Introduction to IT Tools for Translation

IT AND TRANSLATION
INTRODUCTION
Dr. Mohammed H. Al Aqad
Senior Lecturer – MSU
alakkadmohmad@yahoo.com
Intro to CAT Tools

IT AND TRANSLATION
INTRODUCTION
IT AND TRANSLATION

Rationale for IT Applications to Translation
“A computer is a device that can be used to magnify human
productivity. Properly used, it does not dehumanize by imposing
its own Orwellian stamp on the products of human spirit ……….
………..Translation is a fine and exacting art, but there is much
about it that is mechanical and routine, if this were given over to a
machine, the productivity of the translator would not only be
magnified but this work would become more rewarding, more
exciting, more human.”
Martin Kay (1987)

COURSE OVERVIEW
 ESSENTIALS
 TEXT PROCESSING
 MT
 TM
 WORKING WITH CORPORA
 TERMINOLOGY EXTRACTION AND
GLOSSARY PRODUCTION (MONOLINGUAL
AND BILINGUAL CORPORA)

COURSE OVERVIEW - DETAILS
 1) ESSENTIALS:
 Types of computer aides
 CAT vs. MT
 History of CAT tools
 General principles of working with CAT tools
 Reference materials
 Localization and internationalization
 UNIX

 2) TEXT PROCESSING
 Word and WordPad (tips and tricks)
 Fonts, code pages, keyboard layout,
language tools in Windows XP and Office
 Speech recognition software
 Scanning
 OCR
 File types (essential info on the most
common file types and file conversion
utilities)

 3) MT
 How it works, brief exhibition:
 Systran Pro
 Prompt
 Neuro Tran
 Babelfish
DESKTOP BASED
SUPPORTS CROATIAN (partially
Serbian)
WEB BASED

 4) TM:
 Overview (what it is, standards and file
formats)
 Desktop vs. server based TM programs
 WinAlign
 WordFast
 Trados (nowadays SDL Trados) –
Freelance edition
 Sisulizer

 5) WORKING WITH CORPORA
 Essentials
 Concordancing (WordSmith, Concordancer,
AntConc)
 Advanced corpora analysis: WordSmith,
TigerSearch
 Lemmatization and annotation
 Parallel corpora: ParaConc

 6) TERMINOLOGY EXTRACTION AND
GLOSSARY PRODUCTION
 Essentials
 Doing it automatically: Trados (i.e. SDL)
MultiTerm (Desktop and Extract)
 Doing it semi-automatically: ParaConc,
Concordancer

COURSE REQUIREMENTS
 Basic computer literacy
 Positive outlook:
 Computers don’t bite
 CAT tools are not complex, they are actually
made to make you more efficient
 Interest in translation
 Willingness to become several times
more efficient in doing translations

SCHEDULE
 HONESTLY, WE DON’T KNOW FOR
CERTAIN!
 THAT’S WHY WE NEED YOUR EMAIL
ADDRESSES, SO THAT WE CAN
KEEP YOU UPDATED WITH THE
LATEST SCHEDULE DEVELOPMENTS
 PROBABLY: LOCATION: 25 (lectures)
and 38 (computer lab), SATURDAYS,
at16:00 O’CLOCK

LITERATURE
 Geoffrey Samuelsson-Brown, A Practical Guide for Translators
(Topics in Translation), Multilingual Matters, 4th edition (May 28,
2004)
 H. L. Somers (Editor), Computers and Translation: A Translator's
Guide (Benjamins Translation Library, 35), John Benjamins
Publishing Co, 1st edition (May 2003)
 Bert Esselink, A Practical Guide to Localization (Language
International World Directory), John Benjamins Publishing Co,
Revised 1st edition (September 2000)
 Silvia Pavel and Diane Nolet, Handbook of Terminology,
Translation Bureau of Canada, 1st edition (2001)
 Frank Austermuhl, Electronic Tools for Translators (Translation
Practices Explained), St. Jerome, 1st edition, (April 2001)

COURSE OVERVIEW - GRADING
 This is a hands-on course
 You will be graded on the basis of the
results of your practical assignments:
 Creating TMs from parallel texts (fiction and
non-fiction e.g. a book and a manual) – in a
way, you will be also creating a parallel
corpus
 Translating two short passages (fiction and
non-fiction) using your newly created TMs

