Several questions from Trados beginner user Thread poster: Kate Shapkina
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Kate Shapkina 
Kazakhstan
Local time: 13:23
English to Russian
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Dear all,
I finally purchased Trados Freelance Studio 2014, watched several tutorials on how to work with it and planning to watch more, as well as to do a test project (already did one, guess need to make several more).
But still I have several questions and I hope you will help me with the answers:
1. Concerning Translation Memory: As I understand, the more I translate in Trados, the larger will be my translation memory, right? If so, will every translati... See more Dear all,
I finally purchased Trados Freelance Studio 2014, watched several tutorials on how to work with it and planning to watch more, as well as to do a test project (already did one, guess need to make several more).
But still I have several questions and I hope you will help me with the answers:
1. Concerning Translation Memory: As I understand, the more I translate in Trados, the larger will be my translation memory, right? If so, will every translation be automatically be included into the Translation Memory, or should I first (before starting the translation) specify where it should be saved?
2. Also, as Trados is supposed to speed up my translation, will it be sped up only after I get a sizable Translation Memory? So in the beginning I will be working for Trados so that in the end it would be working for me, right?
Also: in order to make quickly a Translation Memory, I can just align originals and translated files, right?
3. Must admit, I also don't get how I should use MultiTerm. It is an additional application, should I open it too when opening Trados Studio, or is it incorporated into Studio?
I understand that there are too many questions, so if there are any useful links you can recommend that would answer my questions, I would be very glad.
Thanks in advance,
Kate ▲ Collapse
| | | | Joakim Braun
Sweden
Local time: 09:23
German to Swedish
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Kate Shapkina wrote:
2. Also, as Trados is supposed to speed up my translation,
It doesn't.
| | | | | I'm starting with studio too but not with CAT tools | Oct 7, 2014 |
A few answers:
1. you can have one TM for each project, or one for each client, or one for each translation field, as you prefer (sometimes the client will impose something).
2. sometimes the work is accelerated even in the very first project, if it is a very repetitive one. or sometimes the client will give you a TM made out of previously translated docs: if those translations are good, it will speed up your work if the new doc is similar.
3. never used Multiterm, sorry... See more A few answers:
1. you can have one TM for each project, or one for each client, or one for each translation field, as you prefer (sometimes the client will impose something).
2. sometimes the work is accelerated even in the very first project, if it is a very repetitive one. or sometimes the client will give you a TM made out of previously translated docs: if those translations are good, it will speed up your work if the new doc is similar.
3. never used Multiterm, sorry. I think you'd better get familiar with a few features at a time, even if there is a risk that you will never get the time and curosity to learn the other fetaures afterwards (like many translators unfortunately), but if you want to know all before getting started, well you'll never start!
good luck!
Augusta ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Newbie to Trados as well | Oct 7, 2014 |
I just installed Trados today since I was lucky enough to download one of the free copies they were giving away of Studio 2014 during the Translation Day Webinar. The license is only good for one year but that should be good enough for me to know whether or not I think it's actually worth investing in.
I believe Trados, like any other CAT tool, is only supposed to help speed up your translations once you've actually gotten a hang of it. If anything it'll slow you down in the begin... See more I just installed Trados today since I was lucky enough to download one of the free copies they were giving away of Studio 2014 during the Translation Day Webinar. The license is only good for one year but that should be good enough for me to know whether or not I think it's actually worth investing in.
I believe Trados, like any other CAT tool, is only supposed to help speed up your translations once you've actually gotten a hang of it. If anything it'll slow you down in the beginning as you find your way around it.
Time to look up some tutorial videos. ▲ Collapse
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Jean-Pierre Artigau (X)
Canada
Local time: 03:23
English to French
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| About translation memories | Oct 7, 2014 |
Good thing you took these tutorials.
As Augusta said, you can create several translation memories, as many as you like. After years of using Trados I have about 20 of them. Every time you start a new project, you choose the translation memory you want to use, and this is where your new segments will be added; or you can create one from scratch. I would recommend to start with one translation memory for each client, unless a given client sends you texts in very different fields (e.g.... See more Good thing you took these tutorials.
As Augusta said, you can create several translation memories, as many as you like. After years of using Trados I have about 20 of them. Every time you start a new project, you choose the translation memory you want to use, and this is where your new segments will be added; or you can create one from scratch. I would recommend to start with one translation memory for each client, unless a given client sends you texts in very different fields (e.g. finance and biology).
