One TM per language pair? One per customer? ... Thread poster: Vito Smolej
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Vito Smolej
Germany
Local time: 11:39
Member (2004)
English to Slovenian
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SITE LOCALIZER
This is probably a recurring theme - in short: I'm tempted to stick to one language pair, with few extras, if the subject is spezialized.
What's your idea / experience in this regard?
TiA
smo
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I have around 10 customers who regularly provide me with work. I have a general TM for each and specialised ones depending on the subject. Some customers have 15 TMs and others only a few. When the subject matter is always random, the general TM grows but I regularly work on projects that are long or are updated. These segments are added to the specialised TMs. I also work in 3 languages and the TMs are defined per language combination and subject matter.
This works for me because I... See more I have around 10 customers who regularly provide me with work. I have a general TM for each and specialised ones depending on the subject. Some customers have 15 TMs and others only a few. When the subject matter is always random, the general TM grows but I regularly work on projects that are long or are updated. These segments are added to the specialised TMs. I also work in 3 languages and the TMs are defined per language combination and subject matter.
This works for me because I can file away all the actual files and just refer to the TMs. The name of the TM will tell me the language combination and the subject area. I use Trados for 95% of my work.
When several customers send files that refer to the same subject matter (this happens when the law is changed), I will usually pretranslate the files using the TM of a specific customer and continue from there. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | One per customer | Nov 4, 2005 |
In my experience, different customers insist on different mis-translations.
You therefore need different TMs so as not to force steadily accumulated variants of bad German onto all the clients you have.
P.
[Edited at 2005-11-04 09:09]
| | | | Peter Linton (X) 
Local time: 10:39
Swedish to English
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It depends a great deal on your combination of work, subject areas and customers. I have some customer-specific TMs for large customers in a fairly specific subject area, but I also have some large language-specific TMs into which I import just about everything. Most of this is wasted, but every now and then the TM delivers a gem.
Bear in mind that Trados allows you to have a 2nd reference TM open, which is a good place to put any big language-specific TMs, and MutiTerm 7 allows you... See more It depends a great deal on your combination of work, subject areas and customers. I have some customer-specific TMs for large customers in a fairly specific subject area, but I also have some large language-specific TMs into which I import just about everything. Most of this is wasted, but every now and then the TM delivers a gem.
Bear in mind that Trados allows you to have a 2nd reference TM open, which is a good place to put any big language-specific TMs, and MutiTerm 7 allows you to have multiple term bases open. Provided your PC reasonably powerful, this gives you fast access to a huge range of terminology.
But remember a;ways that golden rule - GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). A TM is only as good as you make it.
[Edited at 2005-11-04 12:45] ▲ Collapse
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Csaba Ban
Hungary
Local time: 11:39
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
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| Several TMs in Deja Vu | Nov 4, 2005 |
My favourite CAT tool, DVX (www.atril.com) allows several translation memories and several terminology databases open at the same time and you can specify the order of priority of these databases.
Having said that, over the years I got accustomed to having one "big mamma" (general) TM that covers most of my jobs, and a separate one for a specific large client that accounts for about 30% of all income - with a ... See more My favourite CAT tool, DVX (www.atril.com) allows several translation memories and several terminology databases open at the same time and you can specify the order of priority of these databases.
Having said that, over the years I got accustomed to having one "big mamma" (general) TM that covers most of my jobs, and a separate one for a specific large client that accounts for about 30% of all income - with a subject area that is different from most other things I translate.
Whenever I receive a TM from a client, that is of course a Trados TM, which I then incorporate in my general TM that I use in DVX. If ever a client wants an updated TM (specific to a client or even to a particular project), I can easily export the required subset of the general TM into a a Trados format.
Csaba ▲ Collapse
| | | | | What I should do (but don't so far) is use the attributes | Nov 4, 2005 |
I've just been on a day course (in TagEditor - help!). During the general discussion the instructor (who is not employed by Trados) said it was in principle best to have large TMs and use the attributes to mark different projects and clients. Then you get the benefit of the whole TM but can distinguish clients and subject areas from each other.
I have to admit I make a TM for each regular client and one in each source language for odd jobs, which means a lot of small TMs that are re... See more I've just been on a day course (in TagEditor - help!). During the general discussion the instructor (who is not employed by Trados) said it was in principle best to have large TMs and use the attributes to mark different projects and clients. Then you get the benefit of the whole TM but can distinguish clients and subject areas from each other.
I have to admit I make a TM for each regular client and one in each source language for odd jobs, which means a lot of small TMs that are relatively easy to maintain, but no synergy effects from one client to another. I'm not sure there would be many if I did merge them, but there would be a few.
