Translation Memory: Yes or No
Translation memory (TM) systems, the most widely used toolkits in the localization of digital information at HQ-translate agency, enable the proofreading and international compliance of electronic content (e-content) for local markets. The idea behind TM systems is to store in a computer system the original e-content and the translation that has been produced by human translators; the stored translated version of the source file has been broken down into short parts, generally one sentence long. Today the most popular CAT tools: TRADOS, Déjà vu, Wordfast. The priviledges of using CAT systems are fairly obvious: they increase the translator’s productivity and improve translation quality by securing that terminology and expressions are used consistently within and across translations. Users in industry and international firms convey a 25–60% rise in performance. Yet, it must be stated that the use of TM systems may also have negative effects on translation quality. One of the major discouraging things of TM systems is that they usually work at sentence level. Therefore, there is a real danger that the translator will focus too much on standalone sentences, possibly disregarding the contexts in which the sentences are embedded. Moreover, the matching algorithms of TM systems are based on very simple formal criteria, such as the similarity of character strings. Therefore, the human translator’s notion of the degree of similarity between a segment to be translated and a piece retrieved from the database may differ considerably from the grade of similarity calculated by the TM system. This may result in situations wherein exact matches yield wrong translations, or one translation of a fuzzy match requires little or no adjustment but another fuzzy match with the same similarity grade is not useful at all (for a discussion on the aspects of evaluating the retrieval mechanisms of TM systems, see Expert Advisory Group on Language Engineering Standards (1996), Whyman and Somers (1999), and Reinke (2000a, 2004). Despite the vices, it should be noted that TM systems generally incorporate into the translation run comparatively smoothly. These CATs leave human translators in control of the real translation work, while liberating them from routine work and maintaining translation as a creative activity whenever the adaptation resourcefulness of a human nature is required. For more info, visit us at: HQ-translate company
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