Computers - Computer-Aided-Translation: To Be or Not to Be
Translation memory (TM) arrangements, the most widely used toolkits in the localization of digital information at HQ-translate agency, enable the linguistic transition and international accommodation of electronic content (e-content) for local markets. The idea behind TM systems is to store in a computer system the original e-content and the translation that has been produced by human translators; the stored translated version of the source file has been broken down into short parts, generally one sentence long. Today the most popular CAT tools: TRADOS, Déjà vu, Wordfast. The preferences of using translation memory systems are fairly obvious: they increase the translator’s productivity and improve translation quality by proving that terms and statements are used consistently within and across translation works. Users in governmental and transnational agencies report a 25–60% rise in efficiency. Yet, it must be stated that the use of TM systems may also have negative effects on translation quality. One of the major discouraging things of TM systems is that they usually work at sentence level. Thus, there is a severe danger that the translator will focus too much on standalone sentences, possibly disregarding the contexts in which the sentences are incorporated. Moreover, the matching algorithms of TM systems are based on very simple formal criteria, such as the similarity of character strings. That’s why, the human translator’s notion of the level of similarity between a piece to be translated and a part retrieved from the database may differ considerably from the grade of similarity calculated by the TM system. This may cause situations wherein exact matches result in wrong translations, or one translation of a fuzzy match requires little or no adjustment but another fuzzy match with the same similarity degree is not useful at all (for a discussion on the aspects of evaluating the retrieval mechanisms of memory systems, see Expert Advisory Group on Language Engineering Standards (1996), Whyman and Somers (1999), and Reinke (2000a, 2004). Despite the negative sides, it should be noted that TM systems generally integrate into the translation workflow relatively smoothly. These CATs leave human translators in control of the actual translation work, while free them from routine work and keeping translation as a creative job whenever the adaptation resourcefulness of a human being is required. For more information, visit us at: HQ-translate company
Tags: business services, HQ-translate, language service, quality translation, translate agency, translation