One day I plan to take the plunge and clean up copies of the uncleaned back-up files into a completely new TM using attributes, and see what happens... but I will keep the old system on my backup disk in case I think better of it! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Vito Smolej
Germany
Local time: 11:39
Member (2004)
English to Slovenian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER | TMs identified by i) Language pair ii) customer | Nov 7, 2005 |
Unknowingly I have started slowly, long time ago, to do it this way as well. Now I went back and renamed TMs and collated a few of them.
When pretranslating it's easier this way to find good candidates - I had a TM named "slo" (like slovenian). It was useless until I renamed it "EN SL general";)
Thanks!
smo
| | | | Vito Smolej
Germany
Local time: 11:39
Member (2004)
English to Slovenian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER | different mistranslations - a problem for TM? | Nov 7, 2005 |
Peter Bouillon wrote:
In my experience, different customers insist on different mis-translations.
I would assume this is more of a question for Termbases (some like muß with scharfen ß and some insist on the new rules for instance)
A general question ... how do I know my TM is good/bad i.e. useful/useless? Well, the one and only way to measure the quality is the number of useful/useless pretranslates. But then, how can I improve? Or avoid having megabytes of wasteland?...
Thanks
smo
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Vito Smolej
Germany
Local time: 11:39
Member (2004)
English to Slovenian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER | gems and muddy waters... | Nov 7, 2005 |
I have some customer-specific TMs for large customers in a fairly specific subject area, but I also have some large language-specific TMs into which I import just about everything.
... and we fish for gems in these muddy waters (g)
Bear in mind that Trados allows you to have a 2nd reference TM open, which is a good place to put any big language-specific TMs
Huh??? Tell me more!
By the way, just looking for this unknown feature (have yet to find it) brought one more gem up: "start concordance search if no segment has been found". Man, how much we could do if we just took some time to read the manual...;)
and MultiTerm 7 allows you to have multiple term bases open. Provided your PC reasonably powerful, this gives you fast access to a huge range of terminology.
I rebuilt the standard EN-SL dictionary (Debeljak, Drzavna zalozba 2003) from scratch (took a lot of scratching). The result is i) it's darn slow and ii) I get tons of hits. But that's another story - will have to dabble in XML...
Thanks a mil!
smo
[Edited at 2005-11-07 06:52]
note added: re "(have yet to find it)" - for those who are half as blind as I am, this feature (ie one extra read/only reference TM) can be set (where else...) in TWB's Options/Translation memory options/concordance. Which makes the partitioning into general + customer-specific TMs even more practical...
[Edited at 2005-11-08 18:01]
| | | | Vito Smolej
Germany
Local time: 11:39
Member (2004)
English to Slovenian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER | attributes!? what attributes? (g) | Nov 7, 2005 |
... the instructor ... said it was in principle best to have large TMs and use the attributes to mark different projects and clients.
A good (technically good) idea. But the subject still remains problem, just repackaged... Because now the question is rephrased to "what attributes, how many different kinds of ~" etc.
It's probably easier to manage though ... Pretranslation is easier / more powerful this way ... rebuilding / rarranging the contents is easier ... pruning / spellchecking. Losing it (duh...)
Bottom line: good idea!
smo
| | | | Nicolette Ri (X)
Local time: 11:39
French to Dutch
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| One per end customer | Nov 8, 2005 |
Peter Bouillon wrote:
In my experience, different customers insist on different mis-translations.
You therefore need different TMs so as not to force steadily accumulated variants of bad German onto all the clients you have.
P.
Absolutely! Mistranslations or own terminology. That is why I have one TM per end customer ("end" customer because some come via different translation agencies or are my own direct clients).
I know that Yves Champollion suggests having a huge language related TM, but after some experiences I think this is very complicated because you don't remember which terms to use for which client. Especially for beginners. And besides, later on you can always combine TM's for special purposes, but it is difficult to separate one huge TM in two or more specialized ones.
As I use two source languages, often for the same clients, I mix up the two language pairs (French>Dutch and English>Dutch) in the same TM. Wordfast doesn't bother.
Note: TM's which have the same subject should be organized in the same directory in order to speed up context search. And besides I use Copernic Desktop Search very often.
Note: I know that this is a Trados forum, but the principles are the same.
[Edited at 2005-11-09 08:32]
| | | | | This pertains to whole phrases as well as words/terms | Nov 11, 2005 |
Peter Bouillon wrote:
In my experience, different customers insist on different mis-translations.
Vito Smolej wrote:
I would assume this is more of a question for Termbases
Not really. At the moment, one of the recurring phrases I have to translate is, "Let's use the system!" What the client wants to see translated is, "Und nun zur Praxis mit dem System!". I'm happy to oblige, of course; but I don't think I should force that "translation" on any customer except that client.
P.
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