Translation Software and Tools
Translation Software and Tools
The computer aided translation software and tools are mainly classified into Machine translation solutions, Terminology management tools and Translation memory. Each type has it own advantages and disadvantages hence the translator using them is the best judge for selecting the appropriate translation software and tools.
The Machine translation solution is the method in which computer software is used for rendering text of source language (e.g. English) to target language (e.g. Chinese). The software algorithms are designed to do the requisite permutations and combinations for getting this task accomplished. Due to ambiguity of higher level in acknowledging fundamental elements, sentence structures and effective meaning of words this process of using translation software and tools gives accuracy of 50 % to 60% only. Hence Machine translation process is generally not recommended for quality translation work. The other limitation of this process is that the software designed is applicable for conversion of very limited type of languages hence limiting its use in translation business.
Terminology Management is done by using various types of softwares and tools. The first step is using a Extractor tool that uses root form of each word for extracting words and list of phrases that occur repeatedly again and again in the text that needs to be translated. The tool also has the intelligence of not including pronouns, prepositions, etc in the collocation list. Also other grammatical terms are kept unchanged. This extracted data is then organized by using other specialized organizing tool and ultimately converted to targeted language by using other tool termed as Lingustic tool. This process may also use other translation software and tools that may does word or character count. There are specialized tools that define meanings of abbrevations and acronyms.
The Translation memory is linguistic data that is stored as the execution of translation of text is done. It can also be recorded manually and more the information stored in the translation memory faster is the translation done. This is so because the perfect identical matches from the source text files are compared with the translation units (source and target language pairs) in the translation memory and immediately picked and placed in the target language file. The translation software and tools can control the acceptance or rejection of the matches suggested by the translation memory. The search for better matches is carried forward till total perfection is achieved. The other tool that performs same task is the Content Management System. The Content Management System allows limited part of the text to be editied and is also takes comparatively more time than translation memory.
Apart from the above mentioned translation software and tools there are several other tools and softwares available that may be used in conjunction to the basic solutions to get better results in translation of text from one language to other. Also with time the wheels of technology move faster and faster creating new tools and softwares.
Copyright 2008, BB Automacao Inc.,
New York, USA. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any format is expressly
prohibited unless our written authorization is obtained upfront.
|
