memoQ&A: How can I have multiple target languages in a project?

Every translation environment tool has its own approach to project management and languages. Recently, a colleague asked for advice on outsourcing options for a client project which may involve a number of target languages translated from an English source text. I think her usual tool is some flavor of SDL Trados Freelance, but the five-language restriction on freelance software versions from SDL means that Studio is not an option in this case without an expensive upgrade to SDL Trados Studio Professional. This might be a worthwhile option, though it's difficult to judge in this case, because I don't know if this sort of project will be part of the future routine.

As I recall from my days as a Déjà Vu user, projects could have multiple target languages, but without the Workgroup version, collaboration was made difficult by restrictions on the bilingual files ("external views"). I don't know if this is still an issue in DVX3, because the uncertain future of Atril makes me reluctant to invest much study time in that tool.

memoQ does not restrict the languages one uses, but creating a project with multiple target languages requires the Project Manager edition. Kilgray doesn't talk much about this edition of memoQ and usually tries to link it to a server license sale (or a memoQ cloud subscription); if you look on the Kilgray web site, you will find very little information. I think the license typically costs about €1500, with €300 (20%) annually for maintenance upgrades and support. Quite a bargain, actually, and with the PM version one also gets access to another well-kept secret: the memoQ client API, which can be used to automate or simplify a number of project management processes. And of course with the PM edition one can create convenient "handoff packages", which provide convenient resource bundles for collaboration with other memoQ users with compatible versions of the translation environment tool.

But the memoQ PM edition is total overkill for someone who typically needs only individual language pairs for work and is faced only rarely with the need to manage multiple target languages from a source language. If there are just a few languages involved, it's probably not a big deal for someone with the memoQ Translator Pro edition to create several projects (one for each target language needed). There is, however, another option worth considering in some cases: using the Translator Pro edition to manage a multilingual project created with the PM edition.

If a multilingual project is created with the memoQ Project Manager edition, the individual target languages are available in the memoQ Translator Pro edition. A text imported with the target set to "All languages" is automatically put in every target language in the project; suitable bilinguals (XLIFF, RTF bilingual tables or TWB-/Wordfast-compatible unclean DOC) can be generated from each individual target language.

A downloadable example of a memoQ project backup to test for memoQ 2013R2 is here.

Using a project with multiple target languages in the Translator Pro edition requires, of course, that the original project be created by someone with the Project Manager edition. And the sophisticated functions for reporting, package creation, etc. are not available when the project is open in the Translator Pro edition. But translation memories, termbases, LiveDocs and other resources can in fact be managed for multiple target languages in the project. The work can be reviewed or prepared for external proofreading, target files can be created in all the languages, and a number of other simple management tasks can be performed. In many cases this may be enough.

memoQ&A: How do I leverage the pretranslated SDLXLIFF content?

Given the interesting and surprising answers I received in previous two-stage "quiz posts" in which a challenge was posed for others to answer before I present my approach, I have decided to try a series of such posts. I've polled a few friends about a possible name for this series - memoQuiz, memoQ&A, CATquiz or perhaps something else. The first two choices suggest that memoQ would be the focus, but despite the impressions some may have of my publication habits, memoQ is far from my only concern with productivity involving the software we use for translation processes. So I'll leave that question open for now and use the current "vote leader". Arguments for and against in the comments are welcome.

Today's "quiz" is inspired by my continuing research into the current status of interoperability between SDL Trados Studio and memoQ 2013. As Kilgray has continued to upgrade the quality of its filters and other features for working with files from other platforms, SDL advocates have been increasingly at pains to find the rare, exceptional cases that do not work well or at all and present these as "common" and proof that we should all just bow down and kiss the One Ring ;-) The latest variant of that theme which I saw involved tracked changes displayed in source segments of the translation grid. It was fascinating, really, but a bit bizarre and utterly outside anything in my experience with 13 years of commercial translation. I'm not about to torture myself with an unergonomic application if a simpler one covers most of my professional needs. The Pareto principle rules.

Here's the scenario:

• You receive a pre-translated SDLXLIFF file with segments of various status. Some are pretranslated fuzzy matches, some are not-yet approved or even rejected pre-translated segments or one which the outsourcer confirmed (but did not "approve") before sending the file. And some segments have not been translated at all.
• The outsourcer just went on holiday and forgot to send you the translation memory!
• You want to be able to use the pretranslated and approved content in the SDLXLIFF file as a reference while you translate this file and others. How can this be done???
• Here is the file to translate. It is an English source text being translated into German.

The file to translate as seen in SDL Trados Studio. Click to enlarge.

Thank you to those who contributed their suggestions in the comments! Here is how I approached the problem:

The bilingual file I was given has different "qualities" of translated segments. There are unconfirmed (and possibly dodgy) sentences, including a "rejected" 100% match, translated (confirmed) segments and approved (proofread) segments. A TM in memoQ gives me no opportunity to differentiate match quality based on row status. LiveDocs does!

So I send the SDLXLIFF file received to a LiveDocs corpus on a "temporary" basis, where I apply special settings to apply a fairly heavy penalty to unconfirmed segments, a mild penalty to translated (confirmed) but unapproved (not proofread) segments and no penalty at all to the parts which have already been check and approved.

Details of the settings configuration and an example of how these settings apply to the SDLXLIFF file used as an example are shown in the video below. A similar approach can be applied to any bilingual file (or translation stored in LiveDocs) where there may be significant differences in segment status.

Time index to the video tutorial:

0:30  Creating a new LiveDocs settings profile
1:05  Editing the new LiveDocs settings profile
1:29  Match threshold settings
2:16  Alignment penalties
3:01  Bilingual document penalties
3:45  Penalty for unfinished alignments
4:24  Sub-language difference penalty
4:57  A "tour" of the row status for segments in the SDLXLIFF
6:20  Adding the translation file to the LiveDocs corpus
7:14  Applying the new LiveDocs settings to the LiveDocs corpus used
8:00  How the new LiveDocs settings work for matches in the translation window
9:22  Advantages of using LiveDocs rather than a translation memory