Greek Translation and the Web

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• Dimitris 22:56 on 12/09/2011 Permalink
  Tags: SDL ( 4 ), Translation Industry, translators ( 3 )   

  How to: Convert SDLX Termbase to Multiterm 

  1. Open your SDLX Termbase with SDLX.

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  2. Select Termbase / Import-Export / Export Wizard

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  3. On the Wizard, select Tab-delimited text format. Define the desired destination (you may also want to set the encoding to UTF-8 just in case) and press Save and Next. Do not forget to press Select All two screens after that.

  4. When the Wizard has successfully finished, go to the location where the tab-delimited txt file was stored and open it with Notepad. It will look something like this:

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Continue reading “How to: Convert SDLX Termbase to Multiterm” »
   

• Dimitris 17:55 on 25/01/2011 Permalink
  Tags: translation ( 4 ), Translation Industry, translators ( 3 )   

  Translation in the Time of Crisis 

  The world is currently experiencing a financial and economic crisis of proportions unseen in many decades. All sectors of he economy are taking a hit and so is the Translation Industry. From my personal experience, I see that a number of agencies I have been working with for years are struggling; some of them handle their limited projects only with their internal translators and a few of them are even thinking of going out of business. Freelancers, however, are better positioned in this crisis compared to agencies. Independent translators need limited resources (bank loans, premises, equipment and other running costs) to provide their services and so they can survive even a severe drop in their work volume. On the other hand, agencies have to bear very high (and increasing) running costs that shape their pricing policy and, ultimately, make them unappealing to prospective clients.

  In light of the crisis, translation buyers are looking to cut down on their expenses but also maintain a certain level of quality. In the past, those clients had sufficient income and cash flows in order to outsource their projects to another company with a relatively high cost. Nowadays, professional and reliable freelancers prove to be a good alternative for them, for two reasons:

  1) Low cost. Freelancers charge considerably less than agencies, for the above mentioned and many other reasons.

  2) The volume that freelancers can handle and the quality level they can offer increases every day, what with all the new QA tools, translation memories, cloud shared content, automatic translation, dictionaries …you name it.

  Of course, the crisis does not hit all companies in the market. Reports suggest that the largest Language Service Providers like Lionbridge, Thebigword and SDL, are actually recording increase in profits and number of translation orders. This is partly due to the fact that ‘blue-chip’ corporations -which are the ones with the greatest translation needs- do not trust their work on freelancers, mainly due to volume and project management considerations. Instead, they prefer to outsource their projects to ‘one stop shops’ with proven record and large marketing campaigns.

  This leads us to the preliminary conclusion that those that can withstand or even benefit from the crisis are freelancers and large translation companies. At the moment, prospects don’t look good for mid-size and smaller agencies. Time will show us if this is definite or just a sign of the times. Until then, we, as freelancers, should try to improve the services we offer and invest in our profession in every possible way; because the crisis will be over sooner or later and we do not want to find ourselves against the wall.

  Continue reading “Translation in the Time of Crisis” »
   

• Dimitris 13:29 on 27/11/2010 Permalink
  Tags: Translation Industry, Βοήθημα μετάφρασης ( 4 )   

  Greek Web Page Speller – Ορθογράφος Ιστοσελίδων 

  

  English Description:

  The Web Page Speller is an application of Neurolingo’s Speller. It helps you locate Greek misspelled words in a web page that is published on the Web.

  Enter the URL of the web page that you want to spell-check and push the ‘Check Spelling’ button. You will see the web page that corresponds to the URL you entered. Any Greek words not found in the Speller’s dictionary will appear in red background color. Move the mouse cursor on top of such a word and you will see a tooltip with spelling alternatives, as shown in the picture. CNZS7CFZMAB4

  Greek Description:

  Ο Ορθογράφος Ιστοσελίδων αποτελεί εφαρμογή του Ορθογράφου της Neurolingo. Σας επιτρέπει να εντοπίσετε ορθογραφικά λάθη σε ελληνικές λέξεις μιας ιστοσελίδας που είναι δημοσιευμένη στο Διαδίκτυο.

