Articles for Translators
and Translation Companies
Translators and computers
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Программы переводческой памяти - зло или благо для переводчика?
Современному поколению переводчиков, скорее всего, сложно представить, как была организована работа переводческих бюро в начале 1990-х годов, когда в связи с появлением большого числа иностранных компаний резко возросла потребность в переводческих услугах. Большой зал, в котором за столами сидят 10-15 переводчиков и… пишут...
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Translation memory programs – evil or benefit for a translator?
Most likely that for current generation of translators it would be difficult to imagine how work of translation bureaus was organized in the beginning of 1990-s, when a demand for translation services abruptly increased because a big number of foreign companies came to the Russian market...
Read the full article… Софт для профессионального переводчика
Многие переводческие агентства специально предостерегают своих нештатных переводчиков, что "машинные переводы не принимаются и не оплачиваются". Понятно и справедливо. Их качество и достоверность оставляют желать, в подавляющем большинстве случаев…
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Переводчики диктуют
Если сравнивать, с чисто технической точки зрения, письменный перевод с переводом устным, то основное их отличие — это СКОРОСТЬ. Устная речь производит около 3000 слов в час, и это естественный процесс…
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The
Ukrainian Cornucopia of Tools
If you've ever heard me talk about translation technology, you'll
have heard me mention Ukraine. It inevitably comes up. Why? Because
Ukraine is like the promised land for translation technology developers—or,
perhaps more correctly, because a handful of software developers
have decided to make Ukraine into a veritable hotbed for translation
tools…
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the full article…
Advice
to freelance translators on MT post-editing projects
MT post-editing projects can be divided into two main categories,
depending on the expected level of quality of the final output…
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the full article…
Siri
vs. Windows Speech Recognition
More and more research is being currently conducted on improving
speech recognition performance. Speech recognition systems are being
used in various domains, such as automobile, information kiosks,
travel planning, wearable and pervasive computing, and others…
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the full article…
Free
Online Translators: A Comparative Assessment of www.worldlingo.com,
www.freetranslation.com, and www.translate.google.com
The present article focuses on three free online translation packages—www.worldlingo.com,
www.freetranslation.com, and www.translate.google.com —and asks
the following: If the objective of anglophone users is to understand
the meaning of a given source text (ST), which of these packages
would he/she be best advised to use? Taking a text of approximately
200 words from the European Commission’s website, this article asks
each of its chosen packages to translate the ST from three source
languages (SLs) into English…
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the full article…
The World Wide Web and Translators
In today’s translation market
with online jobs and tight deadlines, the Internet has turned into
one of the new resources translators commonly use to obtain fast
and easy access to translationally-relevant information. The online
translation resources translators draw on may vary from online glossaries
to online corpora. This, however, is not the only application of
the Web for translators. In fact, the Web itself is a valuable source
of linguistic information for translators far beyond what dictionaries
have to offer...
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the full article...
Language Resources for Translation
in Multilingual Question Answering Systems
In the field of Information
Retrieval monolingual and multilingual tools are being created that
can greatly assist specialists in their work; as well as helping
other users find a wide variety of information. Multilingual tools
are evolving but several years of study and research are still needed
to improve implementations. One of the main difficulties facing
these tools is the task of translating queries made by users and
the documentary sources found in response (Diekema, 2003)...
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the full article...
The best freeware corpus analysis program
for translators?
For many languages, there
is a high demand for translation out of the mother tongue. In China,
for example, since only a limited pool of native English-speakers
are able to translate from Chinese into English, there is a need
for native Chinese-speaking translators to translate out of their
native language, as Guangsa Jin points out (Jin, 2008). Similarly
in Finland native-speaking Finnish translators frequently translate
into their L2. This is because native-speaking foreign translators
with a sound grasp of Finnish are in extremely short supply...
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the full article...
Building Blocks
Last weekend I spent an hour looking
through books in our home library that I had not pulled out for
a while. One of them, a work on linguistics and Bible translation,
started with these two paragraphs...
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the full article…
Computer-assisted Translation Tools:
a brief review
Two or three decades ago the work
tools of a translator included a typewriter and a collection of
printed dictionaries, which are not difficult to handle. However,
as a result of incredibly rapid progress in the field of electronic
hardware and computer software, nowadays an important component
of any translator's professional competence is the technological
one, which, first of all, assumes skills in handling electronic
resources and tools...
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the full article…
How to Format in Ms. Word
These instructions were written as
part of our translation tips section. Translating is only one aspect
of a translator's career, and a professional translator should learn
how to format and work in various programs, most importantly Word
(most requested by customers). It is one thing to translate well,
but it is also important to deliver your document in a presentable
and professional format. Many times what you translate gets printed
and published, or processed further by others...
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the full article…
Protect your Computer and Windows
If you get a virus, you should not
be overly confident that your virus protection software will find
it or remove it. Many viruses masquerade as necessary Windows files
and hide deep in the root of your system's brain, undetected by
your protection software. As one expert quoted...
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the full article…
Total Commander Help
I use and like the program Total
Commander so much that I have decided to add instructions for its
use on my computer tips pages, also to be used by our translation
agency project managers. You can download the latest version of
the program from these Total Commander pages, where you should find
a freeware version...
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the full article…
Laptop Sunscreen and Sun Shade
I like to work outside occasionally
but it can be difficult to work on a laptop since the sun can make
viewing the screen or monitor rather difficult. At one point I designed
a portable screen shade using balsam wood, cutting the parts to
fit and gluing them together, but one day it occurred to me that
I could do the same thing using bendable wire and dark cloth, which
would be much better than wood since it would be more flexible and
portable...
