Tips 'n' Tools for Translators - training

Book review - methods in computer linguistics

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 16:18:00 +0200

Computerlinguistische Methoden für die Digital Humanities. Eine Einführung für Geisteswissenschaftler:innen

by Melanie Andresen

While I was studying Applied Linguistics at university in Hamburg back in the 1990s, the academic subject of computer linguistics was just developing. I touched on the interdisciplinary field of computing and foreign language learning and teaching in some of my courses and later went on to write my Master's thesis about acquiring foreign-language vocabulary using software packages currently on the German market.

In other courses, we analysed language textbooks by using a digital corpus we created ourselves and rudimentary commands written in Turbo Pascal, a programming language popular at the time. This simple computer analysis of the contents and structure of language textbooks was essentially a practical, hands-on introduction to corpus linguistics in the language education sector.

A lot has happened in educational computing since then and a host of studies have been carried out based on digital corpuses of written language from sources like novels or news magazines. Lexicographers (dictionary compilers) built up huge databases of pre-existing linguistic data, most of which was in written form rather than spoken, and analysed these by computer to obtain information about the various senses of a word, its frequency and the contexts in which it was used in the corpus, for example. The Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary project was an early case in point from the 1980s and led to some very useful material being produced for language learners and teachers alike.

Some of the methods employed in corpus linguistics are also used in the field of computer linguistics, so there is an overlap to an extent. Melanie Andresen points this out in the introduction to her recent book on methods used in the digital humanities today, explaining how the two fields are linked and how they differ (see pp. 14-16). In a nutshell, while corpus linguistics describes the use of language by analysing corpora and looking for linguistic patterns, computer linguistics tries to model languages on computers in order to find technical solutions to practical problems (p. 16, quoting T. McEnery & A. Hardie, Corpus Linguistics, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 228).

Computer linguists analyse language corpora for a number of reasons, one of which is to learn how to simulate speech on a computer and get it to produce helpful responses to things that users say. So one aim is to create chatbots and other 'interactive assistants' that can converse with customers in a naturally sounding way and help them achieve what they want to do (finding out how to get somewhere while they are driving, say).

Melanie Andresen's book is aimed at newcomers to the subject who have a background in the humanities and who presumably want to know how computational methods from another field can help them analyse humanistic data in new ways, gaining insights they would not have discovered otherwise by taking a traditional approach. She begins by outlining the basic concepts of linguistics of relevance to computer linguists, such as lexical aspects of language, syntax, semantics and pragmatics (chapters 2 to 8 ). The second part of the book concerns specific methods, such as corpus searches, manual annotation, machine learning and deep learning (chapters 9 to 12). These last two chapters will be of particular interest to translators who use CAT tools or online tools with an MT (machine-translation) component like Linguee/DeepL.

The third and final section of the book is called 'Gesellschaft' (society) and explores the issue of ethics in computer linguistics, or rather, artificial intelligence. Spanning 12 pages (in the first edition of the book), this part discusses issues such as dual uses of technology (i.e. conflicting uses), unclear authorship and 'author profiling' using metadata about people who have provided some of the linguistic data in the corpus (section 13.2). Other topics she goes into are bias, discrimination and (lack of) representation in the data, which all have a negative effect on the computer's linguistic output.

I'm still reading this interesting book at the moment, but one thing that's struck me already is that the author focuses on explaining what computer linguistics is rather than giving her readers an idea of how it could be employed in their own area of the humanities. (The digital dictionary examples above are my own, not hers.) How might it be employed by historians, for example? Some practical suggestions and pointers would have been helpful, I'm sure.

Still, Andresen's introduction to the subject is well written and certainly gives the reader some insights into a new interdisciplinary field that is expanding rapidly. Here's a link to the book on the publisher's website. You can order a printed copy of it online or from any bookshop (Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, 2024, €26.99 for the softcover version, €21.99 for the e-book).

Enjoy the read.

Carl

Friday, 8 August 2025

I've got another Moodle micro-credential!

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 15:31:00 +0200

A few months back, I started finding out more about online learning platforms, partly out of curiosity and partly because I thought I might need to know how to use Moodle in my own language teaching one day.

Since then I've been working my way through the platform's online tutorials. These are self-paced, so you can do them whenever you like and as fast or as slowly as you want. Every time you complete one, you get a badge for that particular subject (or what's now called a "micro-credential" to document your progress in life-long learning). My latest badge is for learning how to create and present course content using the Moodle platform.