  Δώστε τη διεύθυνση (URL) της ιστοσελίδας που θέλετε να ελέγξετε και πατήστε το κουμπί ‘Ορθογραφικός Έλεγχος’. Θα δείτε την ιστοσελίδα που αντιστοιχεί στη διεύθυνση που δώσατε. Οι ελληνικές λέξεις της ιστοσελίδας που δεν περιέχονται στο λεξικό του Ορθογράφου μαρκάρονται με κόκκινο φόντο. Αν κατευθύνετε το δείκτη του ποντικιού πάνω σε μια λέξη με κόκκινο φόντο, θα δείτε τις εναλλακτικές που προτείνει ο Ορθογράφος, όπως φαίνεται στην εικόνα.

  Πηγή: http://www.neurolingo.gr/en/online_tools/web_page_speller.htm

  Ένα εξαιρετικό βοήθημα για τους μεταφραστές που ασχολούνται με την τοπική προσαρμογή ιστοσελίδων (localization). Μετά την μετάφραση, το τοπικό testing και το “ανέβασμα” της ιστοσελίδας, ένας τελικός έλεγχος για ορθογραφικά δεν βλάπτει ποτέ. Και αυτό το εργαλείο είναι ιδανικό! Για παράδειγμα, δείτε πόσα ορθογραφικά λάθη υπάρχουν στη σελίδα της Wikipedia για το χημικό στοιχείο Ρόδιο: http://goo.gl/2vXdr
   

• Dimitris 11:27 on 08/11/2010 Permalink
  Tags: Machine Translation ( 7 ), Translation Industry, Μηχανική Μετάφραση   

  Machine Translation: Leave us alone! 

  

  Machine Translation has been something of a taboo subject among many freelance translators.

  “Will they just replace us with machines?”

  “Should I start looking for another job?” or, the classic:

  “Naaaaaaah, it’s never gonna be good enough for my language combination!”

  These questions are understandable and show our anxiety and fear of the future. Over the years translators have had to adapt to a great deal of change in their pattern of work: learning how to use computers, translation memories, desktop publishing, a bit of web design, HTML and the list goes on. But that change had to do with evolving the profession itself and has meant longer working hours and, of course, increased income.

  In the case of Machine Translation, though, the very nature of the profession is at stake. The transition from a human operated translation process with TM systems (soon to have a big fat RIP sign on them) to a machine operated and human edited translation has already begun to some extent. We have to accept the fact that large organizations and corporations invest considerable funds in the development of MT, simply because they expect a geometric return on their investment. We, as freelance translators, can’t do much to stop this – so we might as well adapt!

  During the current economic crisis, corporations are “forced” to cut down on their translation budgets. This, however, is not accompanied with a relative decrease in the translation volume. Products are still being produced and new content continues to be written. Companies increasingly look to localized content and marketing strategies because nowadays it’s just so difficult to convince the consumer to buy! Hence, this means greater translation volumes but with a reduced budget.

  So where does this leave the translator? Do we just slash our rates and say YES to everything? Do we continue to snub all those post editing (machine translated) projects out there? My answer is yes and no and maybe! Things are too volatile at the moment. Endorsing the MT trend will perhaps mean that more content will become available on the translation market.

  Maybe translators will be able to handle 2-3 times the volume they can today and, this way, they will be able to approach large corporations directly, without the need for a “middle man” (translation agencies). Imagine a freelancer or a team of freelancers with a daily capacity of 10.000-15.000 words: this will probably make translation more appealing as a service to businesses and, as said before, will open new channels of contact between freelancers and big companies. In conclusion, since we can’t do anything about this, let’s just find ways to see it as an opportunity.

  Claire Scammell is discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • Claire Scammell 13:56 on 08/11/2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

    This is a very positive, forward thinking piece and it certainly does anyone in the translation industry good to think about machine translation in this way. We are still exploring and developing the capabilities of machine translation and surely the conclusion will come soon enough that machine translation will always fall too far short of what human translation can achieve.