Kevin Yang 
Local time: 11:55
Member (2003)
English to Chinese
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| Difference between Transwhiz and Trados? | Apr 2, 2002 |
Hi, Shannon
What a confusing world, isn\'t it? I am not familiar with Transwhiz. But there are some very good comments made by David Rockell and Werner G. Patels about translation performed by software programs in the folder named \"What is a fair rate for a translator?\" in the Chinese Forum. Those comments will give a good grab of what the translators feel about the translation done by software programs.
My personal knowledge about the auto-translation... See more Hi, Shannon
What a confusing world, isn\'t it? I am not familiar with Transwhiz. But there are some very good comments made by David Rockell and Werner G. Patels about translation performed by software programs in the folder named \"What is a fair rate for a translator?\" in the Chinese Forum. Those comments will give a good grab of what the translators feel about the translation done by software programs.
My personal knowledge about the auto-translation by Alta Vista website is that it is not intended to be accurate, it only can give a web-surfer some very \"rough\" ideas about what the web page is talking about, because that is how much a web-surfer initially interested to know.
Trados has been in the market for many years and it is getting more and more sophisticated. To order from ProZ.com as a member, the price tag is USD $595.00. It is extremely helpful when you translate a document that has large percentage of repetitions in technical terms. Trados can allow you to translate a term one time and the software will take care of the rest, and assures the consistency of translation to such a term throughout the entire translation. Trados will also \"remember\" your translation in the form of glossary for the future translation. It is now used by many translators and translation companies.
One point I want to stress on is that Trados is not an auto-translator that can replace you and me. It is only a tool to help the translator to be more efficient and consistent.
Another suggestion is that, before you make a purchase of any software programs, go to their website and download a trial version. You can try to use it and compare, then you will have the \"first-hand\" or \"hands-on\" experience, then make your decision.
I hope my conmment is helpful to you.
Kevin
[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-04-02 21:57 ]
[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-04-07 02:00 ] ▲ Collapse
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Werner George Patels, M.A., C.Tran.(ATIO) (X)
Local time: 14:55
German to English
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Quote:
On 2002-04-01 08:44, shannonyu wrote:
Hi,
There is a Alta Vista website where you can also put in English and it will translate into Chinese. However, the translation is not understandable. Anyone has a sample translation done by TransWhiz? It\'s 600 bucks and I wanna make sure it\'s worth the money, especially I\'m just starting out. Also, do you guys think getting a personal website running bring in
... See more Quote:
On 2002-04-01 08:44, shannonyu wrote:
Hi,
There is a Alta Vista website where you can also put in English and it will translate into Chinese. However, the translation is not understandable. Anyone has a sample translation done by TransWhiz? It\'s 600 bucks and I wanna make sure it\'s worth the money, especially I\'m just starting out. Also, do you guys think getting a personal website running bring in a lot more business?
And what is the difference between Transwhiz and Trados?
First off, the answer is a resounding NO! Apparently, TransWhiz is some kind of machine-translation program - I\'d never pay $600 for MT!
To see how MT can mess up languages, go to: http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/
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Trados (as well as SDLX and D閖郪u) is different from machine translation: it does not \"translate\" for you, but it uses the translation memory/database created by you in the process of doing previous translations. In other words, any \"pretranslation\" produced by Trados and similar CAT software is only as good as your previous input. Some people are going to hate me for saying that, but I still believe that my \"human translation memory\" is superior to any Trados TM, etc. The only reason why I use CAT software sometimes (SDLX & D閖郪u) is that it\'s easier to insert my translation into the original file (e.g., WORD). This way, you don\'t run the risk of deleting important codes in the source document (e.g., formatting, etc.).
Even in highly standardized texts (e.g., contracts, balance sheets), TM mostly fails, that\'s why I find it faster to simply retype the sentence or phrase from my own memory.
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Having one\'s own website: this time my answer is a clear and loud YES! Every freelance should have his/her own website. There is no better and cheaper way of reaching literally thousands of potential clients. Most ISPs will give you approx. 5MB of personal webspace together with your e-mail account, or you can sign up with one of the free services (Yahoo, Sprint, Geocities, etc.).
[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-04-10 23:00 ] ▲ Collapse
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