Usage of TM: Pros and Cons
Translation memory (TM) techniques, the most widely used toolkits in the localization of digital information at HQ-translate agency, enable the proofreading and transnational compliance 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 text has been broken down into smaller units, generally one sentence long. Today the most popular CAT tools: TRADOS, Déjà vu, Wordfast. The preferences of using TM systems are fairly obvious: they increase the translator’s productivity and enhance translation quality by ensuring that terms and phrases are used consistently within and across translations. Users in business and international agencies report a 25–60% rise in productivity. Yet, it must be stated that the use of TM systems may also have negative effects on translation quality. One of the major contras of TM systems is that they usually perform at sentence level. Therefore, there is a real danger that the translator will focus too much on isolated sentences, possibly disregarding the contexts in which the sentences are embedded. Moreover, the matching algorithms of TM systems are based on very simple formal criteria, such as the similarity of character strings. That’s why, the human translator’s notion of the level of similarity between a part to be translated and a piece retrieved from the database may differ considerably from the level of similarity calculated by the CAT system. This may result in 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 vices, it should be noted that TM systems generally incorporate into the translation performance relatively smoothly. These CATs leave human translators in control of the real translation work, while relieving them from routine work and maintaining translation as a creative activity whenever the translation resourcefulness of a human nature is required. For more information, visit us at: HQ-translate company