The tutorials are a combination of texts you have to read through, short videos to watch and questions to be answered actively in a test of what you've just learnt. You only get a badge if you get enough points in the test. If your percentage is a bit too low, you can read up on the subjects you got wrong and then do the test again soon after.

I've found that using the sandbox feature (my own term for it) really helps you learn how to use Moodle: you get free access to an area of the platform where you can play around with files you create for your own use and try out the new features you've just learnt about in a tutorial.

Whenever you learn about a new subject and how to create material for your students, you can go through the steps in your own section and get some proper, hands-on practice. Learning how to use Moodle involves a lot more than just reading through its guides and how-to tutorials, but the more often you use it, the easier it gets. There's quite a learning curve, to be honest, and the tutorials will keep you busy for hours.

Still, why not try it out yourself? See what you think and find out if it meets your own needs. The trial period is free.

Are there any good alternatives you know of? Particularly for teaching and learning foreign languages? Here are seven suggestions I found today in an article by Aishwarya Lakshmi from April 2025: Top 7 Moodle Alternatives.

Carl

e-learning tools: the Moodle platform

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 15:23:00 +0200

Hey, I've just got my first Moodle badge! Well, it's a start, at least, even if it's only for beginners...

A little while ago, I decided to broaden my knowledge of e-learning and start finding out more about virtual teaching tools I might be able to use in my own language teaching one day. Moodle was an obvious choice as it's been around for quite a few years and it crops up in job ads for teachers, too.

What I find interesting about it is that it's an OpenSource platform, so anyone can contribute to its functionality and enhance it, not just the original programmers. Plus it's got a global reach as well and has been localised in all kinds of languages (no doubt by volunteers).

I'll keep on doing the basic courses until I get a reasonable grasp of it. Fortunately, you can try it out for four weeks before having to book a package. (The basic package is reasonably priced, though.)

As I don't have any Moodle students of my own yet, it's just me using my little corner of the platform, but still, it gives me a chance to try things out and see what I can design myself.

Have you used Moodle yet? What did you think of it? It would be interesting to hear about the pros and cons of working with it from users and experienced instructors.

Carl

Links for further reading: https://moodle.com/about/

Book review on translation studies

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 17:48:00 +0100

Verstehen und Übersetzen

by Paul Kußmaul

This work is a textbook for students of translation studies. It stands out from the crowd because of the way it's written: it's clear and practical, and doesn't get overly abstract when it addresses theoretical aspects of cognition and semantics. The author taught translators at the University of Mainz in Germersheim, Germany, for many years and often draws on what he experienced in his classes, introducing questions the students had and explaining how they tackled linguistic problems encountered during translation exercises.

The book is divided into eight chapters and spans 230 pages in its third, revised edition (from 2015). The first edition of it appeared in 2007, so it seems to be popular (and justifiably so in my opinion). Each chapter is followed by a short section with exercises to practise what has just been covered in the book, and some suggested answers can be found at the back, which is handy.

I like the variety of topics in this book. Initially, the author discusses lexical "false friends", ambiguity and knowing which word or meaning to pick in a dictionary (is a brush a "Pinsel" or a "Bürste" in German?). He looks at semantic prototypes and "framing" (1.5) in connection with mental images of words and situations to be translated and then covers words that are "hard to translate" (1.7).

Some of the examples he picks are taken from questionnaires in English that were translated for mass surveys in various European countries (ISSP surveys). These often contain references to culture-specific terms, such as "National Insurance Contributions", but even words like "local" or "government" (p. 88) can turn out to be tricky to translate and call for careful reflection (pp. 37, 38). One of the key points Kußmaul makes is that words don't live in isolation, but in a specific cultural setting (2.1), which a translator also needs to bear in mind.

Here are a few more points he covers: how close should a translation be? (chap. 3), the need to differentiate (3.3), how to go about researching a term or subject (4.1), linguistic v encyclopaedic knowledge, expanding your vocabulary by learning new meanings of existing words, going beyond dictionaries when their entries fail to help (4.2), referring to online resources (IATE, Wikipedia, Google, etc.) and analysing texts properly to deduce the right meaning of a word in its context (dictionaries don't always offer the right answer!).

In the second half of the textbook, the author looks at cognitive translation processes (chap. 5), creativity in translation (6), visualising and scenes (7), and problem-solving as a translator, along with various practical strategies and techniques (8) translators can use.

