Exporting compatible XLIFF (XLF) bilingual files from memoQ

Here we go again. Although memoQ is the undisputed leader for compatibility and interoperability among translation environment tools, users still encounter problems exchanging files, particularly XLIFF of some sort, with users of other tools. This is not because of any actual difficulty producing compatible XLIFF files, but rather a matter of deficient tool training and the failure to date by memoQ product designers to make the ease of interoperability a little more obvious. Some other tools, like recent versions of SDL Trados Studio, come pre-configured on installation to recognize the proprietary file extensions for memoQ's flavor of XLIFF ("MQXLIFF") and renamed ZIP packages (MQXLZ) containing XLIFF files, but others (or versions of SDL Trados Studio from many years ago) need to be configured to recognize those extensions, or someone simply has to change the MQXLIFF file extension to an extension that will be recognized by any tool: *.xliff or *.xlf are the choices.

The two-step solution is shown here:

On the Documents ribbon in memoQ, click on the tiny arrow under the Export icon and choose the option to export a bilingual file. There is some blue text which, if clicked, will allow a compatible XLIFF file to be exported, albeit with the MQXLIFF extension that some other programs might not recognize.

When the Export button in the dialog (marked 1, above) is clicked, the Save As dialog (marked 2, above) appears, simply change the file extension (the part after the period) to "xlf", for example. Then any program that reads XLIFF files can work with the file you export from memoQ. Despite the change of extension, memoQ will still recognize the file it produced, so it is possible to re-import it, for example if another person has made corrections to the XLIFF file that you want to use to update your translation or reference resources.

In some much older versions of memoQ, it does not work to change the extension in the export dialog; this has to be done directly to the exported file in whatever folder you save it in.

Of course, all of this will be rather difficult if you are one of those users who has not fixed the awful Microsoft Windows default to hide the extensions of known file types. Fixing that particular stupidity requires slightly different measures in different versions of Windows, but in Windows 10 you can do that on the View ribbon of Windows Explorer by marking the choice to show file name extensions:

"Unprofessional translation" and CAT tools

Those who came to this post expecting more ammunition for the war against the deprofessionalization of translation by the exploitative practices of the bulk market bog inhabited by the worst of (dis)service companies like Lionbridge, TransPerfect, thebigword and others will be disappointed. Nor will they find anything useful to combat the many technophobic misunderstandings and actual abuses of professional tools by sometimes less than bilingual wannabes whom some hope to keep away from translation by building some sort of virtual wall.

Tools are as useful as what we do with them. Hammers are good to drive nails or posts, depending on their design, weight and other factors, or they can be used to commit grisly murder, as one reads occasionally in the papers. But they can also make nice doorstops or play a part in exercise and sports. Computer-aided translation (CAT) tools or (as they are better known) translation environment tools (TEnTs) are versatile and often useful to solve problems and processes for which they were not originally conceived. The E-Learning, Translation and Ideas Bakery website and blog (included for years now in the blog roll here on the left of the page) by a Romanian colleague who teaches at university in the UK shares a number of concepts that can be described thus, and the Unprofessional Translation blog (also in the list here) which I also follow shares many stories of situations where the usual working tools of my present profession can be applied well to situations beyond the usual commercial or literary borders that most of us set for our work.

I continue to be excited by the possibilities of using TEnTs as an aid in language learning. The fact that these are so seldom used in that way is, for me, evidence of great opportunities missed by teachers and students around the world and perhaps also by the providers of commercial tools, though for the broad market of teachers and learners everywhere I would encourage the use of several excellent free and open source tools like OmegaT and the Heartsome Suite, even the web-based tool of that axis of evil, the Google Translator Toolkit.

I have documented some of my own efforts to use my main professional tool, memoQ, to support my own progress of learning Portuguese since I moved to Portugal six years ago. This was essential for getting a grip on the terminology and expressions needed to pass my weapons license exam in Portuguese when I could barely speak well enough to order breakfast, and I continue to use it as a means to track vocabulary and expressions I encounter in the newspaper, magazines and public notices such as the warning about deadly Asian wasps here (in the graphic at the top of this post). many years ago when learning German, Russian and Sumerian I kept a thick deck of flashcards for reference and practice, and at various times I have used online sites like Duolingo, Livemocha or Memrise to get farther with Portuguese or Spanish vocabulary, but none of these have proven as effective for focused study of a written language than the tools I have on my desktop computer, which enable me to compile corpora and glossaries which are adapted best to my personal situation and needs for language acquisition in a new country and culture.

