| Páginas sobre el tema: < [1 2 3] > | Is TRADOS really as useful as it appears to be? Autor de la hebra: JOHN PENNEY (X)
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| It's easy to think everyone is using TM... | Nov 29, 2010 |
... but they're not. I did a show-of-hands survey at the ITI conference last year, asking how many people used it, and out of 180 people around 40% said they did.
| | | | John Rawlins 
España
Local time: 22:57
español al inglés
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| Trados trailer park | Nov 29, 2010 |
philgoddard wrote:
... but they're not. I did a show-of-hands survey at the ITI conference last year, asking how many people used it, and out of 180 people around 40% said they did.
Thank you for that Phil. That statistic does reinforce my feeling that even if a translator does use Trados then from a marketing point of view it may be better to keep quiet. Announcing that you use Trados in large letters may be the professional equivalent of telling the world that you live in a trailer park (US) or a council estate (UK).
| | | | Luca Tutino
Italia
Miembro 2002
inglés al italiano
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John Rawlins wrote:
Announcing that you use Trados in large letters may be the professional equivalent of telling the world that you live in a trailer park (US) or a council estate (UK).
Touché - once again! If you are not a copywriter already, you should consider to make it your career.
A flagellant fuzzy matcher
| | | | | Productivity | Nov 29, 2010 |
I find Trados helpful with big volume project. Without this tool, I cannot do a big job. The only advantage is Trados bugs for its latest version.
Soonthon Lupkitaro
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apk12
Alemania
Local time: 22:57
inglés al alemán
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| Perfect answer, John | Nov 30, 2010 |
I really like this one:
John Rawlins wrote:
This is a big industry but my experience over the past few years has been the following: low-paying and fuzzy-focussed agencies insist on Trados, while good-paying agencies and direct clients couldn't care if you use Trados or not. From this perspective, buying Trados has always seemed rather masochistic - like buying a large stick so that someone can hit you with it.
Ey John, I've been waiting for someone to put this in a few words hitting the mark. Thanks for this. That's exactly what is going on: if you wish to work for agencies that spend their time with finding out if they find someone st*pid enough to work for 0.04/w. on a medical related document, agencies paying half a year after receipt of your invoice and if paying, then paying only a small percentage of the actual work on it - go ahead. Good agencies and direct clients want a professional translation done, a high quality result. They don't ask for Trados and they pay you a decent rate for your (entire) work. Some of them even upfront, believe it or not.
Or maybe it's simply a question of one's self-interpretation: do you feel like an LSP provider, doing your job and earning your living or do you prefer to see yourself as a perfect target group member and soon a XXY application client, earning the living for a software developer company (at the same time, granting some fuzzy agency profits)?
Finally, maybe one correction of a sentence in Johns post: "like buying a(n) (expensive) large stick so that someone can hit you with it." - You pay lots of EUR (or USD), in order to face higher discounts afterwards. Well...
[Edited at 2010-11-30 00:49 GMT]
| | | | | Another false statement | Nov 30, 2010 |
apk12 wrote: John Rawlins wrote:
This is a big industry but my experience over the past few years has been the following: low-paying and fuzzy-focussed agencies insist on Trados, while good-paying agencies and direct clients couldn't care if you use Trados or not. From this perspective, buying Trados has always seemed rather masochistic - like buying a large stick so that someone can hit you with it. Ey John, I've been waiting for someone to put this in a few words hitting the mark. Thanks for this. That's exactly what is going on: if you wish to work for agencies that spend their time with finding out if they find someone st*pid enough to work for 0.04/w. on a medical related document, agencies paying half a year after receipt of your invoice and if paying, then paying only a small percentage of the actual work on it - go ahead. Good agencies and direct clients want a professional translation done, a high quality result. They don't ask for Trados and they pay you a decent rate for your (entire) work. Some of them even upfront, believe it or not.
Maybe your experience is that only low-pay and low-respect agencies ask you whether you have a CAT tool, but my experience is quite the opposite: there is no direct relation between rates and respect and the request to use Trados. I can say that I have been using CAT tools for my agency customers for over a decade and have enjoyed reasonable rates and their respect all the time.