In a nutshell, then, "Verstehen und Übersetzen" is a useful, hands-on textbook that is well worth reading. And astonishingly for a German textbook, it's actually easy to follow.

Link to the e-book on the publisher's website (Narr Verlag). You can also order a printed copy of the book online or from any bookshop.

Best,

Carl

Thursday, 3 February 2022

Going back to an earlier version of memoQ

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 15:24:00 +0100

If you have a valid support & maintenance agreement for memoQ, you are entitled to download the latest release of the software (either a build or a major upgrade) and install it on your PC. After doing that, however, you may find it doesn't do some things quite as well as your previous version, and if you come across enough of these shortcomings, you may want to go back to your old version and carry on using that for a while until the shortcomings get ironed out by the software development team. How do you get hold of that older version, though, now that it's been replaced by the latest one on your computer?

If you haven't had the foresight to save the installation file beforehand, don't worry – all is not lost! All you need to do is go to a page on the memoQ website and download the right installation file from there – it's https://www.memoq.com/en/downloads.

The versions of memoQ you can currently find here go back all the way from the newest one to memoQ translator pro 4.2, which was released several years ago.

Download the file, save it to your desktop (for example) and double-click on it to install it over the existing installation. The next time you launch memoQ, this earlier version will be used automatically.

And that's all there is to it!

Best,

Carl

Ein neues Nachschlagewerk für Übersetzer und Dolmetscher

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:08:00 +0100

"Best Practices – Übersetzen und Dolmetschen. Ein Nachschlagewerk aus der Praxis für Sprachmittler und Auftraggeber", (Hg.) Angelika Ottman

Dieses vielversprechende Buch erscheint demnächst beim BDÜ Fachverlag. Hier eine kurze Beschreibung dazu:

"Best Practices sind bewährte Verfahrensweisen, d. h. Methoden, Prozesse, Arbeitsweisen und Modelle, die sich in der Praxis bewährt haben und von einem Großteil der Praktiker angewendet und unterstützt werden. Das Werk wendet sich an alle, die mit den Dienstleistungen Übersetzen und Dolmetschen befasst sind, sei es als Ausführende (Übersetzer, Dolmetscher), als Vermittler (Agenturen) oder als Auftraggeber (Unternehmen, Behörden, Institutionen). Die Best Practices legen die Standards der Branche zu Vorgehensweisen beim Übersetzen und Dolmetschen dar. Mehr als 40 Autoren aus der Praxis geben ihr Expertenwissen weiter.

Bis 31.12.2016 gibt es das Werk zum günstigen Subskriptionspreis.

Für BDÜ-Mitglieder gilt bis Jahresende ein einmaliger Sonderpreis."

(Diese Angaben zum Buch sind zuerst am 21.12.2016 auf XING erschienen. Ich gebe sie hier nur wieder. Das Werk klingt, als würde es eine sehr nützliche Informationsquelle für Übersetzer und Dolmetscher sein. Auf der Bestellseite vom BDÜ Fachverlag findet man eine PDF des Inhaltsverzeichnisses als "Leseprobe" zum Reinschnuppern ...)

Frohe Feiertage! Carl

P.S.: Mehr über die Inhalte des Buches erfahren Sie in der Februar-Ausgabe der Fachzeitschrift MDÜ. Einige Aspekte werden darin einen Themenschwerpunkt bilden.

Preparing PDF files for translation - how to handle a protected file

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 16:52:00 +0100

PDF files are constantly being created by businesses and non-profit organisations to show colleagues, customers and other interested parties what material has been written or drawn and what its layout will be like once it's printed. Basically, they are exact images of documents and can be viewed on computers running on various operating systems, not just Microsoft Windows.

PDFs can either be created from other electronic file formats such as Word .docx files or they can be generated by a scanner. Depending on what settings have been made in the software, the PDF files that are created may or may not be searchable. If they are, then individual words can be found in them thanks to a processing step called optical character recognition, or OCR for short. It's usually quite easy to create an editable Word file thanks to this kind of data processing; in Adobe Acrobat XI, for example, you just select these items in the 'File' menu to export the contents into a new Word document:

The 'tough nuts', in contrast, are the scanned images of paper documents we sometimes get sent, as it can take a lot of time and effort to create a reasonable editable text from these that can then be typed over and translated. To do this, you will need to use OCR software on the file in question to try and turn the image of the document into a set of legible and hopefully correctly rendered words. Sometimes this can work well, especially if you use high-quality programs such as Acrobat, ABBYY Finereader or Nuance OmniPage, which come with powerful character-recognition software. But things don't always go to plan, and the results of OCR'ing a scanned image can also be very disappointing, requiring copious editing – or even a completely different approach to creating a translatable file.

