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Computer-aided translation (CAT), also referred to as machine-assisted translation (MAT) or machine-aided human translation (MAHT), is the use of software to assist a human translator in the translation process. The translation is created by a human, and certain aspects of the process are facilitated by software; this is in contrast with machine translation (MT), in which the translation is created by a computer, optionally with some human intervention (e.g. pre-editing and post-editing).[1]
Computer-aided translation ( CAT ), also referred to as machine-assisted translation ( MAT) or machine-aided human translation ( MAHT ), is the use of software to assist a human translator in the translation process. The translation is created by a human, and certain aspects of the process are facilitated by software; this is in contrast with machine translation (MT), in which the translation is created by a. TRADOS is a CAT (computer assisted translation) tool that can help translators perform fast and accurate translation procedures for various texts. Even if there is no version of TRADOS for Mac released yet, there are other applications you can use instead. The next list contains some alternatives to TRADOS for Mac.
CAT tools are typically understood to mean programs that specifically facilitate the actual translation process. Most CAT tools have (a) the ability to translate a variety of source file formats in a single editing environment without needing to use the file format's associated software for most or all of the translation process, (b) translation memory, and (c) integration of various utilities or processes that increase productivity and consistency in translation.
Range of tools[edit]
Computer-assisted translation is a broad and imprecise term covering a range of tools. These can include:
- Translation memory tools (TM tools), consisting of a database of text segments in a source language and their translations in one or more target languages.[2]
- Spell checkers, either built into word processing software, or available as add-on programs
- Grammar checkers, either built into word processing software, or available as add-on programs.
- Terminology managers, which allow translators to manage their own terminology bank in an electronic form. This can range from a simple table created in the translator's word processing software or spreadsheet, a database created in a program such as FileMaker Pro or, for more robust (and more expensive) solutions, specialized software packages such as SDL MultiTerm, LogiTerm, Termex, TermWeb, etc.
- Electronic dictionaries, either unilingual or bilingual
- Terminology databases, either on the host computer or accessible through the Internet, such as TERMIUM Plus or Grand dictionnaire terminologique from the Office québécois de la langue française
- Full-text search tools (or indexers), which allow the user to query already translated texts or reference documents of various kinds. Some such indexers are ISYS Search Software, dtSearch Desktop and Naturel
- Concordancers, which are programs that retrieve instances of a word or an expression and their respective context in a monolingual, bilingual or multilingual corpus, such as a bitext or a translation memory
- Bitext aligners: tools that align a source text and its translation which can then be analyzed using a full-text search tool or a concordancer
- Project management software that allows linguists to structure complex translation projects in a form of chain of tasks (often called 'workflow'), assign the various tasks to different people, and track the progress of each of these tasks
Concepts[edit]
Translation memory software[edit]
Translation memory programs store previously translated source texts and their equivalent target texts in a database and retrieve related segments during the translation of new texts.[3]
Such programs split the source text into manageable units known as 'segments'. A source-text sentence or sentence-like unit (headings, titles or elements in a list) may be considered a segment. Texts may also be segmented into larger units such as paragraphs or small ones, such as clauses. As the translator works through a document, the software displays each source segment in turn, and provides a previous translation for re-use if it finds a matching source segment in its database. If it does not, the program allows the translator to enter a translation for the new segment. After the translation for a segment is completed, the program stores the new translation and moves on to the next segment. In the dominant paradigm, the translation memory is, in principle, a simple database of fields containing the source language segment, the translation of the segment, and other information such as segment creation date, last access, translator name, and so on. Another translation memory approach does not involve the creation of a database, relying on aligned reference documents instead.[4]
Some translation memory programs function as standalone environments, while others function as an add-on or macro for commercially available word-processing or other business software programs. Add-on programs allow source documents from other formats, such as desktop publishing files, spreadsheets, or HTML code, to be handled using the TM program.
