| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | The best Translation Software ? Thread poster: Essalhi Farid (X)
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Essalhi Farid (X)
Local time: 12:17
French to English
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Hello Dear Translators,
I would like to know which is the most powerful software of the market today, I heard that there is Trados is it really a powerful software?
Thanks in advance
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SDL Trados has the biggest market share, if that's what you mean.
It has powerful functions and packs a complete feature list.
As for which translation software is the best, superlatives are highly relative. It depends.
To paraphrase a photography saying, "the best translation tool is the one you have with you".
Cheers,
Jean
| | | | | It depends what you are looking for | Feb 1, 2018 |
Trados is a translation memory, and when you first start it up, 'nothing happens'. It is a CAT-tool - CAT stands for Computer Aided Translation.
As the human translator does the work, Trados builds up a database or TM (Translation Memory), which in time can be very useful, when a similar assignment appears.
Each sentence is stored as a whole sentence, in both languages, and next time an identical or similar sentence occurs, Trados finds it and inserts it automatically in the t... See more Trados is a translation memory, and when you first start it up, 'nothing happens'. It is a CAT-tool - CAT stands for Computer Aided Translation.
As the human translator does the work, Trados builds up a database or TM (Translation Memory), which in time can be very useful, when a similar assignment appears.
Each sentence is stored as a whole sentence, in both languages, and next time an identical or similar sentence occurs, Trados finds it and inserts it automatically in the translation.
At first, all that comes up will be standard sentences such as 'Page XX of YY' (Trados updates the numbers automatically) or dates, telephone numbers and so on, depending on what kind of text you are working with. Later, if there are many standard phrases in an official letter, for instance, or safety sentences in a product description, these will come up too.
There is a glossary function - Multiterm - which can be edited to include regular terminology, which will be recognised when it appears in the text. This is very useful for long strings or fixed expressions like the 'Ethical Committee for the Pharmaceutical Industry in Denmark' - they can be inserted with just a few key strokes to save typing.
Many things can be added to Multiterm besides straightforward terminology: standard safety instructions, titles of directors and employees or departments in a client's company... anything that comes up regularly, but is not a complete sentence.
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Of course, it takes time to build up a translation memory and edit the glossary function, but once these tasks have been done, it is possible to export them and share them with colleagues.
If you have a trusted colleague who has already built up a translation memory, you can import it into your own TM and make use of it.
Agencies often collect these TMs too, and send them to freelancers. They can be very useful, but it is necessary to ensure that only the correct, final translations are stored in the TMs. Otherwise they will accumulate errors, and inevitably, even correct translations may also become outdated. It is always a good idea to be critical about anything that comes from the TM - and it is always possible to override it and insert a new translation.
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Trados Studio can be linked up to search-engine software and translation engines, which will actually produce translations. I do not use these, and know very little about them, but some translators find them useful.
Machine translation comes from a giant database, and uses algorithms to recognise words and expressions in the source language, and then match them with expressions in the target. (This may be anything from the generic Google Translate to highly specialised engines developed for particular subject fields.)
Machine translation may produce correct translations, but it may also have trouble with grammar and syntax, and it may have trouble with words that look the same but mean different things in different contexts...
Post-editing is always necessary, and is a growing business. The results may be useful, or they may be inaccurate and very difficult to understand.
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Trados Studio is only one of many CATs. It is the one I use, and I have very little experience of others. It is relatively expensive to buy, but it also has many features, and I think it is worth the investment. It does take time to learn how to use it.
There are others - MemoQ is a popular competitor, which also has many advanced features and costs a fair amount.
WordFast Classic is a 'lighter' version, which I tried and used as a backup some years ago, but I have not used it recently. It is very popular, and I believe it is a good CAT to start with, as it is easy to learn the basic features.
There is also Wordfast Pro.
Deja Vu
And LOTS Of others... for instance here....
https://www.proz.com/forum/cat_tools_technical_help/306817-making_a_comprehensive_list_of_all_online_cat_tools_currently_available_pls_help.html
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I distinguish CAT tools from Machine Translation this way:
With a CAT, the translator is in charge from the start and decides, sentence by sentence, whether to accept the suggestion from the CAT or re-translate it.
With Machine Translation, the machine runs through the text and produces a draft.
The human editor then has to sort out the mess ... 
MT is improving, but it still has a long way to go before it is really reliable. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sheila Wilson 
Spain
Local time: 12:17
Member (2007)
English
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| Best for you or your clients? | Feb 1, 2018 |
Jean Dimitriadis wrote:
As for which translation software is the best, superlatives are highly relative.
Trados is the most expensive and has the longest learning curve. But agency clients love it and it certainly seems to pack in a load of features - how many of them are for our benefit and how many are for the benefit of our clients, I'm not sure.
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Michael Beijer
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:17
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
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| My personal opinion: | Feb 1, 2018 |
Probably most widely used (and hated): SDL Studio
Best: CafeTran
See: https://www.cafetran.com/ + https://cafetran.freshdesk.com/support/discussions
Many agencies want you to have SDL Studio, but are not really aware just how buggy and overly complicated the program is (... See more Probably most widely used (and hated): SDL Studio
Best: CafeTran
See: https://www.cafetran.com/ + https://cafetran.freshdesk.com/support/discussions
Many agencies want you to have SDL Studio, but are not really aware just how buggy and overly complicated the program is (as they have never used it themselves). However, with a little knowledge of CAT tools it is very easy to use a better CAT tool (like CafeTran or Déjà Vu X3) behind the scenes, while still processing your agency client's Studio packages/files. Pretty much 1 out of 3 times I use Studio, something or other goes wrong and I end up wasting my time, and thus losing money.
