The Happy Hoarder
by Michael Benis
A simple idea....
The idea behind
translation memory is fairly simple: to speed up repetitive translation work by
hoarding all your previously translated source and target language sentence
pairs in a massive database. This database can be built in one of two ways:
“aligning” the sentences in existing source and target documents or splitting a
source document into its component sentences, translating these sentences one
by one and then feeding the sentence pairs into the database. Once a database
has been formed, you can search for matches with the database sentences to
assemble the translation of a similar new text. This is clearly ideal for
manuals containing simple instructions or updates of such manuals, and it
should come as no surprise to learn that the software for performing these
tasks was initially developed within the software industry itself. The aim was
twofold, to save time and money by avoiding duplicated translation and to
increase consistency by feeding the translator approved terminology.
... made simple
Simple as the idea may have been, the first programs weren’t particularly
user-friendly and alignment was often a nightmare. Déjà Vu arrived on the scene
in 1993, created with the aim of making alignment easier than previous packages
and facilitating the translation process itself, since however much a database
contains, the translator still has to check and edit the output as well as
translate everything that’s completely new. Déjà Vu made the translation side
much easier by, amongst other things, offering the option of integrating its TM
functions in an interface with the market’s leading word processor, Microsoft’s
Word 6. It soon won a strong following among freelance translators and agencies
alike thanks to its combination of ease of use and outstanding flexibility,
delivered in a complete package at a very competitive price. (Then, as now,
most translation memory packages only offered filters and alignment programs as
costly ad-ons).
Déjà Vu also had its problems, however, mainly related to slow
search speeds once the databases had grown sufficiently large to be really
effective. 16 bit coding and slow 486 processors (if you were lucky) simply
took ages to wade through the vast amounts of data involved. This was naturally
a failing common to all TM programs, however, and is indeed still encountered
on many today.
The latest version
These problems were addressed in Déjà Vu 2, released in 1997. As far as I’m
aware this is still the only true 32 bit translation memory program currently
available on the market. This, together with Pentiums, has gone a long way to
solving the problem of speed. Déjà Vu now runs very quickly and reliably (the
database system used is based on Microsoft’s Access, thereby also offering the
advantage of greater potential compatibility than the proprietary systems used
by other TM systems) and doesn’t slow down even for projects containing many,
many thousands of words. You’ll find very few translators with any experience
of Déjà Vu’s competitors who are prepared to say the same thing.
One of Déjà Vu’s strong points is that it’s continually developing
in partnership with its users, with free upgrades available for downloading from
Atril’s Website. The features provided are constantly being improved and
expanded in response to feedback from freelance translators, translation
companies and other users.
As a result, Déjà Vu incorporates a number of functions not
offered on any of the other leading packages. Perhaps the simplest yet most
important of these is the option of actually choosing how the sentences are
split up after they’ve been processed by the program. A sentence is a sentence
you may say. It starts with a capital letter and ends with a full-stop. Well
that’s what most translation memory packages think, anyway. But ask an
experienced translator and they’ll wax lyrical about the myriad changes
required by syntax and sentence order to obtain a clear “naturally” flowing translation.
One way or another, you need to chop source sentences up and join them together
in a way that’s determined by context and individual judgement. That not only
applies to the first version of a manual, but also to the second and the third.
Manuals you want TM to eat its way through without a second thought. Especially
if that second thought is yours, when you’re forced to go editing the output
afterwards. And that’s only half the story, because cunning choices about how
long sentences in particular are broken up into units can ensure you have a far
more useful database for solving similar problems in the future.
Then there’s “fuzzy” matching. That’s what happens when the system
finds a sentence in its memory that’s similar to one you want to translate but
not identical. All the current programs offer a facility of this kind,
incorporating routines that enable the system to cope with simple differences
intelligently, but not all implement it as effectively. Such differences may
involve simply substituting digits and perhaps converting the decimal marker
from a comma to a point. Or they could require changing a word or two. In many
cases Déjà Vu will do all this automatically.
Translators who successfully use translation memory sometimes
confess that their productivity increases are often due to the terminology
management features offered on TM programs more than anything else. These
functions allow you to search for particular terms or phrases and some,
including Déjà Vu, will allow you to use your databases in a stand-alone
terminology management package that can be run alongside your standard word
processor. Déjà Vu also offers enhancements of these basic functions that make
a big difference, more about which in the paragraph after next.
At the same time, however, Déjà Vu stands this database-in-a-word
processor thinking on its head, incorporating advanced word processor
productivity enhancements within its operation, including cut and paste, drag
and drop editing, search and replace, a customisable spell check, capitals
toggle and AutoText.
