Nowadays translation is not a matter of sitting down with a text, a pen and paper, and a typewriter. One of the essential skills of an English to French translator is to be able to use the many tools that are available.
Of course, translation has never really
been a matter of just a pen and paper! There have always
been certain tools that were essential for the English to French
translator. These included bilingual dictionaries for looking
up new words; monolingual dictionaries in both French and English
for checking the usage of words and their meaning in different
contexts; glossary lists for specialised terms; encyclopedias
for finding out more about the subject of the text; and specialist
magazines and journals to help in understanding the meaning of
a more technical text. The translator has always been
conscious of the need to arrive at an in-depth knowledge of the
topic before starting to translate.
However, in the last few decades, the number of tools available to the English to French translator has increased to a bewildering extent. The translator has really no choice about learning to use them. But there is a lot of choice about which ones to use.
Computer-aided translation
Computer-aided translation should not be confused with machine translation (MT). The idea of machine translation is to DO the translation for you. The result of these translations is the best argument possible for translation being done by a human being! At its best it produces something which is just about grammatical, but in no way reads as a natural piece of writing in the target language. At its worst, it comes up with total gibberish!
Computer-aided translation (CAT), on the other hand, is designed to HELP you as an English to French translator. Using CAT tools in no way means that the human element will be absent at any stage.
Many utilities have become so normal that translators don’t even realise that they are doing “computer-assisted” translation. Examples of these include:
- Spell-check – not infallible, but makes the translator’s task slightly easier. CD-ROM dictionaries – this can help you find synonyms, definitions or equivalents in seconds.
- Online thesaurus – can be used similarly. You can get thesauri in French and many other languages. An especially good one for the English to French translator is Thesaurus Larousse. A thesaurus is really invaluable if your mind has gone blank or if you know there is a word but you can’t think what it is.
- Clipboard memory. The Windows clipboard can only store one piece of text at a time, but there is a free program called Clipomatic which can store up to 64 pieces of text. This is useful for storing frequently-recurring sections of a document.
- A program like CatsCradle enables you to translate web pages into another language without knowing any HTML. It automatically extracts the text from the web page for translation and then reconstitutes the translated product.
The type of CAT tool that has most revolutionised the work of the English to French translator is a translation memory (TM) tool such as Translator’s Workbench. This kind of tool compiles a linguistic database (the translation memory or "TM") that captures your translations as you work. When you encounter a sentence that is similar or identical to a sentence you have already translated, or have imported from previous translations, Translator's Workbench searches the translation memory for a stored translation, giving you the option to edit, accept or reject it. As a result, the same sentence never needs to be translated again and you can re-use what you have translated as often as you want. The more you build up your translation memory, the faster you can translate subsequent projects and thus, the more time you will have for the more creative aspects of your work.
Note that you don’t buy the program with the database included – you build up your own. In some cases, the memory can be retrieved before the work is passed to an individual English to French translator. Most CAT programs also contain segmentation and alignment programs. These segment texts that have already been translated, and align the segments with a piece of corresponding source text
So what are the benefits and caveats of using a TM program?
Benefits
- Using a TM program can save a huge amount of time and effort, especially when working on a long and complicated document.
- Because less time is needed for all the repetitive little tasks, there is more time for genuine translation work. This should mean the quality of the translation will be improved.
- Saving of time also means greater productivity, both for the individual English to French translator and for the agency. This helps the translator and/or the agency to be more competitive.
- As a translator you have greater confidence in the accuracy of your work.
Caveats
- You can’t just mechanically use the phrases or sentences that the program produces. You still have to make the decision as to whether this particular translation is appropriate on this occasion.
- The automatic segmentation and alignment process is unlikely to be 100 per cent accurate and has to be manually checked by the English to French translator before the program is ready for use.
- Use of CAT tools means lots more time spent in front of the computer, which some people have found not to be good for their health.
- When the source document is brought up on the screen, the chunks of text already translated come up in the target language, though they are still to be revised. This can be a bit confusing and distracting.
- It can increase the social isolation for English to French translators working in an agency – as there is less reason for people to get up from their desks to consult colleagues. This in turn can lead to more burnout if precautions aren’t taken.
Despite these caveats, CAT is here to stay, and no translator or agency can hope to be competitive without investing in one of these programs.
There is really no need for the English to French translator to be afraid of using tools. Nothing will take away the need for the human touch, or human creativity, in translation. The translator should be grateful for improving technology, which does so much to remove the drudgery from the translation task, and to set you free to do the real work you are trained for.
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