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the full article…
How to use two monitors with one PC
There are several reasons why you
might want to use multiple monitors with your computer. One might
be for work reasons, if you need to spread out your programs on
several screens. Another might be for display purposes, if for example
you are making a presentation to a customer, so that they could
watch the same image as you but from the comfort of their own chair
and not have to crowd in next to you...
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the full article…
Pegasus Mail Help
I was introduced to this email program
a long time ago and my business has grown with it. I find it a very
powerful tool and much better than Outlook, although it may be a
little more complicated to set up. Here are some of its advantages...
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the full article…
Email Solution
Owning a Translation Agency, I tend
to advertise a lot on the net looking for more translators and customers,
so I tend to get a lot of spam. So much so that I was spending at
least half an hour a day filtering out spam, even after a paid filtering
service removed about 4,000 of them a month! And this was increasing
rapidly every month. Not to mention the risk that I was erasing
valid emails, which could have become important clients, only to
lose them just because the translator or potential customer did
not bother putting text in the subject. Or a long lost friend who
did the same...
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the full article…
Further computer tips
This section continues from the previous
computer
tips section, which focuses on cleaning up your computer and
putting it into good shape. Below are further tips how to improve
your own efficiency, and other tips about your computer. I see that
I have much to add to these pages...
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the full article…
Computer Tips
Being the computer guru that I am,
I have found myself many times helping my friends with their computers,
and I often find myself absolutely appalled when I see what shambles
their computers are in. And this seems rampant among the computer
owning population <link to statistics>! In any case, I guess
it could make sense, for who can expect everyone to be such a guru
as myself? So that I can help them when I do not have time, help
others, and perhaps divert some traffic to my Translation Agency
in the process...
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the full article…
7 google tools for translators
How can Google help freelancers organize
their workplace? In this article I am listing 7 Google tools that
may be useful for any freelancer...
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the full article…
Do you really need translation memory
programs?
When translation memory (TM) software
programs were first introduced, they were found to be a valuable
aid to translators, since they stored already translated sentences
and saved translators the time they would otherwise have taken in
typing those repeated sentences out again...
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the full article…
CAT Tools for Beginners
This article aims at giving an overview
of how CAT Tools work and is specifically intended for those translators
who are familiarizing themselves with these tools for the first
time. A CAT Tool is software whose functioning is based on the creation
of a Translation Memory, which facilitates and speeds up the translator's
work. After having briefly explained how the tools work, the advantages
and disadvantages of their use are analyzed. Finally, suggestions
are given for those who would like to know more about these tools
and start using them...
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the full article…
Thirteen Days in June (Adventures with
SDL/Trados)
The new Trados version is as foreseeable
as Christmas: there is one every year, and all of them have more
or less followed the same pattern since I bought Trados 2.x, sometime
towards the end of last century. However, things ran differently
this time and this is a very personal and subjective account of
what happened, told from the standpoint of a common translator...
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the full article…
Translation Tips: OCR, Developing a Strategy
And if you do plan to use a translation
memory tool, you will definitely also want a good OCR program. Which
can prove quite useful even if you are not using a translation memory
tool. For example, you get a large .pdf file which has a lot of
tables and graphs in it. One option is to have that file open in
one program and visible in the top half of your computer monitor,
as explained above, while typing into a blank Word file in the bottom
half of your computer monitor...
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the full article…
Translation Tips: Setting up Your Surroundings,
Learning How to Type, Dividing up the Screen, Using Translation
Memory Tools
Once you have positioned yourself
properly, now look around you at your immediate settings. I like
to have pleasant pictures on the walls, classical music drifting
in the background, lots of plants all around me, and one of my favourite...
an aquarium!...
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the full article…
Translation Tips: Setting Up Your Monitor,
Your Translation Workstation
Translations can be a rewarding profession,
because you can learn interesting things while translating interesting
documents, learn how many companies, products and services operate
while translating documents about them, and you often have the freedom
to work when you want and in your own environment...
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the full article…
Translation Tips: Actually Translating,
Finalising your Document, Counting Words, Sending your File
Besides the tips on this subject
mentioned at the bottom, obviously one very important aspect of
translations is the choice of terminology. For this it is highly
advisable to get yourself a good computer translation dictionary.
When I first started translating I had an impressive library of
translation dictionaries, but once I finally migrated to a computer
dictionary, I marveled at the amount of time I used to spend leafing
through endless pages looking up words...
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the full article…
From Mechanics to Managers
I love the radio. It allows me to
be doing something else while still ingesting bits of information
that I can process if they are relevant. The other day I caught
a snippet that sent my thoughts spinning. The program had to do
with the history of calculators and how parents used to protest
their use in school because they thought it would mess up the way
kids learned math. One of the commentators recalled that this argument
was prevalent until it was universally understood that calculators
actually were turning the little mathematicians from mechanics into
managers...
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the full article…
Translation Tips: Staying in Touch, Saving
and Autosaving, Spellcheckers, Keyboards, Translating outside with
your laptop
One of the most important aspects
of being a professional translator is to stay in touch, be easily
reachable and to respond quickly to enquiries. Nowadays many translation
companies will send out emails to several verified translators enquiring
of their availability. The first to respond to such an enquiry can
often be the one chosen to take the project. Hence it is within
your interest to know when an email comes in and to respond quickly
to it...
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the full article…
Linguistics Markup Language
Linguistics Markup Language (LGML)
is an XML-based framework for describing the syntax and semantics
of natural languages...
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the full article…
Getting Graphic
Most graphic formats (including .jpg,
.gif, .bmp, .tiff, and various others) don't contain text. This
is true even if it appears to be readable text because the text
is nothing more than pixels (little colored dots) on a virtual canvas.
While they may form shapes that represent letters, these have nothing
to do with the editable letters or words you deal with in a text
editor...