These are joined by a function called Propagate, which allows you
to repeat a chosen translation and permutations of it throughout a project. You
can even choose to have Déjà Vu do this for you automatically as you work.
A similar but more powerful function is known as Autoprocessing.
This comes into play when no fuzzy matches for a complete sentence can be found
and basically builds a translation for you from sentence elements in the memory
database (updated with information from sentence pairs previously translated
within the same project), together with the words in your terminology database,
gradually narrowing its focus down to the level of individual words. When set
up properly, Autoprocessing can produce usable suggestions that require
surprisingly little editing. But even when it doesn’t, it nevertheless very
usefully jogs your memory regarding the terms and/or phrases required.
All these features could not be offered from an interface within
Word and this aspect of the program was dropped. So, gain some, lose some, as
they say.
The filters work extremely well, however, even with complex
formatting and I have only ever had a significant problem once, with a file
that indeed had problems of its own. What’s more, within days of having
informed Atril of the problem they had incorporated a solution in the latest
upgrade on their Website.
An added benefit of the change is that you don’t have Word’s
memory-hogging overhead to slow down your system.
To be honest, however, I never really missed Word much, since so
many word processing functions have now been built into Déjà Vu and the new
functions work so well together, speeding things up considerably.
So what does it look like?
When you’re working in Déjà Vu Interactive (the main component in the system)
the screen is divided into four areas: a pull-down menu and button bar strip
across the top and a vertically split screen below, divided horizontally into
two areas. The first of these is divided into sentence cells showing the first
few words of each sentence—one of which is highlighted—while the bottom part of
the screen contains the full sentence selected.
You simply select your source file and let Déjà Vu feed it into a
project, splitting it up following the rules you yourself have selected. (Don’t
worry you can leave the settings alone until you have a clearer idea of what
you want; the defaults work perfectly well). The next step is a
“pretranslation,” which is when Déjà Vu rushes its way through the whole lot,
digging all the answers out of your chosen database. You then hop down through
the text cell by cell, merging or splitting these sentences further as
required.
They will either be 100% matches, partial matches or no-match
sentences, colour coded so you can recognise them at a glance (and yes, you can
customise these colours to suit your taste). In theory you can ignore the 100%
match sentences, though I confess to nearly always checking them, the victim of
a suspicious and neurotically perfectionist disposition. Partial matches may
only need checking if the fuzzy matching magic has been working well, but
otherwise they’ll need editing. As for the no-match sentences, you can “scan”
the database to check for individual terms or phrases or let Autoprocessing
have bash at it for you first. That could once again leave you just editing the
result. If not—gulp!—you’ll simply have to translate it yourself. The whole
process is fast and intuitive and the cells even scroll automatically for you
when you reach the last sentence displayed.
What will it do for you?
So, those are the features. The question is, do you need them? Well the answer
in some ways has very little to do with Déjà Vu. Because the real question
is... what kind of work you do?
First of all, you’ll need to receive the work as a file. Forget
the idea of scanning texts in, since you’ll more than likely lose more time
correcting OCR than you gain with Déjà Vu later.
The next consideration is the subject matter itself.
Instructions—ranging from lengthy assembly and disassembly operations to
surgical procedures, as well as repetitive product descriptions—are ideal
fodder for translation memory. While parts lists and the like are a dream come
true. But move off into anything more discursive and you’ll find the time spent
preparing databases and/or working on a sentence-cell-by-sentence-cell basis
will never be repaid.
The borderline for me was a very long project on bird watching.
Déjà Vu helped me remember the different names of all the species and their
habitats, while also coping well with repetitive information like clutch size,
plumage and wing span. But, on balance, the real savings were on the
terminology management side. The sentences were too varied for Déjà Vu to offer
many suggestions that it wasn’t quicker to simply rewrite rather than edit.
That said, these time savings where real and increased productivity in what
proved to be a challenging project.
Facts and figures
In my experience, Déjà Vu handles electronic device catalogues and manuals,
technical automotive texts, surgical devices and all repetitive technical
descriptions and instructions very well. Productivity increases aren’t
consistent because they can be massive for lists, very repetitive procedures
and updates but considerably less in other cases, ranging from productivity
losses when starting a database to gains of anything between 10 and 90%. I’m a
little sceptical about giving percentages because, frankly, I’ve never
translated anything both with and without Déjà Vu to make a real comparison.
That said, I’ve achieved a record of over 20 thousand words done and dusted in
a day using the system. And when I say a day, I mean eight hours not a 24 hour
translation marathon.
