| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | Poll: What is your preferred CAT tool? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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| Yes you really can be a professional translator in 2015 without using a CAT tool | Jan 7, 2015 |
Sara Maghini wrote:
I am disconcerted by the percentage of translators who do not use CAT tools. Have they ever tried them? Have they seen what benefits they bring (speed and accuracy, above all)?
Personally, maybe because I have started this profession using Trados from day one and I have been trained to use it proficiently, I would find it almost impossible to work without it.
How do you guarantee terminological consistency, for a start? Sure, you have glossaries, but having to keep checking them is so time-consuming! Also, 90% of agencies nowadays send you projects in Studio (or other Trados formats): surely these translators must miss out on a lot of opportunities? Does it mean they work predominantly for direct clients rather than agencies?
I would like to see another poll where the age/years of experience of respondents are taken into account. Maybe people who do not use CAT tools are those who started the profession 20+ years ago, when CAT tools weren't as widespread as they are today?
Why live in the past when you can be faster and more efficient? I really don't get it.
I know these are a lot of questions, I just wanted to share my thoughts with you and would really appreciate your input!
You have a point, especially when it comes to agencies demanding Trados, but like them you are forgetting that not all texts are equal.
Many of the texts I translate contain no matches and no repetitions and no terms. For these jobs, CAT tools just add extra work.
| | | | Luiz Barucke 
Brazil
Local time: 15:34
Spanish to Portuguese
+ ...
I've tried many CAT tools, but the only one which made my work really simpler and faster was WF Pro, specially with its glossary feature, where I already have thousands of terms in English and Spanish.
I cannot work without it. Actually, I can, but I don't want to.
| | | | Andy Watkinson
Spain
Local time: 20:34
Member
Catalan to English
+ ...
Sara Maghini wrote:
I would like to see another poll where the age/years of experience of respondents are taken into account. Maybe people who do not use CAT tools are those who started the profession 20+ years ago, when CAT tools weren't as widespread as they are today?
Why live in the past when you can be faster and more efficient? I really don't get it.
You are right. You don't got it.
I realise you've already received a lot of stick, but please consider that the age factor is irrelevant.
When I, amongst many others, started translating, not even typewriters were "widespread", let alone CAT tools ☺.
I did my first translation on a computer in 1985.
Signed: A happy WFC user.
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Jose Arnoldo Rodriguez-Carrington wrote:
Sorry, but I am a technical translator and I certainly do not consider myself a robot. Technical translation requires different skills than literary translation, it is far from being robotic, and in fact it can be just as challenging.
[Edited at 2015-01-07 17:16 GMT]
Absolutely. But on the rare occasion I've been conned into translating something in Trados Studio with lots of existing matches, the whole process has been entirely robotic. And soul-destroying. I cannot fathom how some people do it day in, day out.
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Sara Maghini
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:34
English to Italian
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| Angie, sorry you misinterpreted my point | Jan 8, 2015 |
Angie Garbarino wrote: Sara Maghini wrote:
I would like to see another poll where the age/years of experience of respondents are taken into account. Maybe people who do not use CAT tools are those who started the profession 20+ years ago, when CAT tools weren't as widespread as they are today?
No, I am old but I use trados 100% not 95, so I do not think this is a matter of age, well, young people should stop to consider as dynosaurus the older colleagues, really, I know 25-30 and so on year old colleagues who do not even know how to create a TM. Please launch that poll, we shall see... as for me (old translator), trados has no secret and I always solve problems, and... hear hear at my age I learned to use it without being trained, read by myself. PS. You recall me a woman in a vodafone call center who (after knowing my age, which is not 70, not 60, not 80) started to explain me things I know better than her, with a condescending tone. Angie, very disappointed
Angie, I wasn't ACCUSING more experienced/older translators of not being ABLE to use CAT tools, I was WONDERING IF age might be a factor. Mine was a question, not an accusation. I was thinking that maybe people who have started the profession without using a CAT are less prone to start using one later on (if compared to people who started their career using them from day one). It's a matter of HABIT, not ABILITY.
I wasn't being condescending, I was asking questions trying to understand. Did I say anywhere in my post "I believe older people can't use CAT tools"? No. neither did I say that all young translators can ( I know 25-30 and so on year old colleagues who do not even know how to create a TM ). Both of these points come entirely from your own interpretation. I am sorry you have been made to feel "old" by other people, but please do not group me together with them - I had no intention of offending anyone, especially not on the basis of their age anyway! And, talking of condescending, that's exactly what you are doing when you say:
hear hear at my age I learned to use it without being trained, read by myself
Some people receive an education in translation where CAT tools are actually taught (thank goodness), what should they do, not turn up to lectures to prove they can learn on their own?
[Edited at 2015-01-08 10:32 GMT]
[Edited at 2015-01-08 10:47 GMT]
| | | | Sara Maghini
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:34
English to Italian
+ ...
| Andy, not what I meant | Jan 8, 2015 |
Andy Watkinson wrote: Sara Maghini wrote:
I would like to see another poll where the age/years of experience of respondents are taken into account. Maybe people who do not use CAT tools are those who started the profession 20+ years ago, when CAT tools weren't as widespread as they are today?
Why live in the past when you can be faster and more efficient? I really don't get it. You are right. You don't got it. I realise you've already received a lot of stick, but please consider that the age factor is irrelevant. When I, amongst many others, started translating, not even typewriters were "widespread", let alone CAT tools ☺. I did my first translation on a computer in 1985. Signed: A happy WFC user.
Andy, I wasn't ACCUSING more experienced/older translators of not being ABLE to use CAT tools, I was WONDERING IF age might be a factor. Mine was a question, not an accusation. I was thinking that maybe people who have started the profession without using a CAT are less prone to start using one later on (if compared to people who started their career using them from day one).