One welcome difference of using TEnTs for personal projects as opposed to professional work is that one can focus on the parts most needed and need not worry about completing an "assignment". Thus I will maintain corpora with only partial translations or perhaps only simple comments to explain grammatical aspects of particularly challenging sentences. And if there is some useful external quiz engine I want to use for virtual flashcards (or I want to make printed cardstock ones or a cheat sheet to help with discussions at the tax office or sporting goods store) that is easy enough to do with the many data exchange options in memoQ, SDL Trados Studio, OmegaT or whatever.

In the same way that understanding the use of word processing software does not make you a writer, students of language who use translation environment tools are unlikely to become viable translators en masse, even if they may have that as an objective for some reason. As a professional translator, I see the attempts of bulk market providers to engage even competent bilinguals as translators and note with depressing frequency that a fool with a tool remains a fool and that language mastery will go nowhere professionally without mastery of concepts and subject matter details as well. But most people can, I think, get on farther and faster with the many challenges posed by a new language in areas of interest and necessity with the "unprofessional" aid of professional translation tools.

Ferramentas de Tradução - CAT Tools Day at Universidade Nova de Lisboa

The Faculty of Sciences and Humanities held its first "CAT Tools Day" on June 16, 2018 with a diverse program intended to provide a lusophone overview of current best practices in the technologies to support professional translation work. The event offered standard presentation and demonstrations in a university auditorium with parallel software introduction workshops for groups of up to 18 persons in an instructional computer lab in another building.

The day began with morning sessions covering SDL Trados Studio and various aspects of speech recognition.

Dr.  Helena Moniz explains aspects of speech analysis.

I found the presentation by Dr. Helena Moniz from the University of Lisbon faculty to be particularly interesting for its discussion of the many different voice models and how these are applied to speech recognition and text-to-speech synthesis. David Hardisty of FCSH at Universidade Nova also gave a good overview of the state of speech recognition for practical translation work, including his unobtrusive methods for utilizing machine pseudo-translation capabilities in dictated translations.

Parallel introductory workshops for software tools included memoQ 8, SDL Trados Studio 2017 and ABBYY FineReader - two sessions for each.

Attendees learned about ABBYY FineReader, SDL Trados Studio and memoQ in the translation computer lab

The ABBYY FineReader session I attended gave a good overview in Portuguese of basics and good practice, including a discussion of how to avoid common mistakes when converting scanned documents in a number of languages.

The afternoon featured several short, practical presentations by students, discussions by me regarding the upcoming integrated voice input solution for memoQ and the preparation of PDF files for reference, translation, print deadline emergencies and customer relations.

Rúben Mata discusses Discord

The final session of the day was a "tools clinic" - an open Q&A about any aspect of translation technology and workflow challenges. This was a good opportunity to reinforce and elaborate on the many useful concepts and practical approaches shown throughout the day and to share ideas on how to adapt and thrive as a professional in the language services sector today.

Hosts David Hardisty and Marco Neves of FCSH plan to make this an annual event to exchange knowledge on technology and best practices in translation and editing work in discussions between practicing professionals and academics in the lusophone community. So watch for announcements of the next event in 2019!

Some of the topics of this year's conference will be explored in greater depth in three 25-hour courses offered in Portuguese and English this summer at Universidade Nova in Lisbon. On July 9th there will be a thorough course on memoQ Basics and workflows, followed by a Best Practices course on July 19th, covering memoQ and many other aspects of professional work. On September 3rd the university will offer a course on project management skills for language services, including the memoQ Server, project management business tools, file preparation and more. It is apparently also possible to get inexpensive housing at the university to attend these courses, which is quite a good thing given the rapidly rising cost of accommodation in Lisbon. Details on the housing option will be posted on this blog when I can find them.

Fuzzy match of the month - WTF?!

