tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35183342024-03-15T19:09:50.413-06:00About TranslationInformation, news and opinions about professional translation: the Aliquantum blogRiccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.comBlogger545125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-72897534790047017292023-07-05T12:41:00.003-06:002023-07-05T14:03:26.259-06:00Italian and English installable or online dictionaries <p>I first wrote about the Italian bilingual and monolingual dictionaries available online some eighteen years ago. Since, however, such links are liable to change, with old sites disappearing and new ones taking their place, below is an up-to-date list of sites that offer English-Italian, Italian monolingual, and other Italian bilingual dictionaries.</p>
<ul>
<li>Picchi’s English-Italian dictionary (published by Hoepli) is available for free from La Repubblica website:
<a href="https://dizionari.repubblica.it/">Dizionari - La Repubblica</a>. The same site also offers the <b>Grande Dizionario di Italiano Hoepli</b> and Hoepli’s Dizionario dei sinonimi.</li>
<li>The current incarnation of the excellent <b>Sansoni</b> English-Italian dictionary (published by Rizzoli) is available online at the Corriere della Sera website: <a href="https://dizionari.corriere.it/">Dizionari e Traduttori - Corriere della Sera</a>. The same web page also offers several other Italian monolingual dictionaries, like the Dizionario dei modi di dire and a Dizionario di citazioni, and Italian-Spanish, Italian-French and Italian-German and Latin-Italian bilingual dictionaries.</li>
<li>The venerable <b>Hazon</b> English-Italian dictionary is available from the Garzanti website: <a href="https://www.garzantilinguistica.it/ricerca/">Garzanti Linguistica</a>, where you can also find Garzanti’s Italian monolingual dictionary and an Italian-French bilingual dictionary.</li>
<li>The English-Italian bilingual dictionary I’m currently using most often is <b>Ragazzini’s</b>. You can subscribe to it on Zanichelli’s site (<a href="https://dizionari.zanichelli.it/">Dizionari online Zanichelli</a>). From the same site you can subscribe to several other dictionaries, including Zingarelli (Italian monolingual), several specialized English-Italian bilingual dictionaries, and other bilingual dictionaries including Italian-Spanish, Italian-French, Italian-German, Italian-Russian, Italian-Arabic, Italian-Modern Greek, Italian-Chinese and Italian Japanese.</li>
<li><b>Oxford-Paravia</b> <i>Concise</i> English-Italian dictionary is available as a (paid) subscription from the <a href="https://www.mobisystems.com/concise-oxford-italian-dictionary/">MobySystems</a> website.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.wordreference.com/enit/"><b>WordReference.com</b></a> offers free access to a useful English-Italian dictionary, as well as several other online dictionaries.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://www.elexico.com/en/index.html"><b>eLexico.com</b></a> website offers a wide range of bilingual and monolingual dictionaries, either via online subscriptions (generally more expensive than those available from Zanichelli), downloadable installable dictionaries, or both things combined. Among the dictionaries downloadable from eLexico.com are Picchi, Sansoni, and many others; unfortunately, the excellent Italian monolingual Devoto-Oli is no longer available for individual subscription, though it is offered for multi-user subscriptions.</li>
<li>While the bilingual dictionaries offered by eLexico include Marolli’s <b>Grande Dizionario Tecnico Inglese</b>, it is cheaper to buy it as a Windows app from <a href="https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/dizionario-tecnico-inglese-marolli/9P26F9ZBCV8K?hl=it-it&gl=it">this link</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.lexicool.com/"><b>Lexicool.com</b></a> lets the user search many dictionaries. You can find <a href="https://www.lexicool.com/italian-dictionary-translation.asp">Italian-English bilingual</a> dictionaries, as well as many other linguistical resources. </li><li>The <b><a href="https://www.treccani.it/">Treccani</a></b> website offers access to the <a href="https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/">Enciclopedia italiana</a> online, to the Italian language <a href="https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/">Vocabolario</a>, and to a good <a href="https://www.treccani.it/sinonimi/">Italian synonyms</a> dictionary. </li><li><a href="https://dizionario.internazionale.it/"><b>Il Nuovo De Mauro</b></a> is a very useful Italian monolingual dictionary and can be consulted for free online.</li><li>Francesco Urzì’s indispensable <b><a href="http://combinazioni-lessicali.com/">Dizionario delle Combinazioni Lessicali</a></b> is available as a (paid) online resource. </li><li>Finally, for those of us who try to resist the tide of useless, redundant (and often misleading and incorrect) anglicisms in Italian, Antonio Zoppetti offers <b><a href="https://aaa.italofonia.info/">il dizionario delle Alternative agli Anglicismi, significati e sinonimi in italiano</a></b>.</li></ul>
Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-84745672077258028402023-07-03T18:37:00.002-06:002023-07-03T18:37:52.090-06:00How to access Microsoft terminology now that Microsoft shut down its Language Portal<p>On June 30, Microsoft closed the Microsoft Language Portal. For at least a few weeks before that, a message appeared on the Portal, with links from which the users could download Microsoft Terminology and Style Guides.</p><p>Those links disappeared with the Portal, but it is still possible to download the style guides and access both terminology and the UI strings: </p><p>See below:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/reference/microsoft-language-resources">An article that explains how to access various Microsoft language resources</a></li><li><a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/reference/microsoft-style-guides">Links to download style guides in many languages</a> </li><li><a href="https://msit.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiODJmYjU4Y2YtM2M0ZC00YzYxLWE1YTktNzFjYmYxNTAxNjQ0IiwidCI6IjcyZjk4OGJmLTg2ZjEtNDFhZi05MWFiLTJkN2NkMDExZGI0NyIsImMiOjV9">Search the terminology</a></li><li><a href="https://msit.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiMmE2NjJhMDMtNTY3MC00MmI2LWFmOWUtYWM5YTVjODI5MjQwIiwidCI6IjcyZjk4OGJmLTg2ZjEtNDFhZi05MWFiLTJkN2NkMDExZGI0NyIsImMiOjV9">Search the UI strings</a> </li></ul>The interface provided to search the terminology and UI strings is Microsoft Power BI, a “unified, scalable platform for self-service and enterprise business intelligence (BI)”. <div><br /></div><div>Whether the access to terminology and UI strings through Power BI is temporary or permanent is unknown.<p></p></div><div>Subscribers to MSDN platforms used to be able to download all UI strings and terminology. I don’t know if that is still true.</div>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-74177887397926753442022-08-02T22:28:00.002-06:002022-08-02T22:28:54.865-06:00MTPE of Poor Quality Source Texts: Some Practical Suggestions<p>To achieve the best MT results, you should first correct the source text, when it is a scanned hard copy or an automatic transcription of recorded speech. Here are a few practical suggestions:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Choose the correct settings before running OCR. In particular, select the correct source language (you’ll see better suggestions during verification), select the correct graphic resolution for each page and the correct text direction for each piece of text, and de-skew and clean each page that requires it. Verification should be run by someone familiar with both the source language and the subject.</li><li>Correct misspelled or wrongly transcribed words.</li><li>Add “[sic]” after any word that you cannot identify and that you suspect is an artifact of the OCR process. This helps the post-editor focus on problem areas.</li><li>Capitalize proper nouns and acronyms.</li><li>Lower case incorrectly capitalized words.</li><li>Reassemble sentences broken up by periods (hard returns) or new lines (soft returns).</li><li>Feed the source text to the MT engine only after completing such corrections; doing otherwise will yield substandard results and will take longer to post-edit.</li></ul><p></p><p>When the source text is good, you can skip pre-editing, but, when it is questionable or poor, pre-editing enhances the quality of the resulting machine translation and helps the post-editor achieve the desired quality.</p>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-16651929175527671522021-07-27T07:00:00.001-06:002021-07-27T07:00:00.182-06:00An AutoHotkey solution to a memoQ problem<h3 id="the-memoq-problem">The memoQ problem…</h3>