IT AND TRANSLATION
ESSENTIALS AND MORE ABOUT THE COURSE

TYPES OF COMPUTER AIDES
 Computer aides / tools that are relevant to
translators can be roughly classified into three
groups:
 Basic input and editing tools
 Reference tools
 Productivity tools

CAT vs MT
 As soon as you start using computer software
in the process of translating, you are entering
the realm of COMPUTER-AIDED
TRANSLATION, or CAT in short.
 In other words, CAT is a form of translation
wherein a human translator translates texts
using computer software designed to support
and facilitate the translation process.

CAT vs MT (continued)
 The problem is that COMPUTER-AIDED
TRANSLATION, is sometimes also called
COMPUTER-ASSISTED TRANSLATION,
MACHINE-AIDED TRANSLATION or
MACHINE-ASSISTED TRANSLATION.
 Due to the latter two terms, CAT is sometimes
confused with MACHINE TRANSLATION, or
MT in short.

 Although these two concepts are related and
similar in some aspects, CAT and MT denote
two diametrically different processes:
 In CAT, the computer program merely supports
the translator, so the translator translates the text
himself/herself, making all the essential decisions
involved.
 In MT, the translator supports the machine, that
is to say: the computer (i.e. program) translates
the text, which is then edited by the translator, or,
in most cases, not edited at all.

 Graphically represented, the difference is:
automation human involvement
Automatic
Translation/
Machine Translation
Unaided
Translation
Translation process
automated by use of
Machine Translation
Translation process
aided by electronic tools
such as (most typically)
Translation Memory
Translation process
not aided by any
electronic tools
Computer-aided
Translation (CAT)
Translation Technology Continuum
Adapted from Hutchins & Somers (1992)

CAT – its scope
 CAT is traditionally associated with large-
scale / corporate translations:
 manuals and technical documentation
 software localization
 “Typewriter-assisted” (i.e. traditional)
translation is usually associated with small-
scale / individual translations (done by
freelancers):
 fiction books, scientific papers, etc.

CAT – its scope (continued)
 This is notion of CAT being restricted to
corporate translation projects dates back to the
90s and is based exclusively on financial criteria:
 during the early and mid 90s a combination of a
high-end computer and a high-end CAT tool cost as
much as a new car
 from their very beginnings CAT tools were designed
to be capable of handling both big- and small-scale
projects, but initially no freelance translator could
afford them

CAT – its scope (continued)
 Even for a freelance translator, CAT route is
nowadays the only possibility if one wants to
provide high-quality, 100%
terminologically consistent and efficiently
produced translations.
 A testimony to that is the industry-standard
TM program Trados: Trados Freelance edition
has been the company’s best-selling TM
program for a number of years.

CAT tools – a bit about their history
 CAT tools were developed after (very)
disappointing initial experiments with MT
tools.
 So, in order to give you a proper overview of
how we got where we are now, we have to
start with the history of MT tools

MT History – how we switched to CAT
 MT research began in 1950’s – Warren
Weaver’s 1949 Memo:
 “When I look at an article in Russian, I say: This is
really written in English, but it has been coded in
some strange symbols. I will now proceed to
decode.”
(in Locke and Booth 1955:18)

Initially based on some misconception about
human translation:
knowledge of two language systems suffices
it is merely a matter of looking up dictionaries
it is easy to define “a good translation”
there is only one correct translation possible

 MT history milestones: pre-ALPAC
 1954: Georgetown system demo
successful translation of 49 Russian sentences into English
 1955-1966: $50m spent in 20 research centres in USA
 1966: Automatic Language Processing Advisory
Committee (ALPAC) Report concludes:
”...MT is slower, less accurate and twice as expensive as Human Translation...”
“...there is no prospect of useful MT either immediately or in the future...”

