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Efficiency of using CAT tools in comparison to using none
Thread poster: Richard Varga (X)
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:29
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Personal glossaries Aug 20, 2018

Matheus Chaud wrote:

Having key terminology at our fingertips saves us some precious time....We avoid searching for the same term again.


You don't need a CAT tool for that. You can just create your own glossaries.

... a CAT tool ...requires effort, and not everyone is willing to make that effort.


I find it's better to concentrate that effort on translating!


 
Erik Freitag
Erik Freitag  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 18:29
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
No, Tom Aug 20, 2018

Tom in London wrote:

Matheus Chaud wrote:

Having key terminology at our fingertips saves us some precious time....We avoid searching for the same term again.


You don't need a CAT tool for that. You can just create your own glossaries.



Sure you can, but a CAT tool offers a very convenient way to do just that. With a CAT tool, you don't have to search your glossaries though, nor do you have to actually type in the target term in your translation.

I believe you when you say that you don't need CAT tools, but I see a mismatch between what you think a CAT tool is and does and what it actually is and does.

You don't even need a computer.


Angie Garbarino
Matheus Chaud
Dan Lucas
Jorge Payan
 
Christel Zipfel
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Italian to German
+ ...
Fuzzies paid or not? Aug 20, 2018

Matheus Chaud wrote:


Also, every now and then, I receive a project with lots of fuzzy matches or repetitions. Sometimes this allows me to translate 800 words/h or even more, depending on the project. CAT tools make a HUGE difference in projects like this. One good project like this may be enough to recover every cent you invested in the CAT tool.



In my experience, fuzzy matches don't save you a lot of time, especially those under 95% - on the contrary, they may slow you down! However, speaking in general, in my opinion a possible increased productivity alone is completely meaningless if one doesn't mention whether fuzzy matches are paid (or are paid less) considering this cost, too. Plus, after all, most of the times it's still the translator that pays the software.

So, rather than speaking of being faster/more efficient or whatever, what really counts is the following: what would I have earned if I had not to invest anything for the CAT/need to struggle with possible problems with the software/did not give discounts for fuzzy matches? This is the only thing that matters: earnings, after all, not productivity!


Tom in London
Mirko Mainardi
 
Sheila Wilson
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Spain
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English
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That isn't the fault of the CAT tool; only of some of its users Aug 20, 2018

Tom in London wrote:
by providing their customers with TMs, which enable agencies to pay less and less, translators are killing their own livelihoods.

I use a CAT tool for my own translations, checking against my own TMs and glossaries. The only thing that gets delivered to the client is the translation - and that's just a Word text file. If they want to align the two texts, then that's up to them, although as it's marketing content it's a fairly "free" translation and they'll have quite a job on their hands for very little ROI. I agree that some translators aren't doing a lot for their own and other translators' futures. But that really has little to do with the CAT tools themselves, and everything to do with the wider problems of the industry.

If we had to go to the library to check every word of jargon terminology...
If we had to wait for the post office to deliver source and target files...
If your glossary entries, Tom, were on thousands of sheets of paper instead of in searchable electronic form (as I suppose they are)...
The reality of the world we live in is that CAT tools exist and we need to adapt to the current situation, in the same way that workers in the textile industry had to adapt once the spinning frame was invented in the 1760s. If you want to blame anyone then you'd better blame me, as Richard Arkwright was my great, great... grandfather !


Matheus Chaud
Jorge Payan
 
Alistair Gainey
Alistair Gainey  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:29
Russian to English
Don't be put off by the forums! Aug 20, 2018

neilmac wrote:

As I see it, one of the pitfalls of using a CAT tool could be that you might end up endlessly tinkering with its features, and so waste a lot of time which would be better dedicated to actually translating. Depending on how complicated/complex the tool is to use, the learning curve may become too onerous.
I use WordFast Classic, one of the most basic (and affordable) that I'm aware of, and even so, I don't leverage all of its features, for example the glossary function. I tend to be rather disorganised in the way I go about things in general, and the segmentation of WFC helps me to work in a more orderly fashion, but other than that, I haven't explored some of the other things that can be done with it.
All you need to do is look at the help forums for CAT tools to see the complexity and technical issues users often have to deal with, which I find really offputting. A lot of the time I don't understand the jargon and abbreviations in these forums, which is also a deterrent. Many of the users seem to spend a lot of time tweaking and fine tuning their tools, and I'm usually too busy actually working to be doing stuff like that.

