Usage of TM: Pros and Contras
Translation memory (TM) arrangements, the most widely used toolkits in the localization of digital information at HQ-translate agency, enable the proofreading and cross-border accommodation 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 document has been broken down into short parts, generally one sentence long. Today the most popular CAT tools: TRADOS, Déjà vu, Wordfast. The priviledges of using TM systems are fairly obvious: they increase the translator’s productivity and enhance translation quality by ensuring that terminology and statements are used consistently within and across translation works. Users in industry and transnational companies submit a 25–60% rise in productivity. 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 work at sentence level. That’s why, 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 degree of similarity between a part to be translated and a segment retrieved from the database may differ considerably from the level of similarity calculated by the TM system. This may follow 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 grade is not useful at all (for a discussion on the aspects of evaluating the retrieval mechanisms of TM systems, see Expert Advisory Group on Language Engineering Standards (1996), Whyman and Somers (1999), and Reinke (2000a, 2004). Despite the vices, it should be noted that TM systems generally build into the translation workflow relatively smoothly. These CATs leave human translators in control of the actual translation work, while liberating them from routine work and supporting translation as a creative act whenever the linguistic resourcefulness of a human nature is required. For more remarks, visit us at: HQ-translate company