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the full article…
Wikipedia about translation memory
A translation memory, or TM, is a
type of database that stores segments that have been previously
translated. A translation-memory system stores the words, phrases
and paragraphs that have already been translated and aid human translators.
The translation memory stores the source text and its corresponding
translation in language pairs called “translation units”...
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the full article…
Universal translator
The universal translator is a fictional
device common to many science fiction works, especially on television.
Its purpose is to offer an instant translation of any language.
Like hyperdrive, a universal translator is a somewhat improbable
technology that is an accepted convention in science fiction stories
and serves as a useful plot device. As a convention, it is used
to remove the problem of translating between alien languages, unless
that problem is essential to the plot...
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the full article…
How to Translate AutoCAD drawings with
Unicode Characters using Trados or other CAT tool
Describes 3 methods on how to translate
AutoCAD drawings with Unicode Characters. Professional translators
are used to work with Translation Memory software packages that
help them to re-use repeated phrases, and check words in specialized
glossaries, but AutoCAD doesn't have this capability itself...
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the full article…
To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade
With SDL's announcement not to honor
promotion-priced upgrades for versions of Trados 6.5 and earlier
come April 2008, many Trados users see themselves faced with tough
decisions in these last days of March. Should you pay for an upgrade
simply to avoid falling out of the upgrade cycle, or should you
start to consider one of the competing products?...
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the full article…
Computer-assisted translation
Computer-assisted translation, computer-aided
translation, or CAT is a form of translation wherein a human translator
translates texts using computer software designed to support and
facilitate the translation process. Computer-assisted translation
is sometimes called machine-assisted, or machine-aided, translation...
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the full article…
Linguoc LexTerm: una herramienta de extracción
automática de terminología gratuita
En este artículo presentamos LexTerm,
una herramienta de extracción automática de terminología que es
gratuita y de código abierto. Con esta herramienta se facilita la
selección de los términos más relevantes que deben tener un equivalente
de traducción consistente...
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the full article…
George Bush’s 18 Year Old Binoculars
The binoculars in this phrase from
a machine–translated French article are named Barbara and Jenna.
It seems the French word “jumelles” can mean both “twin girls” and
“binoculars.” I can’t cite a source – this may be a translator’s
urban legend. But even if it isn’t authentic, such an absurdity
will certainly seem plausible to most users of conventional machine
translation...
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the full article…
Creating the Ideal Word Processing Environment
in Translation Environment Tools
One of the areas at the heart of
how successful a Translation Environment Tool (TEnT) is for the
translator, editor, and proofreader is the quality of its word processing
environment.
Early on, many TEnT makers chose the "easy way out" by
using Word or WordPerfect as their main word processing environment.
This seemed to have a number of advantages…
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the full article…
Translation Memory - the Good, the Bad
and the Ugly
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…
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the full article…
Specialized Corpora for Translators:
A Quantitative Method to Determine Representativeness
Nowadays, there can be no doubt as
to the importance or the necessity of using corpora in translation.
Equally, given the short deadlines and speed that are now demanded
in the translation industry, the virtual corpus has undeniably proved
itself a most useful tool. Many authors have explored the possibilities
offered by corpora for specialized language teaching and translation…
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the full article…
The Global Content
Lifecycle: How integration generates results
The language translation buyer has
come to appreciate the benefits that technology can deliver. These
benefits offer positive impact to the costs associated with obtaining
language translation, the quality of the translated content, and
the efficiency this function brings to the overall content lifecycle…
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the full article…
Exploring Translation
Corpora with MkAlign
This paper presents a series of experiments
devoted to the development of a new tool for multilingual textometric
exploration of translation corpora. We propose to use bitext topography
to facilitate the study of lexical equivalencies on quantitative
bases. The suggested approach opens up new horizons for interactive
exploration of translation resources of multilingual texts in a
variety of fields of study: translation, foreign language learning
and teaching, bilingual terminology, lexicography, etc…
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the full article…
The Impact of
Translation Memory Tools on the Translation Profession
For different reasons, Translation
Memory (TM) tools have become both indispensable and popular. They
have caused a sweeping change in the translation market. Translators
are no longer restricted to hardcopy dictionaries and glossaries;
they can now use online and electronic resources. In addition to
all the benefits TM have brought about for translators, translation
agencies and clients, they also have some inherent shortcomings.
In this article I will explore both advantages and disadvantages
of TM for these parties. I will also explain the change TM brought
about in the translator's working methods…
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the full article…
Introduction
to Translation Memory and Machine Translation
Course Objectives:
• Understand the structure of a translation memory system
• Be able to set up and save a translation memory
• Apply a translation memory to a Word document
• Explore use of translation memory for HTML and more complex file
formats…
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the full article…
Wordfast
and Trados
Well, what is Trados? I already see those smiles on the old timers'
faces. Yes, Trados is indeed the leading CAT tool on the market,
and is certainly pretty good on that count. If you are a translator,
even beginner, you will have noticed a lot of translation agencies
around the world request Trados. The first stable datum you should
have on that subject is that you can work on most "Trados-Only
projects" using Wordfast…
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the full article…
How About Taking a Shortcut?
For people like us, who spend so much time in front of the computer
making the same movements (which often lead to repetitive stress
injuries), any timesaver can be useful. Keyboard shortcuts can help
immensely, and even allow you to do things that are impossible with
the mouse…
Installing and Launching the Heartsome translation suite on Linux
The Heartsome company has its corporate headquarters in Singapore
and offices in Beijing and Hong Kong, so it is hardly surprising
that its logo is a stylized handwritten form of the Chinese character
'心' (heart). On its web site, Heartsome explains that the heart
logo "… aptly describes the totality of our enterprise: quality
and reliability, strength and earnestness, honesty and trustworthiness,
wholesome yet far-reaching. Ours is a magnificent heart, operationally
and in terms of our business practises…
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the full article…
Integrating the Elements: The Current Integration Process among
Translation Tools and Translators
In the orchestra of modern translation workflow, translators are
the musicians and translation technologies, represented by MT (machine
translation), TM (translation memory) tools, and corpora are the
various instruments. In order to produce a symphony that resembles
the sound in the composer's mind, all the instruments must be properly
utilized and the good performance of musicians is also vital…
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the full article…
Automated translation quality control
Nathalie De Sutter discusses how new technologies can mitigate the
threats faced by Language Service Providers (LSPs).