[Edited at 2018-08-19 08:53 GMT]


Just have a look at this: https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/forums/technical-q-a.4/
20,000 threads! For one car manufacturer! They must be rubbish, right?
Forums like these always give a misleading impression, because if you’re happy with your CAT tool (or Ferrari), you’re generally not going to be discussing it online (actually, maybe you would if you had a Ferrari, but you know what I mean). That’s not to say CAT tools are perfect, but the technical forums here give the impression that it’s a surprise if they ever work at all. And the vast majority of users don't spend their time endlessly tinkering. Sure, you might need to change the odd feature from time to time. But by and large, once you've got it set up, that's it. Which brings us on to another issue: the idea that they involve a steep learning curve. It is true that their user manuals aren't always as clear as they might be. But still - as translators, we're not stupid. We use computers all the time, so we're not illiterate on that score. More generally, we've learned things in our lives that have taken months, years even. But a few hours to learn the basics of how a CAT tool works is too much?


[Edited at 2018-08-20 11:22 GMT]

[Edited at 2018-08-20 11:22 GMT]

[Edited at 2018-08-20 11:55 GMT]


Matheus Chaud
Jorge Payan
 
Alistair Gainey
Alistair Gainey  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:29
Russian to English
Earnings Aug 20, 2018

Christel Zipfel wrote:
This is the only thing that matters: earnings, after all, not productivity!


Even if you're paid at your full rate for every segment, from a purely financial point of view there is little point in being quicker with a CAT tool if you don’t take advantage of that by taking on more work. For example, let’s compare two translators, A and B, who both charge the same rate. A doesn’t use a CAT tool and translates 2000 words a day. On average, she gets enough work to keep her busy for 4 days a week. So she does 8000 words a week. B, on the other hand, does use a CAT tool, and translates 25% quicker than A. So she does 2500 words a day. But B isn’t as good at marketing as A. On average, she only gets enough work to keep her busy for 3 days a week. So she only does 7500 words a week. Of course, B should be earning more than A, because her faster speed should allow her to take on more jobs. But she isn’t.


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:29
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Just as I thought... Aug 20, 2018

Alistair Gainey wrote:

Christel Zipfel wrote:
This is the only thing that matters: earnings, after all, not productivity!


Even if you're paid at your full rate for every segment, from a purely financial point of view there is little point in being quicker with a CAT tool if you don’t take advantage of that by taking on more work. For example, let’s compare two translators, A and B, who both charge the same rate. A doesn’t use a CAT tool and translates 2000 words a day. On average, she gets enough work to keep her busy for 4 days a week. So she does 8000 words a week. B, on the other hand, does use a CAT tool, and translates 25% quicker than A. So she does 2500 words a day. But B isn’t as good at marketing as A. On average, she only gets enough work to keep her busy for 3 days a week. So she only does 7500 words a week. Of course, B should be earning more than A, because her faster speed should allow her to take on more jobs. But she isn’t.


Just as I thought: CAT tools require you to do more work, for less money !


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:29
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Horror Aug 20, 2018

Alistair Gainey wrote:

.... user manuals ....


** recoiling in horror**

USER MANUALS? What? Have I gone back to the 1990s?

No software in 2018 should require a user manual.


 
Alistair Gainey
Alistair Gainey  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:29
Russian to English
Not if they're used properly :) Aug 20, 2018

Tom in London wrote:

Alistair Gainey wrote:

Christel Zipfel wrote:
This is the only thing that matters: earnings, after all, not productivity!


