Advice for a newbie: is using Trados (opposed to using other CAT tools) "essential"? Thread poster: Giulia Righetto
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From what I saw during my internship in a translation agency earlier this year and in some Proz job postings, too, working with Trados seems a mandatory requirement for lots of companies/jobs. Is it true? Would using another CAT tool be detrimental for my carreer and/or my first steps in the sector?
My university is providing students with a free 1-year MemoQ licence and/or a 20% discount on any Trados licences - including a lifelong one - and I'm considering which one to get.
... See more From what I saw during my internship in a translation agency earlier this year and in some Proz job postings, too, working with Trados seems a mandatory requirement for lots of companies/jobs. Is it true? Would using another CAT tool be detrimental for my carreer and/or my first steps in the sector?
My university is providing students with a free 1-year MemoQ licence and/or a 20% discount on any Trados licences - including a lifelong one - and I'm considering which one to get.
Thank you! ▲ Collapse
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| It's just a choice | Oct 30, 2019 |
I only use MemoQ and it's not detrimental. In most cases where outsourcers require Trados, it's good enough to have a CAT tool that can handle sdlppx (Trados packages) properly (MemoQ can). In a few cases it isn't. But you can't be everything to everyone.
I consider it more important to use a user interface I feel at ease with, and Trados just isn't my cup of tea. Others will say the opposite, so it's a question of which environment you feel more comfortable with.
MemoQ... See more I only use MemoQ and it's not detrimental. In most cases where outsourcers require Trados, it's good enough to have a CAT tool that can handle sdlppx (Trados packages) properly (MemoQ can). In a few cases it isn't. But you can't be everything to everyone.
I consider it more important to use a user interface I feel at ease with, and Trados just isn't my cup of tea. Others will say the opposite, so it's a question of which environment you feel more comfortable with.
MemoQ has its own quirks, and I wish the developers could be more reactive, but perfection is difficult to find. ▲ Collapse
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Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 09:09
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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giulia1 wrote:
My university is providing students with a free 1-year MemoQ licence and/or a 20% discount on any Trados licences - including a lifelong one - and I'm considering which one to get.
I suspect the MemoQ licence is an educational licence, since normal people (i.e. us) can't buy a 1-year licence for MemoQ. We can only buy a lifelong MemoQ license, and it costs €620. However, "lifelong" can be misleading. It does not include free upgrades to the latest version. The same applies to Trados -- all Trados licences that we can buy, are "lifelong" licences. But there will come a point at which the version of MemoQ or Trados that you have a "lifelong" licence for is so old that you can no longer use it (I estimate this will take about 10 years).
Some CAT tools do not have lifelong licences. For example, a Wordfast licence is a 3-year licence. At the end of 3 years, you have to pay the upgrade fee (which is half of the full price).
A 20% discount on Trados is not a big discount. You can often get much bigger discounts via ProZ.com's TGB feature, if you're willing to wait a few months.
giulia1 wrote:
From what I saw during my internship in a translation agency earlier this year and in some ProZ.com job postings, working with Trados seems mandatory for lots of companies/jobs. Is it true?
No, it depends on the agency. Some agencies use MemoQ exclusively, some use Wordfast, some use Trados, some use an online system, some don't really care as long as you can work with their files, etc. If you buy Trados, then naturally you may end up starting to work for more agencies that require Trados.
Would using another CAT tool be detrimental for my career and/or my first steps in the sector?
At the beginning of your career, it is impossible to know what types of clients you're going to get. You may end up getting clients who don't use Trados at all. If you want to buy a CAT tool, then I suggest that you buy one that you're most familiar with. Your initial success will not depend on the CAT tool, but on how professional you behave and how well you market yourself. In fact, you can safely use a free CAT tool at first.
[Edited at 2019-10-30 21:16 GMT]
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Preview each CAT tool using their respective free trials and decide which one you prefer. The major tools all handle trados files, so there is no big problem.
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Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. (X)
Local time: 09:09
Polish to English
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| Count the cost | Jan 7, 2020 |
If your customer or employer buys the software for your use - use what they gave you. Otherwise, find software that matches your personal skills, needs, preferences, and cognitive style.
Why would you buy what someone else wants?
