The Usefulness of CAT Tools
This post originally appeared on Translating is an Art blog and it is republished with permission.
I find that a lot of people only use CAT tools for repetitive texts. And that is of course what they were originally developed for. Modern CAT tools, however, 有很多其他有用的功能,值得考虑将它们用于非重复文本.
以下是我使用CAT工具来处理大部分文本,甚至是创造性文本的一些原因:
Terminology
It’s great when a client provides you with a terminology list, 但我个人讨厌在翻译和术语表之间来回切换, especially when you end up with more than one list (not unusual, in my experience). If you import your terminology list(s) in your CAT tool, 如果列表中有可用的术语,您将自动收到通知,您可以轻松地将其插入到翻译中. 您还可以轻松地编辑术语列表或向列表中添加新术语.
Consistency
Even if texts are not repetitive, consistency is still important. CAT工具中的一致性功能允许您搜索单词或短语,以便检查它们以前是如何翻译的. 如果你还没有术语表,这也是非常有用的.
Quality control
These days, CAT tools offer more and more quality control options. You can have your translation checked for, among other things, correct punctuation, conversion of numbers, tags and consistent terminology. If, like me, 你容易弄混数字(比如把1965写成1956), it’s good to know you no longer have to worry about this, because your CAT tool will warn you when you’ve made a mistake.
Reference material
我曾经接受过一个200字的翻译工作,有大约10种不同的双语和单语参考文件,检查所有这些参考文件所花费的时间几乎和实际翻译文本的时间一样长? 我有……CAT工具提供对齐选项和导入参考文件的方法,帮助您在翻译时有效地在这些参考文件中找到所需的信息.
Formatting
当您能够以完全相同的格式交付格式美观的Word文档或PowerPoint演示文稿时,客户非常喜欢. When using a CAT tool, 你不必为格式烦恼:你可以在CAT工具中专注于文本,当你完成后,你可以以完全相同的格式导出你的翻译. 我发现这对于包含大量带有文本框的图表的PowerPoint演示文稿特别有用:而不必单独编辑每个文本框来输入您的翻译, 导出译文后,您所需要做的就是浏览幻灯片,检查文本是否适合方框,并在需要时调整其大小.
Backup
你总是有一个翻译的备份,因为每个片段都是在你翻译后保存的, 如果你的电脑死机了,你最多只会丢失一个句子. 几年前,当我开始使用CAT工具时,我很快就发现了它的优点:就在我准备保存我的1.5页的翻译发送给客户端,Word崩溃了,我的Word文件被损坏了. If I hadn’t used my CAT tool, I would have had to do the translation all over again, 但现在我可以把原始的源文件,用我的TM进行预翻译.
Planning
我的CAT工具总是准确地知道我取得了多少进展:它显示了我完成的翻译/校对的百分比,对于确切的数字,我可以随时进行分析. I find this particularly useful for larger projects.
Updates
当我开始写这篇文章的时候,我忘记了一个问题:你的客户有多少次给你发送源文本的更新版本, 最好是你刚刚翻译完原始版本,而且没有使用Track Changes? 如果您已经在CAT工具中翻译了文本,则没有问题:只需重新导入文本即可, 预先翻译所有相同的内容,你只需要检查改变的句子/片段(你的CAT工具甚至会标记出原始文本和更新文本之间的差异)。. If necessary, you can also have your CAT tool track all the changes.
这就是我几乎每次翻译都使用CAT工具的原因. One downside, especially for more creative texts, is that, by default, a CAT tool splits up your text in segments based on sentences. Most CAT tools, however, 允许你定义不同的分段方式,我发现段落分段, rather than sentence segmentation, works better for creative texts. Paragraph segmentation will lead to fewer match results, so it is not recommended for repetitive texts, but since creative texts are typically less repetitious anyway, matches aren’t really an issue.
Author bio
Percy Balemans 1989年毕业于荷兰马斯特里赫特翻译学院. 在一家翻译公司做了几年的内部翻译之后, she served as a technical writer and copywriter, information designer, web editor, and trainer for an information technology business.
2007年,她创办了自己的公司,成为一名全职自由翻译, translating from English and German into Dutch, specializing in advertising (transcreation), fashion and beauty, art, and travel and tourism. 她是特许语言学家和特许语言学家协会(CIOL)的会员。, and a member of the American Translators Association (ATA).
Visit her website for more information: www.pb-translations.com.
的确,计算机辅助翻译工具在翻译中是很好的辅助工具,当出现像您提到的技术问题时,它们尤其有用. When applied, 当永利登录网址考虑到翻译所涉及的忙乱性质时,它们实际上是一个工作流程的“活救世主”. 您为使用这些类型的工具提供了一些很好的技巧和技术. It’s always good food for thought. Glad to have come across this article.
Thank you very much for this
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