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WFC: What do YOU use the BTM for?
Thread poster: Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 12:03
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Oct 8, 2015

Hello everyone

I'm curious about what other WFC users use the BTM for.

I myself use it in a way which is apparently not the intended way. In discussions with WFC developers it appears that the BTM is supposed to be your most reliable TM that you'd want WFC to consult first.

I have always used the BTM as a sort of secondary TM, i.e. a subject-specific big mama TM, which contains many segments from a variety of clients or even from a range of fellow-translat
... See more
Hello everyone

I'm curious about what other WFC users use the BTM for.

I myself use it in a way which is apparently not the intended way. In discussions with WFC developers it appears that the BTM is supposed to be your most reliable TM that you'd want WFC to consult first.

I have always used the BTM as a sort of secondary TM, i.e. a subject-specific big mama TM, which contains many segments from a variety of clients or even from a range of fellow-translators or even aligned material. For me, the active TM is the main TM, the most reliable TM, the TM from which I prefer to get matches. That is also why I change "Translation_MemoryOrder=BTM,TM,VLTM" to "TranslationMemoryOrder=TM,BTM,VLTM" in Pandora's Box. I also penalise BTM matches by 5%.

[This has had one unfortunate side-effect, though. Whenever I get an exact match from the BTM, and I either accept that match or edit that match, then the match is not added to my active TM (and it is not updated in the BTM either, since the BTM is a read-only TM), which means that every time that segment appears, I have to re-accept or re-edit and accept it. This wastes time, but it also makes my translation less consistent because I can't always remember exactly how I fixed the segment previously.]

So, how do *you* use the BTM?

Thanks
Samuel
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neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 12:03
Spanish to English
+ ...
The what now? Oct 8, 2015

I've used WFC in my own rudimentary, wing and a prayer basis, for a few years now, but have no idea what the BTM is. I suppose TM will be Translation Memory, but the B has me stumped...

PS: Nor do I have the foggiest idea what this means either:""Translation_MemoryOrder=BTM,TM,VLTM" to "TranslationMemoryOrder=TM,BTM,VLTM" in Pandora's Box. I also penalise BTM matches by 5%."

However, it hasn't stopped me using WFC - as I said, in my own rudimentary fashion - and I alwa
... See more
I've used WFC in my own rudimentary, wing and a prayer basis, for a few years now, but have no idea what the BTM is. I suppose TM will be Translation Memory, but the B has me stumped...

PS: Nor do I have the foggiest idea what this means either:""Translation_MemoryOrder=BTM,TM,VLTM" to "TranslationMemoryOrder=TM,BTM,VLTM" in Pandora's Box. I also penalise BTM matches by 5%."

However, it hasn't stopped me using WFC - as I said, in my own rudimentary fashion - and I always get the job done in the end. I don't even bother using the glossary function.

[Edited at 2015-10-08 08:34 GMT]
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Britt Laux
Britt Laux  Identity Verified
Local time: 12:03
German to Norwegian
+ ...
BTM as a secondary source Oct 8, 2015

For years, I used only one TM, but recently I discovered the BTM. I use it as a secondary TM and did not know about the settings you describe here. I have one big TM that I normally use, and add one smaller, specific one as BTM if necessary (a TM created for a specific job or customer).

 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 12:03
Spanish to English
+ ...
So the B stands for? Oct 8, 2015

B. D. Laux wrote:
...I have one big TM that I normally use, and add one smaller, specific one as BTM if necessary (a TM created for a specific job or customer).


OK, so from this post I understand that a BTM is "a TM created for a specific job or customer"... all that remains to be revealed is what the "B" stands for.

As it happens, I have at least one TM for each client. For some clients, I have more than one translation memory, depending on the company area. For example, for my best client, I have one TM which is specifically for software strings, another specifically for tweets, another for general business/marketingtexts and then another for more technical manuals.

For another client, a marketing research company, I have one TM for surveys, another for general marketing/business texts, and another for verbatim interview responses. And so on.


 
Britt Laux
Britt Laux  Identity Verified
Local time: 12:03
German to Norwegian
+ ...
Background TM Oct 8, 2015

neilmac wrote:

OK, so from this post I understand that a BTM is "a TM created for a specific job or customer"... all that remains to be revealed is what the "B" stands for.