<p>Some installations of memoQ suffer an annoying problem: cut and paste doesn’t work. The rest of the program works, as does copy and paste, but not the "paste" part of cut and paste: memoQ deletes your text at Ctrl+X all right, but it does not save it to the clipboard, so you have nothing to paste when you hit Ctrl+V.</p>
<p>If you try to perform the operation via the context menu, no luck, either: after Ctrl+X, paste (Ctrl+V) is greyed out.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='620' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dy4T6m9vPNvbH9osR-1WcQKRARsd6NbeavSC-5nQd2cQu0c9ljQw638Dsjr8u21s8I8gbOfjD8MPP4' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Cut and Paste not working in memoQ</span></h4><p>The problem appears unpredictably: you could have (as I do) two similar computers, with a similar panoply of software installed. On one cut and paste works as expected in memoQ, while in the other it doesn't.</p>
<p>memoQ’s support staff are aware of this problem, but (since they have never been able to reproduce it) their developers are unable to fix it. memoQ's support offer several suggestions that sometime work, from disabling other programs that might interfere with the clipboard, to deleting certain temporary files, and finally to that old favorite of all support organizations: reinstalling the program… but even reinstallation, for certain users, fails to correct the problem.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there is a simple workaround: instead of hitting Ctrl+X to cut and Ctrl+V to paste, you can add a step—copy (Ctrl+C), delete (Del), and finally paste (Ctrl+V)—but if you are accustomed to just using Ctrl+X/Ctrl+V in all other programs, you are likely to forget that you have to use different steps in memoQ.</p>
<h3 id="and-the-autohotkey-solution">...and the AutoHotkey solution</h3>
<p>So we need a more permanent solution, and one is at hand (this also is thanks to a suggestion from memoQ support): using an AutoHotkey<sup class="md-footnote"><a href="#dfref-footnote-1" name="ref-footnote-1">1</a></sup> script to replace the “cut” part of cut and paste.</p>
<p>Here is the script (complete with comments to explain what each step does):</p>
<pre><code class="language-ahk" lang="ahk"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">#NoEnv </span> <span style="color: #6aa84f;">; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future
<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> ; </span>AutoHotkey releases.</span>
<span style="color: #3d85c6;">SendMode Input</span> <span style="color: #6aa84f;">; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed</span>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">; </span><span style="color: #6aa84f;">and reliability.</span>
<span style="color: #3d85c6;">SetWorkingDir</span> %<span style="color: #2b00fe;">A_ScriptDir</span>% <span style="color: #6aa84f;">; Ensures a consistent starting directory.</span></code></pre><pre><code class="language-ahk" lang="ahk">^x:: <span style="color: #6aa84f;">; Assigns to the Ctrl+X shortcut the following actions:</span>
<span style="color: #2b00fe;">#IfWinActive</span> memoQ <span style="color: #6aa84f;">; ensures script works with memoQ only, not with other programs</span>
<span style="color: #3d85c6;">Send </span>^c <span style="color: #6aa84f;">; Copy (as if "Ctrl+C" had been pressed)</span>
<span style="color: #3d85c6;">Send </span>{del} <span style="color: #6aa84f;">; Delete (as if the "Delete" key had been pressed)</span>
<span style="color: #2b00fe;">#IfWinActive</span> <span style="color: #6aa84f;">; end of the "works in memoQ only" part of the script</span>
<span style="color: #2b00fe;">Return </span><span style="color: #6aa84f;">; end of the script</span>
</code></pre>
<p>You can use this script "as is" if you already have AutoHotkey installed: just copy the above code to an empty text file and save it with an .ahk extension; then, whenever you need to work in memoQ, double click on the script file to launch it. </p>
<p>If you use other AutoHotkey scripts, you also can add the above code snippet to one of your other scripts (so long as none of them tries uses Ctrl+X as a hotkey). And you can even compile the script to an independent .exe file, to use on computers where AutoHotkey is not installed.</p>
<p> </p>
<div class="footnotes-area"><hr />
<div class="footnote-line"><span class="md-fn-count">1</span> <a href="https://www.autohotkey.com/">AutoHotkey</a> is a free, open-source scripting language for Windows that allows users to easily create small to complex scripts. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#ref-footnote-1" name="dfref-footnote-1" title="back to document"></a></div></div>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-32172470824893395332021-07-26T07:00:00.001-06:002021-07-26T07:00:00.217-06:00Guest Post: Launching CLEAR Global: Translators without Borders Is 10 and Ready for More!<p><b>by Jennifer Cajina-Grigsby</b></p>
<p><br /></p>
<p>Translators without Borders begun when a small group of people translated information for aid organizations helping people hit by the Haiti earthquake 10 years ago. Driven to close the language gaps hindering critical humanitarian and international development efforts worldwide, the rapidly growing Translators without Borders team has achieved a lot since our founding. For example, we:</p>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Translated information following the earthquake in Haiti, tsunamis in Indonesia, cyclones in Mozambique, and hurricanes in the USA.</li>
<li>Translated 1,900 Wikimedia medical articles in 83 languages, which helped over 40 million people access free and accurate health information.</li>
<li>Created multilingual chatbots to give people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria accurate and reliable COVID-19 and Ebola information (read about <a href="https://translatorswithoutborders.org/covid-19">Translators without Borders’ COVID-19 global response</a> and <a href="https://translatorswithoutborders.org/twb-glossary-for-covid-19/">glossary</a>).</li>
<li>Started creating language maps in over 60 languages for organizations to better prepare for multilingual communication.</li>
</ul>
<p>This would have been impossible without the support of donors, partners, and our community of linguists, translators, and local experts: over 60,000 volunteers contributing time and skills for a world without language barriers. Some have been with us for almost 10 years. Their experience working with Translators without Borders allows them to polish their translation skills, learn about the language technology we’re building, and get a solid foundation for their careers in translation.</p>
<p>Translators Without Borders recognizes the work of its volunteers by giving recommendations, references, and milestone certificates when the volunteers reach a certain word threshold. We foster a relationship with our community based on reciprocity, fairness, and shared values. Our community members work when they can, producing content for people who speak marginalized languages.</p>
