| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] | My diversified client portfolio dried up! Thread poster: Tom in London
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Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 17:33
French to English
| Tom, we're exceptional! | Feb 14, 2016 |
Charlie Bavington wrote:
There is almost no-one who has learned how to use a CAT tool properly and then decided to drop the idea and go back to some manual overtype-the-original method.
Maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule then. There's room for two exceptions.
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 17:33
French to English
| you misunderstood me | Feb 14, 2016 |
[quote]Charlie Bavington wrote:
Erik Freitag wrote:
It didn't occur to me that people might think you're supposed to translate a text in a preset order when using a CAT tool. Just another misconception, obviously.
But I do care about faulty reasoning, and the dissemination of false information, no matter how innocently done. (See that "someone's wrong on the internet" cartoon - that's me, that is!)
You all misunderstood what I was explaining to Tom (including Tom, but he can be forgiven since he lacks experience in CAT tools).
I know perfectly well that you don't have to start with sentence 1 then go on to sentence 2 in CAT tool interfaces.
What I meant was that you can't chop and change the order of sentences in the CAT tool interface. The French don't apply the same kind of logic as English speakers.
For example I recently did a short text about a gastronomic restaurant in Burgundy. They started with some blurb about different wines, then mentioned a couple of delicacies that would be very tempting to the French.
I decided to start with the information about the food, then went on to discuss the wine "to wash it down".
The PM had sent me the Word file and a CAT tool file, I didn't see the CAT tool file and just translated the Word file. The PM asked me to put my translation in the CAT tool file, I told her it would just be meaningless because I had chopped sentences up, merged some together and changed the order of them all so my translation just couldn't fit into the CAT tool interface.
So I see Tom is no longer bothering to read us but I too care about not spreading mistruths on the Internet
[Edited at 2016-02-14 10:19 GMT]
| | | | Erik Freitag
Germany
Local time: 17:33
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
| Changing sentence order | Feb 14, 2016 |
Texte Style wrote:
What I meant was that you can't chop and change the order of sentences in the CAT tool interface. The French don't apply the same kind of logic as English speakers.
I see what you mean, thanks for the clarification. Of course, what you describe is absolutely possible within all the CAT tools I know as well, simply by merging and splitting source text segments, or, if that's not enough, by choosing paragraph based segmentation (instead of sentence based segmentation).
What you can't achieve this way is shifting information between separate paragraphs. While this is indeed a limitation, it is a rare case in my line of work. Your mileage may vary.
Texte Style wrote: Charlie Bavington wrote:
There is almost no-one who has learned how to use a CAT tool properly and then decided to drop the idea and go back to some manual overtype-the-original method.
Maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule then. There's room for two exceptions.
The important word in Charlie's statement is properly, so if you are an exception, you would still be the only one amongst the contributors to this thread so far.
[Edited at 2016-02-14 20:16 GMT]
| | | | | And nothing is perfect | Feb 14, 2016 |
Erik Freitag wrote: Texte Style wrote:
Maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule then. There's room for two exceptions. The important word in Charlie's statement is properly, so if you are an exception, you would still be the only one amongst the contributors to this thread so far.
Thanks - exactly (the very fact Tom managed to misconstrue what T.S. said in that way proves he never *properly* understood whatever tool he dabbled with whenever he dabbled with it). Another important word was "almost".
I fully accept the segmentation and ordering issues. Segmentation can lead to an inappropriate piecemeal approach, and I often merge segments to rearrange the order of events within a paragraph so it makes more sense.
I almost never rearrange the order of paragraphs, however - I'm afraid I don't see it as my role to rewrite texts to that extent. If I did, though, I can immediately think of 2 solutions that would mean I could still use a CAT.
One would be to add notes within the translation indicating where the order needed to be changed (I add notes when I want to add footnotes); these notes would be removed during the final proofread.
The other (bit more radical) would be to produce a copy of the source with the text in the new order, and then run the new source through the CAT. This would fit fine with my workflow, where I do a) rough in CAT, b) review in CAT, c) proofread clean version - I could produce a new source between a) and b) and there would be (almost?) no extra effort involved compared with shifting text around post-translation.
It's not a perfect solution. The first option "pollutes" the TM to some extent, unless you're prepared to edit out the notes afterwards, although you may not even want to do that - if you think you might get an update to the document in future, a record of what you did last time could be very useful. (I leave my notes about footnotes for that reason - and it has proved worthwhile at least once.)