As it happens, I have at least one TM for each client. For some clients, I have more than one translation memory, depending on the company area. For example, for my best client, I have one TM which is specifically for software strings, another specifically for tweets, another for general business/marketingtexts and then another for more technical manuals.

For another client, a marketing research company, I have one TM for surveys, another for general marketing/business texts, and another for verbatim interview responses. And so on.


The B stands for "background". In you case, you could use the TM of one of your other clients as a BTM if you know that the subject is related.


 
Charlie Bavington
Charlie Bavington  Identity Verified
Local time: 11:03
French to English
I don't Oct 8, 2015

Samuel Murray wrote:

So, how do *you* use the BTM?



I do know what it means and used it once or twice in the past (years ago) without really understanding the point of it, in the way it is set up (by which I mean I don't understand why a memory called "Background" would take priority over the TM actually being used).

It did, however, give me the idea that if I thought more than one TM might be useful, I could easily use Notepad to concatenate them into one temporary TM to use for the job in hand while it is in progress, and then re-attach the single TM most approporiate to the project just before clean-up. Seems to work.

I realise it's not really answering your Q but perhaps you'd like an idea of whether people use them at all, or whether WFC users' attitude to BTMs is like school-run drivers' attitude to indicators - it was nice of the manufacturer to put them there, but they don't understand them very well so they don't use them.

I am nonetheless interested in how other people DO manage to use them beneficially, so here I am....

[Edited at 2015-10-08 09:19 GMT]


 
Lori Cirefice
Lori Cirefice  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 12:03
French to English
big mama Oct 8, 2015

I use BTM pretty much the same way as you Samuel. My BTM is a mishmash of various subjects and clients, it's there so I can use it for context search only, I like it to have as much content as possible, you never know when something you translated 6 years back might come in handy. My BTM almost never serves matches. Matches are always served by the project or subject/client specific TM.

 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 12:03
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Replies so far Oct 8, 2015

neilmac wrote:
I have no idea what the BTM is. I suppose TM will be Translation Memory, but the B has me stumped...


The "BTM" is the "background TM". In WFC, on a single computer without a server edition, you can use two TMs, namely the "TM" or "active TM" (which is a read-write TM) and the "BTM" (which is a read-only TM).

When WFC searches for matches, by default it consults the BTM first, and if it finds no matches, then it consults the active TM. This made sense originally, because originally (in older WFC versions) the BTM served only exact matches and no fuzzy matches. However, in the current versions of WFC, the BTM can also serve fuzzy matches.



Nor do I have the foggiest idea what this means either: "Translation_MemoryOrder=BTM,TM,VLTM" to "TranslationMemoryOrder=TM,BTM,VLTM" in Pandora's Box.


There is a thing in WFC called "Pandora's Box" (often called "PB"). It is a place where you can change the default behaviour of WFC features that didn't make it into the normal options menus. Now, remember I said that by default WFC consults the BTM first? You can change that behaviour by making a small change in the PB entry "Translation_MemoryOrder", by changing it from "BTM,TM,VLTM" to "TM,BTM,VLTM" (you also have to remove the underscore, to make the setting active).



Nor do I have the foggiest idea what this means either: I also penalise BTM matches by 5%.


In WFC's settings, you can "penalise" a fuzzy match by a certain number of percentage points, based on the match's attributes.

For example, if your TM contains segments from a translator whose User ID is "AB" and you don't really trust that translator, you can tell WFC to "penalise" AB's matches by e.g. 5%. This means that if a 100% match is found in the TM, but the segment's User ID is "AB", then WFC will show the match value as 95% (and will show it in red).

Similarly, you can tell WFC to penalise matches from the TM or the BTM. Suppose you don't really trust the active TM that you're using, you can penalise the active TM (called "TM" in WFC) by e.g. 1%. This means that a 100% match from the TM will be displayed as a 99% match, giving you time to double-check if you really want to accept that 100% match.



B. D. Laux wrote:
I have one big TM that I normally use, and add one smaller, specific one as BTM if necessary (a TM created for a specific job or customer).


