A very special offer on QA Distiller

QA Distiller is a useful translation QA tool that lets you run a series of tests on various types of bilingual files, including Xliff (SDL Trados Studio and MemoQ), ttx (Tag Editor), and TMX.

QA Distiller offers a wider range of QA checks than Xbench or SDL's internal QA tools. When compared with Xbench, it does not have the very useful terminology functions that Xbench offers, but (besides the higher number of tests performed) it does have a useful advantage over Xbench: you can edit the incorrect segments directly from within QA Distiller.

On September 30 only, on the occasion of the International Translation Day, QA distiller is offered at a very special price: 100 Euro instead of the regular 1000 Euro (so a 90% discount).

The link for the special offer is www.qa-distiller.com/anniversary. Other useful links: a flash demo of the tool, the on-line help file (use Firefox to display the online help: I had problems displaying it in Chrome) and a series of FAQs.

A quick Xbench trick

When using Xbench as a terminology reference tool, in many translation applications you can select the test you want to look up by highlighting it, then using the Ctrl+Alt+Ins hotkey to invoke Xbench and send that text to Xbench's source search box (or Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to send that text to the target search box).

In certain applications, however  (for example in SDLX), these hotkeys do not work: if you highlight some text and press Ctrl+Alt+Ins Xbench appears, but in the search box you get the last content of your clipboard, instead of the text you had highlighted.

The workaround is to highlight the text to search, use Ctrl+C to copy it to the clipboard, and only then use the Ctrl+Alt+Ins (or Ctrl+Alt+Backspace) hotkeys.

Remember that most hotkeys can be changed in Xbench: if you do not want to use Ctrl+Alt+Ins and Ctrl+Alt+Backspace - for example because they are already used by another application - you can change them in the Settings window (Tools -> Settings -> Layout & Hotkeys).

For more information about Xbench and how it can help your translations, a good place to start is my presentation, which you can download from the Xbench tab above.

Say no to the ribbon: an open letter to SDL's Paul Filkin

Dear Paul,

I’m writing to you as you are the best advocate for translators at SDL. 

We have heard that Studio 2014 will adopt a ribbon interface. If there is still time (and there is, since the program is still in beta) I urge you, and all at SDL, to reconsider this decision.

The ribbon interface in MS Office has been a disaster, in the opinion of most power users – we’ve had to spend unnecessary long hours to find out where all familiar commands had been hidden away.

In MS Office, at least, third party developers have been able to return something similar to the familiar menu as an add-on to the program. Since, however, SDL has a much smaller market, I doubt that there will be any similar solution available to us.

I therefore urge you, and SDL, to concentrate your efforts not on an unnecessary, unwanted and harmful novelty like a ribbon interface, but rather on spending development resources on actual improvements to the program – you could, for example, finally start to do something to improve the serious defects still present in your fuzzy-matching algorithms, or perhaps work on the broken auto-propagation feature.

Best regards,

Riccardo Schiaffino

Switching spell-checker in SDL Trados Studio

I normally prefer to use the Hunspell spell checker in Trados Studio: I can set the various parameters from within Studio (instead of having to change them in MS Word), and I don't mind that Hunspell normally flags more false positives - I actually prefer that to MS's sometimes more permissive approach.

There are, however, times when you need to change the spell checker used - for instance, if the language version used in a project is not supported by your default spell checker.

This happened to me in a recent project: the customer had set it as English to Italian (Switzerland), instead of the normal Italian (Italy). Hunspell does not have a spell checker for Italian (Switzerland), so Studio was not performing any spell checking at all - if you selected the Tools menu you would see the spell-checker option grayed out.

In such instances the workaround is simple: just go to Tools > Options > Editor > Spelling, and select the other spell checker.

In my case, I switched from Hunspell to MS Word's, and I was able to check my project. In other instances you may try the reverse (selecting Hunspell when you normally use the MS Word spell-checker). This is useful, for instance, if your installation of MS Office does not come with the spell-checker for a certain language.

The dread "Hi All"

Some large translation companies seem to make an habit of sending their messages not to you, but to all and sundry:

Hi All,

Could you please confirm ASAP if you would be available for this request. 

Regards,

I normally no longer answer such "Hi All" messages, but since this guy was so insistent (this was the third or fourth message I received from him in the last couple of days, all about the same project), I made an exception:

Hi [Name of PM],

I am sorry, but we are not available.

The reason I have not answered sooner is that I no longer answer messages that are broadcast (“Hi All”), since they normally just signify a waste of time (usually, when you confirm you availability you then get a message back along the lines of “sorry, but the project has already been assigned to someone else”).

If, in the future, you need me to confirm my availability or the availability of my team, please note that I only will answer to messages that begin “Hi Riccardo”, “Dear Aliquantum team”, or the like.

Best regards,

Translation companies, please note: messages addressed to a group are fine, if the entire group is working on the same project.

In exceptional circumstances you can use them, if you really need an answer in a hurry, and you don't know who is currently available - in those instances I would suggest prefacing your message with an apology: "Hi All, Please excuse the mass e-mail, but ...".

But if you make an habit of always sending your messages to all, please consider the likelihood that they will be answered by none.

Simple regular expressions for SDL Trados Studio filters

Regular expressions (regex for short) are very useful for searching, replacing and filtering information, and are increasingly available in many applications, including SDL Trados Studio (SDL's Paul Filkin has several articles in his Multifarious blog about sophisticated uses of regular expressions searches in Studio, for example Regular Expressions - Part 1 and Regex… and “economy of accuracy”).