<p>Thanks to this community, our impact has increased over the past years. Since our foundation, we have significantly grown as an organization, but much is yet to be done. Thus, with Translators without Borders at our core, we have evolved our brand to <a href="https://clearglobal.org/">CLEAR Global</a>, which includes CLEAR Insights and CLEAR Tech: entities working together for a more just society. Our goal is to make sure that the four billion people who speak a marginalized language are listened to, and can get the information they need, want, and understand. That’s what CLEAR is all about: Community, Language, Engagement, Accountability, and Reach.</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZBNY_Jy-2494Ovv29xf0B3VnT1F346pF9_KhHYNSdX5X1vP19WJTG1siBFdK_tq5xuQdPIKQbFiQ_7giODO2El937fccOh32JsGi8nyTvU8Re7zuLvLHuMxI6apAzscHHRBw9tQ/s732/ClearGlobal.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="732" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZBNY_Jy-2494Ovv29xf0B3VnT1F346pF9_KhHYNSdX5X1vP19WJTG1siBFdK_tq5xuQdPIKQbFiQ_7giODO2El937fccOh32JsGi8nyTvU8Re7zuLvLHuMxI6apAzscHHRBw9tQ/w640-h253/ClearGlobal.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ClearGlobal website</td></tr></tbody></table><p>To go with this brand evolution, we’re running <a href="https://translatorswithoutborders.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/TWB-CLEAR_10-years-on.-Ready-for-more.pdf">a campaign to lead us into the next 10 years</a>. We want to raise funds for building diverse, scalable language technologies based on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Our teams and partners will use them to better communicate with local communities. We’ll implement solutions to help people who speak marginalized languages to ask for, receive, and share vital information.</p>
<p>As a nonprofit, we’re always seeking support. If our cause and growth resonates with you, you can <a href="https://translatorswithoutborders.org/volunteer/">join our community right now</a>. If you want to do more to support our growth, you can also help us spread the word about our “<a href="https://translatorswithoutborders-7434578.hs-sites.com/donate-summer-usd">10 years on. Ready for more</a>” campaign or even <a href="https://translatorswithoutborders-7434578.hs-sites.com/donate-summer-usd">make a donation</a>. Every contribution counts and will contribute to improving other people’s lives.</p>
<p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>About the author:</b></p>
<p>Jennifer Cajina-Grigsby, before joining Translators without Borders, worked as a freelance translator for US nonprofits. Jennifer has always been passionate about language diversity and how to help bridge the global language divide. Her desire to do more led her to Translators without Borders, a nonprofit helping people get vital information, and be heard, whatever language they speak. </p><p><br /></p>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-76485795365149665992021-07-13T09:56:00.006-06:002021-07-13T09:56:34.776-06:00Translations from Italian and into ItalianA couple of links for those interested in Italian translation:
<p><a href="https://www.mondadori.it/media/news-comunicati-stampa-e-social/2021/tutto-quello-che-avreste-voluto-sapere-sul-lavoro-del-traduttore">Nota del Traduttore</a>, a YouTube series from Italian publisher Gruppo Mondadori, in which several Italian translators speak about their work.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/issue/july-2021-afro-italian-women-writers?utm_source=Words+Without+Borders+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=0e9f1bf825-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_04_15_2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_702933ac31-0e9f1bf825-269880516&ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_04_15_2019_COPY_01)&mc_cid=0e9f1bf825&mc_eid=9b8205f43b">Backstories: Afro-Italian Women Writers</a>, in the July/August 2021 issue of WORDS <em>without</em> BORDERS, The Online Magazine for International Literature: </p><p></p><blockquote>This issue presents writing by Afro-Italian women. In the face of xenophobic rhetoric and policies, Black Italians have pushed their country to confront its colonial past and engage with its present diversity.</blockquote><p></p>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-29539609479309279452021-07-05T13:15:00.003-06:002021-07-05T13:15:26.912-06:00Guest Post: The Studio Academy - Mastering File Types in Trados Studio<p><b>by Michael Widemann</b></p><p>Even though I have been using Trados products for nearly 20 years now, I only started digging deeper with the release of Studio in 2009. And this for a good reason.</p><p>As a project manager responsible for delivering multilingual translation projects to my clients, I am confronted with ever more different file formats, many of which are specific to only one client. This is especially true for XML. But there is so much more: Different versions of Microsoft Office documents, FrameMaker, InDesign, csv and text files, JSON or YAML. Every file type is based on a completely different concept and each new version comes with new features that make established processes redundant.</p><p>What I needed was a completely different approach to how I use Studio. The defaults were not good enough anymore.</p><p>Then, in 2009, I also started working as a Trados trainer where I had the chance to work with freelance translators, project managers at agencies and localization specialist in small and large companies all over the world. And what I soon began to realize is that – even though everybody has their own workflows – most of them work with Studio’s default settings. They install it and go for it.</p><p>And it works. Even if you have never worked with such a tool, the fundamental concepts are easy to understand: translation memory, concordance, terminology integration. Saves time and money. Great. Plus 51 file types right out of the box. Studio handles them all.</p><p>After all, this is Studio’s concept: Whether you know how InDesign works, what an XML file is made up of or have mastered the intricacies of JSON files – Studio makes it possible for you translate them. No questions asked. No job you need to turn down because you do not have the required software. Studio – even in its standard installation – extracts the text it deems translation-worthy and presents it to you in a uniform working environment.</p><p><b>Yet there seems to be a problem...</b></p><p>All these options might be overwhelming. How can you possibly decide on whether to extract content from Master Pages in InDesign documents, decide on the right Parser settings or if it is necessary to insert a UTF-8-BOM, for example, when you have no idea what this is all about? And what's the deal with regular expressions and segmentation rules?</p><p>This is the problem I aim to solve with “<a href="https://elopage.com/s/thestudioacademy" target="_blank">The Studio Academy</a>”: The complete guide to mastering file types in SDL Trados Studio:</p><p>-<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Detailed explanations on all available file type options, based on real-world examples.</p><p>-<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everything you need to know about the concept behind file types in order to make the right decisions.</p><p>-<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bonus information on embedded content, regular expressions, segmentation rules, XPath, ....</p><p><b>These modules are for you if...</b></p><p>-<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You don’t want a piece of software to make decisions for you. You want to be in control.</p><p>-<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You want to customize Studio to extract only the text you actually need. Not more, and certainly not less.</p><p>-<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You want to create your own file types to have the best solution for unknown file formats.</p><p>-<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You want to be able to handle files that do not follow any standard (e.g., HTML files copied to Excel) by using embedded content, regular expressions and customized segmentation rules like a pro.