This is the situation you may also find yourself in if you ever get sent a PDF file that has been protected (i.e. 'secured') in some way – by a password, for example, meaning you can only open it or add comments to it if you enter the password first (providing you are authorised to do so). If you don't have the password, you won't be given the full right to use and process the file. This also means you won't be able to copy its contents and paste them into a blank Word file for translation. And what then?

Asking the customer for the password may be the obvious answer here, but if they don't have it themselves and are unable (or unwilling) to get it, what else should you do? Well, there are various suggestions about this on the internet, some of which I've tried out, but have you ever thought of using a simple work-around with a printer? That may be a faster and simpler way of getting round the password-protection issue.

If you are able to print the file out (this may not be allowed, depending on what properties the PDF has been given – see the screen shot below on how to access these in Adobe Acrobat XI), then do so using the best resolution and clearest print you can. Scan the printout and create a brand-new, multi-page PDF from it yourself. Most types of scanner software will let you do this, including the three I've just mentioned.

When the scanner creates the new PDF file, get it to make the file searchable when you check or adjust the settings beforehand; it will then OCR it (don't forget to tell it which language it should recognise first, though). Once you've got the file, check it to see if the quality of the text is okay, and if it is, export the contents into a new Word file. Now you should find you have a Word document that is straightforward to translate. A little editing may be necessary, but not much (utilities like CodeZapper and TransTools Suite will help you tidy the file up if need be).

Thanks to my German colleague Ludger Giebel for mentioning this idea.

Carl

Related links

- My earlier post on converting PDFs into a translation-friendly format using Wordfast Anywhere

- My earlier post on Acrobat XI and Acrobat Reader

- Kilgray, the maker of memoQ, on converting PDFs using various tools, including their own CAT tool

- Eric le Carre on translating PDFs using various free tools

Termine für Seminar verschoben!

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 14:11:09 +0100

Das 2-tägige Seminar "Mit Erfolg in die Selbständigkeit: Sprachmittler starten durch" vom Übersetzerverband ADÜ Nord hat sich leider verschoben. Die neuen Termine der beiden Veranstaltungen sind jetzt erst im Jahr 2016:

Freitag, 7. Oktober 2016, 14 bis 18 Uhr, Hamburg

Sonnabend, 8. Oktober 2016, 10 bis 18 Uhr, Hamburg.

Nähere Infos zur Anmeldung finden Sie in meinem letzten Beitrag sowie auf der Verbandswebsite.

Zum Glück gibt es aber zahlreiche andere Seminare als Alternative dazu, u.a. vom BDÜ e.V., wie etwa ein Workshop für Existenzgründer am Freitag, 20. November 2015 in Köln oder die Veranstaltung "Existenzgründung für Übersetzer und Dolmetscher" am selben Tag in Karlsruhe. Schauen Sie ruhig das Angebot in Ihrer Nähe und benachbarten Bundesländern an.

Viele Grüße

Carl

Seminar für neue Übersetzer und Dolmetscher im November

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 23:01:00 +0200

Gegen Ende November bietet mein Übersetzerverband ADÜ Nord ein zweitägiges Seminar an, das für neue und werdende Übersetzer und Dolmetscher sicherlich sehr interessant wird: "Mit Erfolg in die Selbständigkeit: Sprachmittler starten durch". Diese Fortbildung ist das zweite von insgesamt drei Seminaren extra für Berufseinsteiger, und zwar aus der Reihe "Selbstständig als Übersetzer und Dolmetscher arbeiten". (Das erste befasst sich am 24. Oktober mit Microsoft Word, das dritte am 28. November geht um CAT-Tools – weitere Infos hier).

Datum und Ort:

Freitag, 20. November 2015, 14 bis 18 Uhr, Hamburg

Sonnabend, 21. November 2015, 10 bis 18 Uhr, Hamburg

Lerninhalte (ich zitiere aus dem Infomaterial):

"Dieses Seminar vermittelt in komprimierter Form alles, was Sie für den Geschäftsalltag als Freiberufler wissen müssen: von rechtlichen Grundlagen und der Vertragsgestaltung über Steuern und Versicherungen bis hin zur Kalkulation und Akquise von Aufträgen. Außer geballtem Wissen gibt es jede Menge Tipps von »alten Hasen« und die Möglichkeit, sich auszutauschen und Kontakte zu knüpfen:

Unternehmensform und andere rechtliche Grundlagen

Steuern und Finanzamt

Versicherungsschutz

Kosten der Selbstständigkeit

Finanzierungsbedarf und Fördermöglichkeiten

Kalkulation und Preisbildung

Marketing und Kundengewinnung"

Vorkenntnisse sind nicht notwendig.

