When you analyze and quote from Chinese, do you use chars or words?
Thread poster: Jan Sundström
Jan Sundström
Jan Sundström  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 18:33
English to Swedish
+ ...
Aug 20, 2019

Hi all!

I'm curious to hear if there is a common industry standard among translators from Chinese regarding how you run CAT analysis and quote?

SDL launched a feature in Trados Studio 2017 called "Use word-based tokenization
... See more
Hi all!

I'm curious to hear if there is a common industry standard among translators from Chinese regarding how you run CAT analysis and quote?

SDL launched a feature in Trados Studio 2017 called "Use word-based tokenization for Asian languages":
https://community.sdl.com/product-groups/translationproductivity/f/studio/21064/how-are-words-and-characters-counted-for-asian-chinese-languages

It seems that this was spurred by a discussion on Paul Filkin's blog:
https://multifarious.filkin.com/2015/10/18/cttsa/

How do you all analyze and quote jobs from Chinese?
Do you use the setting in Studio and quote by word? Or does everybody quote per character?
When you work for LSPs, do they all have the same settings when they analyze?


If you are given a choice, what would you prefer?

/Jan
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bertshelby (X)
bertshelby (X)
United States
Local time: 13:33
I prefer quoting per source character Aug 20, 2019

I presume you mean "quote" in the sense of "estimate what the job will cost," and I prefer to use the number of source-language characters or occasionally a minimum charge for a single page.

 
Jan Sundström
Jan Sundström  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 18:33
English to Swedish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks Aug 20, 2019

Thanks for your input, Harold!

Yes, quote as in pricing the job essentially.

Do you use any particular CAT tool for counting the characters, and if so, any specific setting? Does the tool report both characters and "words"?
Is there a general consensus between you and your clients to base the cost on characters, or can it be it contested?


 
bertshelby (X)
bertshelby (X)
United States
Local time: 13:33
Very Basic Character Count Using Word Aug 20, 2019

So far, I've just done the basic character count using Word when needed.

-Bert


 
LIZ LI
LIZ LI  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 01:33
French to Chinese
+ ...
Only characters Aug 21, 2019

Jan Sundström wrote:

Does the tool report both characters and "words"?



Hi Jan.
Only characters.
1 "word" in roman languages for instance, may be translated in several characters in most Asian countries. That's why a source in Chinese counted, say 1000 characters will then become a translation around 500 words (varied from 300-700 depending on several factors).
Just a simple example by translating your name in Chinese simplified Mandarin:
Jan = 简,Sundström = 森德斯特朗姆
1>1, 1>6
It'll be a little bit different in Chinese traditional Taiwan (Mandarin) and HK (Cantonese).

So if you are asking about common practice of the whole industry here, only characters apply.


[Edited at 2019-08-21 01:11 GMT]


Gareth Callagy
 
Jan Sundström
Jan Sundström  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 18:33
English to Swedish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks Liz! Aug 21, 2019

Thanks a lot for the explanation.
So when you deal with agencies, they would typically run a CAT analysis with characters specified in the log, and you set your price according to the "character rate" that you've agreed on, right?


 
LIZ LI
LIZ LI  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 01:33
French to Chinese
+ ...
Pretty much like that Aug 26, 2019

Yes.
In our understanding: word = character.
Like Harold previously mentioned, a MS Word is enough for word counts.
And your question arises my interest in how CAT Tools give out the fuzzy repitition. Like do they calculate words like OF, FROM, WITH...
AM trying to dig deeper with agencies.


 
Jan Sundström
Jan Sundström  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 18:33
English to Swedish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Relevant question Aug 26, 2019

That's a good question, Liz.
Linguists argue that stop words such as conjunctions should carry less weight, since they have little meaning on their own.
Read more here:
https://www.tm-town.com/blog/the-fuzziness-of-fuzzy-matches

Most CAT tools don't publish the algorithms for calculating fuzzies, but I can imagine that this is something that varie
... See more
That's a good question, Liz.
Linguists argue that stop words such as conjunctions should carry less weight, since they have little meaning on their own.
Read more here:
https://www.tm-town.com/blog/the-fuzziness-of-fuzzy-matches

Most CAT tools don't publish the algorithms for calculating fuzzies, but I can imagine that this is something that varies between different tools.

Of course, when Chinese is the source language, I can imagine that most of these conjunctions and articles are not represented by a separate character. So the issue is less relevant in this direction than the other way around.
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When you analyze and quote from Chinese, do you use chars or words?






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