I'm not trying to persuade you to change your approach. As I said about Tom yesterday, I don't care whether you use a CAT tool or not The aim is merely to demonstrate that shifting text order and CAT use are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Another "I can't use CAT tools because...." kicked into touch, if you like (which I doubt you do ).
I realise that despite my repeated "I don't care", it might appear I do. I'm actually more a fan of Apsic Xbench than conventional CAT tools themselves. I make massive use of searches using Xbench, and it needs stuff to be in TMs. In a hypothetical world where I was forced to make a choice to keep just one of the tools I use, from Wordfast, memoQ and Apsic Xbench, I'd pick Xbench every time (and find a way to replicate the Wordfast TM format for the hypothetical future, CAT-less, work so I could continue to use Xbench!). My enthusiasm is actually therefore more about having source/target in some TM format rather than actually for TM tools themselves, and I'm happy to jump through a couple of hoops to achieve that. Other people may not be.
I do obviously agree entirely that there are categories of work (e.g. un-convertible PDFs) where it's really probably not worth the hassle. It's just there are fewer such categories than is usually claimed.
(Edit - too many smilies, sorry. Keen to reinforce I'm not arguing, just discussing with a different point of view!)
[Edited at 2016-02-14 14:56 GMT]
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Tom in London wrote:
I would be interested to know if this has ever happened to colleagues.
It happens. You need to water the plant while it still lives.
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Tom in London wrote: Then I worked out, with the aid of some intelligent posters in these forums, that CAT tools are simply a way for you to spend a lot of money so that agencies can pay you less and get hold of all your TMs for nothing. I don't do that.
I'm afraid I'm another one recommending you to reconsider the matter of CAT tools... Insisting in staying out of tools that have flooded our market certainly contributes to an increased difficulty in finding work.
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 17:33
French to English
Erik Freitag wrote:
I see what you mean, thanks for the clarification. Of course, what you describe is absolutely possible within all the CAT tools I know as well, simply by merging and splitting source text segments, or, if that's not enough, by choosing paragraph based segmentation (instead of sentence based segmentation).
What you can't achieve this way is shifting information between separate paragraphs. While this is indeed a limitation, it is a rare case in my line of work. Your mileage may vary.
Yeah I know about those functions.
I rarely create the project myself, it's the PM who creates the CAT file for me. So I don't get to choose paragraph segmentation.
and the joining and splitting functions are very often disabled for some technical reason that a PM once explained and I promptly forgot because it has no relevance to my work.
But even when they are not disabled, it's an extra hoop to jump through that just doesn't exist when you work in Word, so I have yet to be convinced that it's worth it.
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 17:33
French to English
| agreeing to disagree :-D | Feb 15, 2016 |
Charlie Bavington wrote: Erik Freitag wrote: Texte Style wrote:
Maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule then. There's room for two exceptions. The important word in Charlie's statement is properly, so if you are an exception, you would still be the only one amongst the contributors to this thread so far. Thanks - exactly (the very fact Tom managed to misconstrue what T.S. said in that way proves he never *properly* understood whatever tool he dabbled with whenever he dabbled with it). Another important word was "almost". I fully accept the segmentation and ordering issues. Segmentation can lead to an inappropriate piecemeal approach, and I often merge segments to rearrange the order of events within a paragraph so it makes more sense. I almost never rearrange the order of paragraphs, however - I'm afraid I don't see it as my role to rewrite texts to that extent. If I did, though, I can immediately think of 2 solutions that would mean I could still use a CAT. One would be to add notes within the translation indicating where the order needed to be changed (I add notes when I want to add footnotes); these notes would be removed during the final proofread. The other (bit more radical) would be to produce a copy of the source with the text in the new order, and then run the new source through the CAT. This would fit fine with my workflow, where I do a) rough in CAT, b) review in CAT, c) proofread clean version - I could produce a new source between a) and b) and there would be (almost?) no extra effort involved compared with shifting text around post-translation. It's not a perfect solution. The first option "pollutes" the TM to some extent, unless you're prepared to edit out the notes afterwards, although you may not even want to do that - if you think you might get an update to the document in future, a record of what you did last time could be very useful. (I leave my notes about footnotes for that reason - and it has proved worthwhile at least once.) I'm not trying to persuade you to change your approach. As I said about Tom yesterday, I don't care whether you use a CAT tool or not The aim is merely to demonstrate that shifting text order and CAT use are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Another "I can't use CAT tools because...." kicked into touch, if you like (which I doubt you do ). I realise that despite my repeated "I don't care", it might appear I do. I'm actually more a fan of Apsic Xbench than conventional CAT tools themselves. I make massive use of searches using Xbench, and it needs stuff to be in TMs. In a hypothetical world where I was forced to make a choice to keep just one of the tools I use, from Wordfast, memoQ and Apsic Xbench, I'd pick Xbench every time (and find a way to replicate the Wordfast TM format for the hypothetical future, CAT-less, work so I could continue to use Xbench!). My enthusiasm is actually therefore more about having source/target in some TM format rather than actually for TM tools themselves, and I'm happy to jump through a couple of hoops to achieve that. Other people may not be. I do obviously agree entirely that there are categories of work (e.g. un-convertible PDFs) where it's really probably not worth the hassle. It's just there are fewer such categories than is usually claimed. (Edit - too many smilies, sorry. Keen to reinforce I'm not arguing, just discussing with a different point of view!) [Edited at 2016-02-14 14:56 GMT]
I quite agree that rearranging paragraph order is not an everyday thing, even for me. I do often completely rearrange sentences within paragraphs though. In fact what I do is often more transcreation than translation.