If you are independent from them, they are not bound to be there for you when you need it.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:09
Member (2008)
Italian to English
giulia1 wrote:
From what I saw during my internship in a translation agency earlier this year and in some Proz job postings, too, working with Trados seems a mandatory requirement for lots of companies/jobs. Is it true? Would using another CAT tool be detrimental for my carreer and/or my first steps in the sector?
My university is providing students with a free 1-year MemoQ licence and/or a 20% discount on any Trados licences - including a lifelong one - and I'm considering which one to get.
Thank you!
I have never used a CAT tool and I'm doing fine.
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| Choose one or two CAT tools that YOU like | Jan 7, 2020 |
I totally agree with Thomas T. Frost, except that I started with Trados way back, before MemoQ and many others existed! Personally, I prefer Trados, which has come a long way since the version I started with, and when I looked at MemoQ, I soon came back to Trados.
I have tried DejaVu and Wordfast… and found them OK, but I still came back to Trados. I have tried others too, and simply said NEVER AGAIN! You have to find a CAT which suits your own needs.
The value of a CAT ... See more I totally agree with Thomas T. Frost, except that I started with Trados way back, before MemoQ and many others existed! Personally, I prefer Trados, which has come a long way since the version I started with, and when I looked at MemoQ, I soon came back to Trados.
I have tried DejaVu and Wordfast… and found them OK, but I still came back to Trados. I have tried others too, and simply said NEVER AGAIN! You have to find a CAT which suits your own needs.
The value of a CAT tool is cumulative. If you use it to full advantage, you collect experience and client-specific details, which you can find in the concordance and build up a database, so you can access them with a just a few keystrokes. You can personalise Trados, and undoubtedly other good CAT tools, to suit the way YOU work.
I am a poor typist, so I have a lot of strings in my database (Multiterm) which save me typing, and countless typing errors!
At least one of my TMs can be traced back to the earlier days of Trados, when I started out as a freelancer and built up my own TM. Back then, Trados could only handle max. 2 TMs, so I worked with my own and sometimes a client TM. There are still useful things in it, as well as a lot of dead wood that is hard to sort out now. Besides, phrases turn up in the concordance from way back, which I still find useful!
Choose your CAT carefully, because you will not have time to maintain and personalise a lot of CATs and hop from one to another. Learn to use the short-cuts automatically, so that the ´mechanics´ do not distract you when you need to concentrate on translating. Then stick to one or two as far as possible, and import packages or ask agencies to send you packages you can use.
Plan your TMs and maintain them - do you want subject TMs, client TMs, or broad 'all-in-one' TMS?
Probably a combination.
Learn to use the filters, so that you can extract the last job and export it to a new TM for a client, and keep your own past experience for yourself.
Learn to align texts, so that you can use already translated material, e.g. from EU legislation in several languages, or anything else you come across, and add it to your TM.
With Trados you can set some TMs as read-only while you are working, and some to accumulate from the text you are working on, so that you can benefit from earlier experience, or exchange TMs with colleagues and agencies without passing anything on to the wrong people.
Before the days of CAT tools, there were other ways of keeping track of terminology, client details and so on, and a CAT is just another method. They can be a real pain to start with, and experienced colleagues can still do very well without them. When you have learnt to use a CAT, however, you will find it opens up a much wider market, because there are advantages for clients too, and they are organised to make use of them.
Give it time, and good luck! ▲ Collapse
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| Waste of money | Jan 21, 2020 |
Unless you get texts with repetitive phrases or catalogues or lists where consistency of terminolgy is necessary a CAT tool is, in my humble opinion, a waste of precious, hard earned money. I have used one economical one from France and it worked well and it was simple to use. Its help in my translations was rare because seldom repetitive. I bought another very expensive one in 2006 when ALL the Agencies were demanding it or else! They were € 700 gone down the drain plus 1200 pages of confus... See more Unless you get texts with repetitive phrases or catalogues or lists where consistency of terminolgy is necessary a CAT tool is, in my humble opinion, a waste of precious, hard earned money. I have used one economical one from France and it worked well and it was simple to use. Its help in my translations was rare because seldom repetitive. I bought another very expensive one in 2006 when ALL the Agencies were demanding it or else! They were € 700 gone down the drain plus 1200 pages of confusing manual printed at my expense written in computerese that never found any applicable use for it. My answer to enquiries now is: I do not use CATs. Simple. ▲ Collapse
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