If you don't work for agencies it's even clearer: avoid Studio (and memoQ), and use sth better.
Michael ▲ Collapse
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Hello Sheila,
I'm not sure why I was quoted. I didn't wish to imply in any way that SDL Trados is the best translation software.
What is best anyway? The phrase you quote is just a way of saying that "the notion of what is best is relative... at best".
As for me, I use CafeTran almost exclusively in my work. It is much more tuned to my needs.
And I dislike monopolies, so what's best is to have options from which each can pick "a" best.
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 12:17
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Jean Dimitriadis wrote:
Hello Sheila,
I'm not sure why I was quoted. I didn't wish to imply in any way that SDL Trados is the best translation software.
What is best anyway? The phrase you quote is just a way of saying that "the notion of what is best is relative... at best".
Yes, I can see now that it was confusing. I was simply agreeing with the statement you made and building on it  .
| | | | Heinrich Pesch
Finland
Local time: 14:17
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
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| SDL STudio 2017 | Feb 2, 2018 |
I have on my machine also Wordfast Pro, Wordfast Classic, MemoryQ, DéjaVu and Cafetran, but I use SDL Studio almost all the time. Wordfast Classic is very good with files in Word sometimes.
The workflow in Studio is quite simple. Most of the time you get a package from a client and open it. Or you translate a single document.
Whatever you decide to buy try to get an experienced tutor for the first few weeks that can answer your questions.
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| Thank you Sheila | Feb 2, 2018 |
for clarifying this
| | | | Susan Welsh
United States
Local time: 07:17
Russian to English
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I am one of the vast ranks of Trados-haters. Every time I get a job in which I have to use SDL Studio, I end up making very little money because I have so many problems with it. Same with Across. If I worked with them more frequently I would probably get more skilled at using them.
My favorite, which is free and open source, is OmegaT. It is so much simpler to use and has all the features I need, plus many that I don't. It can be use... See more I am one of the vast ranks of Trados-haters. Every time I get a job in which I have to use SDL Studio, I end up making very little money because I have so many problems with it. Same with Across. If I worked with them more frequently I would probably get more skilled at using them.
My favorite, which is free and open source, is OmegaT. It is so much simpler to use and has all the features I need, plus many that I don't. It can be used on Windows, MAC, or Linux. The forum on Yahoo https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/OmegaT/conversations/messages - provides almost instant support from more skilled users, including the developers (multiple languages are also used on the forum).
One issue for me in using the "big bucks" CATs involves glossaries and TMs, especially when you switch between one CAT and another. In OmegaT, glossaries are very easy to create and use, since they are just text files in UTF-8 encoding, in a regular folder that you can open, edit, and move about as you wish. But in SDL Studio 2014 or Across, exporting a glossary or TM so that it can be used by another CAT tool is a huge hassle, on which I have wasted many hours. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Jorge Payan
Colombia
Local time: 06:17
Member (2002)
German to Spanish
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| Maija Cirule
Latvia
Local time: 14:17
German to English
+ ...
Essalhi Farid wrote:
Hello Dear Translators,
I would like to know which is the most powerful software of the market today, I heard that there is Trados is it really a powerful software?
Thanks in advance
the best CAT tool is MemoQ. It is user friendly, its support guys are really nice people and always ready to help. I regard TRADOS as a dinosaur and have uninstalled it from my computer. By the way, MateCat is a rather good CAT tool and free of charge to boot, but it can be used only online.
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| That is exactly my problem, too | Feb 2, 2018 |
Susan Welsh wrote:
But in SDL Studio 2014 or Across, exporting a glossary or TM so that it can be used by another CAT tool is a huge hassle, on which I have wasted many hours.
Very well put, Susan!
Now I don't use neither Studio nor Across, but only WfC with its text TMs.
Generally all tools claim to be compatible with each other. Maybe this is even true, to some extent, and certainly there are CATs which could be very interesting. But what if you cannot even start to try the programme because it cannot read the TM which is in a different fomat, it's too much hussle for you to convert it, and starting from scratch without any of your TMs with ten-thousands of TUs would not be a good idea either?
I am not at all computer illiterate, but when it comes to codes, to headers that don't match and so on, I am stuck. I have tried to convert to TMX with WfC and Olifant. When trying to import a TM converted by WfC in another CAT, I am told that something in the header is wrong, and Olifant starts outright with error messages that I don't understand; in both cases I don't have the slightest idea of what I'm supposed to do.
So for lack of time but more often than not impossibility to find a solution you continue to go ahead once more with your good old CAT and you'll never know what you lose.
| | | | Susan Welsh
United States
Local time: 07:17
Russian to English
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| Glossary Converter | Feb 3, 2018 |
Jorge Payan wrote:
Have you tried Glossary Converter or SDLTmConvert?
I use (or try to use) Glossary Converter when I have to do a job on SDL Studio, but it almost never works. That's what I had in mind when I mentioned hours of wasted time.
| | | | | Whatever you choose to use... | May 8, 2018 |
...just stay away from MemoQ. It's the worst CAT tool EVER. So much user unfriendliness, so slow, lots of technical issues and idiotic stuff like leaving cursor on the beginning of the word of the next partial segment match after pressing ctrl+enter.
Analyse statistics is to be found in the tab "Documents" (I mean, what the hell...).
And so on, and so on...
Use Trados or Across.
| | | | | Pages in topic: [1 2] > | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » The best Translation Software ? | TM-Town | Manage your TMs and Terms ... and boost your translation business
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