Language search-engine software[edit]
New to the translation industry, Language search-engine software is typically an Internet-based system that works similarly to Internet search engines. Rather than searching the Internet, however, a language search engine searches a large repository of Translation Memories to find previously translated sentence fragments, phrases, whole sentences, even complete paragraphs that match source document segments.
Language search engines are designed to leverage modern search technology to conduct searches based on the source words in context to ensure that the search results match the meaning of the source segments. Like traditional TM tools, the value of a language search engine rests heavily on the Translation Memory repository it searches against.
Terminology management software[edit]
Terminology management software provides the translator a means of automatically searching a given terminology database for terms appearing in a document, either by automatically displaying terms in the translation memory software interface window or through the use of hot keys to view the entry in the terminology database. Some programs have other hotkey combinations allowing the translator to add new terminology pairs to the terminology database on the fly during translation. Some of the more advanced systems enable translators to check, either interactively or in batch mode, if the correct source/target term combination has been used within and across the translation memory segments in a given project. Independent terminology management systems also exist that can provide workflow functionality, visual taxonomy, work as a type of term checker (similar to spell checker, terms that have not been used correctly are flagged) and can support other types of multilingual term facet classifications such as pictures, videos, or sound.[5][3]
Alignment software[edit]
Alignment programs take completed translations, divide both source and target texts into segments, and attempt to determine which segments belong together in order to build a translation memory or other reference resource with the content. Many alignment programs allow translators to manually realign mismatched segments. The resulting bitext (also known as parallel text) alignment can then be imported into a translation memory program for future translations or used as a reference document.
Interactive machine translation[edit]
Interactive machine translation is a paradigm in which the automatic system attempts to predict the translation the human translator is going to produce by suggesting translation hypotheses. These hypotheses may either be the complete sentence, or the part of the sentence that is yet to be translated.
Augmented translation[edit]
Augmented translation is a form of human translation carried out within an integrated technology environment that provides translators access to subsegment adaptive machine translation (MT) and translation memory (TM), terminology lookup (CAT), and automatic content enrichment (ACE) to aid their work, and that automates project management, file handling, and other ancillary tasks.[6][7]
Based on the concept of augmented reality, augmented translation seeks to make translators more productive by providing them with relevant information on an as-needed basis. This information adapts to the habits and style of individual translators in order to accelerate their work and increase productivity. It differs from classical postediting of MT, which has linguists revise entire texts translated by machines, in that it provides machine translation and information as suggestions that can be adopted in their entirety, edited, or ignored, as appropriate.[6]
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Augmented translation extends principles first developed in the 1980s that made their way into CAT tools. However, it integrates several functions that have previously been discrete into one environment. For example, translators historically have had to leave their translation environments to do terminology research, but in an augmented environment, an ACE component would automatically provide links to information about terms and concepts found in the text directly within the environment.
As of May 2017, no full implementations of an augmented translation environment exist, although individual developers have created partial systems.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^2010, 'Computer-aided translation', by Lynne Bowker & Des Fisher, in 'Handbook of Translation Studies', edited by Gambier & Doorslaer, page 70.
- ^Christensen, Tina Paulsen; Schjoldager, Anne. 'Translation-Memory (TM) Research: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?'(PDF). Hermes. 44.
- ^ ab'Terminology Management and MT'(PDF). Circuit. 117.
- ^'CAT Tools vs. Machine Translation: What's the Best Method?'. Asian Absolute. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
- ^'Archived copy'(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 2012-04-25. Retrieved 2011-10-03.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- ^ abDePalma, Donald A. and Arle Lommel (2017-02-15). 'Augmented Translation Powers up Language Services'. Common Sense Advisory. Retrieved 2017-05-19.
- ^Eggers, William D., David Schatsky, and Dr. Peter Viechnicki (2017-04-26). 'AI-augmented government: Using cognitive technologies to redesign public sector work'. Deloitte University Press. Retrieved 2017-05-19.