Thanks. This would not work for me, because I prefer my big mama TM to contain only validated segments, and I would not want WFC to add segments to it that haven't been edited or proofread yet. This is why I use my active TM as the temporary TM, and my BTM as the big mama TM.

Lori Cirefice wrote:
My BTM is a mishmash of various subjects and clients ... My BTM almost never serves matches.


My BTMs are also "big mama TMs", but are subject-specific, so I do tend to get matches from them, particularly for document types where different clients send files that are very similar to each other.


[Edited at 2015-10-08 09:46 GMT]


 
Jean Lachaud
Jean Lachaud  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 07:03
English to French
+ ...
I use it as a secondary TM Oct 8, 2015

I have two "main"' TMs: one for Canadian French, the other one for the real thing.

Depending on the target language (FR-FR, or FR-CA), I use the reciprocal TM as BTM.

I also have a few minor TMs, either client-, or job-specific. In such cases, I use my main TM as BTM.



Samuel Murray wrote:

I'm curious about what other WFC users use the BTM for.



 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 12:03
Spanish to English
+ ...
Spot on Oct 9, 2015

Charlie Bavington wrote:
I realise it's not really answering your Q but perhaps you'd like an idea of whether people use them at all, or whether WFC users' attitude to BTMs is like school-run drivers' attitude to indicators - it was nice of the manufacturer to put them there, but they don't understand them very well so they don't use them.
I am nonetheless interested in how other people DO manage to use them beneficially, so here I am....

[Edited at 2015-10-08 09:19 GMT]


Charlie's comment (it was nice of the manufacturer to put them there, but they don't understand them very well so they don't use them) sums up my WFC experience perfectly. If I have to spend more than 5 or ten minutes finding out what a function is or how to get it to work, I tend to get fidgety and give up because I want to get back to work ASAP.

For example, I'd like to be able to get it to leave the original segment punctuation intact, and I know it is probably possible to set this up, but I just never seem to get round to doing it correctly. As for glossaries, I tried creating a few for my main clients, but never managed to find out how to insert terms from the glossary into translated segments successfully, and usually find it quicker to simply type them in.

Please excuse my ignorance folks, I'm finding this thread very interesting so far


 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 12:03
Spanish to English
+ ...
Wood for the trees... Oct 9, 2015

[quote]Samuel Murray wrote:

The "BTM" is the "background TM". In WFC, on a single computer without a server edition, you can use two TMs, namely the "TM" or "active TM" (which is a read-write TM) and the "BTM" (which is a read-only TM).

When WFC searches for matches, by default it consults the BTM first, and if it finds no matches, then it consults the active TM. This made sense originally, because originally (in older WFC versions) the BTM served only exact matches and no fuzzy matches. However, in the current versions of WFC, the BTM can also serve fuzzy matches.



Thanks for clearing that up for me, Samuel. I'm not sure I really grasp the notion of the two TMs working at the same time, but I'll take your word for it. It appears that I'm only using active TMs all the time, but it doesn't seem to do me any harm. And I'm not really interested in fuzzy matches either - in fact, I sort of developed an aversion to the whole notion of fuzziness after having to translate several texts about fuzzy logic, which I really did not enjoy at all.

Nevertheless, this has been a most illuminating thread for me so far, so thanks to everyone contributing


 
Michael Wetzel
Michael Wetzel  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 12:03
German to English
Wordfast Classic Shortcuts Oct 9, 2015

Neil, here's a link that might be interesting (or might make you fidgety):

https://www.wordfast.net/wiki/Wordfast_Classic_Main_Shortcuts

You can search (Ctrl+F in most or all browsers) the following commands on the page:
I think "Alt+Insert" is what you mean by leaving the original segment intact (by inserting it intact into the target box).... See more
Neil, here's a link that might be interesting (or might make you fidgety):

https://www.wordfast.net/wiki/Wordfast_Classic_Main_Shortcuts

You can search (Ctrl+F in most or all browsers) the following commands on the page:
I think "Alt+Insert" is what you mean by leaving the original segment intact (by inserting it intact into the target box).
I use glossaries a lot and all you need to use them (after setting them up with "Ctrl+T") is "Ctrl+Alt+Right" [or Left] to get to the highlighted source term you want and then "Ctrl+Alt+Down" to insert the term into the target box.