Every pair of segments (sentences) is added to the translation memory as you translate; every time the same segment or something similar appears in a subsequent text (or the same text), it will be retrieved with its equivalent in the target language. This is what is supposed to make your work faster. Don't expect Trados to speed up your work, at least in the beginning. As a matter of fact it might never do. But it can make your texts more consistent.
Translation memories are useful only if you translate texts with a lot of similar sentences (within the same text or between texts), for instance documents that are updated periodically or successive annual reports of the same organization where many sections are repeated or nearly identical from year to year. This is where your translation memory is useful. If your texts are all different, Trados or any translation memory will be useless.
However Multiterm will allow you to store term records that can be used in different contexts. You can use Multiterm either concurrently with Trados or separately (just as any term base). You can create as many term bases as you want; I recommend one for each field of work (let's say biology, finance, etc.). Here again every time you start a new project you choose which term base(s) you want to use. When I translate in agriculture, I may have to use three term bases concurrently: "agriculture", "biology" (names of insects etc.) and "government" (for subsidies, governement services, etc.). As you translate in Trados, the system looks at the terms in your source language and shows you the corresponding equivalents found in your Multiterm term base (in the window in the upper right corner of your screen). You can also add term pairs in your Multiterm term base from within Trados.
And remember, it takes time to get used to Trados and it is often frustrating. For instance when something goes wrong, the message that appears on your screen is perfectly impossible to understand, and thus perfectly useless, which means you might never know how to correct the problem unless you start a big research on the Web.
Yes Trados allows you to align your old translations and add them to a translation memory, but you have to correct the process "manually", and the Alignment tool is far from perfect. Also the cause for a lot of frustration.
Jean-Pierre
[Edited at 2014-10-07 23:55 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Roy Oestensen
Denmark
Local time: 09:23
Member (2010)
English to Norwegian (Bokmal)
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| Trados may not necessarily speed up things, at least at first | Oct 7, 2014 |
Kate Shapkina wrote:
2. Also, as Trados is supposed to speed up my translation, will it be sped up only after I get a sizable Translation Memory? So in the beginning I will be working for Trados so that in the end it would be working for me, right?
Any CAT tool, including Studio, may actually slow you down at first, as you need time to learn the inns and out of the tool. But as you work with it more and more, things should speed up, especially since it will help you reuse old translations.
One important thing with any CAT tool is also that it is easier to be consistent than if you don't use any CAT tool.
Also: in order to make quickly a Translation Memory, I can just align originals and translated files, right?
That sounds like a good idea to me, especially if it's the type of subjects you often translate.
3. Must admit, I also don't get how I should use MultiTerm. It is an additional application, should I open it too when opening Trados Studio, or is it incorporated into Studio?
I have not used MultiTerm much at all. Instead I prefer to do concordance searches in Studio itself. But I think MultiTerm might be a help if your client send you a term list. But to answer your question, my understanding is that it's a standalone, so you have to open it separately.
Roy
| | | | Roy Oestensen
Denmark
Local time: 09:23
Member (2010)
English to Norwegian (Bokmal)
+ ...
| Studio not a CAT tool? | Oct 7, 2014 |
Augusta Habas wrote:
A few answers:
Excuse me, I just wondered, what do you mean that Studio is not a CAT (Computer Assisted Translation) tool? In actual fact that's exactly what it is, along with quite a few other similar tools.
Roy
| | | | Selcuk Akyuz
Türkiye
Local time: 10:23
English to Turkish
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| some answers from the user of another CAT tool | Oct 7, 2014 |
Hi Kate,
I don't use Studio but Deja Vu X and hope my answers will help you.
1. Concerning Translation Memory: As I understand, the more I translate in Trados, the larger will be my translation memory, right? If so, will every translation be automatically be included into the Translation Memory, or should I first (before starting the translation) specify where it should be saved?
If you have only one TM (the default one) it will be selected automatically. Some translators prefer creating a new TM for each project, some use Client-based or Subject-based TMs. I prefer Big Mama approach, one large TM for everything (and Big Papa, that is only one termbase). This method is good for Deja Vu, not sure about Studio.
Check additional fields in TM.
2. Also, as Trados is supposed to speed up my translation, will it be sped up only after I get a sizable Translation Memory? So in the beginning I will be working for Trados so that in the end it would be working for me, right?