External links[edit]
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: CAT-Tools |
- Computer Aided Translation at Curlie
Top Three Free CAT Tools you can start using right now
Computer assisted translation (CAT) tools are computer applications that make job a lot easier for translators all over the world. CAT tools are not automatic translation machines and they won’t translate the text for us, but they will help during the process.
Best Cat Tools For Translators
Common feature of these tools is that they allow the user to store the previous translations into database, together with the original texts. CAT tool program then checks if there are previously translated segments in the source text. If the repetition occurs, the software automatically reuses the stored translation. Database that contains stored translation is called translation memory. CAT tools are useful for large projects, especially technical texts, because the turnaround time becomes much faster.
These applications are mostly commercial, expensive and made for Windows users, but there are several good ones you can download or use online for free. If you search for free and open source applications, at the top of Google search results you’ll get OmegaT, MateCAT and SmartCAT, and these are the ones we are going to talk about today.
OmegaT
OmegaT is a free and open source CAT tool that keeps track of the similar segments and provides support in form of dictionary and glossary. It’s a downloadable program, available for Windows, Linux and Mac users.
When you first open the program, you’ll see the welcome screen with some guidance on how to use it. When the document is imported, the translation area is on the left side, and the right side serves for helpers and tools which come handy during the translation process. Glossary appears on the lower right side.
One of the most useful characteristics of this program is the option to mark the untranslated segments, which colors the untranslated text blue. All translated phrases turn green. Saving the document creates a new directory containing the source document, target folder, glossary – basically everything that belongs to the current project. Be careful and often check for untranslated segments, because you won’t receive any warning from the translated document in case that some parts of the translation are missing.
MateCAT
Unlike OmegaT, MateCAT is a web based translation program, which means the only thing you’ll need to use it is Internet connection. It’s a very good tool with easy to use interface. MateCAT gives more matches than any other CAT software because it has the database of over 20 billion words of public translation memory. You can use your own translation memory, and of course – machine translation.
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The first screen we see after uploading the file is different from other CAT tools screens out there. On the right side of the window, you can see how many words the document contains, and the middle part of the screen shows how many words is left to translate, without the words MateCAT has in its database since it already counts them as done.
When you click on “translate”, the window that opens is called translation editor. The left column contains text that needs to be translated broken down into segments, and the right side is where we do the work. If there’s a match in the database, it will show on the right side. If it’s not a 100% match, it can be improved and your correct input is useful to many people around the globe. It’s important to download a document preview once in a while to make sure the target document has the same appearance as the source.
SmartCAT
The only thing you’ll need to start using the free SmartCAT tool is to sign up to the website, either as a freelancer, or a company, depending on your needs. As a freelancer, the website offers you to upload documents for translation, assists you in translating them and allows to download them after you’re finished. As a company, you can create projects, manage them, find people to translate them directly on the website, manage access to your employees, etc.
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When you first enter the system, the homepage – which is the project page – will be empty, but as you work, there will be more and more translations. The program supports more than 30 file types. This tool is better than the others in terms of optical character recognition (OCR), meaning it can translate image-based files such as PDF files. In fact, SmartCAT’s advanced OCR capabilities are currently number one in the world, the only downside is that you have to pay a small fee to actually use this feature.
CAT tools are making translators’ lives easier, however, they are not suitable for translating books, poetry, literary texts and one-off client projects. Developing technologies like CAT applications and constantly improving the software is a great way to keep up with the challenges of the modern day and age.
Free Cat Tools For Translators
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Memsource is a free CAT-tool which you can start using right now. Maybe more powerful than some of the tools on the list.
+ What about Wordfast anywhere?
smartCAT is a great, clear intuitive tool. I recommend it.
I just tried SmartCAT: wonderful!
I am regularly using SmartCAT it is wonderful for translators. Even if they charge little, but that is worth payting.
[…] What languages can they translate from and into? > What are their specializations? > What CAT tools do they use? > How many years of experience do they have? > Are they available for long […]
I received a test but I have to download CAT tools first. Any idea where I can do so free of charge?
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