My own use of Wordfast Classic is pretty primitive, so I suppose I find it comforting in some sense to know that there are people are getting even less out of it.
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 12:03
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
@Neil Oct 9, 2015

neilmac wrote:
For example, I'd like to be able to get it to leave the original segment punctuation intact, and I know it is probably possible to set this up, but I just never seem to get round to doing it correctly.


WFC does not alter punctuation by default.

As for glossaries, I tried creating a few for my main clients, but never managed to find out how to insert terms from the glossary into translated segments successfully...


Create glossary entry:
1. Select source term, press Ctrl+Alt+T
2. Select target term, press Ctrl+Alt+T
3. Edit the terms if you want to, and click OK

Selecting a term:
Ctrl+Alt+left or right

Inserting a selected term:
Ctrl+Alt+down

Or: inserting a non-selected term:
type the first few letters of the source term, and press Tab
(doesn't always work; sometimes need Tab more than once)


 
DorothyX (X)
DorothyX (X)
France
Local time: 12:03
BTM Oct 9, 2015

I learned WF Classic on my own with version 3.0 before there was a real manual.
I know that BTM stands for background TM, but after toying a bit with it I decided not to use it.
Instead I created one TM per end client, sometimes two or three (I have two source languages and translate legal and technical stuff).

Then I assisted at one of Yves' trainings. He told about this 'big mama' and it seemed highly important, because lots of translations would come up immediately.... See more
I learned WF Classic on my own with version 3.0 before there was a real manual.
I know that BTM stands for background TM, but after toying a bit with it I decided not to use it.
Instead I created one TM per end client, sometimes two or three (I have two source languages and translate legal and technical stuff).

Then I assisted at one of Yves' trainings. He told about this 'big mama' and it seemed highly important, because lots of translations would come up immediately.
The big disadvantage of it was for me that all of my clients have precise terminology, and if segments of various sources are mixed up in one and the same big TM, I would have very inconsistent translations. ==>Conclusion, for me the first TM should be the client TM, and the second TM, if any: the big mamma (with a read-only function).

(later I moved to WF Pro, which I found dissatisfying, and then to Studio, but both had the advantage that one could set several TMs at the same time and indicate the order in which segments should be picked up).
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Yves Champollion
Yves Champollion  Identity Verified
English to French
you can set the BTM as secondary, not primary Oct 10, 2015

DorothyX wrote:

I learned WF Classic on my own with version 3.0 before there was a real manual.
I know that BTM stands for background TM, but after toying a bit with it I decided not to use it.
Instead I created one TM per end client, sometimes two or three (I have two source languages and translate legal and technical stuff).

Then I assisted at one of Yves' trainings. He told about this 'big mama' and it seemed highly important, because lots of translations would come up immediately.
The big disadvantage of it was for me that all of my clients have precise terminology, and if segments of various sources are mixed up in one and the same big TM, I would have very inconsistent translations. ==>Conclusion, for me the first TM should be the client TM, and the second TM, if any: the big mamma (with a read-only function).

(later I moved to WF Pro, which I found dissatisfying, and then to Studio, but both had the advantage that one could set several TMs at the same time and indicate the order in which segments should be picked up).


Hi Dorothy,

the obscure and obtuse setting in Setup > AS where you see something like

BTM,TM,WFA,WFS,MT1,MT2,MT3

lets you specifiy the pecking order among those animals. So you would want to rewrite it as

TM,BTM,WFA,WFS,MT1,MT2,MT3

and matches from the TM would come up before the BTM. But there is an even better way to sort your situation: set a penalty on the BTM. That is done in the TM rules pane. As a result, any "match" from the BTM will be degraded, and will never appear as exact match, thereby raising your attention if one crops up.

That assumes you've grown out of WFC 3.0 (chuckles), and I'm pretty sure you did! (and the manual hasn't made much progress. But hit youtube, type wordfast, and listen to great people explaining great stuff; fast forward on things you already know).

Kind regards,
yves



[Edited at 2015-10-10 09:47 GMT]

[Edited at 2015-10-10 09:49 GMT]


 
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