More detailed topics




vorige Seite
Kontakt



Markers and hypertext links

Documents are mostly written and their layout is mostly designed by the mean of desktop publishing software; they contain many hypertext links and terminology markers (for example glossary or table of contents construction). Whenever it is desirable to retrieve formatting data and hypertext links after the translation process, it is absolutely necessary not to erase them and the links must be translated exactly identically throughout the translation. This can easily be done by a single person working on a small documents, however, it is much more difficult for a large volume document, especially if a team is working on it. In the latter case it is absolutely necessary to use some kind of "Computer Aided Translation (CAT)".
Furthermore, markers and hypertext links (tags) to be translated are not necessarily visible in the document usual reading mode, nevertheless they can build-up a considerable amount of material to be translated. This can sometimes lead to an initial under estimation of the translation cost.

Page top



Tables and tabular structures

Tables and similar structures are widely represented in technical documentation, they often lead to problems, not because of the translation difficulties but rather because of the physical organisation of the table. Horizontal layout tables constituted by sentence fragments separated by tab signs are quite frequent; they are similar to the following example showing 2 columns of text which are supposed to be read vertically:

  tab
tab
  cette phrase mauvaise mais
ingénieuse servira de référence
  tab
tab
  je vous avais parlé d'un effet
pervers des tableaux
tab
tab

once translated, for example into French (1st colonne), or into German (2nd colonne), this table - if we keep the initial tab delimited column width - will look like:

  tab
tab
tab

this bad but artful sentence
will
be used as a reference

  tab
tab
tab
  ich hatte von einem uner-
wünschten Tabelleneffekt
Ihnen gesprochen
tab
tab
tab

Unfortunately if the table has an horizontal structure, the first result (if one types directly over the old text, thus replacing it) will likely look like this:

  tab
tab
tab

 this bad sentence but artful
ich hatte von einem Effekt
von den Tabellen
 
  tab
tab
tab
 

will be used as a reference Ihnen gesprochen verderbt

tab
tab
tab

Obviously the first translated line requires to be split into pieces delimited by tabs signs in French as well as in German. however, these pieces do not have the same meaning than the original physically corresponding fragments. "will be used as a reference" stands in the place of "ingénieuse servira de référence"; in German the difference is even bigger because the word count and order are even more different. This fragmentation is a real mental exercise - not a really difficult one for a translator - but is very much time-consuming, especially - as it is often the case - if the translator is not doing the layout work which is generally done in the country where the document is originating from and by people who do not understand the target language.
Another important negative effect concerns the translation database because these systems are not really intelligent they will record from the properly translated and layed out tables (1st and 2nd tables) that "
ingénieuse servira de référence" should be translated by "will be used as a reference" in English and "pervers des tableaux" should be translated by "wünschten Tabelleneffekt" into German.
The different word order between French and Englisch or German often makes that for narrow columns tables the translation memoriess are containing errors, for example "diamètre de colonne" in French translates into "column diameter into English, whenever 2 lines of a table are necessary, the translation memory will record that "diamètre = column" and "de colonne = diameter".
This explains why many computer made glossaries are frequently unaccurate and often lead to mistranslation.


Page top



Reuse rates of previously translated documents

When we start from a  brand new document, the reuse rate of previously translated documents is usually near zero (<5%). However, in some cases this might be different, Online Helps are a typical example, this is because they repeatedly use the same menu and/or command names (eg : File Menu, Copy, Paste, etc.) with such files, reuse rates from 10 to 20 % can be achieved. On the other hand, updating previously translated documents can lead to a much higher reuse rate of the older part of the document . It is quite frequent to see 80% or even 90% rates for minor udates.
Taking this rate into account in some discount form appears then as the next important question. Several case are to be envisaged according to the modifications nature and depth.
Unless the buyer assembles a document containing only the new portions and asks for a quotation for these new portions, it is usually not possible to offer a discount rate equal to the reuse rate because the work to be done goes far beyond the simple translation of the new portions.