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSUG9zb6iveiDNOUXIzim2pTLVHDSqg9C_aKetiF1ibqLBWB2LDVG-CIGY_rQ6bvGTyzlzmL_r_-M20MNA-0kgCchwoddc6n27Qs4Q2N3l5uYTFxC4jZG40suBisQZ0hofCEnxnA/s1920/Freebie.003.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSUG9zb6iveiDNOUXIzim2pTLVHDSqg9C_aKetiF1ibqLBWB2LDVG-CIGY_rQ6bvGTyzlzmL_r_-M20MNA-0kgCchwoddc6n27Qs4Q2N3l5uYTFxC4jZG40suBisQZ0hofCEnxnA/w640-h360/Freebie.003.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where and when to customize file type settings</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><b>About the author:</b></p><div><div>Michael Widemann is a project manager at a translation agency and an approved Trados trainer with 20 years’ experience in the industry. He also works as a translator and has published several books, mainly about music, some of them with <a href="https://www.cosoc.de/" target="_blank">Cosoc Grand Palace Publishing</a> (his own publishing company). He is responsible for the German version of the Xbench manual, loves finding new ways to improve his workflow and hosts the podcast “<a href="http://cosocpodcasts.de" target="_blank">Keine Zeit</a>”, a weekly talk show about productivity, communication, motivation, goals, life and whatever else can go wrong.</div></div><div><br /></div>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-47999305941003883942021-07-03T11:49:00.001-06:002021-07-03T11:49:03.599-06:00Feed Burner Goes Away, and unfortunately so does your email subscription<p> If you subscribed to receive updates from About Translation by email, please note that, since Google is going to remove or restrict Feedburner, your subscription will stop working in July 2021.</p><p>I've already removed the link on this page that allowed readers to subscribe, since there is little point in accepting new subscriptions, if the entire subscription service will stop working soon; I'm currently looking into alternatives to send the updates to this blog to the readers who still wish to receive them. In the meantime, please note that I also automatically announce new posts to this blog via my Twitter feed (@RSchiaffino).</p>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-86270054421915886552021-06-30T11:06:00.000-06:002021-06-30T11:06:13.573-06:00memoQ Regex AssistantVersion 9.8 of memoQ includes the <a href="https://docs.memoq.com/current/en/Places/regex-assistant.html" id="id_f3c3_320e_4c95_6316">Regex Assistant</a>, a new tool that helps creating, validating and using regular expressions. I haven’t used the new feature extensively, yet, but look forward to exploring it more next time I use memoQ for a translation project.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HXvsehUvQu4njiaWjvC6adEGpn1rVBmK7qtTv3VjB_FBXZp6ZkxuarVhiWFlv2Opb7cbeFR47cEuwseLBGMGlOJMAdhILyMMpH-ijVWO1zlFNgGllKmWYCARDm_oOUMkLkcDLw/s658/RegexAssistant.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="631" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HXvsehUvQu4njiaWjvC6adEGpn1rVBmK7qtTv3VjB_FBXZp6ZkxuarVhiWFlv2Opb7cbeFR47cEuwseLBGMGlOJMAdhILyMMpH-ijVWO1zlFNgGllKmWYCARDm_oOUMkLkcDLw/w384-h400/RegexAssistant.jpg" width="384" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">memoQ 9.8 - Regex Assistant</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><div><br /></div></div>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-17352491053201576612021-04-16T19:32:00.003-06:002021-04-17T13:21:23.978-06:00Trados Studio 2021 - The Manual<p>Mats Linder has just published a new edition of his excellent Trados Studio manual, now covering version 2021 of the tool.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://tradosstudiomanual.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Framsida.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Cover of Trados Studio 2021 - The Manual" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="569" height="320" src="http://tradosstudiomanual.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Framsida.jpg" width="232" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><div>As usual, Mats has done a thorough job of describing the details of the new version of the tool, with one important exception, that Mats explains at the beginning of the new manual:<br /><blockquote>The 2021 version [of the tool] is mainly about the introduction of SDL Trados Live [...] The online editor will require many pages of documentation before it is covered to the same depth here as Studio. Upcoming editions of the 2021 manual will provide such documentation</blockquote>So, the new manual covers other important changes introduced by SDL (now RWS) in the new version of the tool, but doesn’t describe (yet) the details of Trados Live, the online version of the tool.<br /><br /></div><div>
Still, while we wait for Mats to also cover the new online tool, the 2021 manual is essential reading for all translators who want to make the most of the new features in the tool, including, for example, improvements to the advanced display filter.<br /><br /></div><div>
As usual Mats provides also a version of the manual which highlights the changes made to the previous edition. I’ve always found the highlighted version to be particularly useful: the highlights help readers skip to the places of the book which describe changes or new features.<br />
You can buy the Manual (or upgrade to the new edition) from Mat’s web page: <a href="http://tradosstudiomanual.com/">SDL Trados Studio - The Manual</a></div></div>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-61797208415972915102020-12-01T18:54:00.002-07:002020-12-01T18:55:08.794-07:00Guest post: Translators’ Attitudes towards Machine Translation<h4 style="text-align: left;">By Irene Chamali</h4><p>In my dissertation, I tackled the topic of Machine Translation vs. Translators, not only because I want to later become a translator myself, but also because I was always fascinated with technology and how it is used in different professions. My key question was: What are professional translators’ attitudes towards the technological tools created for their profession?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN37Jjk-8jiE9kOsI_RXS8_uDQq9AXwidu7Jr5xrtYyR_IIQRWyM56KnvAO53yizAzrzNvHoY4Wz1hyotYkqcHQQ3EHpqFqQ0EaqJVx3PqF0d6PqzId7riTVhXm5oEor9VPL6-Sg/s640/Irene+Word+Cloud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Word Cloud" border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN37Jjk-8jiE9kOsI_RXS8_uDQq9AXwidu7Jr5xrtYyR_IIQRWyM56KnvAO53yizAzrzNvHoY4Wz1hyotYkqcHQQ3EHpqFqQ0EaqJVx3PqF0d6PqzId7riTVhXm5oEor9VPL6-Sg/w400-h300/Irene+Word+Cloud.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Research Questions and Hypotheses</h2><p>My first question was “Do professional translators believe that Machine Translation (MT) increases their productivity?” What I found (from the answers received and existing research) was that such software is easy to use, offers fast results and, according to professional translators, it improves their productivity. </p><p>My second question, “Do translators view MT as a threat?” looked at how translators feel about automated programs which can translate entire texts automatically. I found that there is no fear that MT will replace translators, since, according to research participants, it is not quite advanced yet and there are aspects of language which MT software cannot yet cope with. So, translators do not view MT as a threat (yet). </p><p>Moving on to the third question, “What are the requirements that MT software has to fulfill in order for translators to use it?” I originally believed that it would be difficult to pinpoint specific requirements. Previous research claimed that speed, usefulness and ease of use are the main factors driving MT software adoption, and my research confirmed this: I found that ease of use, fast results, a target text which requires only minor corrections, the availability of training and support for MT software are the requirements for MT software adoption.</p><p>My last question was “Is experience one of the factors which lead translators to the acceptance of MT?”, and the answers showed that more experienced translators are more likely to use MT software.