All maturing industries try to avoid their products being seen as
commodities that can easily be bought from any supplier; localisation
and translation service providers are no exception. In most cases,
translation does not pertain to the core business of the customer,
who therefore considers it to be a ‘non-critical’ purchase…
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the full article…
Tips for OpenOffice.org Writer
Most users don't give much thought to the cryptic INSRT STD HYP
fields in the Status bar. However, sometimes they can come in quite
handy. When you click on the INSRT field, it changes its status
to OVER. Now, if you start typing in a currently opened document,
you will notice that the typed text overwrites the existing text…
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the full article…
Choosing the right computer solution
One area that does tend to get overlooked however is the hardware
on which these tools are installed and used. Purchasing the right
computer system is a mine field full of 'special' deals and an attractive
high spec component glossing over the full system specification.
Before rushing into a decision it is important to look at the following
issues which will help make a more informative decision in what
is a potentially large investment…
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the full article…
CAT Tools and Productivity: Tracking Words and Hours
A freelance translator calculates her productivity over a period
of 18 months tracking number of words translated, time devoted to
translation and the CAT-tool used for every project…
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the full article…
The Okapi Framework: Q and A with Yves Savourel of ENLASO
As of October, 2005, ENLASO has started to port a set of localization
tools to the open-source Okapi Framework. The project's developer,
Yves Savourel, has been involved in the development of standard
XML formats for translation, such as XLIFF and TMX. Open Source
Update recently spoke with Yves, who works as a Localization Solutions
Architect at ENLASO's headquarters in Boulder, Colorado…
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the full article…
Maxprograms.com - Free Resources for Translators
It's about time that Open Source Update mentioned Rodolfo Raya's
website Maxprograms, which features five free utilities for translators.
Rodolfo's “day job” is as a developer for Heartsome, but his tools
can be of use to translators using a variety of CAT tools. All of
the programs are cost-free, and run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
They are…
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the full article…
Open
Source Update: Questions and Answers with Marc Prior
This month we'll be having an electronic coffee chat with Marc Prior,
a Germany-based translator who is an active contributor to many
aspects of the free software for translators community. Marc is
an original member of the OmegaT team and maintains the Linux
for Translators website
in addition to his translation work. Here are Marc's thoughts on
a number of issues of interest to the FOSS translator community…
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the full article…
OpenOffice.org
tips and tricks
OpenOffice.org tips and tricks by Dmitri Popov Subsequent to our
interview, Dmitri offered to share some of his best suggestions
for optimizing your OpenOffice.org user experience…
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the full article…
Martin Wunderlich's FOSS links page
Many novice (or even experienced) users of free and open software
have lamented the lack of a unified list of open source resources
for translation and localization. As of this month, lament no more,
because translator Martin Wunderlich has assembled just such a list,
and it's available on Martin's site…
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the full article…
Okapi framework released; Heartsome 6 upcoming
This month, ENLASO released a first set of open source localization
tools as part of its Okapi framework. The open source suite currently
includes Olifant, a .NET application for creating and managing translation
memories, and Tikal, a utility that executes utilities from a DOS
command line…
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the full article…
OpenOffice.org 2.0 released
OpenOffice.org celebrated its fifth birthday on October 13; the
fifth anniversary of Sun Microsystems' release of StarOffice's source
code. Auspiciously, the long awaited OpenOffice.org 2.0 was released
this month as well, and you can get your free new version at the
OpenOffice.org website.
Open Source Update hasn't tested this release yet, but following
are some highlights of the package's new features as reported on
the project's website…
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the full article…
Getting Started with Trados FL in Two Minutes
It is not a secret that many translators believe Trados is too complex
and unfriendly. This popular misconception is supported by the bulkiness
of Trados’s manuals: FL5.5 was supplied with five manuals totaling
936 pages, and FL6.5 has six manuals totaling 1252 pages - enough
to scare off the most computer-savvy translator! However, these
manuals can't be short and simple since they are comprehensive and
cover all Trados functions and settings, which are almost unlimited…
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the full article…
Focus on ForeignDesk: Q and A with Dierk Seeburg of Choice Hotels
International
Dierk Seeburg is Web Content Administrator with Choice Hotels International
in Phoenix, Arizona. Choice Hotels is the world's second largest
hotel franchiser with over 5000 hotels in over 40 countries. His
responsibilities at Choice include analysis and scoping of mono-
and multilingual internal and external web content, process and
standards oversight, and translation and quality assurance of English
and German web content…
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the full article…
Fun with OpenOffice.org: OO Extras; NewsForge article on invoicing
with Calc
OO Extras is a great website to use when you need templates for
just about anything from CD case labels to newsletters to invoices
or even legal pleadings. In addition, there are at least 50 templates
for use with OpenOffice.org Impress, the application compatible
with Microsoft PowerPoint…
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the full article…
First translation with Wordfast
Translating with Wordfast is simple. Open your document in Word,
place the cursor at the beginning of the document and click on the
first icon on the left in Wordfast toolbar…
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the full article…
Wordfast Installation
You need to have a copy of MS Word installed on your computer, and
VBA must be enabled. Other then that, you will be able to run Wordfast
on Windows or Mac OS. First you need to get your own copy of Wordfast…
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the full article…
What are CATs?