Even if you're paid at your full rate for every segment, from a purely financial point of view there is little point in being quicker with a CAT tool if you don’t take advantage of that by taking on more work. For example, let’s compare two translators, A and B, who both charge the same rate. A doesn’t use a CAT tool and translates 2000 words a day. On average, she gets enough work to keep her busy for 4 days a week. So she does 8000 words a week. B, on the other hand, does use a CAT tool, and translates 25% quicker than A. So she does 2500 words a day. But B isn’t as good at marketing as A. On average, she only gets enough work to keep her busy for 3 days a week. So she only does 7500 words a week. Of course, B should be earning more than A, because her faster speed should allow her to take on more jobs. But she isn’t.


Just as I thought: CAT tools require you to do more work, for less money !


Not if they're used properly though. That increase in productivity should allow you to get more work. Were B as good at marketing as A, she'd have enough work for 4 days a week too, so she'd do 10,000 words a week as opposed to A's 8000. So she ought to be earning more. (I know it's an over-simple example.)


Matheus Chaud
 
Alistair Gainey
Alistair Gainey  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:29
Russian to English
Ha! Aug 20, 2018

Tom in London wrote:

Alistair Gainey wrote:

.... user manuals ....


** recoiling in horror**

USER MANUALS? What? Have I gone back to the 1990s?

No software in 2018 should require a user manual.


OK, maybe the wrong choice of term. Help documents, instructions, whatever. You know - what you read to learn how to use your CAT tool. But anyway, the point is that it's not hard to learn to use them. What does take time is reaping the benefits. Just use a CAT tool for a couple of weeks, and unless you happen to be working with particularly repetitive texts, you probably won't see any benefit: in fact, you might be slower than you were without it. Once you've built up your translation memories and databases, that's a different matter.

[Edited at 2018-08-20 14:31 GMT]

[Edited at 2018-08-20 14:32 GMT]


Jorge Payan
 
Richard Purdom
Richard Purdom  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 17:29
Dutch to English
+ ...
CAT wins in every single aspect. Aug 20, 2018

Tom in London wrote:

Alistair Gainey wrote:

.... user manuals ....


** recoiling in horror**

USER MANUALS? What? Have I gone back to the 1990s?

No software in 2018 should require a user manual.


And yet it does. I've got some radical music software with a 1,200-page manual for a start.

As for CATs; worth having JUST to avoid any formatting.
And 30% more output, at least, more consistency, better workflow, better product, and lots of clients that insist on using them. I wouldn't get far if couldn't deal with sdlxliff files.
Of course you can be a Luddite and create a stick for your own back, use Windows 98, a typewriter of even feather and ink by gaslight, no doubt there's even some who prefer to chip words on slabs of marble.

Then again, I work for the Dutch market, a country always at the forefront of innovation, so y'all be following sooner or later.


 
Inga Petkelyte
Inga Petkelyte  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 17:29
Lithuanian to Portuguese
+ ...
Negative for me Aug 20, 2018

In my personal experience, CAT tools only increased the time and not the other way round. I could, probably, have benefited of a CAT tool when translating noodle labels - but that's the only (ok, in addition to soft drinks labels) case I can remember where it could have been useful. Where I did use a CAT tool upon client requests, those tools proved to be a burden rather than a boon. With 7 morphological cases in one of the target languages, the probability of a 100% match to be true is just 1 t... See more
In my personal experience, CAT tools only increased the time and not the other way round. I could, probably, have benefited of a CAT tool when translating noodle labels - but that's the only (ok, in addition to soft drinks labels) case I can remember where it could have been useful. Where I did use a CAT tool upon client requests, those tools proved to be a burden rather than a boon. With 7 morphological cases in one of the target languages, the probability of a 100% match to be true is just 1 to 7 in pure theory, as the probability of a nominative case is much lower in practice and I can tell that adapting 3 or more word terminations in "100% match" phrases usually takes me more time than writing those words entirely from scratch.Collapse


