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1 - SDL MultiTerm: Looking for terms and their metadata

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1 - SDL MultiTerm: Looking for terms and their metadata

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22 Oct 2021

Context:

MultiTerm as a termbase management application that helps to create and manage terminology presents a wide spectrum of functionalities. One of them is the option to search for terms within a single termbase or multiple termbases that I decided to trace and go over.

In our course we were introduced to the main search types:

・ Normal Search - used to find a specific term and terms beginning with a particular character or series of characters.

・ Full Text Search - implies searching the information on all text fields (except from multimedia fields), in all termbase entries, in all languages. The value that is present in an entry (anywhere) cause that the first term in the entry is displayed as a search result.

・ Fuzzy Search - used to find terms identical or similar to the search value. The results are showed in the sorted manner, with best matches at the top of such result list. It is necessary to fill in the search value box at least three characters, an to not used wildcard characters (that stand in for unknown characters in a text value, e.g. *, ?, [], !, -, # etc.).

・ Duplicate Term - used to search for identical terms for the same language, that may be performed on the default termbase only.

・ Ad-hoc Entries - used to search for termbase entries that were added to MultiTerm from other applications.

As I found out via the program assistance, it is possible to perform the Wildcard search according to the following guidelines:

*t - to find all terms that end in t (e.g. "text")
t* - to find all terms that start with t (e.g. "texts")
t* - to find all terms that contain t (e.g. "letter")

Way of proceeding:

1. I went to File > Open Termbase from the Ribbon, selected Browse to open a .sdltb file and chose one that should be opened – clicked OK.
2. In the Terms view, selected the type of search from the Home tab (normal/full text/fuzzy).
3. Selected the source and target languages.
4. Entered the search value and press Enter to begin the search. Using the options on the Navigation menu it is possible to navigate the seatch results. Selecting any term in the Hitlist, one can display the corresponding entry in the Entry pane.

Some conlcusions made by running through these functionalities:

・ It is not possible to search in this type of search termbase entries that have no term for the selected SL.

・ Also, performing Wildcard searches overrides Normal search in this Normal mode.

・ To include only terms for the target language in search results, it is necessary to go to Search > Require Target Term from the Ribbon.

・ Via SDL MultiTerm Help I discovered that in the Terms view by selecting the Termbases tab, highlighting a termbase, it is possible to choose the filter using the drop-down in the search tool bar. There are two available modes (that can be selected in Terms view, Filters > Hard Filter Mode; the option is dark grey when it is active).

・ Through guidelines on the program official website I have learnt that:

I. Hard Filter Mode - hides the entries not matching the filter; mainly used in import & export operations.

II. Soft Filter Mode - uses a different font to display the entries not matching the filter.

・ Moreover, it is possible to make filters as complex as one wants and needs, i.a. by using the AND/OR operators:
Created on entry field - x - is Rule-One,
Created by entry field matches y = Rule-Two or z = Rule-Three.
In this way, SDL MultiTerm is able to evaluate at first place all the ANDs before evaluating ORs, impling the interpretation:

a. (Rule-One AND Rule-Two) OR Rule-Three
=> an entry must be created after x date and by y, or it must be created by z at any date.

b. Rule-One AND (Rule-Two OR Rule-Three)
=> an entry must be created after x date and created by either y or z.

・ It is also possible to control the number of search results when looking up information by going to File > Options from the Ribbon, in the navigation tree to MultiTerm > Search, in the Maximum number of hits box using the up and down arrows to choose the number set as the limit and selecting Match Languages to exclude sub-language terms from the search (e.g. if the search language is English GB but the matching term is in English US, the term would not be returned as a search result).

My aims:

On this matter, I would like to put those functionalities into my regular practise to be able to perform them much more instinctively.

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2 - SDL Trados: Individual needs' options

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2 - SDL Trados: Individual needs' options

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2 November 2021

Context:

SDL Trados Studio is open to meet the translators' individual needs, to personalize the software central to their job as much it is possible since everyone has their own way of working that makes them more productive. Some love default keyboard shortcuts, others want to be able to creaate their own, others prefer to customize the ribbon or quick access toolbar etc.
It is possible to change the Trados interface in both permanent and temporary ways to be more efficient. Obviously, nothing is irreversible – there is always possibility to turn back and undo the changes that have beeen made by choosing the "Reset to Default" button.

