| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | This has doubled my work performance! Have you tried dictation? Thread poster: Dylan J Hartmann
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Dan Lucas 
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:38
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Vocola details | Oct 21, 2016 |
Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:
It can be done in Studio, but you need to use, e.g., Nora's KnowBrainer command (see below), or the new version of Vocola, which now has a trick (which is under active development) to give any program Full Text Control.
Michael, would you be so kind as to expand briefly on this "trick". I am going to make another push with DNS and I am wondering whether Vocola and KnowBrainer are roughly equivalent. I have no problem spending the money, but if Vocola is as good, and free, then I would go with Vocola.
Thanks
Dan
| | | | Michael Beijer
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:38
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
Dan Lucas wrote: Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:
It can be done in Studio, but you need to use, e.g., Nora's KnowBrainer command (see below), or the new version of Vocola, which now has a trick (which is under active development) to give any program Full Text Control. Michael, would you be so kind as to expand briefly on this "trick". I am going to make another push with DNS and I am wondering whether Vocola and KnowBrainer are roughly equivalent. I have no problem spending the money, but if Vocola is as good, and free, then I would go with Vocola. Thanks Dan
Hi Dan,
Sadly, the newer versions of Dragon (DPI 14 and 15) have broken most of this functionality, i.e., the ability to obtain Select-and-Say in unsupported applications using Vortex inside of Vocala. As far as I know, the developer himself uses Dragon 12.5 still. I received a few emails from him last night on the various issues, but have not time to look into it at the moment, and won't for the next few weeks. For the time being, I'm just making use of Nora's script, which works most of the time. Also, I don't really find it very useful to be able to select things by voice in the target box inside SDL Studio. I use Dragon much more just to dictate continuous pieces of text, and do all the more fiddly bits with my keyboard and mouse.
Michael
| | | | Nora Diaz
Mexico
Local time: 00:38
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:
I use Dragon much more just to dictate continuous pieces of text, and do all the more fiddly bits with my keyboard and mouse.
Michael
I'm with you on this, Michael, I find it much more efficient to use a good combination of voice and keyboard/mouse than voice alone.
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Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:
I use Dragon much more just to dictate continuous pieces of text, and do all the more fiddly bits with my keyboard and mouse.
I dictate the first draft and then edit it using just the keyboard. The selection/command tools are rubbish. Even so it saves me loads of time and pain. Wholeheartedly recommend it.
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| Any hope for translators working into small(-ish) languages? | Oct 21, 2016 |
If anybody has recommendations for tools that support small languages as well (Slovak would be great, but I am realistic), I'd love to hear it. I don't think Dragon is any use for me, but then again, I am newbie in the world of voice recognition, so I might be wrong. Or any other workarounds? Thanks!
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:38
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Thank you Michael, Nora & Chris | Oct 21, 2016 |
Chris S wrote:
I dictate the first draft and then edit it using just the keyboard. The selection/command tools are rubbish. Even so it saves me loads of time and pain. Wholeheartedly recommend it.
That was to be my next question: how do you tackle dictation?
I shall try using it for quick drafts first.
Cheers
Dan
| | | | Michael Beijer
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:38
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
| greatly simplified, this is how I use it most of the time: | Oct 21, 2016 |
Dan Lucas wrote: Chris S wrote:
I dictate the first draft and then edit it using just the keyboard. The selection/command tools are rubbish. Even so it saves me loads of time and pain. Wholeheartedly recommend it. That was to be my next question: how do you tackle dictation? I shall try using it for quick drafts first. Cheers Dan
I usually have Dragon permanently switched on in the background while translating (unless I'm doing something noisy in my office which might get picked up by mistake). When I arrive at each new segment, I quickly scan it and dictate it if it's relatively straightforward and free of too much crap like brackets, quotation marks, strange punctuation, tags, special symbols, etc. If it has any of this I usually just type it by hand.
But I also use it in emails, posts such as this, etc. — perhaps even more often than in my CAT tool.
