The Wonderland of Translation Technologies I

Almost all walks of life these days are somehow related to technology, let alone the translation industry. Translators or localizers should arm themselves with more “hard” skills to fit the changing demands and go further in this field. Translation Technology is definitely a vital part of industrial-specific expertise. Here goes what I know about Computer-Assisted Translation.

Theoretically, I know how the FA-HQ-UT Model is applied into translation industry, which is to say, translators need to handle the balance among Fully Automated, High Quality and Unrestricted Text. There are three levels of translation consistency & quality, translation memories, terminology glossaries and style guides & Auto-QA checks. We also covered theories on Machine Translation (RBMT, SMT & NMT) and Machine Translation Post-Editing at the very end of this course.

Technologically, I have a good command of a bunch of translation environment tools. This includes some online CAT tools, such as Google Translator Toolkit and Wordfast Anywhere, and some offline CAT tools, such as SDL Trados Studio 2017, memoQ, and Wordfast Pro (introduced in a lecture). All those tools share the basic functions of translation technology, but slightly different from one another. Though comparison, I am clear about the advantages and disadvantages of them.

The basic functions of a CAT tool include: Translation Memory Creation and Alignment, Project Creation, Simple Translation with TM, Project Reports, Termbase Creation & Conversion, QA Check Automation & Reviewing Translations, Simple Segmentation Customization and Filter Customization, Pseudo Translation and etc. In terms of glossary creation, I know how to extract terms with AntConc and convert file type with Glossary Converter. I practiced almost all those functions through a group project, and also know how to communicate with clients as a LSP, as well as how to conduct the whole workflow in the real world.

In conclusion, I know something about translation technology through both theoretical and hands-on approaches. Beyond that, I expect to explore more advanced and updated skills on my own and push myself to reach a new level in the near future.