Personalized activities that occured beneficial for me:

1. Work-pane window
I am able to place it wherever I want. Trados Studio offers a few different views each of which has a navigation pane, and work pane beneath the ribbon. The views differ in number of windows and where they are placed. All of these windowns can be resized, dragged (by the title bar) and moved.

2. More than one user profile
One can create more than one user profile [File > Setup > Manage User Profiles]. In this way it is possible to have different settings on each user profile that are necessery for specific projects. One user profile can be used at a time, but there is a possibility to switch between them at any time. Also, the user profile exportation can be done, thus enabling the work on different computers.
To check what profile is currently used, I go to File > Setup > Manage User Profiles, and in the wizzard on the User Profiles name and next to Current user profile, the name of the currently selected profile will be displayed.

Way of proceeding:

As mentioned earlier, settings of the user profile can be exported to a .sdlprofile file. To do so, firstly one should check the profile name displayed next to Current user profile. If it is the profile for which settings need to be exported, select Next, and on the Export User Settings page, select Browse. In the Save As dialog, enter the file name one wants to use for the settings file and the location to which wants to save the settings. Enter a name for the profile that will appear when going to view what profile has been currently selected. Select Finish.
In this way, the profile file is saved. But, the Export user settings option is always selected by default. To export settings from a different profile, one must switch to that profile before performing the export.

Conclusions:

There is plenty of possibilities to customize the use of SDL Trados Studio. The workspace can be easily arranged to provide the translator with the most effective layout. The preview window can be moved to the more preferable place, or on a separate monitor. All personalized settings can be easily reseted back to default positions. Moreover, even the colours of the editing layout can be personalized and keyboard shortcuts choosen to suit the translator's style of working. It cannot be denied that the program aims to ensure the best possible working conditions, offering a modern and intuitive user interface, and with which I personally think I am well-acquainted.

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Context:

The Quality Assurance tool is a plug-in that scans a project and checks certain elements of the text. The QA tool simplifies this process and automatically generated a predefined check list for the bilingual file (translated file or translation memory export), this includes:
・ repeated words,
・ segments not translated,
・ the target segment does not contain the correct term for “[term]” (coherence with TB),
・ the translation of the segment is not coherent with segment [number].

Way of proceding:

Thanks to the program assistant I discovered the possibility of launching the QA tool on a file or a group of files according to the parameters defined by oneself or the project manager. Afterwards a result log appears containing a list of potential errors that can be exported or corrected directly.

I. Verify Document option

This option is one of the most useful features Studio offers. To access this function one goes to the Review tab or simply press F8.

II. Importing a QA Checker Profile

QA Checker profiles are either contained in a package or sent to you separately by your project manager. To import such profile, one should click on Verification in the left pane of the Project Settings window, go to QA Checker Profiles > Import settings and select the format of the file in which it was saved. [Figure 1]

Conclusions:

There are numerous facilities that can make the group project working more smooth, fast and effective. I will seek ways of learning more about them, and most of all, practicing them in order to be more adapted to group working in this program.

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4 - SDL Trados: matches and the non-100% match of the translated segments 

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4 - SDL Trados: matches and the non-100% match of the translated segments 

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20 November 2021

Context:

The percentage of translated words in my translation was flagged as not a 100% match.

Way of proceding:

1. I have checked if all of the translated segments were confirmed.
2. Some of them had not been confirmed, so I right clicked the file name and selected Batch Tasks > Word Count and clicked Yes.

However, what I learnt via the Proz forum is that it is possible to turn on 100% matches being automatically set as "confirmed" with no need to do it manually in the following way:
go to Options > Editor > Automation enabling the Confirm segment after applying an exact match option.

Conclusions:

Usually, there are few ways of solving certain problems, performing certain actions or achieving certain tasks. I will continue to try to get to know all possible ways of acting in order to find the most suitable for me, or to know which way is the most economic, and to simply know alternative methods when all else fails to achieve certain tasks.

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10 January 2022

Context:

This program helps to compare and manually assess raw outputs from different machine translation engines. In order to do the class project I wanted to get to know this program as much as I could. Thus, I  made an exercise to practise the material presented on classes, expand my knowledge and master this tool.

