You will nowadays hardly find a translator who wouldn’t know what CAT is.

“Yes, of course, it’s a cat!” you may answer and almost spill your coffee due to the absurdity of our question.

And now, here are two lessons of today's introduction:

Lesson 1: You are right, no debate here.

Lesson 2: It serves us right – we shouldn’t ignore the main translation rule: context, context and once again (well done, you’ve guessed it) context.

CAT is not always a cat

CAT or Computer-Assisted Translation in the translation world are the tools for computer-aided translation.

“Yes, of course, that's what the computer translates instead of a translator, right? I also use CAT tools, especially Google Translate!”

No, no, you are talking about machine translation, which is very different from the translating we are talking about today.

Let's check as simple as possible what translating using CAT tools looks like (with or without a cat supervising your work, the choice is yours).

How do CAT tools work?

At the beginning of the translation project, the linguist or a project manager prepares a translation package, first loading a document or several documents into the CAT tool. The interface displays the document for the translator in the form of a two-column table of sentences or text segments. The original appears in one column (left), and the empty space for the translation appears in the second column (right).

The CAT tool filters formatting and other tags (such as HTML, XML, or tags used by design programs such as Adobe InDesign) and intentionally hides them from the translator.

Advantage: consistency of design between the original and translation.

Quality assurance

Once a translation is complete and reviewed or proofread by the reviewer/proofreader, a project manager performs an automated quality check (QA or Quality Assurance). The latter is also one of the major advantages of CAT tools, as QA detects human errors made while translating, typos, missing text or tags, inconsistent terminology and incorrectly transmitted numbers.

Can you imagine that a translator should copy all numbers manually?

In this case, a mistake due to the scope of the numbers would simply be unavoidable. CAT tools help the translator quickly copy all the numbers (with the corresponding settings, they can be even localised according to the grammatical rules of the target language), and the QA feature then discovers whether the translator has written 12,684 instead of 12,648 in case of manual copying of the number (for example in the sentence).

Advantages: Detection of human errors. Faster translation. Consistent transfer of numbers. Detection of missing translations, typos and missing design tags.

Translation Memory: The reason why translators love CAT tools

Translation Memory is a kind of memory or database where existing translations of the translator are stored. While translating using CAT tools, the latter is simultaneously searching the memory for a similar sentence or phrase that has already been translated and stored and offers it to the translator. This eliminates the need to re-translate similar or even (almost) identical parts of the text, as the translation tool automatically offers and inserts them. In such a case, the translator only confirms the identical segment and adjusts the similar segment accordingly in relation to the new original.

Advantages: lower price, faster and more consistent translation.

Do clients need their own CAT tool?

If you work in a company and periodically or regularly order translations, your eyes may light up reading the lines above, and you may be rolling them next.

“Lower price and faster and also better quality? What’s the trick? I’m convinced I’ll have to buy this cat tool myself now! Terrible – and I'm allergic to cats!”

No, you don’t need this tool at all. Our project managers, translators and proofreaders need it, and you will get the translation in the same format and form than the text you’ve sent us.

You can get the CAT tool (for example memoQ, Trados Studio, Across, Wordfast) if you wish, but you don’t need it.

TB or termbase: for all your specific terms

The termbase, which is one of the most important functions and advantages of translations using CAT tools, could also be called a glossary. This is a list of client specific terminology permanently stored in the database. When translating, the translation tool shows the translators and the proofreader the terms from the sentence currently being translated, and the QA check warns if the preferred term has not been used when it should have been.

The advantage for the client is that we can always add the terms to the database and change them if necessary, if this is what the client wants.

And this is just the beginning…

Translation tools include a number of functions and each of them contributes one way or another to greater quality and consistency of the faster and less costly translation.

If you order a translation, it is good to know that memoQ and Trados are among the most common and top quality tools – do not agree to cooperate with a translation agency that doesn’t use any CAT tools. In the long term, this will result in higher costs and lower quality translations with longer delivery times.