Experienced translators using translation environment tool technology are quite familiar with the ludicrous results often obtained by so-called "fuzzy" matches in translation. For some 20 years now, the lie has been propagated that such matches usually help translators to work faster and that such "matches" therefore obligate one to offer discounts.

I will not rehash the familiar arguments and evidence that even truly close matches with the difference of a little word or two can cost more time that translation from scratch with no reference text or the fact that modern translation tools are useful primarily as a guide to facilitate consistency and not necessarily speed of work, especially if the translator is a real one with strong language and subject matter skills. Of course there are monkey-level jobs where a fuzzy match can usually be expected to save time, but once one ventures into fields such as legal or financial translation this is not the case as often as the linguistic sausage providers (aka LSPs) might claim.

I just wanted to share this little screenshot from my "daily bread", because it truly is worthy of sewer disposal.

All fuzzy matches are not created equal; every tool on the market will spew nonsense, and these nonsensical "values" are not even close to consistent between tools. It's time to cut the crap with fuzzies as a real means of evaluating work effort. Or at least share some of what the believers are smoking to reach such conclusions.

10 Steps to Determine CAT Tool Compatibility with the Dragon

Guest post by Jim Wardell

The following steps can be used to investigate the degree to which a CAT tool is compatible with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

1. In Dragon NaturallySpeaking, go to Tools>Options>Miscellaneous and check the box Use the Dictation Box for unsupported applications.
2. Open a project in the CAT tool you are testing, place the cursor in the translation target cell and start dictating with Dragon. If the Dictation Box opens immediately in Dragon, that means that Dragon has determined that your cat tool is not fully compatible with Dragon and that you must first dictate your translation in the Dictation box that it has just opened.
   You can then transfer your dictated translation from the Dictation Box into the translation target cell of your CAT tool by typing Ctrl+T or by saying “Transfer”. This extra step does not reduce your productivity too much if your source segment contains little or no formatting, tags, auto translate items or placeables. But if your source text does have a lot of these sorts of things, you’re going to have to add the extra step of first copying all of the source text segment into the Translation Box. When you do this, though, you’re going to lose any tags and formatting. Once you’ve translated the raw text in the Dragon Translation Box and have transferred the contents of the Translation Box into your translation target cell, you’re still going to have to reformat, add tags, and generally mess about a bit, maybe a lot. I went through this process for many years when using CAT tools that were not fully compliant with Dragon and eventually realized that all of this extra work was completely wiping out the productivity and income boost I was getting from dictating. Plus, it was more fatiguing because I was making my workflow more complicated.
3. The next thing to try if the Transfer Box comes up automatically is to go back to the above Dragon NaturallySpeaking setting and uncheck the Use the Dictation Box for unsupported applications setting.
4. Now go back to a target translation cell and try to dictate a medium-length sentence. With Tools that are completely incompatible, nothing will happen and perhaps your system will hang. In most cases, though, you will be able to dictate something. Unfortunately, this does not necessarily mean that your CAT tool is compliant with Dragon.
5. Now, using Dragon, say:  “Select <a string of 2 or 3 words from the sentence you just dictated>. If those two or three words now get marked in your CAT tool, you at least have partial compatibility with Dragon.
6. Now comes the acid test: Say “Correct that”. The Dragon Correction Menu should appear and give you a list of possible alternatives. If the Correction Menu does not appear, your CAT tool is not sufficiently compatible with Dragon and you should not do your translation work directly in your CAT tool target cell. Instead, you and will need to use the Dictation Box workaround if you really “must” use the CAT tool you are testing.
   I call this the “acid test” because if you can’t correct words that are not recognized correctly when you dictate, your incorrect dictations are probably being fed into your Dragon language profile. This will degrade the accuracy of speech recognition over time! It’s hard to know for sure what’s really going on in such cases, but the best that you can hope for is that incorrectly recognized words are simply being ignored by Dragon. However, anyone who uses Dragon a lot knows that the Correction process is one of the ways that Dragon becomes more and more accurate over time. Not correcting misrecognized speech is bad Dragon practice, and an application that doesn’t allow you to correct misrecognized speech should not be used or should at least always be used with the Dictation Box workaround. The most important reason to always use the Dictation Box with noncompliant software is that this permits the correction of speech recognition errors and hence ensures that Dragon will keep getting better and better at recognizing your speech and vocabulary.
   However, my recommendation to anyone who is serious about using Dragon to increase productivity and income is to use a CAT tool like memoQ or Déjà Vu that works flawlessly and seamlessly WITHIN the CAT tool target cell, i.e. with correction working properly directly in the CAT tool.
7. If your CAT tool fails the acid test, then you might just as well stop here. But if it passes the acid test, then try a few other commonly used Dragon commands in your target cell. Use “Select …” to mark some other text strings. Then say “Capitalize that” or “Make that bold” or “Underline that”. Also try using various Dragon cut-and-paste commands. If all this works, then congratulations! Your CAT tool has a high level of Dragon compatibility!
8. The next level of compatibility is achieved when you can also use Dragon in other functions in your CAT tool - ideally all functions. So now open a “comment” or “note” for a translation segment. Dictate something into the comment, repeating steps 4, 5, 6 and 7. If your CAT tool passes these tests, you can celebrate big-time because being able to dictate comments quickly and effectively can add significant value to your translation when it comes to working in translation teams and providing feedback to clients, or querying clients articulately about terminology questions.
9. Being able to dictate using Dragon is also absolutely invaluable when it comes to quickly creating really good terminology base entries. So create or go to a terminology base entry and dictate something into one of the fields in which you are able to enter free-form text. In memoQ, for example, this might be the “Note” field or one of the “Definition” fields. Once again repeat steps 4, 5, 6 and 7.
10. Now test your CAT tool’s ability to recognize dictated CAT commands. First, you will have to make sure that a configuration setting  in Dragon is set right. Go to Tools>Options>Miscellaneous and check Voice-enable menus, buttons, and other controls, excluding: … Then open the pull-down menu and make sure that your CAT tool is NOT checked.
    Now look to see what your CAT software calls the command that is used to confirm a segment and enter the segment content into translation memory. Place your cursor in a translation segment and try saying this command to see what happens. In memoQ, for example, I simply dictate “Confirm” and memoQ operates just as if I had pressed Ctrl+Enter. It is not essential to have this level of compatibility, but it is great to use when working in tight spaces on planes and car seats. In memoQ I can also dictate any of the names of the main menus and can then dictate submenu names as well and essentially “menu down” by voice commands. Again, this is not essential but it sometimes comes in handy.