Tom in London
Tradupro17
 
Mario Cerutti
Mario Cerutti  Identity Verified
Japan
Local time: 02:29
Italian to Japanese
+ ...
Too much technicality to the detriment of translation quality Aug 21, 2018

The main reason why I hate CAT tools when they are forced on me — although I regularly use one of my choice just to leverage the tri-language glossary that I have been building in more than twenty years of translation — is that I find it quite difficult to do a final pre-delivery review inside the CAT tool itself if for technical reasons I cannot export the file and open it in its original application, for I am unable to see it in its fullness, with its original formatting, text flowing and ... See more
The main reason why I hate CAT tools when they are forced on me — although I regularly use one of my choice just to leverage the tri-language glossary that I have been building in more than twenty years of translation — is that I find it quite difficult to do a final pre-delivery review inside the CAT tool itself if for technical reasons I cannot export the file and open it in its original application, for I am unable to see it in its fullness, with its original formatting, text flowing and so on.

Also, very often you can neither split, merge or move segments around as you see it fit, which is a serious limitation besides proving to be a formidable ostacle to translation quality. And this is particularly true when translating from Japanese. I am not talking about technical manuals, for which CAT tools continuously prove their usefulness. In fact, too many translation companies require that CAT tools be used even when there are no repetitions at all, or when even 90-95% fuzzy matches needs to be entirely rewritten (fashion, tourism, and highly creative texts in general).

[Edited at 2018-08-21 08:47 GMT]

[Edited at 2018-08-21 10:47 GMT]

[Edited at 2018-08-21 12:35 GMT]
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Tom in London
Mirko Mainardi
 
Kaspars Melkis
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United Kingdom
Local time: 17:29
English to Latvian
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CAT tools are esential for manuals Aug 21, 2018

Manuals (for a mechanical device, for example) often have a complex design and the text part is exported with an extensive markup. CAT tools is an elegant way how to deal with them allowing to create an identical design with minimum work.

It is not an ideal though because when translating row by row, the view of the context is missing. One can always look at the original document but that is an extra work.

Over-reliance on TM and glossary hits makes a translator to work
... See more
Manuals (for a mechanical device, for example) often have a complex design and the text part is exported with an extensive markup. CAT tools is an elegant way how to deal with them allowing to create an identical design with minimum work.

It is not an ideal though because when translating row by row, the view of the context is missing. One can always look at the original document but that is an extra work.

Over-reliance on TM and glossary hits makes a translator to work as a machine trying to follow matches and think less of the actual meaning of the text. Some short headings or chart items will be difficult to locate and will often give misleading hits.

I think some companies also use CAT tools as a primitive version control although they never really work well for this purpose. One reason is that reviewers don't use CAT tools and the final changes in the text or design are made in the different software. Then project managers wanting to preserve the purity of their TM, ask translators to re-enter these changes in the TM. It creates a quite a lot of overhead with very dubious gains.
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Tom in London
Inga Petkelyte
 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 20:29
English to Russian
There are CAT tool haters Aug 22, 2018

who evade using CAT tools, and there are CAT tool lovers who never avoid using it. Nothing can change this balance. =)
In Russian folklore literature, there is a tale by Alexander Pushkin that describes a bet. The bet was to transfer a horse from point A to point B. The one who do it sooner wins. First bettor tried to put the horse onto his shoulder (as if it was a sack) and bring it to point B. The other one brought the horse "under his legs" (just rode it to point B). This is my percenta
... See more
who evade using CAT tools, and there are CAT tool lovers who never avoid using it. Nothing can change this balance. =)
In Russian folklore literature, there is a tale by Alexander Pushkin that describes a bet. The bet was to transfer a horse from point A to point B. The one who do it sooner wins. First bettor tried to put the horse onto his shoulder (as if it was a sack) and bring it to point B. The other one brought the horse "under his legs" (just rode it to point B). This is my percentage
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expressisverbis
 
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Efficiency of using CAT tools in comparison to using none







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