Translation Memory: Yes or No
Translation memory (TM) technologies, the most widely used toolkits in the localization of digital information at HQ-translate agency, enable the proofreading and cross-border adaptation 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 manageable units, generally one sentence long. Today the most popular CAT tools: TRADOS, Déjà vu, Wordfast. The priviledges of using translation memory systems are fairly obvious: they increase the translator’s productivity and raise translation quality by ensuring that terminology and sentences are used consistently within and across translation works. Users in business and international firms convey a 25–60% rise in performance. Yet, it must be stated that the use of TM systems may also have negative effects on translation quality. One of the major disadvantages of TM systems is that they usually work at sentence level. Thus, there is a serious danger that the translator will focus too much on isolated sentences, possibly disregarding the contexts in which the sentences are built-in. Moreover, the matching algorithms of TM systems are based on very plain formal criteria, such as the similarity of character strings. That’s why, the human translator’s notion of the level of similarity between a piece to be translated and a piece retrieved from the storage base may differ considerably from the degree of similarity calculated by the CAT system. This may follow to situations wherein exact matches produce wrong translations, or one translation of a fuzzy match requires little or no adjustment but another fuzzy match with the same similarity degree is not useful at all (for a discussion on the aspects of evaluating the retrieval mechanisms of CAT systems, see Expert Advisory Group on Language Engineering Standards (1996), Whyman and Somers (1999), and Reinke (2000a, 2004). Despite the drawbacks, it should be noted that TM systems generally build into the translation routine comparatively smoothly. These CATs leave human translators in control of the real translation process, while relieving them from routine work and supporting translation as a creative job whenever the translation resourcefulness of a human nature is required. For more info, visit us at: HQ-translate company
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