I had no intention of offending anyone, especially not on the basis of their age anyway.
Sorry if you felt that way, it was not my intention.
| | | | Sara Maghini
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:34
English to Italian
+ ...
Marion Plath wrote: Sara Maghini wrote:
I am disconcerted by the percentage of translators who do not use CAT tools. Have they ever tried them? Have they seen what benefits they bring (speed and accuracy, above all)?
Personally, maybe because I have started this profession using Trados from day one and I have been trained to use it proficiently, I would find it almost impossible to work without it.
How do you guarantee terminological consistency, for a start? Sure, you have glossaries, but having to keep checking them is so time-consuming! Also, 90% of agencies nowadays send you projects in Studio (or other Trados formats): surely these translators must miss out on a lot of opportunities? Does it mean they work predominantly for direct clients rather than agencies?
I would like to see another poll where the age/years of experience of respondents are taken into account. Maybe people who do not use CAT tools are those who started the profession 20+ years ago, when CAT tools weren't as widespread as they are today?
Why live in the past when you can be faster and more efficient? I really don't get it.
I know these are a lot of questions, I just wanted to share my thoughts with you and would really appreciate your input! Sara, maybe you were not aware of it but your post sounds rather condescending towards translators who don't use CAT tools. To answer your question, there are areas of creative translation in which indeed CAT tools are completely useless. I currently do mainly marketing and literary translation and there wouldn't be a point in using a CAT tool for this kind of work. I rarely use Trados and have recently worked with Memsource which I prefer, but I am happy that there are non-repetitive, creative texts which require a different kind of approach. The need for CAT tools is as varied as the fields translators work in, so each to their own.
Marion, I'm sorry my post was interpreted that way. As I said before, I was basically just "thinking out loud", mine were QUESTIONS and not accusations. You are absolutely right about creative translation but, in my experience, even marketing texts (which I translate on a daily basis) tend to be sent to me in Trados format nowadays - even if there are no repetitions, it still is easier to keep an identical format and make sure you don't forget to translate anything.
This said, everyone is free to choose, I was just expressing my opinions and considerations on the matter.
| | | | | MS Word's shortcomings | Jan 8, 2015 |
Sara Maghini wrote:
Personally, maybe because I have started this profession using Trados from day one and I have been trained to use it proficiently, I would find it almost impossible to work without it.
...
I would like to see another poll where the age/years of experience of respondents are taken into account. Maybe people who do not use CAT tools are those who started the profession 20+ years ago, when CAT tools weren't as widespread as they are today?
Why live in the past when you can be faster and more efficient? I really don't get it.
I know these are a lot of questions, I just wanted to share my thoughts with you and would really appreciate your input!
...
... in my experience, even marketing texts (which I translate on a daily basis) tend to be sent to me in Trados format nowadays - even if there are no repetitions, it still is easier to keep an identical format and make sure you don't forget to translate anything.
This said, everyone is free to choose, I was just expressing my opinions and considerations on the matter.
Older translators had the chance to use OTHER word processors long before MS Word became the one-and-only market standard.
There is an ancient joke about "IBM being a software company having marketing issues, while Microsoft was a marketing company struggling with software problems".
The truth is that there were many more user-friendly word processors before Word took over the entire market and eradicated them for good.
Anyone who has ever used DTP apps like PageMaker or InDesign knows that Microsoft has added tons of bells & whistles to Word, attempting to make a word processor replace DTP, possibly because their own DTP app, Publisher, has been awful since its day one.
Text formatting in Word works like playing pinball on a machine... mounted on a truck going at high speed on a bumpy dirt road! Anything unexpected may, does, and will happen for no reason, yet WYSIWYG.
So for old hands in translation, if a CAT tool can preserve that unpredictable and hard-to-mend text formatting & layout in MS Word while translating, it's a blissful solution. We couldn't care less about the TM, if our typical job comprises NO fuzzy matches at all, and less than 5% repetitions.
Maybe those elders who don't use CAT tools chose so because they see no point in having a TM at all.
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Teresa Borges wrote:
Yes, I’m old and I do not use CAT tools. One of the things I learned with age is not to be judgmental of others and accepting them just as they are… with or without CAT tools!
I am old and I use them, always, even if not required, this just means that age does not matter, it is a matter of choice, as simple as that.
| | | | | Dear Sara. Im for one, am not interessed in that part of the market. There are others, you know. | Jan 24, 2015 |
The translations market, like 95% of the markets, is not 100% uniform, there are several clusters very different in prices, expectations etc. The fas,t chain production, impersonal agency driven one seems to capture most of the general jobs, whereas many high end final clients think it is worth waiting a couple of days longer and also not risking their public image just to save under 0.0001% of their expenditure budget.
Sara Maghini wrote:
I am disconcerted by the percentage of translators who do not use CAT tools. Have they ever tried them? Have they seen what benefits they bring (speed and accuracy, above all)?
Personally, maybe because I have started this profession using Trados from day one and I have been trained to use it proficiently, I would find it almost impossible to work without it.
How do you guarantee terminological consistency, for a start? Sure, you have glossaries, but having to keep checking them is so time-consuming! Also, 90% of agencies nowadays send you projects in Studio (or other Trados formats): surely these translators must miss out on a lot of opportunities? Does it mean they work predominantly for direct clients rather than agencies?
I would like to see another poll where the age/years of experience of respondents are taken into account. Maybe people who do not use CAT tools are those who started the profession 20+ years ago, when CAT tools weren't as widespread as they are today?
Why live in the past when you can be faster and more efficient? I really don't get it.
I know these are a lot of questions, I just wanted to share my thoughts with you and would really appreciate your input!
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