If you work INTO more than one language, you’ll want to test whether you can work in the user interface of these target languages in your CAT tool and whether your CAT tool responds to voice commands from Dragon in the same target language.  This is really having your cake and eating it too! If you find this level of Dragon compatibility in your CAT tool, it means that the developer was really committed to getting maximum Dragon compatibility for working translators like you. Send them a nice thank-you note and publicize their commitment to working-stiff translators every chance you get!

***

Jim Wardell will be presenting optimized work methods for speech recognition once again at this year's memoQfest in Budapest, Hungary.

The fix is in for PDF charts

Over four years ago, I reviewed Iceni Infix after I began working with it. I'm not as strong a fan as some, because I generally have little enthusiasm for direct editing of PDFs and dealing with frequent problems such as missing unusual fonts and having to play the guess-my-optimum-font-substitution game, but I do find it useful in many situations. I found another one of those today.

A new client of a friend works with a horrible German program to produce reports full of charts. The main body of the text is written in Microsoft Word and is available as a reasonable DOCX file, but the charts are a problem, as they are available only in the specific, oddball tool or PDF format. Nobody wants to deal with that software, really. It is supported by no translation tools vendor I am aware of, and like another example of incompatible German software, Across, it enjoys the obscurity it deserves.

After thinking about the approach needed in this case, I realized that if the graphics could be isolated conveniently on pages, the XML export from the PDF document would contain only information from the graphics. After translation, the format could be touched up with Infix before making bitmap screenshots at an enlargement which would yield decent resolution when sized in  layout. Of course, in projects involving multiple languages the XML files could be used with great convenience.

