How Computer-Assisted Translation Is Beneficial For Translation Business?

After the release of Trados MultiTerm and Translator’s Workbench in the early 1990s, Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) and Translation Memory (TM) tools have revolutionized the entire language services industry. CAT tools have been largely adopted by language service providers involved in large and small-scale projects and virtually any type of content.

Be it clients or prospective clients who are either new to the language services industry or who have never heard of CAT/TM technology, it can be a difficult job to make the selection. Usually, the initial assumptions which first-time clients have in respect of CAT tools are that they are a type of machine translation.

But the fact is something different as the CAT tools involve 100% human translation (and editing) through CAT/TM software assisting the translator to be more efficient, consistent and accurate in terms of translations.

Basically, CAT tools work by dividing the content to be translated into segments containing sentences or sentence-like units. These tools render an analysis of new content, similar content and identical content throughout the document. When the translator works through the content, the software saves the translated content into database. If a similar segment appears later in the text, it shows the option to either accept a previously used translation, modify previously used translation for a similar (not identical) segment of the previous translation or he can simply ignore the suggestions as a whole.

The concerned database can be re-used for future related translations which increases the leverage of previously translated content as the translation memory database gains more content. Whether CAT tools are being utilized for local Bhojpuri translation or any other project, everything needs to be done under expert supervision.

On a general note, the types of content matches analyzed by CAT tools include the following such as:

• No match: It indicates these are “new” words which have not been previously translated.
• Fuzzy match: They are partial matches based on 0-99% match rate similar to previously translated segment but not identical. Certain words, modifications to phrasing or punctuation need to be modified manually by the translator.
• 100% matches: It includes the segments which have been previously translated and the previous translation can be used. They are entirely and automatically applied by the CAT tool. But the translator still needs to verify whether it’s correct within the context or not.
• Repetitions:  It includes segments that are repeated within the new source document being analyzed but are not available in the TM database.

Computer-Assisted Translation technology provide a plethora of benefits to clients. The list of benefits is quite long which includes great consistency, automated quality assurance checks, reduced turnaround times and improved efficiency. The concerned technology possesses the ability to work with a wide variety of source files.

When we see from the perspective of clients, the greatest benefit of using CAT tools is the cost reduction. Clients receive a pro-rated rate based on the type of “match” identified by the CAT analysis. For instance, “no-match” segments are usually charged by a full translation rate where the words including a “fuzzy match” or “100% match” are charged at a lower rate.

Conclusion

Whether it’s the case of Hindi to Bhojpuri translation services or any other translation project to work upon, clients can avail a plethora of benefits from consistency and efficiency to a reduction in cost. I would personally suggest all to consider the assistance being offered at TridIndia Translation where human translators know how to make most out of CAT tools. 

Also Read : Why Good Translation Is Vital For Movies?