Are you really sure you can classify translators and agencies by the use of CAT tools or their lack of?
| | | | | I have purchased Trados twice and never used it! | Nov 30, 2010 |
Make sure you really need it before buying it. There are cheaper and better alternatives
I would think twice before buying Trados, so make sure that you absolutely need it. I bought Trados for the first time about 4 years ago because a client asked me to. I was unable to use it on the file the client sent me (the text wouldn't open and I later found out this was due to a forbidden character in the file title). Because of the urgency and because the client couldn't open the text with... See more Make sure you really need it before buying it. There are cheaper and better alternatives
I would think twice before buying Trados, so make sure that you absolutely need it. I bought Trados for the first time about 4 years ago because a client asked me to. I was unable to use it on the file the client sent me (the text wouldn't open and I later found out this was due to a forbidden character in the file title). Because of the urgency and because the client couldn't open the text with Trados either, I used Wordfast which could open the file. For the past 4 years I have been using wordfast for Trados clients with no real problems. The only real problem is that some Trados TMs don't convert very well into Wordfast TMs.
In a stroke of madness (or response to intense marketing pressure) I purchased Trados Studio two months ago. Studio 2009 is so full of bugs it is impossible to use without constant reference to the Proz Trados forum. I didn't like it at all, in particular the total incompatibility with other CAT systems and the fact that it can only be used with google translate and not with locally installed MT systems. I tried out the Trados 2007 and here again there still seemed to be bugs (though this may just be my inexperience). I couldn't use it to translate a table and the segments kept messing up. I went back yet again to Wordfast with no problems!
[Edited at 2010-11-30 08:29 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | John Rawlins
España
Local time: 22:57
español al inglés
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| A clarification | Nov 30, 2010 |
Tomás points out that there are excellent agencies that use Trados. I am certain that he is right.
My point is that at the dusty bottom of the translation market there are many low-paying and low quality agencies that invariably insist on Trados and apply fat discounts for 'fuzzy' repetitions. As a result, if a translator uses Trados as a main selling point in his Proz profile and other marketing efforts he then risks attracting these flies and his business will be damaged as a res... See more Tomás points out that there are excellent agencies that use Trados. I am certain that he is right.
My point is that at the dusty bottom of the translation market there are many low-paying and low quality agencies that invariably insist on Trados and apply fat discounts for 'fuzzy' repetitions. As a result, if a translator uses Trados as a main selling point in his Proz profile and other marketing efforts he then risks attracting these flies and his business will be damaged as a result. ▲ Collapse
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| Entirely agree | Nov 30, 2010 |
John Rawlins wrote:
My point is that at the dusty bottom of the translation market there are many low-paying and low quality agencies that invariably insist on Trados and apply fat discounts for 'fuzzy' repetitions. As a result, if a translator uses Trados as a main selling point in his Proz profile and other marketing efforts he then risks attracting these flies and his business will be damaged as a result.
With this I completely agree. We must make sure we are good translators and are respected as such, no matter the tools.
| | | | John Fossey
Canadá
Local time: 16:57
Miembro 2008
francés al inglés
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| Why have a CAT tool | Nov 30, 2010 |
There seem to be two main reasons for having a CAT tool-
1- to help organize the work and therefore get more work done and done better
2- as a marketing tool to attract those clients who demand a particular tool
Is one or the other of the above more or less valuable?
It all seems to come down to a cost/benefit analysis in the end.
Viewed in that light, does the tool with the highest cost give the highest equivalent benefit in return?
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NR_Stedman wrote:
In a stroke of madness (or response to intense marketing pressure) I purchased Trados Studio two months ago. Studio 2009 is so full of bugs it is impossible to use without constant reference to the Proz Trados forum. I didn't like it at all, in particular the total incompatibility with other CAT systems and the fact that it can only be used with google translate and not with locally installed MT systems.
Studio does seem to have its fair share of bugs, but that's not too surprising given that it's a fresh start for SDL, it's immensely complex and feature rich and it's still fairly new.
I find the "total incompatibility with other CAT systems" claim to be dubious at best. It has full TMX support and it uses the more-or-less-open SDLXLIFF and TTX standards. It's supposed to fully support TBX. What else do you expect? What other commercial CAT is more open and compatible and how?
As to locally installed MT, I think it has an extensive plugin/API system that could surely be used to interface with a local MT system. Surely can't expect it to work out of the box... what MT system should they integrate with? How? Which tool does this to your satisfaction?
As to the original question, yes, Trados (CAT in general) is as useful as it appears to be, if:
- Your know what you're doing.