 MT history milestones: post-ALPAC
 1969 – privately funded projects
 Logos system (1969); Weidner-CAT (1977); ALPS (1980)
 1975 – Météo project in Canada
 1976 – European Commission acquires Systran
 1979 – Eurotra project in Europe for Multilingual system
 1980 – PC-based system
 1990 – data-driven system; WebMT

29
 1975 Météo project in Canada
 Automatic translation of weather forecasts (En -> Fr)
 Sublanguage approach (domain-specific MT)
 Most successful MT application to date
•public broadcasting since 1977
•Fr -> En available since 1989
•only 4% of output needs post-editing
•rapid translation staff turnover no longer a problem

 Technological factors
 specifically: prevalence of PC with improved processing power
 Translation market factors
 official bilingualism/multilingualism create institutional
needs
 globalisation creates huge commercial needs
 Advances in computational linguistics
 More realistic user expectations
 Internet creates casual access to multilingual information
 Renewed interest in MT in late 80s and early 90s:

 However, translations produced by MT were
still not reliable and accurate enough for
large-scale commercial applications.
 So, it became evident that the human
translator cannot be eliminated and
replaced by computers.
 Actually, it became obvious that computers
programs should be used as TOOLS which
only HELP the translator.

History of CAT Tools
 Unreliability of MT tools -> large
corporations hire translation agencies
 Translations agencies find it difficult to cope
with the increasing demand
 Translation agencies develop their own in-
house CAT tools
 Translation agencies begin to sell their CAT
tools

History of CAT Tools
 Two major players in the domain of CAT
tools development Trados and STAR Group
both started as:
 TRANSLATION AGENCIES!!!

TRADOS – timeline
1990 - first version of TRADOS's main
component, MultiTerm was created for DOS
1992 -TRADOS developed the first MultiTerm
for Windows (v3.1)
1992 – TRADOS’s Translator's Workbench with
linguistic fuzzy-matching on translation
memories for DOS
1994 - TRADOS’s Translator's Workbench for
Windows

1997 – BREAKTHROUGH : Microsoft
decides to base its internal localization
memory store on TRADOS
1998 – Microsoft acquires a share of 20% in
TRADOS
TRADOS – timeline (continued)

WHAT WE WANT TO
TEACH YOU HERE?
TWO PRACTICAL EXAMPLES OF COMMON
TRANSLATION PROBLEMS

IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE:
• (quite obvious) the book has an index =
YOU (i.e. the translator) are supposed to
make it in the translated version of the
book
• a vast index = a lot of terminology
• some index terms appear on several
pages that are not necessarily in the same
chapter (e.g. pg. 36, pg. 92 and pg. 255) =
a very serious problem for the consistency
of you translation

General principles of working with CAT tools
 The main goals are EFFICIENCY and
CONSISTENCY
 CAT tools = TM tools (in this case only)
 The basic idea is fairly simple:
 Documents, especially technical ones, contain a
large amount of content that is similar or identical
to information already contained in earlier
versions or similar documents that have been
translated before.
 that applies to the source editing language (SL) as
well as the target translation languages (TL).

General principles of working with CAT tools
 So, wouldn’t it be great to re-use previously
translated content as valuable reference material for
new translations as well so as to obtain consistency
of terminology and phrasing?
 That is exactly what CAT tools do!
 CAT tools make it possible for translators to work
only on content that is being created for the first
time. Existing text and text similar to existing text
is taken from the available. reference translations
(i.e. from TM= translation memory).

A DREAM COME
TRUE?
NOT REALLY 
TO ENJOY ALL THE BENEFITS OF CAT TOOLS
FIRST YOU HAVE TO CREATE A TM AND A
TERMINOLOGY DATABASE:
•either from your old translations
•or from new translations (i.e. creating a TM from
scratch)
THAT IS WHERE OTHER CAT TOOLS (i.e. NON-
TM CAT tools) STEP IN TO SAVE THE DAY!!!

REUSING YOU OLD TRANSLATIONS
 The best way to make a TM:
 reliable source (YOU did the translation)
 readily available (stored on you PC)

A BRIEF DIGRESSION
 The term LOCALIZATION has often
popped up in previous slides
 What is LOCALIZATION?

