| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | creative translation with CAT tool? Thread poster: Simona Sgro
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Giles Watson 
Italy
Local time: 10:58
Italian to English
In memoriam | Let me explain | Aug 14, 2014 |
Simona Sgro wrote:
@Giles, you have reported exactly what I DON'T WANT to do. What's the help a cat tool can give you in the process you mentioned? It suggests repetitions? I don't need it, I need to avoid them most of the times!
Precisely.
Most of the time, I use the Studio concordance, autosuggest and autotext functions to select from past versions of words or phrases with multiple translations. On other occasions, they are critical to consistency.
I will have to work a lot more (to paste and copy and adjust and then past and copy again!!!!!!), edit every single fuzzy match and in the end be paid less. I really don't find any reasons for a translator to use a tool in this particular case.
Exporting/importing two-column text between Studio and Word is very easy - absolutely no copying and pasting! - as is keeping your TM up to date.
Please note that, as I said in my earlier post, I set an overall fee for each job before I begin. If the potential customer has other expectations, potential is what the customer remains.
Let me also add that the field is not technical.
The workflow in my earlier post is the one I use for the Corriere della Sera, which is not what I would call particularly technical.
| | | | | Ye olde technology | Aug 15, 2014 |
Let me preface this post by saying that, if you really hate working with CAT tools, you shouldn't feel obligated to do so: what's the point of being a freelancer if you can't choose how you spend your working hours, enjoying the kind of projects and clients you want?
Secondly, we need to separate the linguistic from the economic arguments in favor and against CAT tools; they are entirely separate issues, and everyone in this thread (from both camps) emphatically agreed that creative... See more Let me preface this post by saying that, if you really hate working with CAT tools, you shouldn't feel obligated to do so: what's the point of being a freelancer if you can't choose how you spend your working hours, enjoying the kind of projects and clients you want?
Secondly, we need to separate the linguistic from the economic arguments in favor and against CAT tools; they are entirely separate issues, and everyone in this thread (from both camps) emphatically agreed that creative texts should be assessed as individual, unique projects (I would posit this is true for all texts, but that's a topic for another discussion). The measurement unit used to estimate the effort needed is irrelevant (characters, words, fuzzies, pages, hours, moon cycles, cups of coffee): only you can assess their needs and set a price to your services accordingly.
Taking the money issue off the table, I find there is a profound lack of understanding about what CAT tools are and do. Please don't take this the wrong way (because none of us knew them at some point, and I'm sure even as we speak new tools are being developed of which we know nothing about), but if you confuse Computer Assisted Translation tools (CATs) with translation memories (TM) and machine translation (MT), you're not clear on the basic concepts (the first is a translation environment, the second is a relational database, and the third is a computational linguistics application). They truly are wildly different things! Understanding how they each work and interact, and how you can use them to your advantage is definitely quite a journey.
Many translators here have shared their experience with specific projects for creative texts, just as a sample of how CATs fit into this kind of work and what leverage they gain from them. It's really fantastic (to a geek like me at least) to read about how they use the different features for this or that (and oh I so hope CAT vendors at least skim some of these, so they can get plenty of new ideas and hone the features we already use!).
I wholeheartedly agree technology is here to help us instead of hinder us, and it can never stifle us unless we let it.
To get an idea what the arguments against CATs sound like to me, let me draw you a silly analogy: I think we can all agree that dictionaries are a basic staple for translators; there's certainly no argument that they're generally considered a good tool to have in your arsenal (I hereby decree a new acronym, Dictionary-Assisted Translation!). Can we translate without dictionaries? Certainly. Is a Dictionary-Assisted Translation better than one done without? Who knows; it's still down to the translator's skill.
As a parting thought, let me quote back some of the opinions voiced here against CAT tools, but with a tiny twist.
I hate using dictionaries even for technical jobs
Dictionaries do not leave much room for creativity.
I don't use dictionaries and I don't feel it's appropriate here
I personally find dictionaries hinder a creative approach to translation
(...) the flow of the transcreation will be limited by the dictionary.
I don't work with dictionaries either, and for this kind of job they aren't helpful at all.
As to using dictionaries for literary translation--they usually prove harmful (...) and disturb the creative process ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 09:58
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Plus one for using whatever proves helpful | Aug 17, 2014 |
Christine Andersen wrote:
I am with Rosana, Giles Watson and the others who use CATs for marketing texts.
It's not as though you HAVE to make full use of fuzzies, or keep a 1-to-1 correlation between sentences. In my case, I don't actually have TMs that mirror the delivered text exactly. When I get things close to the way I want them I dispense with using the tool and do the final editing in Word. I can always update the corresponding TU if it might be useful to do so. But my only deliverable is the translated text - I don't deliver unclean files or TMs and I rarely accept a TM from a client, and only ever as a guide.