Also: in order to make quickly a Translation Memory, I can just align originals and translated files, right?
Size, well it counts. I prefer medium sized TMs, 100k segments in various subjects will help you a lot. Some prefer using the EU translation memory, at least as a secondary, read-only TM. Over 1 million or 2, a giant. Good for finding terms and phrases but it may slow you down as well.
Alignment? It may help of course. I prefer the simple copy paste to Word without formatting, remove all additional paragraph marks, then align method (with or without an alignment tool).
3. Must admit, I also don't get how I should use MultiTerm. It is an additional application, should I open it too when opening Trados Studio, or is it incorporated into Studio?
You can use MultiTerm as a standalone application, e.g. to create a new termbase, to import term lists... but then, when enabled in Studio, you will see nice hits for terms. In the beginning do not try to create complex termbases but a simple bilingual one.
HTH,
Selcuk
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Kate Shapkina
Kazakhstan
Local time: 13:23
English to Russian
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TOPIC STARTER | Thanks a lot to everybody | Oct 8, 2014 |
I would like to thank everybody who replied to my post. Indeed, Trados can be a frustrating software, especially in the beginning, when you think that maybe it wasn't necessary to buy it and things were already not so bad without it (I had such thoughts just yesterday))))
Thanks, Augusta, Jean-Pierre, Roy and Selcuk, your detailed answers made it clearer for me in terms of translation memories, Multiterm and alignment. Good luck in your translation business:-)
[Edited at 2014... See more I would like to thank everybody who replied to my post. Indeed, Trados can be a frustrating software, especially in the beginning, when you think that maybe it wasn't necessary to buy it and things were already not so bad without it (I had such thoughts just yesterday))))
Thanks, Augusta, Jean-Pierre, Roy and Selcuk, your detailed answers made it clearer for me in terms of translation memories, Multiterm and alignment. Good luck in your translation business:-)
[Edited at 2014-10-08 05:22 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | SDL_Steve
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:23
English to Arabic
| Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 09:23
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Kate Shapkina wrote:
1. Concerning Translation Memory: As I understand, the more I translate in Trados, the larger will be my translation memory, right? If so, will every translation be automatically be included into the Translation Memory, or should I first (before starting the translation) specify where it should be saved?
It is my understanding that you have to tell Trados very specifically about which TM to use, every time you use Trados. This is based on my experience with Trados and thinking that the TM would be updated...
2. Also, as Trados is supposed to speed up my translation, will it be sped up only after I get a sizable Translation Memory? So in the beginning I will be working for Trados so that in the end it would be working for me, right?
The TM will speed you up, but you'll also increase your speed due to the fact that Trados segments the text for you, the fact that Trados takes care of the final file's formatting, and also if you use some of the other features in Trados that helps you find information quicker.
Also: in order to make quickly a Translation Memory, I can just align originals and translated files, right?
Yes.
| | | | Patti Maselli
Martinique
Local time: 03:23
Member (2013)
French to English
| MultiTerm is great! | Oct 8, 2014 |
I would like to add a few comments about MultiTerm. When I first purchased Trados, all I thought about was the TM aspect. The first thing I did was to create an AutoSuggest dictionary. Then I aligned much of my old work. I installed CodingBreeze to be able to use both American and British English TMs. I learned how to do concordance searches and.....well, it just didn't knock my socks off the way I had imagined. (My expectations were obviously too high which is not the software's fault.)
<... See more I would like to add a few comments about MultiTerm. When I first purchased Trados, all I thought about was the TM aspect. The first thing I did was to create an AutoSuggest dictionary. Then I aligned much of my old work. I installed CodingBreeze to be able to use both American and British English TMs. I learned how to do concordance searches and.....well, it just didn't knock my socks off the way I had imagined. (My expectations were obviously too high which is not the software's fault.)
Then I turned my attention to MultiTerm. Over the years, my glossary system.....how can I put this.......had become one big mess. A combination of Excel, Word, notebooks, post-its, my memory, etc. So I created Excel spreadsheets and imported them into MultiTerm and wow! It was at that moment that I truly began to benefit from this tool.
I am no computer genius by any stretch of the imagination. Everything I have mentioned here I learned on forums. Good luck! ▲ Collapse
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ghislandi
Local time: 08:23
English to Italian
Hello Patti,
glad to hear that MultiTerm helped you out and has made your working with SDL Trados better!
Kind regards.
Massi
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