Selecting and deleting the text on the pages with Iceni Infix is really a no-brainer. The time charge for such work will be quite reasonable. And exporting the XML or marked-up text to translate is also quite straightforward:

The exports can be handled in nearly any CAT tool, so TMS and terminology resources can be put to full use. Or you can edit in a simple, free tool like Notepad++ or an XML-savvy editor.

The screenshot above shows the XML in memoQ. No customization of the default filter is required. Reports from other users who have worked in a similar way indicate that OmegaT and other environments generally have few, if any, problems. In one case there was trouble re-integrating the graphics in a project that also had 50 pages of text, but there may have been other issues I am not aware of in that case.

With the content in the TM, if the chart data are made available in another format, the translations can be transferred quickly to that for even better results. The same approach can be used for a very wide variety of other electronically generated graphic formats (except some of the really insane ones I've seen where the text is broken up; I don't know if Iceni sanitizes such messes or not).

I think this is an approach which can benefit many of us in a variety of projects. It is not really suited for cases of bitmap graphics, but I have other approaches there in which Iceni Infix may also play a useful role and allow CAT integration. Licenses for the tool are quite reasonably priced, and the trial version (in Pro mode) is entirely suited for testing and learning this process.

The 2013 translation environment tools survey

From mid-October until the end of 2013, I placed two small survey questions at the top of the blog page and publicized these in a variety of user forums. The questions were similar to two posed in 2010, because I was interested to see how things might have changed. This is, of course, an informal survey with a number of points in its "methodology" wide open to criticism, though its results are certainly more reliable than anything one can expect from the Common Sense Advisory :-) My personal interest here was to get an idea of the background readers here might have with various translation environment tools, because it is useful to know this when preparing posts on various subjects. Here is a quick graphic comparison of the 2010 and 2013 results:

Responses to the question about the number of translation environment tools were very similar in both cases. About half use only one, with between 25 and 30% of respondents using a second tool and increasingly small numbers going beyond that. The question posed covered preparation, translation and checking in projects, so some respondents using multiple tools may be translating and maintaining terminologies and translation memories in only one tool. I am encouraged by this result, as it means that despite changes in the distribution of particular tools, users are exercising good ergonomic sense and predominantly sticking to one for their main work. Everyone benefits from this: translators generally work more efficiently without tool hopping, and more effort is focused on what clients need - a good translation.

In 2010, half the respondents cited the use of some version of "SDL Trados" (more details on this were provided in a later survey); the next highest responses at just under 20% were for Déjà Vu and memoQ. Three and a half years later, Atril's share of users appears to have declined considerably, and the use of memoQ appears to be about on par with SDL Trados Studio. OmegaT, an excellent free and Open Source translation support tool capable of working with translation formats from the leading tools, appears to be doing better than many of the commercial tools in the survey, which should not surprise anyone familiar with that software.

Across continues to be a loser in every way. Despite massive efforts in the low end of the market to promote this incompatible Teutonic travesty and the availability of the client software free of charge to its victims (translators), no real progress has been made in the Drang nach Marktanteil. One would expect that a good solution supported by a competent professional development team and a marketing budget, available free to translators, would easily beat the low-profile OmegaT. And I am sure that this is the case. The case simply doesn't apply to Across, which drives some of the most technically competent translators I know completely berserk. The fact that OmegaT is about twice as popular despite its volunteer development and total lack of marketing budget speaks volumes.

More important than any of the individual figures for translation support tools are some of the implications for interoperable workflows that the numbers reveal. Most of the tools listed support XLIFF, so if you use a tool capable of exporting and reimporting translation content as XLIFF, developing an interoperable workflow for translation and review that will work with the majority of tools will probably not be that difficult. An XLIFF file from SDL Trados Studio or memoQ is usually a no-brainer for translation in Déjá Vu, OmegaT, Cafetran or Fluency, for example, and any concerns can be checked quickly with a "roundtrip test" using pseudotranslation or simply copying the source text to the target, for example.

While individual tools have largely improved in their mutual compatibility and ability to share translation and resource data, there is legitimate continuing concern about the increased use of translation servers by translation agencies and corporations with volume needs who manage their own translation processes. Jost Zetsche and I have expressed concerns in the past regarding the lack of compatibility between server platforms and various clients, though with the appropriate use of exchange formats, this can still be overcome.