WHAT IS LOCALIZATION?
 Localization is the process of adapting, translating and customizing a
product (software) for a specific market (for a specific locale or cultural
conventions; the locale usually determines conventions such as sort order,
keyboard layout, date, time, number and currency formats). In terms of
software localization, this means the production of interfaces that are
meaningful and comprehensible to local users.
 The Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) defines
localization as: “Localization involves taking a product and making it
linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale (country/region and
language) where it will be used and sold.”
 Typically, this involves the translation of the user interface (the messages a
program presents to users) to enable them to create documents and data,
modify them, print them, send them by e-mail, etc.)

LOCALIZATION – what it includes
Focal points of internationalization and localization efforts include:
 Language:
 Computer-encoded text
 Alphabets/scripts; different systems of numerals; left-to-right script vs. right-to-left scripts. Most recent systems
use the Unicode to solve many of these character encoding problems.
 Graphical representations of text (printed materials, online images containing text)
 Spoken (Audio)
 Sub-titles for video
 Date/time format, including use of different calendars
 Formatting of numbers (decimal points, positioning of separators, character used as separator)
 Time zones (UTC in internationalized environments)
 Currency
 Images and colors: issues of comprehensibility and cultural appropriateness
 Names and titles
 Government assigned numbers (such as the Social Security number in the US, National Insurance
number in the UK) and passports
 Telephone numbers, addresses and international postal codes
 Weights and measures
 Paper sizes
 Differences between local standards (e.g. YU ISO or JUS) and international standards (ISO)

LOCALIZATION vs. INTERNATIONALIZATION
 The distinction between internationalization
and localization is subtle but important:
 Internationalization is the adaptation of
products for potential use virtually everywhere,
while
 localization is the addition of special features
for use in a specific locale.
The processes are complementary, and must be
combined to lead to the objective of a system that works
globally.

CAT tools for localization
 Over the last couple of years, in addition to
general-purpose TM tools such as Trados and
Transit, translation technology companies
also developed a number of TM tools
specially designed for localization:
 Alchemy CATALYST
 PASSOLO
 Sisulizer

Other CAT tools (non-TM based)
 As we said earlier, computer-assisted
translation (CAT) is a broad and somewhat
imprecise term covering a range of tools, from
the fairly simple to the more complicated,
which can include:
 Word processors, grammar and spell
checkers, terminology managers, eBooks,
eDictionaries, full-text search tools,
concordancers, web, TM tools, bitexts, etc.

CAT - REFERENCE MATERIALS
 Reference materials are the primary source of
terminology in absence of translation
memory.
 Computer-based reference materials can be
classified into:
 Online libraries
 Specialized web resources
 Specialized software products
 Other materials in electronic formats

Online Libraries
 Large collections of books in electronic form,
e.g.
 eBrary (new scientific books, pay site)
 Internet Archive (hosting “A Million Book
Project”)
 Project Gutenberg (PD fiction books, free)
 Questia (popular titles – fiction and non-fiction,
pay site – some sections free)

Specialized web resources
 Online glossaries
 e.g. http://www.lai.com/glossaries.html
 Online terminology databases
 e.g. EURODICAUTOM
 Acronym dictionaries
 e.g. www.acronymfinder.com
 Online dictionaries
 e.g. www.thefreedictionary.com
 Online corpora (e.g. BNC and COCA)

Online glossary – language automation
glossary index

Online terminology databases -
EURODICAUTOM

Acronym dictionary –
www.acronymfinder.com

Online dictionary –
www.thefreedictionary.com

COCA= Corpus Of Contemporary
American English
COCA= Corpus Of Contemporary
American English

Specialized software products
 Various programs that can be used for
terminology extraction:
 Electronic dictionaries
 General monolingual: e.g. OED v3
 Specialized monolingual: e.g. Cambridge
Pronouncing Dictionary, Collins Collocations
 Bilingual: e.g. Morton Benson, MidiDict
 Electronic Bible (e.g. e-Sword)
 Concordance programs (e.g. Concordancer)
 Data-mining programs (e.g. Summarizer Pro)

Concordancers
 Make it possible to see a word in context:
 Useful for finding collocations and phrases
 Useful for extracting terminology
 Two types:
 Monolingual concordancers (e.g. WordSmith)
 Polylingual concordancers (e.g. ParaConc)

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