Wordfast is probably one of the best translation tools on the market.
Having used Wordfast for a while, I thought it was time I pay a
tribute to that amazing piece of software, and decided to put together
a few help pages with screen shots to help people getting started
with it…
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the full article…
CAT - Beware of the beast!
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…
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the full article…
OmegaT, a review
I have long been curious about OmegaT, mostly for 2 reasons:
1. OmegaT is the last free CAT on the market still being developped
(that I know of)
2. OmegaT is written in Java, and therefore relatively platform
independent…
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the full article…
Design and Development of Translator's Workbench for English to
Indian Languages
This paper describes the system design of a Translator's Workbench
(TWB), built around the core concept of Translation Memory System
(TMS), a method of capturing, storing and re-using translation.
It examines the architectural, structural and procedural framework
of the TWB with development details, including implementation essentials,
to facilitate better understanding of the software system…
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the full article…
Q and A with Tim Foster of Sun Microsystems
As reported in Open Source Update issue #8, Sun Microsystems recently
released the first two applications in its Open Language Tools project.
Tim Foster is an engineer working for Sun Microsystems, Inc. in
the Globalization group, currently working on translation tools
and technologies. He also is the project lead of the Open Language
Tools, and maintains a blog about Translation, Language & Tools
(and occasional off-topic items)…
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the full article…
Fun with OpenOffice.org: tips to optimize your office experience
1) Squinting at the screen to figure out if you put an extra space
between two words? Turn on View>Nonprinting Characters or hit Control+F10
to show spaces, carriage returns, indents, etc.
2) Tired of typing “lyophilization” over and over in your latest
pharmaceutical document? Enable automatic word completion by choosing
Tools>AutoCorrect/AutoFormat>Word Completion. The feature collects
words that you frequently use and automatically completes them when
you type the first three letters…
Read
the full article…
thebigword IT Security
thebigword has a highly secure IT infrastructure. The security measures
described in this document are necessary due to the nature of the
documents translated for our clients. Financial institutions, pharmaceutical
companies, government bodies and most global corporations need to
have highly confidential documents translated…
Read
the full article…
Translation Memory Sharing
The reason for sharing memory is to enable the use of more than
one vendor. By centralising your translations, thebigword ensures
the highest quality and consistent service that your consumers and
regulators expect…
Read
the full article…
What is Translation Memory?
Translation Memory, in simple terms, remembers everything we have
previously translated for you. This means when you send us a document
we only translate new text or edit similar text contained within
that document…
Read
the full article…
Building your own computer from parts
Too often, people purchase a prebuilt computer because assembling
one yourself seems like a hassle, or because it's hard to pick out
exactly what kind of parts you want. At the same time, if you're
both frugal and demanding about computer performance, putting together
your own computer can yield a much better machine with a longer
warranty, for a lot less money than you pay to the prebuilt guys…
Read
the full article…
GnuCash: open source financial software
Here in the U.S., it's tax time, leading many of us to resolve to
keep better financial records in the future. If you run Mac OS X,
Linux, or any of the "traditional Unixes" such as Solaris, HP-UX,
AIX, etc., it's worth taking a look at GnuCash, a cost-free and
open source accounting application…
Read
the full article…
Freeware, free software and the open source paradigm
Since Open Source Update debuted in December, a number of readers
have suggested articles on various pieces of "freeware" that are
useful to translators. Most of these are add-ons to programs such
as Microsoft Word, and are distributed for free, but their code
is not available to the user…
Read
the full article…
NeoOffice: OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X
Thanks to reader Dierk Seeburg for suggesting an article on NeoOffice
(cost-free and open source from http://www.neooffice.org), the new
OpenOffice.org distribution exclusively for Mac OS X…
Read
the full article…
Fun with OpenOffice.org: Exporting PDFs, Exporting Flash presentations,
Customizing your keyboard
Exporting files directly as PDF: When you want to create a read-only
copy of a document, this new feature in OpenOffice.org 1.1 is particularly
helpful. PDFs (portable document format) don't require a specific
office suite in order to view them, so they are an excellent way
to share read-only documents with people who use different types
of software…
Read
the full article…
The US$498.00 Linux laptop
Billing itself as the home of "The World's Most Affordable Computers,"
Linspire, is an extremely user-friendly Linux distribution that
has carved out a niche in selling Linux machines that come with
all the basic software pre-installed…
Read
the full article…
A new look of OmegaT
OmegaT has been around on the Computer Assisted Translation tools
market for a little while now, steadily evolving and answering user
needs. Its latest release has been available for a few months now
(1.4.4.02) and has been reviewed a number of times already.
I am extremely happy to write this short article because, not only
as a member of the "development" team (as a non programmer) but
also as a freelance Japanese to French translator I find that this
new version has the potential to bring new groups of users to this
extremely potent application. Before entering the core of the discussion,
I will give a few general indications of what OmegaT is, and what
it is not…
Read
the full article…
Trying Out Linux
Many translators have now heard of Linux and would like to try it
out, but are hesitant to do so. Linux is an operating system, and
the operating system is the foundation on which all programs run.
It is understandable that translators are reluctant to switch operating
systems. "I wouldn't let Linux anywhere near my money-making machine",
confided one translator I know. However, he then went on to ask
me a lot of questions about Linux…
Read
the full article…
OmegaT's latest release reviewed
When translators get together, one common question is "How do I
decide when it's worth investing in a CAT tool?" With OmegaT, (http://www.omegat.org)
that question is easily answered: invest now, because it's free!
