Usage of TM: Virtues and Vices
Translation memory (TM) techniques, the most widely used toolkits in the localization of digital information at HQ-translate agency, enable the translation and international 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 file has been broken down into manageable 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 increase translation quality by proving that terms and statements are used consistently within and across translations. Users in industry and transnational firms state a 25–60% rise in performance. 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 operate at sentence level. Thus, there is a serious danger that the translator will focus too much on isolated 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. Thus, the human translator’s notion of the level of similarity between a part to be translated and a segment retrieved from the database may differ considerably from the degree of similarity calculated by the CAT system. This may cause situations wherein exact matches imply 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 CAT systems, see Expert Advisory Group on Language Engineering Standards (1996), Whyman and Somers (1999), and Reinke (2000a, 2004). Despite the contras, it should be noted that TM systems generally integrate into the translation workflow comparatively smoothly. These CATs leave human translators in control of the actual translation work, while relieving them from routine work and supporting translation as a creative activity whenever the linguistic resourcefulness of a human being is required. For more remarks, visit us at: HQ-translate company
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