Referentin: Dr. Thea Döhler, Trainerin und Beraterin für Sprachmittler und deren Berufsverbände.

Teilnahmebeitrag für das zweitägige Seminar (einschließlich 1 Mittagessen sowie Pausenverpflegung und Seminarunterlagen):

Mitglieder: 150 Euro

Nichtmitglieder: 190 Euro

zuzüglich 19 % Mehrwertsteuer.

Frühbucherrabatt (€ 10,-) verlängert bis 27. Oktober 2015! Die Anmeldung läuft schon.

Für weitere Infos und die Möglichkeit, sich online anzumelden, siehe hier.

.......

Weitere Infos zum Thema Berufseinstieg vom Verband ADÜ Nord: http://www.adue-nord.de/leistungen/berufseinstieg/

Einsteigerstammtisch der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer in Hamburg am 29. Oktober 2015 ab 19:30 Uhr im Abaton-Bistro im Grindelhof, Grindelallee 14a, 20146 Hamburg.

Übrigens, der Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer e.V. (kurz: BDÜ) hat neuen Übersetzern und Dolmetschern ähnlich viel zu bieten. Zum Thema "Wie wird man Übersetzer oder Dolmetscher?", zum Beispiel, siehe die Informationen auf dieser Seite.

Für BDÜ-Seminare und Webinare, siehe hier. Unter anderem ist das Seminar "Was Sie schon immer über Existenzgründung wissen wollten" am 3. November in Saarbrücken für Einsteiger höchst relevant.

Viele Grüße

Carl

................

Nachtrag am 6. November: Soeben hat der BDÜ eine neu überarbeitete und erweiterte Ausgabe des Buches "Erfolgreich selbstständig als Dolmetscher und Übersetzer" herausgegeben. "[A]uch erfahrene Kollegen können mithilfe dieses Bandes aus dem BDÜ Fachverlag ihr eigenes Geschäftsmodell auf den Prüfstand stellen und Antworten zu Versicherungsfragen oder Kalkulationsmodellen finden", heißt es. Das Werk kostet ca. € 22 und ist hier erhältlich. ISBN: 9783938430606.

Bilder: Logos © ADÜ Nord e.V., BDÜ e.V.

Two virtual events from Proz on International Translation Day

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 20:00:30 +0200

Translators' platform Proz.com is going to be staging its 7th annual virtual conference shortly, in celebration of International Translation Day on Wednesday, 30 September 2015.

This conference is actually one of two training events for translators running over two whole days starting from 29 September.

100+ hours of scheduled and on-demand sessions and content

30+ hours of LIVE content including Q&A sessions, panel discussions, chat rooms and more

Panel discussions on “Terminology management” and “Customer relationship management”

Exhibit booths where you can chat live with exhibitors and software vendors (including prize giveaways)

Earn 10 ATA CE credits for attending

Save up to 50% on popular CAT tools including SDL Trados Studio, memoQ, Wordfast, Déjà Vu and more

Here are some of the topics that are going to be discussed according to Proz:

How to find direct clients and run a business that you love

Translation or Interpreting? & the Emerging Market for Hybrid Communication Models

Getting in the game: a 'how to' for translation beginners

The beauty of machine translation

10 essential tips that are most helpful for a professional translator

Where to find clients and how to approach them and do the follow-up without sounding too pushy

Glossary & terminology management

Panel discussion on client relationship management

Panel discussion on leveraging voice-recognition technology for greater efficiency.

View the full programme here, after which you can click here to register as an attendee. (It's free!)

N.B. If you attend at least one live event, this will give you free access to recordings after the event, which you can watch any time for a period of at least 90 days.

For events concerning CAT tools on 29 September, see the special programme here. This will include the following talks:

Free Tools for Translators

Technical translation: is it really about terminology?

Setting up an MT system

Managing client expectations

Economics of pricing for the translation industry

Panel discussion on meeting clients

Panel discussion on machine translation

Medical documents for academic publishing: creating English content with precision, accuracy and style

How to participate in EU tendering procedures for translation services.

