CAT for beginner translator
Thread poster: lmarco
lmarco
lmarco
United States
Local time: 08:50
Nov 21, 2012

Hi everyone :

I have a general idea about CAT, but I would like to know what is the best software for someone that just want to start to storage translation units, segments in two languages and use them when I get a translation memory in the future.


 
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Drew MacFadyen
Drew MacFadyen  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:50
Spanish to English
+ ...
An alignment can be performed using legacy documents later Nov 21, 2012

If you are concerned about being able to leverage your translation output in a future TM that can be done simply using an alignment tool or alignment feature found in most CAT Tool products. Many CAT Tools include an alignment feature - SDL WinAlign is one, memoQ and Wordfast also have alignment features. And there are some stand alone alignment products as well like Terminotix AlignFactory.

There is a new site feature, a software comparison tool that lists some of this informatio
... See more
If you are concerned about being able to leverage your translation output in a future TM that can be done simply using an alignment tool or alignment feature found in most CAT Tool products. Many CAT Tools include an alignment feature - SDL WinAlign is one, memoQ and Wordfast also have alignment features. And there are some stand alone alignment products as well like Terminotix AlignFactory.

There is a new site feature, a software comparison tool that lists some of this information (it is still being built and populated with data) at http://www.proz.com/software-comparison-tool

In general, most CAT Tools offer a free trial or demo, but they are generally time limited to 30 days or 45 days of usage. Wordfast offers an unlimited free demo, but the software will only allow you to store 500 KBS of translation memory. That is, you will not be able to build your TM using the demo mode of Wordfast. But, if your aim is to get familiar with a tool and not build a TM until later...perhaps that is a good option for you as you could perform translations and at a later time align the source/target texts to create a TM.

Hope this helps

Drew
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lmarco
lmarco
United States
Local time: 08:50
TOPIC STARTER
I checked Metatexis Nov 21, 2012

Hi Drew :

I appreciate your response and you got very close of what I want. In fact, I checked Metatexis, it feels conformable since it is like using word. But I am looking for something to align single phrases not necessarily embedded in texts. I mean they come from texts but I don't want to use the whole text and align all sentences from them. I looking to store phrase equivalences not words. Not terminology maybe phraseology. Do you know what I mean?

Marco


 
Dominique Pivard
Dominique Pivard  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:50
Finnish to French
Wordfast Classic glossaries Nov 21, 2012

lmarco wrote:
I checked Metatexis, it feels conformable since it is like using word. But I am looking for something to align single phrases not necessarily embedded in texts. I mean they come from texts but I don't want to use the whole text and align all sentences from them. I looking to store phrase equivalences not words. Not terminology maybe phraseology. Do you know what I mean?

If I understand what you mean, you want to do the following: take a source language text and the corresponding target language text, both of which available as Word documents, and pick up words or phrases here and there, rather than aligning the entire texts at the segment (sentence) level. If so, you could use Wordfast Classic (demo version sufficient for that purpose). Just select a source language word (or phrase), hit Ctrl+Alt+T, select the corresponding target language word (or phrase), hit Ctrl+Alt+T again. Add comments or other meta information if needed. Repeat as many times as you want (there is no size limitation related to glossaries).


 
Dominique Pivard
Dominique Pivard  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:50
Finnish to French
Limitation of Wordfast demo Nov 21, 2012

Drew MacFadyen wrote:
Wordfast offers an unlimited free demo, but the software will only allow you to store 500 KBS of translation memory. That is, you will not be able to build your TM using the demo mode of Wordfast.

I'm not sure what unit "KBS" is, in connection with translation memories. Nevertheless, here are the real limits of the three Wordfast clients:

Wordfast Anywhere: no limit at all
Wordfast Pro: 500 translation units (sentence pairs)
Wordfast Classic: 1000 translation units

However, since Marco intends to extract words/phrases rather than align entire documents at the segment (sentence) level, he would be using glossaries rather than TM's. And the glossary feature of Wordfast works without size limitation (applies to both Classic and Pro, and of course Anywhere too). However, Classic would be the most convenient of the three in practice, if documents aren't available in a bilingual form.


 


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CAT for beginner translator







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