While OmegaT lacks some features of the "big" CAT tools, it's really
free and it really works, making it a great option for translators
who don't need the added features (and sticker shock) of more powerful
CAT tools. I recently tested OmegaT's newly released version 1.4.4.01
on Linux (Knoppix) with extremely favorable results…
Read
the full article…
Running Wordfast on CrossOver Office
For Linux users who want to run a powerful Trados-compatible CAT
tool on Linux, running the Wordfast translation memory engine (http://www.wordfast.net
, licenses vary between 90 and 180 euros; can be used free for memories
of up to 500 TU) is an excellent option. Wordfast runs on Windows
and Mac as well, but currently cannot handle OpenOffice.org files
natively, since Wordfast depends on MSWord macros…
Read
the full article…
Featured application: OpenOffice.org
The free (in terms of cost and source code) office suite OpenOffice.org
is a great “gateway” application for translators who would like
to get started in open source. Located online at the website of
the same name, OO.o is, for all tasks not requiring Word macros,
better than 90% compatible with Microsoft Office; this is especially
true when a document is created with MSWord, then opened and edited
in OO.o. In my first year of freelancing, I used OO.o's “Save as
MSWord” function exclusively, and no client ever noticed that I
wasn't actually using MSWord…
Read
the full article…
Sun Microsystems releases Open Language Tools
The big news in the open source translation community these days
is Sun Microsystems' release of the first installment of their Open
Language Tools project. On June 21, Sun programmer Tim Foster's
weblog announced the release of binaries and source code to the
Open Language Tools XLIFF (XML Localization Interchange File Format)
Translation Editor and XLIFF Filter…
Read
the full article…
How to Leverage the Maximum Potential of XML for Localization
In this article, Andrzej Zydroń explains how DITA and xml:tm fit
into the equation and how they will take us beyond the existing
XML-based localization standards that have only concentrated on
the exchange of information. DITA is a flexible, topic-based architecture
that provides a comprehensive model for authoring, producing and
delivering of technical documentation. xml:tm is a rather radical
departure from existing standards that introduces the concept of
text memory, seamlessly integrated into XML documents. …
Read
the full article…
Using XML technology to reduce the cost of authoring and translation
At the recent LISA Forum Europe in London, Andrzej Zydron reported
on the history of publishing formats and the development of a new
XML-based format for translation and authoring memory called xml:tm.
xml:tm leverages the architecture of XML to allow XML-based documents
to contain multiple language versions, translation information,
revision history and other important information that enables end-users
to much more easily handle many aspects of a document’s creation
and subsequent use. In this article Zydron describes xml:tm and
its benefits for users of XML-based publishing formats …
Read
the full article…
Translation
Technology for Sale: Buyer Beware!
People who master more than one language readily understand that
language enables each culture to grasp and express reality in its
own way. Yet the common perception of translators as perfectionists
who drag their feet lingers on and is particularly widespread in
monolingual circles. Less scrupulous marketers of translation technology
have long capitalized on this perception to sell their products
…
Read
the full article…
Amikai: Best-Of-Breed MT Engine
Amikai was founded by three Stanford University graduates in 1999
in San Francisco and opened its Tokyo office in 2000. The word "Amikai"
comes from the Latin 'amicus' (friend) and the Japanese word 'sekai'
for 'world'. The company develops Machine Translation (MT) applications
to facilitate Web-based multilingual communication. The Japan Industrial
Journal in April 16, 2001 described the company as possessing the
three fundamentals for a successful Internet business: human capital,
technical know-how and financial backing …
Read
the full article…
Coping with Babel: How to Localize XML
In this article Andrzej Zydron outlines pitfalls that are often
encountered by authors, programmers and localizers when first using
XML, as well as ways to avoid these problems. Following Zydron’s
advice can save developers time, money and headaches, and can help
them reach out effectively to the world …
Read
the full article…
Why Esperanto and Syriac?
RedleX, a privately-owned Tel Aviv-based software development company,
released Mellel, its multilingual word processor for Mac OS X in
May 2002. While the release of Mac OS X in 2000 offered the framework
for multilingual and multi-script support, few applications have
implemented anything but basic Unicode support …
Read
the full article…
Dealing With Those Darn PDFs
If you look through the archives of discussion lists for translators,
these are the two questions that are most often asked: First, what
are the differences between the different computer-assisted translation
tools? Second, do any of them support PDF files, and if not, what's
the best way to translate those files? …
Read
the full article…
Controlling What Programs Windows Runs Automatically
If your computer’s startup is very sluggish or you don’t know what
some of the icons in the system tray (the right-hand corner of your
task bar in Windows) stand for, it may be a good idea to reduce
the number of programs that automatically start each time you turn
your computer on …
Read
the full article…
To Align Or Not To Align
For those who don't know what alignment is, I'll take a stab at
explaining: in the context of most computer-assisted translation
tools, alignment refers to the process of selecting file pairs in
the source and target language that were translated outside of a
translation memory environment, matching all the segments (sentences,
headings, etc.), and creating a translation memory database from
those matches. The resulting translation memory can then be applied
to translate similar or identical texts …
Read
the full article…
Keeping Track of Date and Time with Excel and Other Ways to Clock
Your Work
There are a number of ways for translators to invoice their clients.
We can either invoice by the number of source or target words, the
number of source or target characters, or by the amount of hours
that we spend on a certain task. Each method has its advantages
and disadvantages, but each method also has room for improvement
…
Read
the full article…
Teaching Computers: Building Multilingual Linguistic Resources With
Volunteer Contributions Over the Web
One of the most compelling powers of the internet lies in its ability
to instantly link a massive number of people and share their knowledge
on any subject at little cost. In the following article, researchers
Dr. Rada Mihalcea and Dr. Timothy Chklovski outline their project,
Teach-Computers, which aims to build high-performance natural language
processing tools through tapping into people’s understanding of
common words via a simple click on the Web …
Read
the full article…
Making the Pieces Fit: Using Translation Technology at Sun Microsystem
This article explains how we at Sun Microsystems use translation
technology for our translation activities on GNOME and other projects.