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Participants and Data Collection</h2><p>The participants were 42 professional translators (freelancers, in-house, working in companies or in the EU) from all over the world, of different ages and experience. I collected data through online questionnaires and then examined it with the help of SPSS (a statistical tool).</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Results</h2><p>Not all the results were what I was expecting, but this didn’t discourage me, because unexpected findings can encourage further research. </p><p>The results regarding perceived increase in productivity thanks to MT software showed that most participants recognize the advantage of using such software, since it can increase productivity. Most respondents, however, appear not to trust the quality of machine translation. Not all groups of translators (freelancers, in-house translators, etc.) have the same opinion regarding perceived productivity. For example, none of the in-house translators agreed that MT software can increase productivity, although most of the other groups thought otherwise. The reason may be that they are urged by their companies to use software which does not suit their needs.</p><p>Almost no participant feared that MT will replace human translators, since MT still needs to improve considerably. The younger the participants were, the less they believed that MT software can replace them. I think this is because younger translators are more used to using technology and seeing such tools complementing one’s work instead of taking their place, so they are less intimidated by MT. Gender, on the other hand, did not seem to play any role in perceived threat. What played a role, according to the results, was nationality, as the answers to questions regarding perceived threat differed from one nationality group to the other. For example, Turkish, Spanish, Australian, Swedish, Bulgarian and Danish participants did not seem to agree that MT software can replace human translators. French participants, on the other hand, agreed, and Portuguese, Moldovan and Austrian ones were generally neutral. Regarding the requirements for MT software, the participants’ ranking showed that the most important are usefulness, fast results and ease of use. It was interesting to see that the answers that MT software users gave did not differ from those of non-users, which could mean that non-users have a realistic view of what MT software can offer.</p><p>Finally, the outcome of my last research question about work experience as a determining factor for MT software use was that groups with different working experience gave similar answers. The small number of participants could explain the fact that my results differed from those of previous studies.</p><p>I think that conducting research surveys like the one I did for my university is not only important for academic purposes but is also useful to help software developers tailor MT software to the needs of their clients. I will be very glad if my paper makes a contribution, however small it may be, to the investigation and enhancement of the relationship between human and machine.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">About the author:</h4><p>Irene Chamali is a recent graduate from CITY College, International Faculty of the University of Sheffield, in Thessaloniki, Greece. She was accepted in 2017, studied in the English Studies Department for three years, and was awarded the BA (Honors) degree in English Language and Linguistics. After her BA studies, Irene was accepted for an MA in Translation and Interpreting from CITY College, which she is currently undertaking. Her article summarizes the research she completed for her dissertation.</p><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-26193426450602001692020-10-23T18:25:00.009-06:002020-10-23T18:29:16.160-06:00Guest Post: Bohemicus - a multifaced translator’s tool<h4 style="text-align: left;">by Jan Kapoun</h4><p>Ever wanted to use machine translation or voice dictation in just about any CAT tool out there?</p>
<p>Well ... now, you can!</p>
<h2>What is Bohemicus?</h2>
<p>Bohemicus is a powerful translator’s tool. It integrates with your CAT tool (or any other application) to enhance its capabilities. It works like an interface. With Bohemicus, you can use machine translation, voice dictation (speech-to-text), your own translation memories, conveniently search in online/offline dictionaries, take notes, and much more… in CAT tools that do not actually provide such functionality by themselves. This way, your productivity and translation speed are greatly boosted.</p>
<p>Bohemicus enables you to work in professional software such as Across or Transit and to use machine translation or voice dictation, even if your software itself does not provide such functionality.</p>
<p>For a better understanding of what Bohemicus actually is all about, please watch the introductory video below:</p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j9UCRENhdp8" width="442" youtube-src-id="j9UCRENhdp8"></iframe></div><h4 style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-weight: normal;">Bohemicus: A program that’s actually on your side</span></h4><p>Bohemicus has been created by a person who truly understands your needs: Jan Kapoun, a professional translator and IT developer with 13 years’ experience in the translation industry.</p>
<h2>Machine translation in Bohemicus</h2>
<p>Machine translation is provided by Google (paid service) or by MyMemory (free, but limited to 10K words/day).</p>
<p>To machine-translate a segment, simply press Ctrl+Space in your CAT tool. Bohemicus captures this command, translates your text behind the scenes and re-inserts the translation in the target language into your CAT tool. </p>
<p>Bohemicus works in several CAT tools: SDL Studio, Across, WordFast, memoQ, and DejaVu. In other tools, especially online tools like XTM or Coach, you just need to copy the source text into your target segment, select all the relevant text in this target segment and press Ctrl+Alt+Space. This will translate the selected portion of text.</p>
<h2>Voice dictation</h2>
<p>Voice dictation is based on the excellent Google speech-to-text engine, which functions even with minor languages, such as Czech, Slovak and Hungarian. To use this feature, it is necessary to download Bohemicus to your Android device (phone or tablet) and connect it through Bluetooth, with Bohemicus running in Windows 7/8/10. The Android and Windows instances of Bohemicus connect to each other automatically. Once you have established this connection, simply press the tilde key (~) on your PC keyboard (or tap the big blue B on your Android screen) to initiate the listening function. When you are done speaking, press the tilde key again to stop listening. Your speech will be almost instantly converted to text and inserted into your target CAT tool.</p>
<h2>Offline/online dictionaries</h2>
<p>To look up a specific word or term in your connected offline or online dictionary, simply select it in your CAT tool and press Ctrl+Alt+K and your offline/online dictionary will automatically appear on the screen, having looked up your word/term. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCDqXgVlaguZVGfztGymm7LRNYvOIc7okNpMkLrxCvW1EeGhU27MZbkU2Z3pcz19tHsxfvL275v704d65vh77zn07zRjlffkwefqZWKREISDGbh_VnyoSgoZecmSFSe5BiTB7SzA/s644/bohemicus.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Bohemicus' Concordance Tab" border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="644" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCDqXgVlaguZVGfztGymm7LRNYvOIc7okNpMkLrxCvW1EeGhU27MZbkU2Z3pcz19tHsxfvL275v704d65vh77zn07zRjlffkwefqZWKREISDGbh_VnyoSgoZecmSFSe5BiTB7SzA/w400-h364/bohemicus.JPG" title="Bohemicus’ Concordance Tab" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bohemicus’ Concordance Tab</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<h2>Your own translation memories</h2>