Like the others above, I refuse to compromise on quality, but I do make use of all the useful features I can (I'm not very good at anything to do with IT so I'm a very basic Wordfast Classic user): concordance, glossary and the QA features mainly, with very occasional useful matches; and I love the way the CAT makes it impossible for you to leave a whole chunk untranslated (nasty surprise in the proofreading stage close to the deadline!), and lets you do your job without worrying about formatting etc.
It's when I don't use the CAT tool that I find I have too much copy/paste work to do, and that always makes me bored and I end up pressing the wrong buttons, or pasting in the wrong place - and then errors start to creep in.
But no discounts for fuzzies unless they really are 95% + AND re-usable. (Names, dates, addresses, fixed details and slogans...)
I don't give discounts for fuzzies, full stop. If there are a high number of 100% matches or repetitions, then I'll offer a discount on the job, but not per match. I'm not being driven down that path to hell.
| | | | Simona Sgro
Italy
Local time: 10:58
English to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks a lot for your help, suggestions and opinions. In the end I can say it has been a great idea to open this topic: I still don't have a good opinion about Cat tools but I realized I need to give them a chance in order to decide if they can be of some help in my case or not. I don't have enough experience with those tools to say I can't use them for creative translations. Maybe it's only a matter of method.
I'll try with this project and and will keep you up to date! ... See more Thanks a lot for your help, suggestions and opinions. In the end I can say it has been a great idea to open this topic: I still don't have a good opinion about Cat tools but I realized I need to give them a chance in order to decide if they can be of some help in my case or not. I don't have enough experience with those tools to say I can't use them for creative translations. Maybe it's only a matter of method.
I'll try with this project and and will keep you up to date!
Thanks. ▲ Collapse
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| I did not use CAT for marketing texts, | Sep 26, 2014 |
however, in general, I think that CAT tools and creative translation don't mesh together well. Yes, it is possible to segment differently, to join segments, to export and edit in Word and so on. But I find that, quite often, in creative texts that first insight or intuition you have imprints itself on the end result, and is very hard to budge later. And my first intuitions tend to be different when I use a CAT tool.
I did an experiment once, when I was just beginning to explore the ... See more however, in general, I think that CAT tools and creative translation don't mesh together well. Yes, it is possible to segment differently, to join segments, to export and edit in Word and so on. But I find that, quite often, in creative texts that first insight or intuition you have imprints itself on the end result, and is very hard to budge later. And my first intuitions tend to be different when I use a CAT tool.
I did an experiment once, when I was just beginning to explore the possibilities of CAT tools. I had two articles to translate, roughly the same amount of words. They were intellectual articles which required creative approach - that type of articles, where half of the time the authors speak in dry academic language, and half of the time they are playing with words and sentence structures. I deliberately put one article in a CAT tool, and another in good old Word. The outcome? The Word translated article turned out definitely better. The CAT one actually took longer to translate, and in the end, it required a lot of editing in Word, and even then I felt that it flowed less naturally than the first one. Of course, it's easy to say that back then I didn't have much experience with CAT - but for me, the results of this little experiment were quite convincing.
That said, I think it's possible to use CAT with at least some kinds of marketing texts. I used to translate some promotional materials which would have definitely benefited from a TM. They were recurring about once in half a year and had a lot of repetitive segments, and it took a lot of my time to check that everything remained consistent - since, naturally, I could not remember how I translated them six months ago!
Depending on your text, it may be possible to translate first the most creative parts in Word, and then import everything in a CAT tool and do more routine translation/consistency check there. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 09:58
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Shows how many ways there are to skin a cat | Sep 26, 2014 |
Julia Stepanchuk wrote:
Depending on your text, it may be possible to translate first the most creative parts in Word, and then import everything in a CAT tool and do more routine translation/consistency check there.
That's exactly the reverse of the way I handle creative marketing texts, which is to do a first translation with consistency checking in my CAT tool, then edit the text extensively, preferably in a couple of sessions, in Word to make it flow naturally and sound really good in English.
| | | | | Yes, that would be the normal way! :) | Sep 26, 2014 |
Sheila Wilson wrote: That's exactly the reverse of the way I handle creative marketing texts, which is to do a first translation with consistency checking in my CAT tool, then edit the text extensively, preferably in a couple of sessions, in Word to make it flow naturally and sound really good in English.
And it usually works for many texts. But for me, the more creative the text, the more I need to have my first impression and first draft away from CAT tool. I find that CAT constricts my vision somehow. For those who have similar experience, it may be worth experimenting a bit with non-orthodox ways to use CAT!
However, as I said, I did not try CAT with marketing texts, and I imagine it may work quite well. I'm still firmly against using CAT in literary translation though.
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