subject: The Main Problems Of Translation Memory [print this page] The concept of Translation Memories (TM) is based on the premise that sentences used in previous translations can be "recycled". However, a guiding principle of translation is that the translator must translate the message of the text, and not its component sentences.
Translation memory managers do not easily fit into existing translation or localization processes. In order to take advantages of TM technology, the translation processes must be redesigned.
Translation memory managers do not presently support all documentation formats, and filters may not exist to support all file types.
There is a learning curve associated with using translation memory managers, and the programs must be customized for greatest effectiveness.
In cases where all or part of the translation process is outsourced or handled by freelance translators working off-site, the off-site workers require special tools to be able to work with the texts generated by the translation memory manager.
The costs involved in importing the user's past translations into the translation memory database, training, as well as any add-on products may also represent a considerable investment.
Maintenance of translation memory databases still tends to be a manual process in most cases, and failure to maintain them can result in significantly decreased usability and quality of TM matches.
As stated previously, translation memory managers may not be suitable for text that lacks internal repetition or which does not contain unchanged portions between revisions. Technical text is generally best suited for translation memory, while marketing or creative texts will be less suitable.
The quality of the text recorded in the translation memory is not guaranteed; if the translation for particular segment is incorrect, it is in fact more likely that the incorrect translation will be reused the next time the same source text, or a similar source text, is translated, thereby perpetuating the error.
There is a potential and probably an unconscious effect on the translated text. Different languages use different sequences for the logical elements within a sentence and a translator presented with a multiple clause sentence that is half translated is less likely to completely rebuild a sentence.
There is also a potential for the translator to deal with the text mechanically sentence-by-sentence, instead of focusing on how each sentence relates to those around it and to the text as a whole.
Translation memories raise certain industrial relations issues as they make exploitation of human translators easier.
Functions of a translation memory:
Import
This function is used to transfer a text and its translation from a text file to the TM. Import can be done from a raw format, in which an external source text is available for importing into a TM along with its translation. Sometimes the texts have to be reprocessed by the user. There is another format that can be used to import: the native format. This format is the one that uses the TM to save translation memories in a file.
The process of Analysis is developed through the following steps:
Textual parsing
It is very important to recognize punctuation in order to distinguish the end of sentence from abbreviation. Thus, mark-up is a kind of pre-editing. Usually, the materials which have been processed through translators' aid programs contain mark-up, as the translation stage is embedded in a multilingual document production line. Other special text elements may be set off by mark-up. There are special elements which do not need to be translated, such as proper names and codes, while others may need to be converted to native format.
Linguistic parsing
The base form reduction is used to prepare lists of words and a text for automatic retrieval of terms from a term bank. So parsing is used to normalize word order variation of phraseology, this is which words can form a phrase.
Segmentation
Its purpose is to choose the most useful translation units. Segmentation is like a type of parsing. It is done monolingually using superficial parsing and alignment is based on segmentation. If the translators correct the segmentations manually, later versions of the document will not find matches against the TM based on the corrected segmentation because the program will repeat its own errors. Translators usually proceed sentence by sentence, although the translation of one sentence may depend on the translation of the surrounding ones.
Alignment
It is the task of defining translation correspondences between source and target texts. There should be feedback from alignment to segmentation and a good alignment algorithm should be able to correct initial segmentation.
Term extraction
It can have as input a previous dictionary. Moreover, when extracting unknown terms, it can use parsing based on text statistics. These are used to estimate the amount of work involved in a translation job. This is very useful for planning and scheduling the work. Translation statistics usually count the words and estimate the amount of repetition in the text.
Export
Export transfers the text from the TM into an external text file. Import and export should be inverses.
Online functions
When translating, one of the main purposes of the TM is to retrieve the most useful matches in the memory so that the translator can choose the best one. The TM must show both the source and target text pointing out the identities and differences.
Retrieval
It is possible to retrieve from the TM one or more types of matches.
Exact match
Exact matches appear when the match between the current source segment and the stored one has been a character by character match. When translating a sentence, an exact match means the same sentence has been translated before. Exact matches are also called "100% matches".
In Context Exact (ICE) match or Guaranteed Match
An ICE match is an exact match that occurs in exactly the same context, that is, the same location in a paragraph. Context is often defined by the surrounding sentences and attributes such as document file name, date, and permissions.
Fuzzy match
When the match has not been exact, it is a "fuzzy" match. Some systems assign percentages to these kinds of matches, in which case a fuzzy match is greater than 0% and less than 100%. Those figures are not comparable across systems unless the method of scoring is specified.
Concordance
This feature allows translators to select one or more words in the source segment and the system retrieves segment pairs that match the search criteria. This feature is helpful for finding translations of terms and idioms in the absence of a terminology database.
Updating
A TM is updated with a new translation when it has been accepted by the translator. As always in updating a database, there is the question what to do with the previous contents of the database. A TM can be modified by changing or deleting entries in the TM. Some systems allow translators to save multiple translations of the same source segment.
Automatic translation
Translation memories tools often provide automatic retrieval and substitution.
Automatic substitution
Exact matches come up in translating new versions of a document. During automatic substitution, the translator does not check the translation against the original, so if there are any mistakes in the previous translation, they will carry over.
Networking
When networking during the translation it is possible to translate a text efficiently together with a group of translators. This way, the translations entered by one translator are available to the others. Moreover, if translation memories are shared before the final translation, there is a chance that mistakes made by one translator will be corrected by other team members.
Translation memory
The unique identifiers are remembered during translation so that the target language document is 'exactly' aligned at the text unit level. If the source document is subsequently modified, then those text units that have not changed can be directly transferred to the new target version of the document without the need for any translator interaction. This is the concept of 'exact' or 'perfect' matching to the translation memory.
Aunes Oversettelser AS has been in the business for 26 years, and we are specialized in technical translations. We are specializing in the Nordic languages, and can offer services into Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Icelandic. The premier translation agency for Norway and the Nordic region! Technical translation services for businesses in the Nordic countries and translation agencies world-wide.