I'm sure you'll find something worthwhile as the topics are very varied. There are also quite a lot of pre-recorded webinars to accompany the two-day event that you can watch on demand, i.e. whenever it suits you.

Regards,

Carl

Related links

FIT (the International Federation of Translators) on International Translation Day

The British Library's day-long programme of events on translation in London on 2 October ("An opportunity for translators, students, publishers, booksellers, librarians, bloggers and reviewers to gather and debate")

A pledge to continue your professional development

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 18:52:00 +0200

"Continuing professional development", or CPD for short, has become something of a buzzword in business these days, even though it's something translators and interpreters have been doing for donkey's years. In a bid to get their members to commit themselves to ongoing training, some professional translators' associations like the American Translators Association (ATA) have made CPD obligatory and set members a goal of achieving so and so many points or credits for getting relevant training within a specific period. Other translators' associations like the British ITI and German BDÜ recommend CPD, but feel it's a personal choice and should therefore be voluntary.

Various educational organisations offering us videos, workshops and training courses on aspects of our work have been set up over the years, one of which is eCPD Webinars, which I've mentioned here before. This small but dedicated training company based in the UK offers an impressive range of online videos, live and recorded webinars, and courses designed especially for translators and interpreters. Some of these cost a fee, while others are free of charge.

eCPD Webinars is currently running a campaign to encourage linguists to show how committed they are to continuous professional development. You can do this by downloading a kind of virtual badge expressing your pledge to CPD.

You're free to put this on your website, in your e-mail signature, on your business cards and anywhere else where you might draw attention to your professional activity. To get the badge, which is free, you only need to read their CPD Manifesto; if you agree with all the points it lists, you're entitled to use the badge. (You can work on these points, of course, and then download the badge later once you meet all the criteria.)

To help you keep track of your CPD activities, eCPD Webinars is also offering a free log template, which you can download from here (a Dropbox site).

What CPD activities have you taken part in so far this year? Have they been worthwhile?

What do you get out of attending workshops and courses that you don't from participating in online webinars?

Have you thought of doing your CPD activities in a more systematic way? Or recording them in a special file as proof of what steps you've taken? What about developing some new skills that might prove useful in future? Or attending a conference where you can network with lots of other translators as well as attending workshops on topics of interest? CPD can boost your own motivation and open up new avenues of work for you one day, so it's worth investing in.

Regards,

Carl

Topic-related sites

WantWordsTV by Marta Stelmaszak (videos)

Sarah Dillon on CPD (blog)

Jayne Fox on CPD and forthcoming conferences for translators (blog)

Foreign Tongues on ways of obtaining more training (blog)

Training for translators offered by Proz.com

A webinar on how CAT tools have changed

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 11:37:00 +0200

If you are interested in hearing what a prominent speaker and writer on computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools has to say about the state of the 'art', a forthcoming webinar is likely to appeal to you.

Jost Zetzsche, the author of a newsletter on translation tools that I reviewed here back in August 2013, will be holding a webinar entitled 'Translation technology – what’s still missing and what has been fixed?' on 21 May (4 pm British time). This is actually a continuation of an earlier interactive webinar he held in January 2014 (see below for more details).

As the organiser, eCPD Webinars, explains in today's newsletter announcement about it, Jost 'will be talking about what has happened in the intervening 16 months and how, if at all, things could further improve for translators'. If you attend the talk, you will also be able to participate in it actively by asking Jost questions.

This webinar is free of charge, eCPD Webinars says. To sign up, just go to http://www.ecpdwebinars.co.uk/events_122730.html (or click here). Places are limited, but fortunately, the event will be recorded for later viewing.

Regards,

Carl

Related links

Jost's initial webinar on this topic, which can also be viewed free of charge (lasts 1 hr 11 mins).

The Tool Box Journal ('a monthly journal for people in the translation industry who want to get more out of their computers')

Subscribe to eCPD's free webinar newsletter on their website to keep up to date with their events.

Coping with a bug in memoQ 2014

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 13:21:00 +0200

This post is rather technical and will only be of real interest to other users of memoQ, which is the main computer-assisted translation tool I use. Software bugs can be minor annoyances, but from time to time, a major one appears in a new software build that can play havoc with your workflow and productivity. So much for CAT tools saving you time! Don't believe everything you read on the glossy pages of CAT-tool websites!

Over the last week or so (middle/end of March), a serious bug has appeared in memoQ 2014 (build 71) and R2 (build 58) that has been causing many users headaches, it seems (including me). It stops you from exporting your translation back to the original .docx file format – you get a puzzling error message like this:

..............