It describes our experiences using open standards, such as XML Localization
Interchange File Format (XLIFF) and Translation Memory eXchange
format (TMX) and our experiences using tools to process these formats.
In general, we found that these technologies can increase translator
productivity and aid in sharing translations across multiple projects
…
Read
the full article…
Translation Technology and the Translator
Translators are perhaps the most critical audience for presentations
about the automation of translation. Many of them will agree with
comments made by J.E.Holmström in a report on scientific and technical
dictionaries submitted to Unesco in 1949. Having heard that some
researchers were investigating the possibilities, he thought that
"the resulting literary style would be atrocious and fuller of 'howlers'
and false values than the worst that any human translator produces"
…
Read
the full article…
Retrospect and prospect in computer-based translation
At the last MT Summit conference this century, this paper looks
back briefly at what has happened in the 50 years since MT began,
reviews the present situation, and speculates on what the future
may bring. Progress in the basic processes of computerized translation
has not been as dramatic as developments in computer technology
and software. There is still much scope for the improvement of the
linguistic quality of MT output, which hopefully developments in
both rule-based and corpus-based methods can bring …
Read
the full article…
"Show Me That Letter" - Unicode Support Keeps Getting Better
When I first took up the subject of Unicode implementation and support
in 2001, I was dismayed to report that Unicode had made almost no
difference for typical multilingual end-users because very few consumer
applications supported Unicode in any meaningful way. When I picked
up the topic again last year, the situation had improved dramatically,
and I am happy to report that this improvement has accelerated over
the last year, with Unicode support and implementation now increasingly
robust …
Read
the full article…
Unicode - Where Are We?
Unicode has held out the promise of simplified multilingual workflows,
improved publishing support for the world’s languages, and elimination
of many hassles that now plague work in the GILT community. In this
article Arle Lommel looks at changes in the past two years regarding
Unicode support in applications localizers typically deal with …
Read
the full article…
Web Services for Translation
Building and managing multilingual Web sites or other applications
involves many interrelated and complex tasks. Publishers may have
databases, content management systems and other tools which enable
them to manage their original content, while vendors may have systems
to manage translation such as translation memory systems, terminology
tools and project management systems …
Read
the full article…
Teaching Computer Aided Translation Tools at Auckland University
If we think of translators as business people, then we should think
of their tools in terms of their efficiency. Historically, translation
equipment has been rather rudimentary, and has developed over the
centuries since the Rosetta stone. The boulder and chisel were replaced
by paper and quill, the horse and cart gave way to snail and mail.
The past twenty years has seen another revolution in the field of
translation tools: the advent of affordable electronic tools for
translators …
Read
the full article…
CAT tools: A brief overview about concordance software
Have you ever wanted to sort out the terminology of a translation
before you start? Did you ever think how wonderful it would be if
you could see all occurrences of one term in its various contexts?
If so, then you're no doubt familiar with the task of sitting down,
reading through the source text, finding the "complicated" words
and writing them down so you can look them up …
Read
the full article…
Getting More from Translation Memory
Translation Memory (TM) technology and its benefits are widely known
in the localization industry. TM technology is mainly used for reusing
text, thus saving time and reducing costs by using previously translated
units. Through the reuse of text, we can achieve three objectives,
namely improved consistency, minimized turnaround time and reduced
translation costs …
Read
the full article…
TMX: Maximizing the Return on your Translation Memory Investments
High-tech product generation cycles have shortened dramatically
with leading hardware manufacturers such as Dell and HP producing
hundreds of variations of their machines every few months, all with
localized documentation and sales support required as part of a
total solution for customers …
Read
the full article…
Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows and Word for Translators
There are two important reasons why anybody should use keyboard
shortcuts instead of mouse:
- The use of mouse is one of the main triggers of Repetitive Strain
Injury, tendinitis and other similar muscolosceletal disorders.
Sufferers of these disorders report that they feel less pain when
typing compared to when mousing. Thus, a desire to avoid mouse as
much as possible
- Once keyboard shortcuts have been mastered then one can work much
faster and be more productive …
Read
the full article…
Limitations of Computers as Translation Tools
As should be more than evident from other contributions to this
volume, the field of computer translation is alive and well—if anything,
it is now entering what may prove to be its truly golden era. But
there would be no need to point this out if certain problems from
an earlier time had not raised lingering doubts about the overall
feasibility of the field. Just as other authors have stressed the
positive side of various systems and approaches, this chapter will
attempt to deal with some of these doubts and questions, both as
they may apply here and now to those planning to work with computer
translation systems and also in a larger sense as they may be connected
to some faulty notions about language held by the general public
and perhaps some system developers as well …
Read
the full article…
Fishing for the Right Word
There is so much hype in the computer world that one is sometimes
tempted not to believe anything. Software mongers would have you
believe that simply by installing their shells, you will suddenly
be able to perform six tasks at once. Database vendors would convince
you that their query language will automatically find you a thousand
new customers …
Read
the full article…
QWERTYUIOP or Our Typewriter Territory
A Whorfian Picture Parable for Adults, entirely devoted to QWERT,
the creatures who live in QWERTYUIOP and speak the Qwert language.
