CAT TOOLS: AN INTRODUCTION

Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivar 4.0
Internacional. Autores: Montserrat Bermúdez Bausela, Eva Samaniego Fernández .
 Quote
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 For translators there is no longer any question of

whether or not to use computers and networks. The
use of information and communication technology
(ICT) is a fait accompli in the lives of today’s
language professionals. (Austermühl 2001: 7).
 What are CAT Tools?
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CAT is an acronym that stands for Computer Aided/Assisted Translation Tools.

They are also called (but not that common as CAT Tools) TEnT (Translation
Environment Tools).

In Spanish, they are called: Herramientas de Traducción Asistida por Ordenador

(TAO).

CAT Tools help in every step of the translation process. There are many
advantages in the use of CAT Tools:

 Coherence (sharing a project with different translators)

 Improved final quality
 Productivity and efficiency of the translation process
 High repetition factor - > Reduced cost
 Different types of CAT Tools
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depending on the Translation Lifecycle
 PRE-TRANSLATION PROCESS
¤ Project Management tools (before and during the process)
¤ Tools that help in the preparation of files
¤ Alignment tools

 TRANSLATION PROCESS
¤ Translation Memory tools (TM)
¤ Machine Translation (MT)
¤ Terminology managers
¤ Corpus Linguistics tools
¤ Localisation tools
¤ Quality Assurance tools (QA)

 POST-TRANSLATION PROCESS
¤ Desktop Publishing (DTP) tools
 Tasks in the Translation Lifecycle
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Pre- • Setting up the project, the analysis and

conversion of files, leveraging
translation possibilities (being able to reuse),
alignment of files, etc.

• Translation of segments, managing

Translation terminology and setting up glossaries,
conducting a QA, etc.

Post- • DTP, TM maintenance, Project

processing Wrapping-up, etc.
 Pre-translation
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• Project Management Tools: (Microsoft Project)

Scheduling, overview, assigning resources and budget.

• Alignment Tools (integrated within Déjà vu, Studio, etc.)

They help feed the TM by aligning a source language text
with its target text and importing the resulting TUs into a
new TM.
 Example of PM Tool: Microsoft Project
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 Example of Alignment Tool
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This one in particular belongs to Déjà Vu. However, almost every CAT Tool
has an alignment tool integrated.
 Translation
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•Translation Memory (TM) tools:

• suggest previously translated and stored segments that are
similar to the segment we are translating.

• are empty when they are first created and start storing TUs
when the translator is translating.

•Machine Translation (MT). Sp: Traducción Automática (TA):

• is an automated translation tool;
• is based on grammatical rules, glossaries, dictionaries and
frequency statistics;
• can be integrated into the overall translation process;
• is linked to controlled languages (Caterpillar Technical
English; Caterpillar Fundamental English; AECMA Simplified
English).
 Translation
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•Terminology managers
• help to manage your terminology: creating and storing it and
adding new terms along the process of translation.
•Corpus Linguistics tools
• help to study words in context throughout concordances,
collocates, clusters...
•Localisation tools
• help to translate and adapt the software to meet the
requirements of the target market.
•QA tools
• help to check the quality of the final product (linguistic, cosmetic,
functional…)
 Example of Terminology Tool: SDL
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MultiTerm
 Example of Corpus Linguistics Tool:
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AntConc
 Example of Localisation Tool: SDL
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Passolo
 Other Localisaton Tools
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 RC-WinTrans
 Multilizer
 Visual Localize
 Resource Hacker
 Resource Tuner
 Examples of Web Localisation Tools
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CatsCraddle
 Web Localisation Tools
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WebBudget
 Post-processing
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•DTP: Desktop Publishing Tools

 Specific format. InDesign, FrameMaker or QuarkXPress
 What does a TM provide?
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THE POSSIBILITY OF:

 Project Management: conducting analysis, creating statistical

reports and word counts.

Aligning previous source texts along with their corresponding

translations, as an easy and fast way to “feed” the memory.

Pre-translating: automatically transferring to the target text

everything that is similar (to a percentage that we establish).

Reusing previously translated segments that have been stored

in the TM.

Storing terminology both in the source language and the target

language in a term database to interact with the TM.

 Quality Control: terminology check, untranslated segments,

tags, numbers, spaces.
 Why use a TM?
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 Prompting suggestions of previously translated source

and target segments stored in a database, allowing
translators to reference it during translation.

 Integrated environment: TM, MT, TB, Glossaries, etc.

 Reusability: Exporting it in different formats: TMX, TXT,

DOCX, etc.
 What is a segment and a TU?
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A segment is a portion of text that is usually:

a sentence
a title or a heading
a list item

What is a Translation Unit (TU)?

A matched pair consisting of the source and target segment.

<TrU>
<Quality>100
<CrU>ALIGN!
<CrD>30102005, 20:29
<Seg L=EN-GB>B. Salient features of the Model Law
<Seg L=ES-ES>B. Características más destacadas de la Ley Modelo
</TrU>
<TrU>
<Quality>100
<CrU>ALIGN!
<CrD>30102005, 20:29
<Seg L=EN-GB>Special procedural regime for international commercial arbitration
<Seg L=ES-ES>Régimen procesal especial para el arbitraje comercial internacional
</TrU>
 Types of matches
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 Previously translated segments are presented during translations as

a “match percentage” from the TM.
 A match indicates the similarity between two source segments (the
one which is stored and the one that we have to translate right then)
and can indicate the scope of effort required to translate.
¤ 100% match: The source segment that we need to translate is
exactly the same as a previously translated segment stored in the
TM.
¤ Fuzzy match: Parts of the source segment match a previously
translated segment stored in the TM. The percentage indicates
how closely the segments match.
¤ No match: No similar segments exist in the TM, or the percentage
match is so low that reuse causes more work than translating from
scratch.
 Standards
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 TMX: Translation Memory eXchange

 TBX: TermBase eXchange
 XLIFF: XML Localization Interchange File Format
 Translation Memory (TM) Tools

TYPES OF TM TOOLS:

 Tools based on macros which are executed in Microsoft

Word and are associated with the TM and the TB, such
as Trados 8 or Wordfast (not much in use anymore).

 Other tools work in an independent environment such as

SDL Studio, Déjà Vu, Star Transit or memoQ.

 Other TMs that are web-based such as memsource

and Wordfast Anywhere.
 Based on macros: Trados Translator’s
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Workbench

This particular tool is no longer sold and it has been substituted for
SDL Trados Studio
 Independent environment
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 SDL Trados Studio 2022

Training and Certification

 memoQ

 Déjà Vu X3

 Star Transit
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 Web-based
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 Phrase

 Wordfast Anywhere
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Traducción y Nuevas Tecnologías

 A last note…
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 We should not mistake CAT Tools with on-line

resources for the translators such as:
¤ Term banks
¤ Dictionaries

¤ Translation Associations

¤ Referential monolingual linguistic corpora

¤ Distribution lists

¤ Translator’s blogs