Translation Memory - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
By McElroy Translation,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA
quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/
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 Translation
Memory is widely used by clients, agencies and individual
translators. When used with certain types of projects, those
with template information that appears repeatedly, there
is a positive impact on quality, consistency, lead time
and price. But “TM” is not a magic wand that can be waved
over a translation with perfect results. Translation Memory
it is NOT the same as Machine Translation.
A thinking, breathing translation professional
does the work aided by a tool. When using a Translation
Memory tool the skilled individual who is working on a translation
still reads the source document segment by segment on the
computer, sometimes accepting a translation that is a “match”
to what has been already translated, but sometimes changing
the translation based on context and usage.
Clients seeking to optimize single source
content sometimes break down source document language into
building blocks that do not retain adequate contextual information.
A thinking human must pose the questions that a machine
cannot.
McElroy Translation Chief Editor Dr. Mark
Ritter recently reviewed how this technology applied to
the translation of phrases used to compile Material Safety
Data Sheet (MSDS) documents. Beneficial in many ways, he
clearly points out that limitations exist. The results of
his analysis of a specific set of client documents are not
only interesting, but clearly illustrate the limitations
of Translation Memory technology in this setting. We see
that a wonderful tool is only advantageous when used judiciously
by a skilled human.
DR. MARK RITTER:
I briefly looked over an Excel file composed
of linguistic elements of MSDSes. The repetitive and formulaic
character of the subject matter virtually suggests the approach
of generating MSDSes from a fairly large but finite set
of elements. And in fact that approach could work for isolated,
complete phrases or complete sentences. The problem arises
when one tries to use smaller elements in such a data file
to compose phrases or sentences. Below are some examples
of problems I can foresee in any attempt to provide a data
file of translations that would accomplish its intended
purpose: generating a professionally usable MSDS in the
German language.
English is a very flexible language. We
have hundreds or thousands of words that can be both a noun
and a verb, or a noun and an adjective, etc., but this is
much less common in other languages. To take one example
from the data file:
This would be Barrikade as a noun,
but verbarrikadieren if used as
a verb AND it would go to the end of the sentence in a command:
“Barricade the spill” Den
Überfluß verbarrikadieren.
would likewise have quite different translations
as a noun or a verb.
Sometimes the problem is grammatical:
Translation depends on usage:
Sulfuric acid is dangerous Schwefelsäure
ist gefährlich (regular verb)
Sulfuric acid is consumed Schwefelsäure
wird verbraucht (helping verb)
Sometimes the different meanings of a given
English word must be expressed by two different words in
the target language:
The proper translation varies according
to whether “lower” means “more low”
or “bottom.”
lower limit untere Grenze
lower levels niedrigere Werte
And, of course, “lower”
could also be a verb.
In many languages, nouns have genders that
require appropriate endings on words associated with them:
Translation depends entirely on gender
of subsequent noun.
The danger Die Gefahr
The risk Das Risiko
The advantage Der Vorteil
And sometimes, a single word can have a
combination of the problems illustrated above:
Translation depends on part of speech and,
as an adjective, on gender:
clear liquid klare Flüssigkeit
noun
liquid gas flüssiges Gas adjective,
neuter
liquid oxygen flüssiger Sauerstoff
adjective, masculine
Each language would present slightly different
obstacles to an attempt to compose sentences or phrases in
it based on English words, but there would never be any
assurance that you could do so safely.
The beauty of translation memory is
that it only picks up full sentences or isolated phrases
(the kinds of things that can safely be put into an Excel
file of the type I looked at). Such items should only have
to be fully translated once. But even what appear to be
only slight variations in English require the intervention
of a skilled translator (aided by technology of course) if
they are to be acceptable to the target-language market.
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