Usage of TM: To Be or Not to Be
Translation memory (TM) equipment, the most widely used toolkits in the localization of digital information at HQ-translate agency, enable the proofreading and transnational 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 smaller portions, generally one sentence long. Today the most popular CAT tools: TRADOS, Déjà vu, Wordfast. The priorities of using translation memory systems are fairly obvious: they increase the translator’s productivity and raise translation quality by securing that terminology and phrases are used consistently within and across translation works. Users in governmental and cross-border organizations state 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 contras of TM systems is that they usually operate at sentence level. Thus, there is a severe danger that the translator will focus too much on separated sentences, possibly disregarding the contexts in which the sentences are introduced. Moreover, the matching algorithms of TM systems are based on very easy formal criteria, such as the similarity of character strings. Therefore, the human translator’s notion of the level of similarity between a segment to be translated and a segment retrieved from the storage base may differ considerably from the grade of similarity calculated by the TM system. This may lead to 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 value is not useful at all (for a discussion on the aspects of evaluating the retrieval mechanisms of memory systems, see Expert Advisory Group on Language Engineering Standards (1996), Whyman and Somers (1999), and Reinke (2000a, 2004). Despite the drawbacks, it should be noted that TM systems generally incorporate into the translation routine relatively smoothly. These CATs leave human translators in control of the actual translation work, while free them from routine work and keeping translation as a creative activity whenever the linguistic resourcefulness of a human translator is required. For more remarks, visit us at: HQ-translate company
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