The agony and the ecstasy
A word of caution however: this sort of output is not, unfortunately, an
everyday occurrence and when it does happen make sure you’re prepared. These
levels are only achieved when you have a massive database that’s able to cope
with pretty much everything a new translation throws at it. And that can mean
frighteningly intensive mouse work. Ensure you have adequate wrist support
and/or a good trackball. A cavalier approach could mean massive productivity
gains followed by repetitive strain injury and several weeks off work. It’s
less a matter of swings and roundabouts than diving spectacularly into an empty
pool.
It has in fact been calculated that the majority of RSI cases
amongst computer operators are caused by mouse work rather than bashing away at
a keyboard. That’s a figure I don’t find hard to believe because I was once
languoring sadly in their ranks. After precisely two days of the 20,000 words
per day I mentioned.
The latest version of Déjà Vu cuts the amount of mouse work significantly,
however, thanks to features like Autoprocessing, Autopropagate, automatic digit
copying and decimal conversion etc.
So, as far as TM packages go, Déjà Vu 2 is good news all round.
It’s significantly cheaper than its competitors, faster, more stable and more
flexible. It offers productivity enhancements that the others don’t and its
alignment program is not only easy to use but comes bundled with the package.
Go for one of the other famous names and you’ll find their alignment add-ons
are inferior and in some cases cost more than twice as much as the whole Déjà
Vu package. What’s more, it’s very easy to use Déjà Vu with one of the various
speech recognition systems from Dragon, IBM and Kurzweil, which will increase
your productivity gains still further and leave your hands feeling much happier
at the end of the day.
To buy or not to buy
So, should you buy it? If most of your translation texts are supplied on paper
or bear little resemblance to one another where sentence structure is
concerned, forget it. But if you translate the right kind of stuff and want to
experiment with translation memory, you won’t regret giving Déjà Vu a spin. It
will set you back less than any of the other packages and most likely work
better. All it takes is two or three clients that are suitable for TM and
you’ll quickly earn on your investment. It’s also easy to learn and allows you
to discover its more powerful features step by step as you become acquainted
with it. If you’re not convinced, download and try the fully functioning demo (www.atril.com), which will give you a month to
make up your mind and won’t cost a bean.
If you’re a translation company, once again yes (unless you have a
major client demanding compatibility with one of DV’s competitors). Déjà Vu
offers as many if not more project management features than any of the others.
What’s more, forthcoming versions will enhance this with the possibility of
integrating local and remote databases using the Internet. And because it costs
so much less than its competitors while providing superior performance, it will
also be much easier to persuade your translators to use it.
Stop the Presses! The following item was received after the Translation Journal had been put on the Web: The latest version of Déjà Vu can now import, work on, and export Translation Manager and Translator’s Workbench files. The forthcoming version will also be able to build databases from files produced using these packages.
The Author:
Michael Benis was born in
London in 1958. His father had a gift for languages, speaking four with great
enthusiasm although not always entirely correctly, and passed this love of
experiencing and expressing himself through different cultures onto his son.
Michael first went abroad at the age of 15, spending a month on
his own in France. He has always maintained that he learnt his French during
this and the visits that followed rather than in the classroom, although freely
acknowledging a debt to his eccentric but rigorous French teacher. In the same
mischievous spirit, he has however also asserted that he learnt his Italian in
the best place possible—in Italy and in bed.
Torn between the sciences and arts at school, he finally opted to
study English and Related (French) literature at York University. There
followed a typically turbulent career, with Michael leaving after his first
year to pursue literary ambitions and work in a climbing shop, during which
time he began his romance with Italy, ending in a four month stay there before
returning to complete his degree at York. This was followed by two years
research on Joyce and occasional teaching, still at York, much of it alongside
his mentor and great friend, the novelist and lecturer Tony Ward.
Having decided that university life was, perhaps, not for him
after all, Michael returned to Italy where he became involved in commercial
translation as a member of Intracoop between 1985 and 1989. During this period
he diversified into copywriting with the encouragement of Lamborghini and then
returned to England for two brief years, working as an in-house copywriter
before returning to freelance work and Italy. There followed a close
association with the Logos Group as copywriter and senior translator, during
which time he lived in remote areas of the Apennines between Bologna and
Modena, and later in Tuscany.
Back in England since late 1995, Michael, his artist wife Aria and
son Rory, (not to mention Old English Sheepdog Alex) believe they have finally
settled in Brighton. He specialises in advertising, automotive, IT, literary,
and medical translation, while also working as a copywriter, editor,
interpreter, and author. Michael is currently a co-ordinator of the ITI Sussex
network and a council member of the ITI
Michael can be reached at:
michaelb@pavilion.co.uk
© Copyright 1997 Translation
Journal and the Author
URL: http://accurapid.com/journal/03TM1.htm