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Do you allow multiple translations for 1 segment?
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Thread poster: Stanislaw Czech

Do you allow multiple translations for 1 segment?

Stanislaw Czech

United Kingdom
Local time: 09:04

Member (2006)
English to Polish
+ ...

Nov 20, 2009

I am wondering what settings are most useful. At the moment I use one TM for almost all jobs and I am quite happy with it. I use settings which prevent having multiple translations of the same segment mainly because I don't want to have two entries when I correct my old translation but I am really curious what are your preferences

Best Regards
Stanislaw

Pablo Bouvier

Spain
Local time: 10:04

Member
German to Spanish
+ ...

Do you allow multiple translations for 1 segment?

Nov 21, 2009

Stanislaw Czech wrote:

I am wondering what settings are most useful. At the moment I use one TM for almost all jobs and I am quite happy with it. I use settings which prevent having multiple translations of the same segment mainly because I don't want to have two entries when I correct my old translation but I am really curious what are your preferences

Best Regards
Stanislaw

Yes, I do. An example that I give because several translations should be allowed for a unique segment is the following one: In German the word Bestand may mean balance, stock or inventory according to the business area to which it belongs and has quite different translation when translating into spanish (saldo, existencias, inventario, etc.). However, being eclectic, I believe that they are as many arguments to allow as not to allow multiple translations.

[Editado a las 2009-11-21 02:13 GMT]

FarkasAndras
Hungary
Local time: 10:04
English to Hungarian
+ ...

a question

Nov 21, 2009

If you enable multiple translations per segment and then make "manual" corrections to a segment in Word before the cleanup, do you end up with just the new, corrected translation in the TM after a cleanup with "Update TM" or both?

Stanislaw Czech

United Kingdom
Local time: 09:04

Member (2006)
English to Polish
+ ...

TOPIC STARTER

I suppose 1

Nov 21, 2009

Hi Farkas,

I think that if you use option Update TM you end up with only 1 segment. I am rather thinking about situation when after a week or a month in completely different document I come up with a better translation from the one I used previously.

If I have such a sentence let's say a year later - probably I would prefer to see just one translation - the improved one. However having multiple segments would be useful especially in case of translating into Polish which is gender and case sensitive - hence there are several correct translation of the same English sentence.

BR
S

FarkasAndras
Hungary
Local time: 10:04
English to Hungarian
+ ...

Of course that's the basic scenario

Nov 21, 2009

Stanislaw Czech wrote:

I am rather thinking about situation when after a week or a month in completely different document I come up with a better translation from the one I used previously.

Yes, that's the idea, but I'm wondering if the TM update during cleanup gets caught in the crossfire. I mean, how does Trados know if the translation present in the TM is from a previous document from last year or from the document you are cleaning up now, and, consequently, if the differences between the target segments are corrections (need to overwrite old version) or alternative translations (need to keep both).
It seems likely that it can't tell and just conserves all the translations ever put in the TM, never overwriting anything... which would mean you have to change your workflow a bit if you don't want your un-proofread drafts to stay in the TM alongside the final version.

[Edited at 2009-11-21 14:00 GMT]

Pablo Bouvier

Spain
Local time: 10:04

Member
German to Spanish
+ ...

Do you allow multiple translations for 1 segment

Nov 21, 2009

Stanislaw Czech wrote:

Hi Farkas,

I think that if you use option Update TM you end up with only 1 segment. I am rather thinking about situation when after a week or a month in completely different document I come up with a better translation from the one I used previously.

If I have such a sentence let's say a year later - probably I would prefer to see just one translation - the improved one. However having multiple segments would be useful especially in case of translating into Polish which is gender and case sensitive - hence there are several correct translation of the same English sentence.

BR
S

If you translate about different themes, I believe that to use a big mom memory for all the topics is not an appropriate way, since it is not possible to use exactly the same phrase with polisemic words. On the other hand, I believe that as translators we forget very easily one of the basic translation memories rule that says that these should be depersonalized as most as possible.

For example, if I have a text that says "close the door of the car " it does matter wich vehicle type we are translating about. However, if I have a translation memory that says "close the door of the vehicle", it does not matter at all of wich vehicle type we are translating about and I can use it as "all round translation".

[Editado a las 2009-11-21 18:11 GMT]

Tomás Cano Binder, CT

Spain
Local time: 10:04

Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...

No single memory, single translations

Nov 21, 2009

In my case, working in a team of several people who work for a good dozen of major customers with a good dozen of major end customers each, managing one single memory in a safe way (i.e. making sure that no translation for one customer ends up in the text or another) would be quite difficult. With a fast-paced work and many changes of jobs during the day, setting the right parameters for any operation would be quite cumbersome, so we have a number of separate memories per customer and end customer.

Our end customers sometimes express their preferences for some term in the translations we deliver and we have to go back to the memory to reflect that as well as recording it in our termbase(s). In order to keep these preferences under control, the best we can do is to keep one single translation per segment. That way we will be sure that the right terms are reused next time a similar sentence comes around.

Pablo Bouvier

Spain
Local time: 10:04

Member
German to Spanish
+ ...

Do you allow multiple translations for 1 segment?

Nov 21, 2009

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

In my case, working in a team of several people who work for a good dozen of major customers with a good dozen of major end customers each, managing one single memory in a safe way (i.e. making sure that no translation for one customer ends up in the text or another) would be quite difficult. With a fast-paced work and many changes of jobs during the day, setting the right parameters for any operation would be quite cumbersome, so we have a number of separate memories per customer and end customer.

Our end customers sometimes express their preferences for some term in the translations we deliver and we have to go back to the memory to reflect that as well as recording it in our termbase(s). In order to keep these preferences under control, the best we can do is to keep one single translation per segment. That way we will be sure that the right terms are reused next time a similar sentence comes around.

Hi Tomás: And what do you do when in the same text you get exactly the same source sentence with a polysemous term and a completely different translation? Just curious about...

Grzegorz Gryc

Poland
Local time: 10:04
French to Polish
+ ...

Just one example... anaphoric pronouns case...

Nov 23, 2009

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

Our end customers sometimes express their preferences for some term in the translations we deliver and we have to go back to the memory to reflect that as well as recording it in our termbase(s). In order to keep these preferences under control, the best we can do is to keep one single translation per segment. That way we will be sure that the right terms are reused next time a similar sentence comes around. [/quote]
This kind of issues should be solved using terminology QA check.

In fact, the translation may depend of the context.
E.g., in Polish (and in a lot of laguages with grammatical gender), when you translate English sentences like "Ït permits sthng", the translation of the anaphoric pronoun "ït" depends of the gender of the noun in the precedent sentence (e.g. option - opción, command - comando).
Accordingly, you may have "he/she/it".
All the solutions may be correct in a good context.
So, for Polish, the Trados default is simply inadequate by default.
When you use advanced software (like MemoQ) or advanced features (like guaranteed matches in DVX Workgroup or perfect matches in Trados Professional etc.). the context may help you to determine which segment is correct.
IMO you should always have an option to rewrite the existing segment or add a new one if necessary.

Cheers
GG

[Edited at 2009-11-23 21:52 GMT]