Michael
| | | | Michael Beijer
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:38
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
I also use it a lot for certain things that would otherwise be difficult to achieve with my keyboard, due to having to stretch my fingers in uncomfortable ways. What do I mean by this? For example, I have a KnowBrainer command for Paste (or maybe it's a Dragon command, I can't remember), and yesterday I was doing something where I had to keep pasting sth, over and over and over and over. So instead of having to click Ctrl+V every single time, while at the same time moving my cursor down the page... See more I also use it a lot for certain things that would otherwise be difficult to achieve with my keyboard, due to having to stretch my fingers in uncomfortable ways. What do I mean by this? For example, I have a KnowBrainer command for Paste (or maybe it's a Dragon command, I can't remember), and yesterday I was doing something where I had to keep pasting sth, over and over and over and over. So instead of having to click Ctrl+V every single time, while at the same time moving my cursor down the page with my mouse (which meant that I had to keep switching between keyboard and mouse), all I had to do was move my mouse down the page while saying Paste! … Paste! … Paste! (while looking out my office window with a serene smile on my face
Michael
Edited to add: a person obviously can't dictate and smile simultaneously. What I meant to say, dictate, even, was that I was smiling serenely ... inside.
[Edited at 2016-10-21 19:31 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Nora Diaz
Mexico
Local time: 00:38
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
+ ...
| I use to dictate and correct in Studio | Oct 21, 2016 |
I personally use it to dictate even complex segments in Studio. Thanks to custom commands I can also do things like insert tags, add tags to selected text, confirm segments, navigate the document, copy source to target, clear segment, run verification, etc.
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Dan Lucas wrote:
That was to be my next question: how do you tackle dictation?
I've used Dragon and before that ViaVoice for the best part of 20 years. It felt weird for maybe a week and then it just flowed. The software has become increasingly complicated and ram gobbling but I must confess I still just dictate my first draft. This is in real time as though I were interpreting, and this gives the translations a better flow than when I type. I've never had success with commands so editing is a keyboard job, and I've never bothered fine tuning the settings or mastering advanced features. I've never gone back and corrected errors using the speech software. I don't train it in any way. It doesn't seem worth it. Recognition accuracy out of the box has improved over the years but I find after a few months it deteriorates so I delete my user and start again. That may be down to my laziness in correcting errors. Annoyingly the software lost all my added words (names of Scandi companies etc) when upgrading a couple of years ago, and the latest version won't let me save any. I could reinstall but life's too short.
I always type emails and forum posts. I think it's because I'm thinking as I write, whereas the translating is more automatic and fluid. Maybe also when I'm not actually translating I tend to slur my speech. Especially after wine o'clock. But I don't have a strong accent which maybe helps in general.
As you might have noticed from the above, I think Dragon is a bit rubbish really. Recent versions have also had a tendency to crash a lot. But I'd be lost without it. I'd be interested to know if the Mac dictation is any good. Never tried it as I'm too cool for Apple.
You might find it no good for Japanese, I don't know what the translation process is like with that. (All I remember is when I was 16 a professor dissuading me from doing it at uni saying I'd barely be able to read a newspaper on graduating... so I stuck with the familiar.) Anyway, you have to dictate confidently and in sentences to get accuracy, hesitant umming and erring and piecing-it-all-together type translation are a no-go. If you don't know a term, call it something weird like pineapple and keep dictating, search and replace afterwards.
One caveat. I hate Studio and its ilk. Dictating in it is a pain. I use Wordfast with a Word interface. Or just Word. The combination of Studio and Dragon, two of the most overcomplicated and overfeatured and unreliable pieces of software ever, would kill me within a day.
| | | | Nora Diaz
Mexico
Local time: 00:38
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
+ ...
| A different experience for me re: Studio + Dragon | Oct 21, 2016 |
Chris S wrote:
As you might have noticed from the above, I think Dragon is a bit rubbish really. Recent versions have also had a tendency to crash a lot.
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One caveat. I hate Studio and its ilk. Dictating in it is a pain. I use Wordfast with a Word interface. Or just Word. The combination of Studio and Dragon, two of the most overcomplicated and overfeatured and unreliable pieces of software ever, would kill me within a day.