<p>When working in Across or in online tools like XTM or Coach you cannot use your own translation memories. This can really be a hassle, especially if you know that you have previously translated a similar text. With Bohemicus, you can connect your own translation memory and look up selected terms or even whole segments in it, by simply pressing Ctrl+Alt+K.</p>
<h2>And more</h2>
<p>Bohemicus also offers other useful editing functions, like a really neat note-taking feature, a clipboard manager for quickly inserting predefined strings... and much more.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">About the author</h4>
<p>Mgr. Jan Kapoun is a Czech linguist and programmer with a degree in Applied Information Technology (University of South Bohemia) and more than 13 years’ experience in the translation industry. He translates technical texts from English, German and French into Czech, and is continuously developing the Bohemicus software. You can try out his software downloading it from his web page: <a href="https://www.bohemicus-software.cz/">Bohemicus Software</a></p>
Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-87016245350441101902020-09-14T17:30:00.004-06:002020-09-14T17:30:45.162-06:00A couple of quick tricks to make the translation of legal texts easier<h4 style="text-align: left;">ALL CAPS PASSAGES</h4><p> If you regularly translate legal texts (such as EULAs), you’ll frequently encounter long passages where a single segment continues for many lines, with all the text shouting in UPPERCASE (and maybe even all bolded):</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Open Sans, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: Open Sans, Arial, sans-serif;"><b>LOREM IPSUM DOLOR SIT AMET, CONSECTETUR ADIPISCING ELIT, SED DO EIUSMOD TEMPOR INCIDIDUNT UT LABORE ET DOLORE MAGNA ALIQUA. UT ENIM AD MINIM VENIAM, QUIS NOSTRUD EXERCITATION ULLAMCO LABORIS NISI UT ALIQUIP EX EA COMMODO CONSEQUAT. DUIS AUTE IRURE DOLOR IN REPREHENDERIT IN VOLUPTATE VELIT ESSE CILLUM DOLORE EU FUGIAT NULLA PARIATUR. EXCEPTEUR SINT OCCAECAT CUPIDATAT NON PROIDENT, SUNT IN CULPA QUI OFFICIA DESERUNT MOLLIT ANIM ID EST LABORUM</b></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">This is very hard to read, and therefore even harder to translate. To make it easier to translate, just select the whole passage, and hit Shift+F3 to convert the whole passage to lower case. You can then translate it, and, once you are satisfied with your translation, select the passage again, and hit Shift+F3 again to convert the passage to all uppercase. Works in MS Word, SDL Trados Studio and memoQ. </span></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Single segments with numerous subclauses</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Another quirk of legal texts that may make them more difficult to translate is that they often contain long passages rife with numbered subclauses:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span></p><blockquote>(i) consectetur adipiscing elit; (ii) sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua; (iii) ut enim ad minim veniam; (iv) quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat; (v) duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur; (vi) excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident; (vii) sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">This would be seen as a single segment by most CAT tools, a segment difficult to translate because too long. The best way to deal with this problem is to split the segment before each of the subclauses. You can do this either by suitably changing your CAT tool’s segmentation rules or by splitting the segment manually.</span></p>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-46513252322150071492020-09-06T10:54:00.000-06:002020-09-06T10:54:28.771-06:00Full stops considered rude?Athena Scalzi is a young writer, currently contributing to Whatever, a long-running blog by science-fiction writer John Scalzi (her father).<br />
<br />
She has recently written a well written and interesting post on how the newer generations view punctuation in general and the period in particular: <a href="https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/08/12/periods-what-are-they-good-for/">Periods. What Are They Good For.</a><br />
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Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-52258869841290637482020-07-25T13:41:00.002-06:002020-07-25T13:41:36.425-06:00Pseudo-English terms in ItalianVera Gheno, Zanichelli’s “Linguista Errante” has recently published an <a href="https://dizionaripiu.zanichelli.it/cultura-e-attualita/linguista-errante/le-parole-straniere-piu-strane-alla-scoperta-degli-pseudoanglicismi/">instructive article (in Italian) on “pseudoanglicismi”</a> -- those words and terms in Italian that look like English words, but whose meaning is quite different from their meaning in English.Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-71079351439877825052020-07-21T12:12:00.000-06:002020-07-21T12:12:13.699-06:00A special place is reserved in purgatory...... for all clients who answer questions which require a choice between two alternatives with a simple “yes”<br />
<br />
For example:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Question: </b>In the sentence “<i>Blah blah blah XYZ blah blah</i>”, does “<i>XYZ</i>” mean “ABC” or does it mean “DEF”, instead?<br /><b>Answer:</b> Yes</blockquote>
<br />
The only thing answers such as this tell me is that the client hasn’t bothered reading the question properly.<br />
<br />
A correct answer to the above could be “ABC”, it could be “DEF”, or it could even be “Neither: it means GHI”.<br />
<br />
But “yes” is never a correct answer to a question that asks which of two proposed alternatives is correct.Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-22509433602526186322020-07-20T17:10:00.000-06:002020-07-20T17:10:27.784-06:00Everything - A great freeware tool to find files on your computer<div>
I've been using <a href="https://www.voidtools.com/">Everything</a> as a search tool for finding files on my computer and home network for several years, and it is one of the few tools I really find I could not do without. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Much better than Windows' own tools for searching files you know you have but that you can't quite remember where you put them... or even what the exact name of the file was. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_in5dOw3whCoic47lDHh3Nr_U8RHvsrT6UCyqzS4oa5Z8MmnZS4FjhV0pGDMPGvBpX27Kp4UQhvBJ8naznhl12obSdq3f0V9fP3WQV6w_w7lSCeDxmcG640X4ttrLtk-thR4Wg/s1600/s5b2h3t5-734376.png"><img alt="" border="0" height="281" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_6851703497426287650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_in5dOw3whCoic47lDHh3Nr_U8RHvsrT6UCyqzS4oa5Z8MmnZS4FjhV0pGDMPGvBpX27Kp4UQhvBJ8naznhl12obSdq3f0V9fP3WQV6w_w7lSCeDxmcG640X4ttrLtk-thR4Wg/s640/s5b2h3t5-734376.png" width="640" /></a></div>
Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-85099750566341215372020-06-02T12:16:00.001-06:002020-06-02T12:17:35.270-06:00My apologiesA few months ago I published here a guest post: “Spotlight on the Israeli Translation Market”. I was recently made aware that the author of that post, in a separate article published elsewhere, advised new translators “Depending on your language, you may start as low as $0.01/word and aim to increase that ten-fold to $0.10 . . .”.<br />
<br />
Since I completely disagree with such an approach to professional translation, I apologize for publishing the previous post, and will replace it with this same message.Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-81501109740654792792020-04-22T14:35:00.000-06:002020-04-22T14:35:22.917-06:00AIT Tools Free or Deeply Discounted "To contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 virus"Besides Yamagata Europe (see my last post), AIT is also offering its tools for free (to medical translators) or deeply discounted “To contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 virus”. Here is the text of a message I received from AIT:<br />