- Your texts are technical, standardized or repetitive and/or you habitually have more than one job from a single client. If you do creative translations such as poetry and advertising texts, CATs probably don't have much to offer for you.
| | | | Tom Skold
Suecia
Local time: 22:57
inglés al sueco
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| Buying Trados or not | Nov 30, 2010 |
Thanks everyone for your insightful comments. I've always been very skeptical to using CAT tools, and I've never used one and don't see the point. Now I just had an offer from a German agency about a job where they required that I use Trados, and they stated that "the XML-Files has to be translated with SDL trados & the Tag Editor". They delivered the text in XML format in small files, 140 or so in all. I was a bit confused. What's going on? What's the point of this? Is there actually some kind ... See more Thanks everyone for your insightful comments. I've always been very skeptical to using CAT tools, and I've never used one and don't see the point. Now I just had an offer from a German agency about a job where they required that I use Trados, and they stated that "the XML-Files has to be translated with SDL trados & the Tag Editor". They delivered the text in XML format in small files, 140 or so in all. I was a bit confused. What's going on? What's the point of this? Is there actually some kind of advantage to this? I mean as opposed to giving the text as a single Word document.
Why not supply the text as a single document? Does anyone know what the Tag Editor does? Is there a way to get around this? I mean so that I can pretend that I have Trados, convert the files to Word or something and then convert them back to the format in which they were delivered. ▲ Collapse
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Richard Yates
Reino Unido
Local time: 21:57
Miembro 2011
alemán al inglés
| I haven't needed it | Nov 30, 2010 |
I have a fair amount of experience, mostly on mechanical engineering patents. I have not needed Trados. Even where patents are similar, they are not similar enough for Trados to be useful. Patents usually repeat the content of the claims, minus reference numerals, in the description. With experience, you can easily recognise this and just copy over, minus the numerals. Trados does not always recognise the similarity, so is not a great help. Plus translating sentence by sentence tends to detach s... See more I have a fair amount of experience, mostly on mechanical engineering patents. I have not needed Trados. Even where patents are similar, they are not similar enough for Trados to be useful. Patents usually repeat the content of the claims, minus reference numerals, in the description. With experience, you can easily recognise this and just copy over, minus the numerals. Trados does not always recognise the similarity, so is not a great help. Plus translating sentence by sentence tends to detach sentences from their context.
Consistency: Trados can help you to check that you are being consistent as you translate but, with experience, you shouldn't really need this help - I'm talking about patents here. Developing standard phrasing can help - don't vacillate between one version and another.
Trados does not speed up this kind of work.
Trados is useful for highly repetitive work.
I have bought Trados mainly as a marketing tool. Some clients demand it. As others have said, the learning curve is steep. When problems arise, the first port of call is the Proz.com forum!
Trados would probably be aimed at agencies: it offers a panoply of project management features.
[Edited at 2010-11-30 16:55 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Peter Linton (X)
Local time: 21:57
sueco al inglés
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Robert Forstag wrote:
...and especially with John's comment re the masochism of investing precious money and time in a tool that--both literally and figuratively--devalues the work that we do, and that evidently (ahem!) falls far short of perfect in its functionality.
A CAT tool is just a tool, no more than that, and whether it devalues or enhances your work depends much more on the workman, not the tool. Therefore saying that it "devalues" your work is a rather wild and woolly assertion, and says more about you as a workman than about the tool.
My experience is that, despite imperfections, CAT tools can significantly enhance your productivity and the quality of your work.
| | | | Angela Dickson (X)
Reino Unido
Local time: 21:57
francés al inglés
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| Respect for colleagues | Nov 30, 2010 |
JOHN PENNEY wrote:
A soi-disant translator told me the other say that she switches off her head and lets TRADOS do the work for her!!!
This remark suggests that you don't have much respect for the person who told you this. I can think of two possibilities - either she really does blindly accept matches from the translation memory (in which case she probably deserves your lack of respect), or she uses the tool to speed up the parts of her work that can be automated, leaving her free to concentrate on the parts that really do need attention.
I mean, I have a moderately serviceable brain, but I resent having to use it to format a table, or to force a series of numbers to conform to UK English conventions, to think where I last saw that term and search out the document, or to look up a complex piece of terminology more than once. A decent CAT tool will simplify and speed up these tasks.
Others have explained the basics of CAT tools (and as Peter Linton says, they're just tools, folks!) better than I can. I just wanted to add some much-needed nuance to what is turning into yet another "CAT tools are a waste of money and an imposition on translators" thread.
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