CAT Tools: Virtues and Vices
Translation memory (TM) arrangements, the most widely used toolkits in the localization of digital information at HQ-translate agency, enable the linguistic transition and transnational 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 text has been broken down into manageable items, generally one sentence long. Today the most popular CAT tools: TRADOS, Déjà vu, Wordfast. The priviledges of using translation memory systems are fairly obvious: they increase the translator’s productivity and raise translation quality by securing that terminology and phrases are used consistently within and across translations. Users in governmental and cross-border firms submit 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 perform at sentence level. That’s why, there is a real danger that the translator will focus too much on isolated sentences, possibly disregarding the contexts in which the sentences are introduced. Moreover, the matching algorithms of TM systems are based on very plain formal criteria, such as the similarity of character strings. Thus, the human translator’s notion of the degree 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 result in 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 value 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 drawbacks, it should be noted that TM systems generally incorporate into the translation routine relatively smoothly. These CATs leave human translators in control of the real translation work, while liberating them from routine work and supporting translation as a creative activity whenever the linguistic resourcefulness of a human being is required. For more knowledge, visit us at: HQ-translate company
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