<blockquote>
We hope you are safe and healthy. We also hope that you keep calm, stay home, and learn new tools for translators.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
AIT joins in the international community’s efforts to contain a pandemic, and we’d like to support translators at this challenging time.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
To contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 virus, all medical translators can get software for FREE! Please, contact the <a href="mailto:support@translation3000.com?subject=Free%20licenses%20for%20medical%20translators">AIT customer support</a> to get your license.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
We wish to support you in overcoming this difficult period, so even if you do not work with medical translations, you can get an unprecedented 80% discount on all our software products for translators, to work from home safely, and be on the top:<br />
<a href="https://www.translation3000.com/aitpn/557-91.html"></a></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.translation3000.com/aitpn/557-91.html">Get Now</a>
</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Stay home, take care of older loved ones, and above all, stay healthy!<br />
P.S. If you have friends or colleagues who are engaged in medical translation, please share this email with them, so they will be able to get the software for free.</blockquote>
Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-4774940456875063412020-04-15T12:01:00.000-06:002020-04-15T12:01:14.160-06:00Free Translation QA Tool to Help Fight COVID-19I repost this message which I have received from Yamagata Europe:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4>
Yamagata Makes QA Distiller Free For All to Help Fight COVID-19</h4>
</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>From April 2020 onwards, Yamagata Europe will offer its QA Distiller software for translators and technical documentation professionals free of charge. Instead of paying for the software, companies who download QA Distiller will be invited to donate to Translators without Borders.</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The partnership with Translators without Borders (TWB) represents Yamagata Europe’s commitment to making sure everyone has access to information in a language they understand, especially during the fight against COVID-19. TWB is a non-profit organization offering language and translation support for humanitarian and development agencies worldwide. Donations will help TWB fulfill its mission to eliminate language barriers that prevent the dissemination of critical health information. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
TWB uses language expertise and technology to help people access health-related information. TWB offers translation of content for partners such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and Red Cross, monitors and prevents the spread of misinformation, and shares verified multilingual content. The need for this work is underlined by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “We’re not just fighting an epidemic, we’re fighting an infodemic.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>The most trusted QA tool since 2004</b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
QA Distiller is a stand-alone tool developed by Yamagata Europe that makes it easy to find formal translation mistakes in bilingual files. You can use QA Distiller to detect inconsistencies, terminology mistakes, wrong numbers, missing brackets and much more.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The free QA Distiller version will include all features of what was previously the Professional License, with support for over 90 languages. QA Distiller users will also benefit from regular updates, including new features and languages, and basic usability and functional support by Yamagata Europe.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Today, QA Distiller has over 1,000 satisfied users. Yamagata Europe developed the tool originally to fulfill its own need for improved language consistency checks after translation. QA Distiller was first presented to the industry at the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) congress in Saint Petersburg in 2004. A commercial release followed later that year.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
QA Distiller was always offered on a ‘buy once, use forever’ basis, with the addition of an online license check. Basic support was always free and optional support & maintenance contracts with free upgrades were added a few years after the launch.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The software came in three versions: Freelance, Professional and Enterprise. From April 2020 onwards, only the Professional version will be available, free of charge. This version will not be limited in the number of languages and there will no longer be a license check.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The current version and license server will continue to be accessible until the end of April 2020. Current users can visit our QA Distiller <a href="https://yamagataeurope.cmail20.com/t/i-l-xtilldd-jtiifdlii-y/">support page</a> to find info on how to switch to the new version.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Fight the COVID-19 infodemic: donate to Translators without Borders</b><br />
<b></b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A donation to TWB will help the organization <a href="https://yamagataeurope.cmail20.com/t/i-l-xtilldd-jtiifdlii-j/">fight the current infodemic</a>. According to TWB’s Head of Fundraising and Communications, Sharda Sekaran, “Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, people more than ever need access to accurate information in a language and format they understand. The donations through this partnership will support TWB, so that we can support the emergency response.”<br />
<a href="https://yamagataeurope.cmail20.com/t/i-l-xtilldd-jtiifdlii-t/"></a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><a href="https://yamagataeurope.cmail20.com/t/i-l-xtilldd-jtiifdlii-t/">Download</a> and <a href="https://yamagataeurope.cmail20.com/t/i-l-xtilldd-jtiifdlii-i/">donate</a> now!</b><br />
<b></b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>You can make <a href="https://yamagataeurope.cmail20.com/t/i-l-xtilldd-jtiifdlii-h/">donations</a> starting from $10, but we hope that companies will find the generosity to donate substantially more.</b></blockquote>
Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-72326592644267183342020-04-06T16:25:00.000-06:002020-04-06T16:25:11.465-06:00Translators’ Attitudes towards Machine TranslationI’ve received the following message, about a questionnaire regarding translators’ attitudes towards Machine Translation, together with the request to share it with other translators: <br />
<blockquote>
Greetings,</blockquote>
<blockquote>
I’m a BA student from the English Studies Department of the University of Sheffield and I would appreciate it if you took the time to fill in the questionnaire for my dissertation regarding translators’ attitudes towards Machine Translation. It would also be very helpful if you shared it with other potential participants. Thank you in advance! Here’s the link:
<a class="url" href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdgRSy8Ys-zlxXSKtw--oOELkvr5BjOcfzncua20l0HwGTK-g/viewform?usp=sf_link" target="_blank">https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdgRSy8Ys-zlxXSKtw--oOELkvr5BjOcfzncua20l0HwGTK-g/viewform?usp=sf_link</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>
Kind regards,
Irene Chamali</blockquote>