The greatest challenges I have seen with server-based work is that the people creating and "managing" projects on these servers often lack a basic understanding of the processes involved, so that the skills of the translators competent with a particular client tool may be effectively nullified by an incompetently prepared job. I experienced this myself recently where segmentation, termbase rights and even the source language were set wrong on the server, and the project manager had no idea how to correct the situation. However, things worked out in the end, because I had a playbook of strategies to apply for such a case. In the end, better training and a good understanding of the interfaces to the processes our partners use can get us past most problems.

Computer-aided translation tool survey

A bit over three years ago I conducted a small survey to get an idea of what working tools were popular among visitors to this blog and how widespread the use of multiple tools is. A lot has changed in the meantime, and another look at current pattens of use could be interesting.

The two survey questions will be found in the left margin at the top until the end of this year. If your work habits change between now and then, you can return and change your answers. Let's try to get the best statistical sample we can - spread the word!


UPDATE: The results are here:  http://www.translationtribulations.com/2014/01/the-2013-translation-environment-tools.html

OmegaT workshop in Holten (NL) November 18th!

is free software, but time is money, and to use this excellent Open Source tool effectively and enjoy its many benefits, expert guidance can be enormously helpful. This software holds its own with commercial leaders such as SDL Trados Studio and memoQ in many respects and surpasses them in some cases (for example, in its ability to read embedded objects, including charts, in the Microsoft Office document formats 2007, 2010 and 2013).

On November 17 and 18, the Stridonium Holten Lectures will feature Marc Prior in a workshop for OmegaT, a professional computer-assisted translation environment originally developed by Keith Godfrey and currently maintained and extended by a team led by Didier Briel. It is available in nearly 30 languages and includes:

• fuzzy matching
• match propagation
• simultaneous processing of multiple-file projects
• simultaneous use of multiple translation memories
• user glossaries with recognition of inflected forms

Document file formats include:

• Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint (DOCX, XSLX, PPTX, etc.)
• other translation tool formats such as TMX, TTX, TXML, XLIFF & SDLXLIFF
• XHTML and HTML
• Open Document formats (LibreOffice, OpenOffice.org)
• MediaWiki (Wikipedia)
• plain text

... and around 30 other file types as well as

• Unicode (UTF-8) support for non-Latin alphabets
• support for right-to-left languages (Hebrew, Arabic, etc.)
• an integral spelling checker
• MT integration with Google Translate

Marc has been a technical translator since 1988, working primarily from German to English. In 2002, he joined Keith Godfrey, the original author of OmegaT, to launch the program as an open-source (free) project. Since then, he has been involved in the project in various capacities, including 

• project co-ordination
• Match propagation
• authoring of manuals
• localization co-ordination
• website management and
• programming of auxiliary tools

He is a frequent source of advice and support on OmegaT user forums, contributed to the knowledge of the user community in many other online venues (including this blog) and has spoken on OmegaT at events in Germany and Belgium. He also introduced a module for computer-assisted translation tools, based on OmegaT, to the Professional Support Group (PSG) of the UK's Institute for Translation and Interpreting (ITI). He currently lives in Gelsenkirchen in the German federal state North Rhine-Westphalia.

The day will start with a conceptual overview for OmegaT, followed by a session demonstrating a sample project and responding to any questions from participants.

After lunch, the first afternoon session will present some extensions and advanced functions of OmegaT.

In the final session of the day, Marc will discuss “drawbacks that aren’t”, answer questions and debunk myths (appropriately entitled “Myths, FAQs and Workarounds”).

The workshop fee is €250 (€225 for Stridonium members), which includes a room at the venue for Sunday night arrivals who can enjoy an optional networking dinner and get a fresh start in the teaching sessions the next day. The availability of rooms included in the workshop fee is limited, so book early! 

The workshop is designed for translators and language project managers interested in the many possibilities for using this Open Source tool in their work.

Further information and updates can be found on the Stridonium events page, which also includes a button link for registration and payment ("Register for the Holten Lectures 3") below the course description.

You can also follow @stridonium on Twitter and watch the hash tags #strido and #Holten for announcements.

CPD points have been applied for with Bureau BTV in the Netherlands.