The rule to apply for a work including the layout (wygiwyg) is quite simple: the lower the reuse rate, the closer the discount rate can approach the same value, because the layout extra work will be less affected eg : 15% reuse rate = 10 to 15% discount rate. On the other hand, if the reuse rate is very high (ie if there are not many adds-on and modifications) it is very possible that the effect on the layout work is considerable. This is especially true if the document was designed under a page based software ((PageMaker, QuarkXpress, InDesign), this is less important if the software works on dataflows (Framemaker, Word) if the graphics are anchored relatively to the text, for example, 80% reuse rate = only 40 to 60% discount rate.

If the work does not include any layout work, the discount rate can be equal to the reuse rate, however, there is some limitation: correctly understanding scattered sentences in a text can seriously affect the translator's work, forcing him to go into the document in depth and therefore justify a lower discount rate.

If the buyer, by the mean of a text comparison utility, can calculate the new words count of a modified document, and whishes to pay only on this basis, it is reasonnable to apply a 50% higher word or character rate for low modification amplitude (<25%). This approach takes into account the increased translation complexity as well as the fact that the sentences to be retranslated include words which are not new and which  even for simple term substitution  must be modified to comply with grammar rules like changing the agreements when changing a gender.


Page top



Glossaries

It quite frequently happens that the buyer whishes to receive a glossary of the translated terms. There are several possibles reasons for that:
Insure translation consistancy inside a team, throughout a series of documents, or within a company (proprietary terms, professional specific terminology, etc.).
Setup a data base in order to enable automatised translation.
Setup a used term glossary (possibly with their translation) at the end of the book.

It is common practice to deliver simple glossaries (ie simple translation pairs) free of charge.
However, it is important to realize that such glossaries will undoubtly generate some errors when they are used by people who do not master technical aspects of the translated material (this is even more true for automatised translation), si each term is not explained and put back in its context.
Here is a simplistic example, its demonstrative value remains nevertheless efficient: the English "Load" command is generally translated by "Charger",  since it is the usual meaning in French this will not be put into the glossary  However, in computer science, talking about a file, the "Load" command ist often a synonym for "Open" and is then often translated by "Ouvrir" (it is the data system people prefered term) because the important thing is the file access  this term will then be placed into the glossary and errors could be generated, for example by translating "Load the tape cartridge" by "Ouvrir la cassette" which means "open the tape cartridge".

To be succesfully used a glossary must have at least three fields: original term, translated term and context, a fourth field with examples is welcome. However, setting up such a glossary cannot be done free of charge. On the other hand, it obviously have a commercial value as well as a translation memory..

We can mention here that the best way to obtain a glossary for the translation purchaser consists in inserting adequate bookmarks or hypertext markers into the document, which will allow automatic glossary generation by some internal function already present in the TTX/desktop publishing software, in the same way as Table of Content generation.


Page top



MacIntosh vs PC

Softwares like Word, Pagemaker, QuarkXPress, etc. are available both in PC and MacIntosh crosscompatible versions. In theorie, it should allow to generate a MacIntosh document (usually prefered by DTP people) and then to translate it within a PC translation system (usually prefered by translators), involving a translation memory, after having converted and saved the original file into PC DTP format and imported the text data into the translation system; after translation, the files are exported back into the PC DTP software and finally reconverted into MacIntosh format.
This apparently somewhat complex process, does not generate problems although some crossplatform incompatibilities can limit its use (eg the Pagemaker 6.5 PC version can open Pagemaker 6.0 PC files but is unable to open Pagemaker MacIntosh 6.0 files).
The biggest problem is in fact unexpected: it arises from Mac and PC font differences , or even the absence of corresponding fonts (a Mac Intosh font is not necessarilly available on PC and vice versa). In the latter case, the PC layout work (in order to produce a translation control document) can only be approximativ and will require reworking on the MacIntosh DTP environnement.

If you whish us to translate MacIntosh generated documents, and simultaneously keep the "wygiwyg" advantages, you must make sure that all the fonts used on the Mac Intosh are also available or have a strict equivalent on PC .





vorige Seite
Kontakt
Seitenanfang