14Nov
Translation Technology & Human Rescue
Are you only considering investing in translation memory software or a translation management system? Have already bought some of the solutions on the market? The following information will be of great value to you.
After 15 years in the translation management technology business I have a confession to make:
TECHNOLOGY ITSELF DOES NOT BRING VALUE.
TRANSLATION TECHNOLOGY ALONE DOES NOT BRING VALUE.
and logically enough…
TRANSLATION MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY DOES NOT BRING VALUE ON ITS OWN.
What does it mean for you?
- You can translate without translation technology, and without technology at all. You can make handwritten translations and send them via carrier pigeon. Well, messenger pigeons need training and can be considered technology, so walking is the most straightforward way of getting the translation to the client :)
- You can issue invoices without translation management software, and without any software at all. Therefore, you can write the total on the paper or tell in person when you will be near the client’s premises.
Translation management technology can only bring 3 extras into our regular life:
 |
Automation of operations |
|
Acceleration of operations |
 |
Constraints (!) |
Or, down-to-earth, there is a human inside every technology.
The car is not absolutely necessary to move from point A to point B. It simply accelerates the way we move, automates our decision to move forward or sideways, and… constrains us! We should use roads now!
What does it mean for translation technology makers like us?
We should not provide translation technology users with ‘features’. Instead, we should concentrate on:
helping translators get from point A to point B faster, better, with more comfort
Providing word count estimate at an instant. Delivering translation faster. Sending accurate invoice in time.
What ‘roads’ do you regularly travel on your typical translation day?
What A to B tasks would you like to automate?
Please, comment below.
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Comments (7)
Well written! I will talk about the same issue at Com&Tec Open House in Bologna Italy, on November 24th.
Дорогой Владимир!
Я перевожу с испанского и португальского языков на русский. Английский понимаю постольку-поскольку (в основном, общий смысл).
В своё время я не стала покупать вашу программу, потому что, хотя она имела интерфейс на русском языке, вся справка была на английском. Мне и по-русски бухгалтерия не очень ясна, а по-английски – тем более. Не появилось ли у вас справки на русском, испанском, португальском или хотя бы на итальянском языке?
Не появились ли там образцы документов (счетов, договоров и пр.) на каких-нибудь языках, кроме русского и английского?
Здравствуйте, Екатерина!
Ekaterina, we will take into account your suggestion about localizing help into Russian and Spanish. We are preparing Version 9 of Projetex for release. Shortly after that we will add Russian and Spanish localizations.
Сейчас готовится к выпуску версия 9, почти сразу же после релиза выйдут релизы с интерфейсом на русском и испанском языках. Ваше пожелание по поводу локализации хелпа и шаблонов взяли на заметку.
What A to B tasks would you like to automate?
sure 3 things that I already asked in the past …
;-)
1 – Schedule>Selected period automatically synchronized (i.e. linked to the PC clock), without having to setup it all the time
2 – an exchange rate calculator, or better an automatic one, that puts automatically the rate during invoicing and payment, as in Italy if you invoice in dollars, for example, the accountant wants you show both currencies with the current exchange rate, that will be easily different in the moment you invoice and the moment you cash the money
3 – A Client Web site field that accepts https
I don’t know if I explained both better, so let me know
Thank you for suggestions, Claudio, we will release version 9 shortly, and start working heavily on small improvements suggested by users, with 9.1, 9.2, 9.x releases every month. Your suggestions are very reasonable, we will consider adding them.
thanks but note that I don’t have Projetex (useless in my case), and my requests relate to Translation Office 9, so I hope they will be implemented in this tool too
;-)))
I was forgetting another thing:
a way to zoom in/out the GUI with mouse roller, that is a lot easier/cosier than Settings>Personal>Font and Sizes etc
clearly, it would be great if zoomed GUI remained in every kind of screen resolution as my 1024×768 monitor for example, i.e. if the GUI zooming was autoresizeable