Previous Stridonium workshops in Holten have included corpus linguistics with the NIFTY method last June (participant's report here) and the recent teamwork day which presented ideas for overcoming distance in collaboration and using free and Open Source technologies as alternatives or addenda to more restrictive, proprietary commercial server solutions (participant's report here).

Future event plans include legal English for the insurance sector with a UK attorney and a series of three workshops on legal English for contracts (April 28, 2014), legal drafting (May 19, 2014) and commercial law (June 2, 2014) with attorney Stuart Bugg. These events would also interest practicing attorneys and others involved in the drafting and revision of contracts.

How to get there:
From Deventer(A1)

- Take the A1 towards Hengelo/Enschede

- Exit 26: Lochem/Holten

- Turn left for Raalte, follow the signs for Holterberg

- Go straight ahead over the roundabout, turn right after the viaduct and left at the T junction

- Turn left at the roundabout and after 50 m take a right turn for Holterberg

- After approx 1 km turn right (at yellow building)

From Enschede/Hengelo (A1)

- A1 towards Deventer/Apeldoorn/Amsterdam

- Exit 27: Holten/Markelo

- Continue through the center of Holten, take the Holterberg exit at the roundabout and after 50 m take a right turn for Holterberg

- After approx 1 km turn right (at yellow building)

By train

- A 10-minute walk from the station (Beukenlaantje)

 - Let the organizers know when you arrive and either they or hotel staff will collect you!

 

Spanish-to-English translators wanted for dissertation research!

Dear readers, I received the request below tonight, which I would like to pass on to my colleagues who work as translators from Spanish to English. I don't think we have enough good research in many areas related to the tools of our trade; I hope you can find the time to assist Mr. Mellinger in his work.

*****

My name is Chris Mellinger and I am a doctoral candidate at Kent State University. I am conducting a study that will help me collect data for my dissertation, which will examine effort in translation when using computer-assisted translation software. This study is being conducted by Dr. Keiran Dunne, principal investigator, and co-investigator, Ph.D. candidate Christopher Mellinger, and it has been approved by the Kent State University Institutional Review Board.

I am currently looking for Spanish-to-English translation professionals who receive some or all of their income from the language industry to participate in this study. The study consists of two parts. The first part is a survey that will be used to determine your eligibility to take part in the second half of the study. The survey questions are about your work as a professional translator, and should take approximately 5 minutes to complete.

Should you qualify, the second part of the study consists of translating a text of approximately 400 words from Spanish to English using a web-based computer-assisted translation tool and without using any external resources. This translation should take no longer than 90 minutes to complete.

If you are a Spanish-to-English translator who receives all or some of your income from the language industry, I would greatly appreciate 5 minutes of your time to complete this survey, and if you qualify, 90 minutes to complete the experiment. Please click on the following link (https://kent.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_2bninsg4a8DYKu9) (or cut and paste it onto your internet browser) to complete the survey.

Thank you very much in advance.

Best regards,

Chris Mellinger

Do we need a marketplace for MT post-editing?

Today technology guru Jost Zetzsche posed this question:

Jost's newsletter - the Tool Box (yes, it used to be called Tool Kit, and he has a great book on tools by the same name, so the new name is a bit confusing) - is one of my favorite... er... tools... for keeping an overview of the rapid developments in translation technology. I have subscribed to the premium edition for years and find it well worth the modest investment, about the price of a lunch. Jost is offering a holiday special on premium edition subscriptions. He writes:

... if you would like to spread some holiday cheer among your contractors or colleagues (and at the same time help them up their technical ante), make sure that they receive a Premium edition of the Tool Box newsletter during the next year. Rather than the regular $25 per year, for a limited time you can pay only $10 per subscriber for packages of five subscribers or more. Just send me an email with the names of the subscribers and I will check to see whether they already receive the Premium edition.

...

Have a blessed holiday season.

Jost

P.S. For 20 subscribers or more, pay only $5 per subscriber!

He can be contacted at jzetzsche [at] internationalwriters.com

Regarding the marketplace for post-editors of machine translation, I take a conservative view. I feel that the traditional marketplace is perfectly well suited to handling this sort of commerce:

 

What do you think?