TYPE:

System.InvalidOperationException

MESSAGE:

Die Sequenz enthält kein übereinstimmendes Element.

SOURCE:

MemoQ.Project

CALL STACK:

bei MemoQ.Project.TranslationDocImportExport.LocalExportController.<DoJob>b__12(ExportUnitBase eu)

..............

[The equivalent English version is this, apparently:

TYPE:

System.InvalidOperationException

MESSAGE:

Sequence contains no matching element

SOURCE:

MemoQ.Project

CALL STACK:

at MemoQ.Project.TranslationDocImportExport.LocalExportController.<DoJob>b__12(ExportUnitBase eu)]

.............

... and can't get your translation out of memoQ! There is a simple way of dealing with the issue, however – if you happen to know how.

First of all, don't panic, as your translation is safe and sound inside memoQ; nothing has been lost. One way of getting your translation back into the original file format (only Word files are affected) is to re-import the source file, pre-translate it – in which case everything will be inserted automatically if the segmenting has been done the same way – and then simply export the file as usual. Voilà! And it's all done in a matter of minutes.

So why does this work if the export didn't work before? Well, it's because your original translation will have contained comments, apparently. (Comments can be inserted deliberately, but they are also added by memoQ by default if you happen to mark a word or phrase to highlight it and return to it later.)

To get things working smoothly again until the bug has been fixed (which will probably be the case shortly in the next build), change the settings to export .docx files without any comments:

- go to 'Options' in R2 (use the icon in the top menu bar)(or go to 'Tools' > 'Options' in memoQ 2014) and select the 'Miscellaneous' category.

There are five options in the middle that you can set to define which type of comment you want to export (e.g. 'Export information-level comments to final file'):

- uncheck all of them, click on 'OK' to save the setting and then try to export your documents again. It ought to work now.

Thanks to Technical Support at Kilgray for this advice, which I am passing on here to spread the word faster. (Once the bug has been fixed, you will need to go back to these settings and tick them again to re-activate them if you want comments to be exported, otherwise they won't.)

Last but not least, despite all the enhancements that Kilgray's developers keep on adding to memoQ, which, like any piece of user software, is a work in progress, it's always worth remembering you can re-install a previous, stable build of memoQ and work with that until the major bugs in the latest build have been rectified. Just double-click on the installation file and it will get installed 'on top of' the current installation. That will also save you a few headaches.

It's a wise idea to keep the last few builds on your computer for this reason rather than deleting them soon after installing them – that way, you will always be able to access them, no matter where you are and what your internet access is like (sometimes it can be poor or even non-existent, especially if you're travelling somewhere and trying to work at the same time). Alternatively, you can just ask Kilgray's Support team for a particular build and they will send it to you.

Hope these pointers prove helpful.

Carl

image credits: memoQ logo courtesy of Kilgray Translation Technologies

Useful links and addresses

E-mail Kilgray's Technical Support team at support [@] kilgray [dot] com

The thread about this particular issue on the memoQ user group at Yahoo! Groups, where memoQ users can discuss issues they are having with memoQ and sometimes resolve them with each other's help (you will need to have a Yahoo! account to be able to access this).

MemoQ in 5 minutes (2): keyboard short cuts

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 18:24:08 +0100

This short post is about a selection of keyboard short cuts I find particularly useful in memoQ.

There are actually quite a number of blog posts on this topic already, which are either quite detailed or just brief lists of short cuts the writer has found to be useful personally. My post here falls in the second category. Perhaps you'll also benefit from using these combinations of keys in your own work with memoQ.

Five useful "F" keys (in the top row of your keyboard)

Press F1 to call up memoQ's help documentation

... F2 to edit a source segment, e.g. to correct a spelling mistake

... F4 to auto-assemble a target segment, i.e. automatically insert matching target terms from your project TBs into the target segment to assemble a preliminary translation (using your own resources, not MT)

... F7 to do a spelling check

... F9 to insert the next tag into the target segment.

Five other useful functions called up by pressing Ctrl and another key simultaneously

Ctrl + K: calls up the concordance window so you can search for a word or phrase in all the TMs attached to your current project. To use it, double-click on a term to mark it, then press Ctrl and K at the same time. You'll then see a list of occurrences of the term in your TM entries if it crops up there.