I see that you've evolved a whole system to handle this issue and I'm sure it works well for you.
If I get an update on a text, it's usually because the previous one wasn't good enough so it's mostly best to chuck everything out and start anew. I'll even research the terminology again in that I may have missed a newly coined/trending word first time round. So I don't know that I would really find it to be worth my while to implement such a system.
When I have had to do transcreations with a CAT tool interface I'll mostly just do a draft before exporting and then doing some serious rewriting, so then the TM isn't going to be very helpful to anyone. (I will have researched at least the technical terms just in case someone does decide to use it).
And since most of my clients are direct not agencies so they don't even care how I go about producing their translation. It's only the agencies who want me to use CAT tools. I'll freely admit that this is part of why I don't like them, I feel like I'm being bullied into using them and I'm a pretty obstinate eedjit
I often point out stuff like rearranging paragraphs or use of words the client might query when delivering the text, mostly in the form of a translator's note, so I can fully appreciate the first strategy you mention. Putting the source text in the wrong order, though, would be impossible because the radical rearranging often happens bit by bit and mostly in the last read-throughs.
So I reckon at this point we can agree to disagree huh
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| It's ironic ... | Feb 15, 2016 |
... that Tom's post has turned into a post about CATs, but because he is no longer reading his own post anyway, I'll join in.
It makes a giant difference whether or not our work with a CAT is supposed to generate a productive TM. Theoretically, we can expand and shrink segments at will and use paragraph segmentation. Practically speaking, if the client wants a TM that is useful for producing matches, then fairly strict and arbitrary guidelines need to be followed in terms of the def... See more ... that Tom's post has turned into a post about CATs, but because he is no longer reading his own post anyway, I'll join in.
It makes a giant difference whether or not our work with a CAT is supposed to generate a productive TM. Theoretically, we can expand and shrink segments at will and use paragraph segmentation. Practically speaking, if the client wants a TM that is useful for producing matches, then fairly strict and arbitrary guidelines need to be followed in terms of the definition of a segment.
Despite the fact that I translate "interesting" material, TM matches are sometimes a significant factor: entire press campaigns often share significant amounts of material, press texts and exhibition texts often cannibalize material out of exhibition catalogues, and periodically released materials often contain identical or closely related elements. I tend not to merge and shrink segments very often, but I also have no qualms about making two sentences into one, with the result that my TM contains two half sentences.
I use Wordfast Classic for every project. I don't know if it really should be counted as a CAT or not, maybe it is a kind of dwarf-CAT. It does a lot of the things that normal CATs do, but it is severely limited in a lot of ways, but also has a lot of distinctive advantages for a lot of tranlators.
It does not help me to get more projects and none of my clients ever send me TMs, but it is a giant help for editing, the concordance function is very useful, and its developers have always put a lot of effort into its Mac version (although there is apparently a major compatibility problem with the newest Mac version of Word). So, if Tom were to take another shot at CATs, it might be the one CAT that might suit him. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 16:33
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Michael Wetzel wrote:
It makes a giant difference whether or not our work with a CAT is supposed to generate a productive TM.
I use Wordfast Classic for every project.
It does not help me to get more projects and none of my clients ever send me TMs, but it is a giant help for editing, the concordance function is very useful
I use Wordfast Classic for all my texts, too - marketing ones. I do occasionally accept a client's TM as well as glossary, but it's on the basis of helping me maintain consistency of style and I've never delivered an updated one. To be honest, my TMs are probably a right old muddle as I tend to clean the text and then do a final proofread, tweaking loads of things at that point. But it's no problem - I was never going to simply reuse that TU anyway.
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