Translation Tools. What they can and cannot do. Angelika Zerfass

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1 Translation Tools What they can and cannot do Angelika Zerfass

2 Tools are stupid They have wonderful functionalities that are quite sophisticated, but only do what we tell them to do. If we do not understand the functionality correctly, the outcome will not be what we want. The tools cannot think for us. The tools "think" in small, logical steps which human beings usually don`t.

3 Preparation Tasks File preparation Conversions PDF -> Word scanned PDF -> OCR tool -> Word Export of exchange format (IDML, MIF, DXF ) Check files for validity Do they open in the source application? Do you get error messages for XML when showing them in a browser? Then your TM tool will also not be able to work with it. Is track changes still switched on in the file?

4 Preparation Tasks File preparation Check the files for special issues Are there images with text on them? Is translatable text visible and accessible (passwords)? Is there text that should not be translated? Does the translation tool need a specific filter to import the text (XML)? Example

5 What will the tools do? Text on images cannot be extracted by translation tools (ex. scanned PDF, diagrams, screenshots ). Translation tools often cannot deal with the proprietary format of the source tool (InDesign, FrameMaker, AutoCAD, QuarkXPress) an interchange format is needed. Translation tools need valid files, otherwise they just don't open them. Translation tools will usually not extract hidden text or text in protected files.

6 Text on layers, which can be hidden

7 Conditional text, which can be hidden Show text for MAC users Show text for PC users

8 What will the tools do? Without the correct filter for text import into the tool, the tool might not read all text that needs to be translated or too much text. Customer says: only the red text has to be translated Customer says: translate the text between the <item> tags, but only, if the attribute is set to translate = "yes" <item translate="no">schon übersetzt</item> <item translate="yes">not translated yet</item>

9 Segmentation The tool will segment your text but how does it know where to "see" the end of a segment? Default segmentation rules might not suit all source languages or document types. For some language pairs it might make sense to switch from sentence-based translation to paragraph-based translation Note: this will have an impact on the re-usability of the segments for further translations.

10 Segmentation To segment correctly, sometimes exceptions have to be defined. The default rule for a dot as the end of a segment says: word + dot + space + capital letter = end of segment Exceptions Abbreviations Product names that start with a small letter Words with dot before a number

11 Segmentation Rules with exceptions memoq

12 Segmentation and Re-Use Different segmentation rules in different tools will create different segments that are saved to the TM. Exchanging these TMs will yield lower match values or none at all.

13 Word Counts Translation tools count words, but what is a word? Anything that contains a letter? Anything that is delimited by spaces? How about languages that do not use spaces? What about numbers or symbols ( 1)? Do you count source or target language words?

14 How many words? Segment Word memoq Trados Studio Sentence with a reference (see page 1). 7 words 7 words 6 words (number is tag) Sentence with a link. 4 words 4 words 5 words (the link content appears as separate segment/word). It s a new way of working. 6 words 6 words 7 words (Studio 2011 It s = It is) 6 words (Studio 2014) Press the On/Off button. 4 words 4 words 5 words (/ counts as delimiter) Press the On-Off button. 4 words 4 words 5 words (- counts as delimiter)

15 Match Rate Analysis Translation tools compare source segments from the document to source segments in the TM but the match values are not comparable between tools.

16 Statistics in SDL Trados Studio 16

17 Statistics in memoq 17

18 Definitions What is a 100% match? A segment that is identical in the text and in the TM. There is a translation for the segment. No evaluation as to the quality of the translation. No guarantee that the translation fits the context 101% matches / Context Matches (CM) Take a little bit of context into account (previous segment, previous translation, following segment, what kind of segment is it: footnote, heading ) 18

19 Definitions PerfectMatch / X-Translated Match Translation of the segment comes from a previous version of the translation file, not the TM. More context is taken into account. Repetition A segment that does not have a 100% match from the TM, but appears several times in the same form in the document(s) Depending on the language, the translation of these repetitions could be different (DE: Getriebe could be singular or plural) 19

20 Matching

21 Match Values Different matching values because of algorithms (taking into account number of words and spaces and the words themselves in European languages, taking into account number of characters and characters themselves)