Their entire lives are limited to those words and concepts that
can be spelled with the top row of letters on the keyboard …
Read
the full article…
How Well Does Computer Translation Work? Find Out for Yourself
From this page, you'll be able to connect directly with Altavista's
computer translation program "BabelFish" and evaluate how well it
truly works. But before we do that—and before this website expresses
any further opinion about the quality of "machine translation"—let's
listen to what the promoters of this program have to say about its
quality …
Read
the full article…
Working
from audio recordings
Sometimes it happens; not too often, but it does. A translator is
asked to work from an audio recording. The client assumes that a
translator frequently does this; so doing it in any of the translator's
working languages should be a piece of cake …
Read
the full article…
Don't Lose Your Foreign Web Site Visitors by Insulting Them With
Brain-Dead Translation Services
For some internet marketers it's become a cutting edge strategy
to offer multi lingual navigation and promo material on their sites
in the hope of expanding their client base. While it is true that
international users whose mother tongue is anything but English
are beginning to hit the web in hefty numbers, catering to them
in their own linguistic format is an art in itself which doesn't
lend itself to the cheap and easy "no brainer" pseudo solutions
currently being hawked on the net …
Read
the full article…
Search
engine features and search techniques
When using a search engine,
the most difficult problem to solve is the huge amount of results
you get and the importance to be granted to them. As a matter of
fact, the efficiency of a search engine is mainly due to its ability
of listing the results of our search giving the higher rank to the
most important topics found. This article intends to carry out a
more precise exploration on how search engines are used, in addition
to describe the operation of some meta-engines that are also considered
accurate and useful…
Read
the full article…
On
Netiquette, e-mails, etc. (Part 2 of 2)
Always spell check your e-mail and proofread for errors.
Always edit out unnecessary information from a message you are responding
to. Don't just hit the reply button and start typing. Delete unimportant
parts of the e-mail you are responding to and reply point by point.
At the very least edit out e-mail headers and signature files. Why
would you possibly want to have copies of the last 3-4 (or more)
e-mails added to the growing list of back and forth? Edit/delete
what is not necessary for the conversation to continue…
Read
the full article…
On Netiquette, e-mails, etc. (Part 1 of 2)
Today the Internet has become an integral part of our lives and
online communications are commonplace… But in order to be
successful in your online exchanges you should be aware of Netiquette.
What does this mean? Netiquette is a set of rules for behaving properly
online, the dos and donХts of online communication, and the
informal "rules of the road" of cyberspace…
Read
the full article…
Using the Grammar Check
Your computer word processing programme probably contains a "Grammar
Check" function designed to help you write more clearly. With
each new program version, Grammar Checks are becoming more refined…
Read the full article…
How to use the Free Online Translator
to your Benefit
An online translator is an interactive program implemented on a
web page offering translations of a text into a different language.
The translation is generated by a computer and instantly displayed.
And best of all using it doesnt cost you anything!
Read the full article…
Translating HTML files
How to translate correctly HTML files. How HTML works, basic tags,
style sheets, what are the issues a translator should be aware of,
how to prepare (tag) an HTML file for translation, what to watch
for when translating a website…
Read the full article…
Wordfast: A quick and inexpensive
way to translate
I used to think that translating on the computer was drudgery. Translation
for me five or six years ago was just a way to make some extra money.
You could say it was just an afterthought. Of course, this was before
broadband connections and Windows XP and other applications. MS
Word was the only "tool" that I had. Needless to say,
I made mistakes such as leaving words out, and putting extra words
in. My terminology was in no way consistent…
Read the full article…
Translation
Tools Today: A Personal View
What does the market offer
to the professional translator these days? The arena has become
so overcrowded with contenders and they are moving so fast, that
even watching the major players has become quite a task. I have
given up all hope of ever writing a full survey of the tools now
available. However I believe I can shed some light on a few issues,
mainly for the use of the bewildered many who feel they must acquire
translation memory software and are lost in the maze of information…
Read the full article…
eProcurement and Translation
The world of purchasing took a significant change with the introduction
of eProcurement systems. Unbelievable ROI was promised and the whole
purchasing world was about to revolutionise, all for a mere few
million investment…
Read the full article…
Online Translation - The Future??
It is fair
to say that most small to medium sized GILT (Globalization, Internationalization,
Localization and Translation) companies have professional looking
and informative brochure web sites. What is interesting is that
more and more of these companies are now following in the footsteps
of the industry giants and revamping their sites to facilitate online
translation services.
Read the full article…
PDAs and the Interpreter
PDAs (often called "Palms", although
Palm is just one of the brands available) are small electronic devices
that capture, organize and manage data. As the name suggests, they
are small enough to fit on your palm. You input data using a special
blunt-ended stick called a stylus (or, for the less organized among
us, your fingernail!) to write on the screen…
Read the full article…
Do You Need to Have a Website?
I have been receiving
directories of organizations of translators by mail every year since
I decided to hang out my shingle and join a translators' association
in 1987. I remember that in the eighties and early nineties, the
NCTA's (Northern California Translators Association) membership
directory was a bulky brochure the size of a small telephone book.
Given how expensive it was to mail these things, after a few years
they started mailing to members a PDF file on a floppy and you had
to pay them $10 extra for the book…
Read the full article…
Trados-Is It a Must?
You can advertise yourself as a Trados user even
if actually you use Wordfast. Wordfast is completely compatible
with Trados files (bilingual and TMs). No client sees a difference.
The difference is significant only to your wallet-Trados is licensed
for about $700.00, and Wordfast - from $50.00…
Read the full article…
Famous translation memory tools may have
a rest
Wordfast will find its market among those translators who are
allergic to any sophisticated software whose developers seem to
forget that their objective should be to facilitate the user's life,
not to complicate it…
Read the full article…
An Effective and Inexpensive Translation
Memory Tool
Translation memory means that you never have to translate the
same sentence, phrase or word twice. You do it only once, and when
you come across the same sentence, phrase or word next time, a program
suggests that you use your previous translation, which may be edited
if the context demands it…
Read the full article…
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