Ctrl + Enter key: confirms the current target segment and sends it off to your primary TMs

Ctrl + P: look up a term in your project TBs

Ctrl + Q: save a source and matching target term to your primary TB instantaneously (remember, Q = "quick")

Ctrl + E: save a source and matching target term to your primary TB and then change or supplement either entry in a term-base dialogue (remember, E = enter a term)

------------------

On a final note, it's helpful to know that quite a number of keyboard short cuts used in memoQ are identical to those used in the popular Office programs made by Microsoft. One example is Ctrl + F (or H) to find (and replace) a phrase (F = "find"). Pressing F1 to call up the program's help documentation is another.

A full list of keyboard short cuts is included in memoQ's help documentation, both offline (press F1!) and online (http://kilgray.com/memoq/2014/help-en/index.html).

Try some of the short cuts out and see if you find them handy. There are far too many of them for users to be able to remember them all, unfortunately, but the ones you use most often will obviously be the ones you recall best. Whichever short cuts you pick up, they'll save you time and improve your productivity.

Incidentally, did you know you can customise a lot of short cuts in memoQ? To find out more, see Kevin Lossner's blog post and Kilgray's help documentation on the subject (see the links below).

Regards

Carl

Related links

Kilgray has a detailed list of short cuts in its online knowledge base (there's a PDF file you can download from there, too)

Here's a nice overview of memoQ's short cuts arranged in practical groups

Kevin Lossner's post on customising keyboard short cuts

For the sake of comparison, here's one on SDL Trados Studio 2014:

Translator Emma Goldsmith has written several blog posts on keyboard short cuts found in this CAT tool. This one is on basic commands

and this is one on short cuts for more advanced users of Studio 2014.

MemoQ in 5 mins (1): 100% matches + auto-propagation

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 10:17:00 +0100

"What do you mean 'it's identical'?"

1. Matches

One of the main marketing arguments for buying a CAT tool is that it is capable of "translating" files that contain a lot of repetition very quickly, thus saving you time. This statement is basically true, but it ignores the fact that it may still be necessary to check the "100% matches" and other very close matches to see if they fit the context, which also takes time and calls for great care on the translator's part.

Kilgray has made this easier for users by introducing the concept of a "101% match" in memoQ, which simply means that the segments directly adjacent to the 100% match are also taken into account; if they match up, too, then you have a highly dependable 101% context match.

2. Auto-propagation

Matches get copied – or "propagated" – throughout the text you are translating if you have set memoQ to do this. The setting is accessible via "Translations" > "Auto-Propagation..." in the main menu bar at the top of the screen when you have a document open in a project, as the following screen shot shows (auto-propagation is the fourth item down):

If you click on the item, the following dialogue will appear:

As you can see, you can set memoQ to propagate translations of identical segments in a particular direction: (a) "only forward", i.e. downwards from the cursor or (b) "backward and forward", i.e. upwards as well as downwards (= throughout the document you're translating). Various other settings can also be made.

Translations that have been propagated, i.e. copied to "identical" segments, are indicated by a dotted green arrow pointing downwards:

3. No go!

Before you choose an option, though, you might want to ask yourself if auto-propagating translations of "identical" segments is actually a wise idea; there are cases where it isn't, namely if a source segment needs to be translated in different ways, depending on its position in the overall text (= the context).

I encountered this situation in a recent translation in which a short source segment was used as a heading in one place and as a bullet point in another, which called for capitalisation in the first case, but not in the second one. It's also in cases like this that you might want to pick different translations for the same source text. But beware! If you set memoQ to propagate "identical" segments automatically upwards and/or downwards, it will insert one translation wherever the source text occurs, regardless of its contextual function.

To prevent this from happening, you need to de-activate auto-propagation altogether, after which you can handle seemingly identical segments on an individual basis rather than as a group. To do this, just unclick the box at the top, next to "Allow auto-propagation":

When you decide to re-activate the function afterwards (don't forget!), just go up to the menu again, select the item, click on the box again and a tick will re-appear. Close the dialogue and then memoQ will be set to propagate identical translations automatically again. (It would be nice if auto-propagation could be switched on or off with a single click on an icon in the main toolbar one day...)

Regards

Carl

images: my own screen shots & courtesy of Kilgray

Related information on the topic

Kilgray's online help documentation on auto-propagation

More details about the auto-propagation settings dialogue

And a quick look over the fence...

Changing SDL Trados Studio 2014's auto-propagation behaviour (a blog post by Jayne Fox)

Auto-propagation and "one-to-many" matching in OmegaT