Hi Chris,
My experience is different regarding the use of Studio + Dragon together. I currently use Studio 2015 and Dragon 14 (DPI 14) and Dragon hardly ever crashes. In fact, I haven't restarted Dragon since the last time I restarted my computer, it just keeps running all the time. So for me at least, Dragon works very well with Studio. With Word, however, it's a different story, I had to disable the Dragon add-in for Word as it caused Word to behave erratically and even freeze. I think this is a well-documented issue in the interaction between Dragon and Word, as I've read several posts about it in the Knowbrainer forum.
| | | | | You are quite right! | Oct 21, 2016 |
Chris S wrote:
The combination of Studio and Dragon, two of the most overcomplicated and overfeatured and unreliable pieces of software ever, would kill me within a day.
I don't know Studio (and don't want to), but Dragon works more often than not properly on my computer and is driving me nuts. What a pity, as it could be a really wonderful software, and if it worked all the times, it could indeed *nearly* double my ouptut, I think, but this is merely theoretical!
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| Microsoft dictation and microphones | Oct 24, 2016 |
I am also considering retrying dictation (I tried Dragon 9 for a while but it was too inconsistent), but have a few questions before I invest:
Has anyone tried training or does anyone actually use Microsoft's inbuilt dictation software (Win 10)? Is it worth it?
Assuming Microsoft is not an option, which version of Dragon (I think I will be trying a method suggested in this forum: only dictating text, in my case in Studio and MemoQ, and inputting most commands manually)?
... See more I am also considering retrying dictation (I tried Dragon 9 for a while but it was too inconsistent), but have a few questions before I invest:
Has anyone tried training or does anyone actually use Microsoft's inbuilt dictation software (Win 10)? Is it worth it?
Assuming Microsoft is not an option, which version of Dragon (I think I will be trying a method suggested in this forum: only dictating text, in my case in Studio and MemoQ, and inputting most commands manually)?
Who uses a table microphone for dictation and what are your experiences? Do you use a cheap or a high-end model or something in between? (I can't get used to headsets.)
Thanks,
Olly
[Edited at 2016-10-24 09:45 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:38
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Olly Pekelharing wrote:
I am also considering retrying dictation (I tried Dragon 9 for a while but it was too inconsistent), but have a few questions before I invest:
Has anyone tried training or does anyone actually use Microsoft's inbuilt dictation software (Win 10)? Is it worth it?
Assuming Microsoft is not an option, which version of Dragon (I think I will be trying a method suggested in this forum: only dictating text, in my case in Studio and MemoQ, and inputting most commands manually)?
Who uses a table microphone for dictation and what are your experiences? Do you use a cheap or a high-end model or something in between? (I can't get used to headsets.)
Thanks,
Olly
[Edited at 2016-10-24 09:45 GMT]
A table microphone would be no good. You need a microphone that comes close to your mouth (or neck) and doesn't pick up extraneous sounds.
After trying and discarding two other microphones of which one was a full headset, which wasted a lot of time and money, I ended up using this over-the ear USB microphone http://www.plantronics.com/uk/product/blackwire-435
I use it over one ear only, also wearing glasses perfectly comfortably. It wasn't cheap and was slightly hard to find, but it performs well. There's no need to speak at increased volume and in fact it will even pick up a whisper or a hoarse voice.
I use it with the Dictation software that comes as part of the MacOS and being fully integrated with the OS, rather than a third-party add-on, performs very well to a high professional standard. I use Mac Dictation all the time for Italian and English (many other languages are available). It's also free 
[Edited at 2016-10-24 11:42 GMT]
| | | | Przemek Kalemba
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:38
Member (2011)
English to Polish
+ ...
| Good Dictation software in Polish | Oct 24, 2016 |
Great thread, everyone!
I have been researching the subject for years now but can't find any software in Polish. I even contacted Nuance (Dragon) asking if they were planning to add Polish but the answer was no.
Does anyone know of decent dictation software in Polish, please?
Best.
Przemek Kalemba
www.columbustranslations.co.uk
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