ATA and Fluency 2013

We are excited for the ATA conference next week in San Diego. This is always a great time to network with translators, meet technology providers and learn about your trade. We will be providing both a tool tutorial and be exhibiting and look forward to seeing you all there.

Our main focus for this conference will be to introduce our new version of Fluency - Fluency 2013! We are really excited about it and the new features it offers, including: AutoCorrect, a fully customizable interface, a new project dashboard, unlimited online resources, track changes, and many more. This version will be officially released on the first day of the conference - Thursday, October 25. Please come by our booth and see it in action.

Our booth number is 65. To see an in-depth tutorial on it as well as other new technologies, come to our tutorial Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m.

Technology Wisdom

Here are some general tips for the technology ignorant and savvy alike - in no particular order:

1. Two monitors are better than one
2. Changing file formats (e.g. odt to doc) is a tricky business - avoid where possible
3. If you can't open a file to translate by double clicking on it, try right clicking it and selecting a text editor to open it with. If the text editor can't open it, or if all you see if jibberish, it's probably a binary/proprietary file.
4. Don't be completely dependent on one internet browser - they all have quirks
5. Doc and docx files can be converted to RTF with relatively little loss of information and RTF is a standard that any text editor should be able to open (though #2 above is still true)
6. Backup your data - hardware will go bad eventually
7. Antivirus software, while helpful, can also get in the way and hog computer resources - manage appropriately (one should be enough)
8. When you are completely stuck on an issue, do multiple Google searches, not just one, rephrasing your query by adding and removing specifics
9. XML files sound intimidating, but are just text with a bunch of tags (e.g. <XML>) - same with HTML
10. Upgrading just one portion of your computer hardware will often leave a bottle-neck elsewhere
11. Most versions of Windows 7 are 64 bit, and so you should try to get a 64 bit version of computer programs where available, as they make more RAM available
12. You can find out what's slowing your computer down by 1. Opening your Task Manager, going to the processes tab and seeing what is using your CPU and RAM and 2. Checking the hard drive light on your computer to see if it is lit up
13. Taking the time to learn OS and program shortcuts can help save a lot of time

Machine translation is to translation as...

Clipart is to art

Rap is to poetry

Facebook friends are to friends

Diet pills are to dieting

Automated speech recongition is to listening

A picture of the Great Wall of China is to visiting the Great Wall of China

Apple's Siri voice is to Morgan Freeman's voice

Continuing Education

One of the difficulties with being a professional in any field is staying up-to-date on new developments. Inundated with other demands and deadlines, you often leave continuing education to when you get that spare time you've always dreamed of, but never had. Often, the only education that you have time for is that which is crucial to complete a particular new task, and that education must be done quickly and efficiently in order to meet a deadline. In my experience, these generalities seem to hold true for professional translators as well. 

One field in particular that translators do not have the time or often the desire to further educate themselves in is that of technology, and translation technology in particular - after all, most translators didn't get into the field because they love computers. However, with the growing demands of the technological world, translators are often pushed into a scenario where they need technology and they need it now. Add in the countless complexities of technology that are carelessly thrown translators' way and the tight deadlines, and the scenario becomes dire. So what can be done once in this situation and how can this be avoided in the future?

Obviously, the outcome of these dire scenarios is varied but these are a few of the possibilities: 

• First, you could get ulcers, gray hair (and less total hair), and sleepless nights in the process of ramming your head against the technology wall until either your head or the wall breaks - not a particularly good outcome. 
•  Second, you can Google everything you don't know. These outcomes are as varied the quality of MT and much less funny.
•  Third, you can roll the dice with a technology forum. You could get lucky and get a useful and relevant reply, or you could never get anything at all.
•  Finally, you can turn to a colleague that has technological experience to determine what your course of action should be. This could have the ideal outcome or the same outcome as number one above. Your friend might be exactly the person to ask and have the solution. Or they could just know what works for them which may or may not help you. Either way, they are more likely to aid you in your work than a Google forum, or other uninterested 3rd party.

Given that dire situations most often have less-than desirable outcomes, avoiding future such scenarios should be your first priority. But once again, how do you do that with all the other demands on your time? May I venture a few suggestions:

•  Find technologically savvy friends and/or family members that you can count on in a crunch.
•  Follow translation technology blogs (shameless self-promotion) or other publications - the ATA Chronicle, MultiLingual magazine, Jost  Zetzsche's Toolbox newsletter, etc.  
• Get a translation tool - Fluency! - and stay up on how it works by scheduling training sessions a couple times a year. This has the side benefit of getting you access to technical support when necessary and if your tool has tech support like ours, this alone will often save you hours of stress.

Continuing education is a challenge in any field, but with the technological-tilt of the current translation world, it may be nowhere more crucial than in translation technology.

