Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
INFORMÁTICA DE TRADUÇÃO
FALL SEMESTER 2008
Lesson 5
Teacher:
Elena Zagar Galvão
egalvao@netvisao.pt
egalvao@letras.up.pt
Webpage: web.letras.up.pt/egalvao
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Warm up activity
How much do you think you know
about MSWord?
Try this quiz and find out.
http://www.chaminade.org/MIS/Tutorials/Qui
zzes/BasicWordQuiz1.htm
FLUP - Elena Zagar Galvão
In pairs, discuss and find possible
answers to the following questions.
Do citizens of the ‘global village’ need
translation at all?
 English is often described as the lingua
franca of our day and age, but what is a
lingua franca?
 Why is the EU described by Austermühl as
one of the ‘few bastions against linguistic
uniformity’?

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In pairs, discuss and find possible
answers to the following questions.
What is glocalization and why is it
important for translation?
 What is machine-aided human translation
(MAHT)?
 What is human-aided machine translation
(HAMT)?
 How is translation technology used in the
different phases of the translation process?

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In pairs, discuss and find possible
answers to the following questions.

Name the three product types designed to
automate the translation process almost
entirely.
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Introduction to CAT tools
(based on http://www.horsefrog.com/japanese-translatorpatent/mod/resource/view.php?id=108)
Why study about CAT tools?
 What is a CAT tool?
 What does a CAT tool do?
 Advantages
 Disadvantages

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Why study about CAT tools?
Because CAT tools can:



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have to be used by necessity due to translation
companies’/clients’ demands;
improve translation consistency and quality.
enable reuse of translations done in the past.
improve translators’ productivity and thus
increase income.
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What is a CAT tool?
(Introduction provided by Hermann Bruns)
CAT stands for "Computer
Aided/Assisted Translation Tool".
The terms "Translation Memory"
and "TM" are sometimes used to
refer to the same type of tool. A CAT
tool is a computer program that
helps a translator to work efficiently.
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This is achieved through three main functions:
1.
A CAT tool breaks texts into
segments (sentences or sentence
fragments) and presents the
segments in a convenient way, to
make translating easier and faster.
In some tools, for example Trados
and SDLX, each segment is
presented in a special box, and the
translation can be entered in another
box (right below the ST in Trados;
beside the ST in SDLX).
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2.
The translation of each segment is saved
together with the source text. Source text
and translation will always be treated and
presented as translation units (TU). You
can return to a segment at any time to
check the translation. There are special
functions which help to navigate through
the text and to find segments which need
to be translated or revised (quality
control).
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3.
A CAT tool saves the translation units in a
database, called translation memory (TM), so
that they can be re-used for any other text, or
even in the same text. Through special "fuzzy
search" features, the search functions of CAT
tools can also find segments which do not match
100%. This saves time and effort and helps the
translator to use consistent terminology
Besides these main functions many other functions may be included in CAT
tools, to make translating easier and increase productivity.
FLUP - Elena Zagar Galvão
Concordance
Most CAT tools also have what is known as a
"concordance” function. This is one of the most useful
functions of a CAT tool. When a segment of text within,
for example, a sentence is selected and the concordance
function run, a list of identical or similar matches will be
displayed to the user if such matches exist in the
translation memory. This is extremely useful in checking
terminology consistency because a large number of
terms can be checked almost instantly using a single
concordance search. This is also useful in checking
consistency of phrasing of particular expressions
throughout a similar document, or in ensuring that two
translations performed separated by a large gap in time
(for example, one or two years) are still translated in a
similar manner.
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Terminology Management
CAT tools will also usually include some
kind of terminology management
interface for handling storage,
management and insertion of
terminology. This makes it possible to
create terminology databases
associated with a particular job or jobs.
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Advantages
 Quality Assurance
(Consistency,
Term Checking/Management)
 Speed
 Re-use
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Disadvantages
 the
file must be in electronic
format.
 mistakes repeated.
 tendency to translate at lower
linguistic levels (sentences,
phrases, collocations,words)
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SDL TRADOS
Company website
http://www.sdl.com/en/products/productsindex/sdl-trados/
Headquarters: UK (Maidenhead)
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How to produce a quote
You receive a Request for
Quotation (RFQ)
PT: Pedido de Orçamento
How do you proceed?
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When a TM is available, quotes are
produced on the basis of:
 Perfect
matches and Repetitions
in doc or existing in TM
 Fuzzy matches (between 50 and
99%)
 No match/New segments (not in
TM)
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How much? (not to be taken too
seriously)



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No match/New segments (not in TM) are the most
expensive (full price)
High Fuzzy matches (85% to 99%): 35% of full price
Fuzzy matches (75% to 84%): 35% of full price
Fuzzy matches (75% to 84%): 55% of full price
Fuzzy matches (65% to 74%): 75% of full price
Repeated segments in doc or existing in TM (25-35% of
full price)
Perfect matches and Repetitions in doc
or existing in TM (0 EUR!!)
NB: If TM available is good, then work is easier and faster
and we can charge less.
FLUP - Elena Zagar Galvão