Way of proceding:

1. I chose New from the File menu, created the file, gave it a name "Exercise One" and clicked Save.
2. Then, I clicked the option Add Source Text, but leaving the windoww open with the Paste Source Text in Box Below option selected.
3. I opened the website from which the text fragment of c.a. 200 words in Italian that I wanted to translate and post-edit (from the article on Pier Paolo Pasollini, the section Biography). I highlighted the  text and copied it to the Windows Clipboard (using shortcut Ctrl+C).
4. I pasted the text into the Add Source Text window (Ctrl+V), clicked OK and answered Yes to the question "Readt to add an MT Output now?".
5. In the Add Output window, I typed "Google Translate" into the Enter Output Name box (it is possible to change names afterwards as well), clicked Copy Source to Clipboard, left the Add MT Output text window open with the Paste Source Text in Box Below option selected.
6. To add the output, I opened the online translator in my browser (Google Translate) and pasted the text into the box on the left (Ctrl+V). After setting the source language (Italian) and the target language (English), I clicked Translate and copied the whole English translation to the Windows Clipboard (Ctrl+C), returned to the Add MT Output Text window and pasted in the text (Ctrl+V), clicking OK at the end.
7. At this point, it is possible to choose QA Mode. I selected the Best...Worst option from the Non-Analytical Score menu, permitting to allow ties (this allows them to give the same ranking to two different engines, i.e. joing best, joint worst or two identical scores).
8. Because I wanted to work with two different translations, I clicked the Add Output button at the bottom and repeated the steps shown above for two more on-line MT engines: Yandex Translate and DeepL.
7.  At the end, I had a segmented original Italian text and three English translations of the same text from three different MT systems
8. If any of the segments are split incorrectly, it is possible to put the right with Join and Split options (via putting the curson in the segment that needs joining or splitting and choosing the option from the Edit menu or by using shortcuts Ctrl+J or Ctrl+S). However, the tool always informs what it is about to do, therefore all changes and modifications need the confirmation by clicking Yes.
9. To evaluate the outputs I started with highlighting the most glaring errors with various colours. Also, I rated the various outputs: Best, Second Best, Third Best, etc. To move from one segment to another I prefer using the shortcuts Alt+Up and Alt+Down, but it is possible to use the arrow keys buttons (▲▼) available in the menu.
10. Another evaluation step is to confim a score by clicking the box on the left of the segment. Once all the segments were confirmed, I could calculate the total score by choosing Calculate Total Score from the Evaluation menu.

Notes:

In the last window that popped up in order to calculate the overall score for the more results e.g. of other reviewers, at this stage one needs to click Send Scores option to send them to the server. As I found out in the program guidelines (F1 button) in the next window that appears it is necessary to set the order of the MT engines (e.g.  Goggle Translate, Yandex, DeepL, etc.). If everything goes smoothly, the message Score successfully processed can be seen. Then, a special web page displays the overall scores (of other persons working on this project).

Conclusions:
Personally, this tool is able to greatly ease the difficulty of carrying out various reviewing activities and experiments thanks to the clear display of the source text and its translation(s) with the possibility to mark, include to certain categories all kinds of occuring errors in translation(s).

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6 - Raw Output Evaluator: Discovering translation functionalities

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6 - Raw Output Evaluator: Discovering translation functionalities

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19 January 2022

Context:

My aim was to check options that are available while translating in the Raw Output Evaluator tool. Obviously, the tool has many beneficial features amongst which is the possibility to import into a ROE project file (.roe) data from various file types, such as .xliff, .tmx, .csv, .xlsx and .xls, what makes working between different CAT tools much more easy and smooth. Are there any other?

Way of proceeding:

1. On the Post-editing menu, under the Translate item I clicked Source. In this way a new empty column in ROE is added, where one can type its translation. [Figure 3]
2. I clicked Yes answering the question if I would like to enable the stopwatch control buttons (start, stop and reset options) thanks to which the time can be measured for each segment individually. [Figure 4]
3. I calculated the total time by choosing Calculate Total Time from Evaluation menu. [Figure 5]
4. On the Post-editing menu, under Post-edit I chose the Google Translation item. In this way a duplicate text is created (called Post-edited Google Translation by default) that can be edited by the post-editor. Also in this case, one is asked if he/she wishes to enable the stopwatch control buttons. [Figure 6, 7]

Conclusions:

The thing I found out about while translating with the timer option is that if one does not stop the stopwatch before moving onto another segment, the stopwatch stops automatically in the previous segment and starts immediately from zero in the new segment. Also, if one does not stop the stopwatch before resetting, it starts automatically from zero immediately after reset.
Personally, the option of a built-in stopwatch proved beneficial – the program can be used as a simple post-editing tool in order to compare the time required to post-edit MT output with how long it takes to produce an unaided human translation of the same input text.