Top 10 Translation Technology Rumors (these are not true)

1. Trados 2011 is the pinnacle of CAT tools
2. Your CAT will work on your Mac
3. You must own Trados to work in this field
4. All file formats are created equal (e.g. a PDF is just like a Word document...)
5. Learning how to use a CAT is simple for everyone (though we try)
6. MT is NEVER useful
7. MT is ALWAYS useful
8. CAT tools/translation technology will lower your quality
9. My language pair is too difficult for CAT tools
10. You don't need tech support, your spouse/child/friend/dog can fix it

Linguists or Translators?

One thing all good translators know is that accurate terminology is really important. It's why translators usually list what domains they have experience in - because the ability to use the correct terminology is of utmost importance. Inside a particular domain, what otherwise would be normal words/phrases in a language can be claimed for precise terminology. For example, a few months ago I was talking to a business development guy at a company about translation software. He came from a military background and referred to himself as a linguist. I mentioned that I was also a linguist. I was referring to the fact that I have a B.A. in Linguistics. He, however, thought that meant that I had been a military translator/interpreter. In his domain, linguist and military translator/interpreter were synonymous. Usage, I think, tends toward making every linguist either a accent guru, or a translator who picks up languages for fun. Familiarity with the fields of syntax, semantics, morphology, phonetics, pragmatics, etc. are not what people think of when they think 'linguist', just someone who knows other languages.

This terminology domain overlap brings me to issues that we run into all the time here and, I think, are common terminology errors or conflicts in our domain of translation. Let me enumerate a few. Please let me know if any need to be modified or additional ones you think are often mischaracterized.

Translation Tool (translation software) - In our field, this term is too ambiguous. We either need to refer to CAT (computer aided translation) or MT (machine translation).

Translator - This is understood inside our world as a document translator. Outside our domain, I think the tendency is to assume this means interpreter, and while these skills overlap, they are not the same.

Fluent - There is a whole spectrum of potential adjectives you could assign to your non-native language. 'Fluent' I think is the most abused/ambiguous. It's useful to communicate general competence; it's too nebulous to base a reputation on.

Linguist - As I stated above, this means someone with knowledge in the fields of syntax, semantics, morphology, phonetics, pragmatics, etc.  A translator is not necessarily a linguist nor a linguist a translator.

PDF - This is a curse word. You shouldn't use it nor allow others to. If you must, please specify whether it is a 'live' (created from an electronic document) or 'dead' (scanned or image-based) PDF.

Terminology/Glossary - Some people get very religious about how to label a list of words/phrases with other language equivalents. Some of the problem here is that Terminology and Glossary have monolingual meanings as well that overlap in many ways. The jury still is out on what we should go with on this one - Wikipedia describes glossary and terminology VERY similarly as do their dictionary definitions.  Glossary on the whole seems to connote less structure, terminology more.

Localization - This term has largely been commandeered by the software industry. Localization and Internationalization (L10n and i18n) have specific meanings, but have now come to mean just translation of software (and occasionally websites) . But the word 'localization' also means to translate any content for a specific locale.

Computer literate - One of the main reasons for the burgeoning CAT market is that clients expect translators or LSPs to understand everything about electronic content regardless of format, structure (or lack thereof), etc. As unfair as this might be, a good rule of thumb is to error on the side of conservative about what you know and can handle for computer skills.

Let me know what other terms I’m missing.

Virtual LSP

One of our longtime users once told us that there is a "growing morass of daunting technology faced by translators." One place where this could not be more evident is in networking a small LSP or group of translators together. For a long time, networking was a thing only available to the few. If you were a large LSP, you could have your translators connect in and share TMs and terminology seamlessly. You could share projects without sending countless emails. But that was only for the big-boys. With more and more options in tools, this is changing. Networking is something everyone is coming to expect everywhere. And that's probably a good thing. But as a group of translators or small LSP, that means more questions for you to answer, more things to become familiar with, and all with an already overloaded schedule. So what do you do?

You certainly have options, but it can all get very confusing very quickly. Should you use a web based tool? How does that work if I need to work with someone that doesn't have reliable internet? What about data security? Do I need to sacrifice tool quality to enable better networking? Should you use a server version of a desktop tool? Will that allow real-time sharing of TMs and terminology? What's a server? What's a desktop? And how much should this all cost me?

IT, security, and tool-related headaches can pile up quickly - not to mention bills. With all of this in mind, we are offering something that I think is...for lack of a better word...game-changing. We call it the Virtual LSP. We've had the pieces for a while, but now we're putting them together. Essentially, we offer hosting for all your tool needs in a secure environment. Project management, TM/Terminology sharing, real-time collaboration, and the tool packaged together. You're not going to be sacrificing tool quality for networking capability, you are not going to have the IT and security related headaches, and you're not going to be breaking the bank. I'd love to quote you a price right here because I think you'd be impressed, but we are offering some custom discounts based on needs so send us an email asking for pricing or give us a call.