Regular expressions, though, also suffer from a reputation of being difficult to learn and to understand. This reputation is well deserved: no matter how useful regular expressions may be, nobody can say that something that looks like "\b(0?[1-9]|1[012])[- /.](0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[- /.](19|20)?[0-9]{2}\b" is simple, easy to understand, or easy to construct.

Many people, therefore, after taking a look at regular expressions, decide they are not for them: they look too difficult. But while sophisticated uses or regular expression do tend to look forbidding, certain regular expressions are simple and amazingly useful.

Let's see an example: say that you are translating a long document about painting systems, and that you want to check all the segments in which the term "topcoat" appears. Since Studio has a very useful filter feature, you know you can enter the word "topcoat" in the filter, and obtain all the segments in which it appears.

Unfortunately, though, you noticed during your translation that the source language is not very consistent: sometimes "topcoat" is written as a single word, sometimes as two separate words ("top coat"), and sometimes the author used a mid-way solution and hyphenated the term ("top-coat"). You can certainly use the filter three times entering the three different versions of the term, and find all the segments that contain each. But using regular expressions it is also possible to do it all at once: use a single search expression to find "topcoat", "top coat" and "top-coat".

To do so, enter in the filter top.?coat.

What does this regex string do?

It searches for all terms that contain the sequence of letters "top", followed by any character (the dot) repeated zero or one times (the question mark), followed by the sequence of letters "coat".

Using an expression that lets us search for any character we were able to find those instances in which "top" and "coat" are separated by a hyphen or a space, and by telling it to search for that character only once or zero times, we were able to also search for those instances in which "top" are "coat" are attached, while excluding longer strings in which "top" and "coat" appear separated by more than one character (we do not want the filter to also return "when you paint the top, make sure you are not coating the sides as well" - which we would get if we had used in the filter top.*coat, instead)

More powerful regular expressions may look difficult - but you can start using simple ones, which are nonetheless very useful.

Xbench adds support for SDL Trados Studio memories

If you have not updated to version 3 of Xbench, now there is yet another reason to do so: the most recent build of the tool (build 1136) adds support for SDL Trados Studio memories (.sdltm files), so, if you were accustomed to convert them to TMX format just to be able to search for terms in them using Xbench, you no longer need to do so. You can download Xbench from Xbench.net. If you download version 3, make sure to choose the correct version for your operating system: there are both a 32-bit and a 64-bit editions of the tool.

Xbench freeware version (2.9) is still available, and still useful, but ApSIC is clearly adding value to the new commercial version of their terminology management and translation QA tool.

If you need an introduction to Xbench, you can download one from this blog (click here): the intorduction is now a bit out of date, as I had written it for the previous version of the tool, but still touches most important functions.

DéjàVu: 20th anniversary discounts

It was about twenty years ago that I started working with my first CAT tool. It was the very first version of DéjàVu, and I probably still have somewhere my first installation diskette... I think its serial number was 27. Emilio Benito had programmed the new application, and supported it very actively, making fixes and improvements happens almost immediately.

It's been many years since I stopped using DéjàVu (not because I didn't like the program, but rather because I had started working for a company which choose a different CAT tool) but I still have good memories of the program and of how it made working in translation easier.

To celebrate the program's twentieth anniversary, Atril is offering a 20% discount on its products until May 28th.

Time to vote for the top 100 Language Lovers 2013 competition

Voting for the Top 100 Language Lovers 2013 competition is under way - you have until June 9th to give your votes to your favorite language blog, Facebook page or twitterer.

This year, Lexiophiles received 1024 nominations. Out of those nominations, they selected proceed to the voting phase 200 blogs in two different categories (language professional blog and language learner blog), 100 language Facebook pages, and 100 language twitterer to proceed to the voting phase.

Browse through the list of language blogs, Facebook pages and twitterers: you'll likely find some wonderful blog, page or twitter account you didn't know before.

About Translation has been included in the Language Professional Blogs category. If you like this blog, please consider giving it your vote!

To vote, click on the following button: it will lead you to a page where you'll be able to caset your vote for your favorite language professional blog.

On the right, on the same page there are the buttons to get you to the other three categories.

(Bull)Shift Happens

Keith Laska, CEO of SDL, has recently published a self-serving, jargon-filled post on SDL's community blog.

His claim is not all that novel: that there is so much content to translate now, that MT must be part of the equation. He then goes out on a limb with some unsubstantiated claims about how MT has become so much better, in recent years (can you spot the logical fallacy in a statement like "As for MT quality concerns: the machine translation quality debate is dead. Over 75% of our language markets report the use - or pending use - of some form of machine translation solution."? - a hint: "use" or "pending use" are not the same as "successful use", and stating, without a shred of evidence, that the MT debate is over doesn't mean that it is).

But my question is another: is there a special secret pact between CEOs that requires them to spew such corporate drivel as "value is now at the critical intersection between machines and humans"? Is that sentence supposed to mean something, or is it there just to give the impression that it carries some momentous meaning? Am I alone in thinking that "thought leadership", in "to drive high-quality, secure MT improvements, innovation and thought leadership" sounds creepy?

Keith, if you do have some good MT product or strategy, write your post again, in a way that does not make the reader think that your product or service is so poor you have to hide it in a fog of jargon lest your prospects realize how hollow the vaunted MT progress actually is.

Speaking as an SDL customer, in fact, I have a suggestion: why don't you redirect some of the efforts you are spending on pushing MT onto the unwary, and instead concentrate on actually improving those products of yours that we human translators use every day? A hint: starting with long overdue improvements to fuzzy-matching algorithms would be a good idea.