22 QA components QA (quality assurance) components of the TM tools can check for errors, but cannot determine whether it really is an error: If numbers are translated as words If a number that looks like a decimal number still needs to be written with a dot, because it is a version number (4.5) If for a specific target language, the default setting does not apply

23 How many errors do you find? No Source This is a new sentence. This is a (short) new sentence. In 2014, 25% of the users of software XYZ spent more than 4.5 days a months playing XYZ games. This is a new sentence. Current product version 4.5 will Send an to: Product XYZ-Tool is Company Name The # 1 tool. Target Dies ist ein neuer Satz Dies ist ein (kurzer neuer Satz verbrachten 25 % der Nutzer von XYZ-Software mehr als 4.5 Tage im Monat mit XZY-Spielen. Das ist ein neuer Satz. Die aktuelle Version 4.5 wird Schicken Sie eine Mail an : Produkt xyz-programm ist Company Name Das Werkzeug Nummer EINS. 23

24 Trados Studio Term Check Term in the source sentence that was found in the term base. Translation of the term plus additional information (forbidden) Source sentence with term from the term base marked with red overhead line. Translated sentence with associated error message, because a forbidden term was used. View of the full terminology entry in the term base

element should look like in the translation.

25 memoq user-defined format autotranslation rule using regular expressions The autotranslation rule suggests how a specific element should look like in the translation. Check of the target language, if the element has been adjusted as defined in the rule

26 Project Management Tools / Templates PM tools that connect to TM tools and templates for setting up new projects in TM tools are great to automate many tasks. The user needs to have a good understanding of what the automation is doing? What filters are applied to the different files? What are the settings for the statistics Tags counted as words, intern fuzzy matches counted or not, locked segments counted or not?

27 Interchange and Connectability Standard formats like TMX (translation memory exchange), TBX (term base exchange) or XLIFF (XML Localization Interchange File Format) make it possible to move data between tools. The "standard" formats are extensible, which means that tools developers can extend the functionality to suit their tool. This might mean that the customized data can no longer be used by other tools (meta data in TM tools, status information in XLIFF files)

28 TMX Exchange Test Translate HTML, DOCX and IDML with Studio and memoq. Export TMX from both tools and import into other tool. Analyze match values from TM created with TMX. Test is not representative as the samples were very small (20 segments each) and contained a lot of formatting, tabs, breaks, index entries

29 TMX Exchange Test best results best results

30 XLIFF Exchange Test memoq Segment with comment (yellow bubble) Locked segment (gray line / lock symbol) Rejected segment (status field red) Segment confirmed as reviewer (double checkmark)

When opening this XLIFF file from memoq in SDL Trados Studio: All segments appear as not edited/confirmed Comment is not visible Locked segment appears as

31 When opening this XLIFF file from memoq in SDL Trados Studio: All segments appear as not edited/confirmed Comment is not visible Locked segment appears as locked in Studio as well Rejected segment does not appear as rejected Status of segment that was confirmed as reviewer not visible Match values not visible

32 Interchange and Connectability TM tools can often produce other file formats for external work. Table formats XLIFF Word files for users of older tools like Wordfast classic or Trados 2007 Files only import back if handled correctly

33 Interchange and Connectability TM tool get more and more connected: To PM tools that use the TM tool in the background to create statistics and project packages To MT (machine translation) systems that provide translation suggestions when the TM does not have anything. To online dictionaries so that translators can search them in addition to the term base of their tool. To Word, where a user can search a term base without having to open the term base application. Server and cloud technologies make collaboration easier.

34 Interchange and Connectability (ex. memoq plugins)

35 Extensibility With access to the API (application programming interface) of translation tools, developers can create their own plugins (ex. SDL open exchange apps).

36 Summary Translation tools are great, but they are TOOLS. They only help us with our job, if we understand what the functionalities actually do. They are not intelligent and do not understand languages, but whenever things need to be compared (TM, term base, rule sets ) they are very valuable.

37 Thank you for your attention

STANDARD FORMATS IN TRANSLATION

STANDARD FORMATS IN TRANSLATION TMX, TBX AND XLIFF WHAT DATA CAN BE TRANSFERRED WITH THESE FORMATS? Angelika Zerfaß The Localization and Translation Conference, Warsaw 2015 Agenda TMX Translation Memory