de notre société.
Vous trouverez à l'intérieur
des informations techniques complètes
sur les processus, les technologies et les
produits qui ont fait de XXXXX un leader incontesté sur le marché de YYYYY.
This
second translation is a lot more natural.
It doesn't feel so much like a translation
no more. The phrase in green is not part
of the original paragraph but from another
paragraph in the document. In French however,
it fits better here. That's what the author
meant.
Ad/marketing copies require a global understanding
of the communication rather then a sentence
by sentence approach, imposed by classic
segmentation. In other words, using a TM
will tend to reduce your overall quality
level by focusing your attention on sentences
instead of the whole text.
You could indeed decide to segment at paragraph
level, but then lose most of the leverage
from the TM (What are the odds of a full
paragraph repeating, even fuzzily?) and
the segments would often be so big that
you would often face display issues.
A CAT can nevertheless help by handling
terminology, to executing concordance searches,
accessing dictionaries,... but using the
TM as you usually do could reduce the quality
of your output
Theses are, in my opinion, the main drawbacks of using
a TM engine. I may write more on the issue
later. I would be very interested to hear
your opinions on that subject, especially
if you have other related issues to present.
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