The questionnaire includes, at the beginning, before any questions are asked, a full “Participant Information Sheet”. I’ve checked (and answered) the questionnaire, and I believe it deserves that translators answer it, as it comes from a legitimate study.Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-1437326732330250602020-03-02T12:44:00.000-07:002020-06-02T12:17:08.279-06:00Spotlight on the Israeli Translation MarketA few months ago I published here a guest post: “Spotlight on the Israeli Translation Market”. I was recently made aware that the author of that post, in a separate article published elsewhere, advised new translators “Depending on your language, you may start as low as $0.01/word and aim to increase that ten-fold to $0.10 . . .”.<br />
<br />
Since I completely disagree with such an approach to professional translation, I apologize for publishing the previous post, and will replace it with this same message. Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-52233953229657152502020-01-06T10:20:00.000-07:002020-01-06T10:20:11.909-07:00SDL Trados Studio 2019 - The Manual (3rd edition) <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px;">Mats Linder's </span><a href="http://tradosstudiomanual.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #6666cc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px; text-decoration-line: none;">SDL Trados Studio - The Manual</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px;"> has now been updated with a new edition - the third for SDL Trados Studio 2019, to cover changes introduced with service release 2 (SR2) of the program.</span><br />
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihe1cfenVmPHN8HQMEONGNx8B-YoX3ebapuR466e7L04OuVbnFy_W8xK6ErAaUT-gcKJQZXcjRaHDx8Dy55qzFlhptEaLbj34YeXNusYI9kg1df_nNENXqddt3askHQ1gvhofOiQ/s1600/StudioManual20193rd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1132" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihe1cfenVmPHN8HQMEONGNx8B-YoX3ebapuR466e7L04OuVbnFy_W8xK6ErAaUT-gcKJQZXcjRaHDx8Dy55qzFlhptEaLbj34YeXNusYI9kg1df_nNENXqddt3askHQ1gvhofOiQ/s400/StudioManual20193rd.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px;">The manual is now grown to 612 pages, in all some 15 pages of new text. It includes </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5px;">updated text on several new AppStore applications, updated information on machine translation. A bookmark list for easier navigation is also now provided.)</span></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px;">The price is USD 52 or 49 Euro for new users (or half of that for those who bought previous versions of the manual).</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px;">I highly recommend it, since it complements (and mostly supersedes) SDL's own badly written documentation: Mats writes in a way that any user of SDL Trados studio will find useful.</span>Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-21586194953928977392019-07-12T13:39:00.000-06:002019-07-12T13:39:11.060-06:00Interpreters will be replaced by pre-recorded videosAccording to INTERSECT, a newsletter of <a href="https://www.cultureandlanguage.net/">Cross Cultural Communications</a>,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Trump administration has announced that interpreters for initial deportation hearings will be replaced by pre-recorded videos in several languages.<br /> <br />[...] The videos will inform those who face deportation of their rights. How anyone knows whether the videos will be understood, or how those who watch them will ask questions, is unknown. Previously, interpreters were available for questions when judges informed those to be deported of their rights.<br /> <br />In addition, vast numbers of those who will watch the videos speak indigenous languages unlikely to be recorded in the videos. In an <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Trump-administration-ending-in-person-14070403.php?psid=cdnNo">article in The San Francisco Chronicle</a>, one judge reported this change as a “disaster in the making.”<br /> <br />Language lobbyists suggest that U.S. residents write a letter to Congress to protest the change.</blockquote>
One more step in the Republican quest to transform the US into a country where the rights of the people count for nothing.Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518334.post-81439956713153490622019-06-14T12:01:00.001-06:002019-06-14T12:01:51.120-06:00Instaspekers: even if it were legitimate, too dangerous to be trusted?Over the past few weeks I received many emails from Instaspeaker, a new company which will soon launch a translation app for mobile devices. They are looking for experienced translators to provide interpreting and translation services on the fly through their app.
According to their messages <br />
<blockquote>
Instaspeakers is a live on-demand translating app. Think Uber, but for translators/interpreters. Using our app customers can initiate a video call with a translator/interpreter [and get] video remote interpreting (VRI) [or] upload a picture or document [to get] an audio file [with the sight translation of the document]. </blockquote>
On the face of it, this app is just one of the many that aim at providing linguistic services in real time for their users.
I find these messages deceptive, disparaging and dangerous. <br />
<ul>
<li>Deceptive because they say "Earn on your terms," which, to me, implies setting your own conditions and rates — but the rates are instead set by Instaspeakers. Deceptive also because when you go to their website, they paint a very rosy picture of the translators' and interpreters' earning potential: </li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
Elite translators have between 0-9 years of experience, and are billed at $1.50/minute. Elite translators can earn up to $73,000/year <br />
Premier translators have between 10+ years of experience, and are billed at $2.50/minute. Elite translators can earn up to $134,000/year </blockquote>
...only to say in the footnotes that <br />
<blockquote>
Earning estimates are for explanatory purposes only, and the actual earning potential of each translator will be determined by the actual time each translator works and the rate for which their services are billed out. Earnings estimates are based on 40 hour work weeks over the course of 12 months. </blockquote>
So, to earn $ 73,000 dollars in 40 weeks, how much would an "Elite" translator have to work? If we multiply 40 weeks times 40 hours/week, times 60 minutes/hour, we get 96,000 minutes. If billed at $1.50/minute, the total would be $144,000 - but since Instaspeakers' earning estimate is 73,000, that means that only about half of the $1.50/minute would be paid to the translator or interpreter. <br />
But nobody would be able to constantly translate 40 hours per week for them: even if it were possible, 40 hours of actual production work for them per week would mean not having any other customer, and takes in no account the time one would always need for administrative tasks, idle time, and so on. <br />
<ul>
<li>
Disparaging because it treats translation and interpreting as a hobby "Instaspeakers allows you to earn extra cash in your spare time".<br /></li>
<li>
Dangerous because they ask to their candidates (who, after the first 400 applicants, will be required to pay $15 for their own background checks) a wealth of personal information: address, social security number and bank account information. They say they need the bank information to pay you, and the address and social security to run the background check. <br />
</li>
</ul>
I have no reason to believe that this wannabe "Uber for translators / interpreters" are not a legitimate service, but... <br /><br />
But if I am wrong, providing them with all that personal information would mean providing someone we can not really check with all the information necessary to steal our personal identities, and, even if they are legitimate, providing a combination of name, address, social security number and bank information would mean that in case of a data breach (and we have seen how frequent such events are), the threat actors would have all of our personal ID, not only a mere email address or credit card number. Riccardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08033214185364578008noreply@blogger.com2