Computers - Computer-Aided-Translation: To Be or Not to Be
Translation memory (TM) equipment, the most widely used toolkits in the localization of digital information at HQ-translate agency, enable the linguistic transition and cross-border compliance 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 document has been broken down into smaller units, generally one sentence long. Today the most popular CAT tools: TRADOS, Déjà vu, Wordfast. The pros of using translation memory systems are fairly obvious: they increase the translator’s productivity and raise translation quality by proving that terminology and statements are used consistently within and across translation works. Users in industry and transnational companies state 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 disadvantages of TM systems is that they usually perform at sentence level. Thus, there is a real danger that the translator will focus too much on separated sentences, possibly disregarding the contexts in which the sentences are built-in. Moreover, the matching algorithms of TM systems are based on very ordinary formal criteria, such as the similarity of character strings. That’s why, the human translator’s notion of the level of similarity between a segment to be translated and a part retrieved from the database may differ considerably from the degree 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 level is not useful at all (for a discussion on the aspects of evaluating the retrieval mechanisms of TM systems, see Expert Advisory Group on Language Engineering Standards (1996), Whyman and Somers (1999), and Reinke (2000a, 2004). Despite the vices, it should be noted that TM systems generally build into the translation workflow relatively smoothly. These CATs leave human translators in control of the actual translation process, while relieving them from routine work and supporting translation as a creative activity whenever the adaptation resourcefulness of a human nature is required. For more remarks, visit us at: HQ-translate company