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Efficiency of using CAT tools in comparison to using none
Thread poster: Richard Varga (X)
Richard Varga (X)
Richard Varga (X)
Slovakia
Local time: 20:00
English to Slovak
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Aug 13, 2018

I am trying to find a paper on the topic but so far I've been unlucky. I can ask you for estimates, though!

CAT tool users, in terms of percentage, how much more efficient are you in your work thanks to CAT tools? Was adapting to a new system worth your while?
Would you say that translators who don't use any such tools are missing out on something?

Thank you!


roger dobberstein
 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:00
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Not missing anything Aug 13, 2018

Richard Varga wrote:

I am trying to find a paper on the topic but so far I've been unlucky. I can ask you for estimates, though!

CAT tool users, in terms of percentage, how much more efficient are you in your work thanks to CAT tools? Was adapting to a new system worth your while?
Would you say that translators who don't use any such tools are missing out on something?

Thank you!


I don't use any CAT tools and judging by the endless stream of "help" threads in these forums, I'm constantly delighted that I don't. I certainly don't lack work and I don't feel I'm missing anything.

Needless to say I have no idea whether I would be more efficient or not, were I to use any CAT tools. All I can say is that when I explored them as an option, they wasted a lot of my time that I could have been using to do translations.


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Armine Abelyan
neilmac
mariealpilles
Peter Close
Lancashireman
Didem Tursin
 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 19:00
Member (2007)
English
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It all varies so much Aug 13, 2018

Richard Varga wrote:
CAT tool users, in terms of percentage, how much more efficient are you in your work thanks to CAT tools?

I couldn't possibly give a percentage. Maybe some texts actually take a bit longer, if they're for a new project or a new client. Other texts may be very similar to previous translations and can be at least three times as fast, in my own experience. If you're a technical translator and given (say) updates to a large safety manual, then I would imagine that applying the updates to the TM would be a massive saving over (re-)translating the lot. Of course, even before CAT tools a translator probably wouldn't have done that, but I imagine it would be extremely easy for errors and inconsistencies to creep in when doing massive file comparisons and find+replace commands. I wouldn't feel happy with that. With a CAT tool's 100% match you don't touch the segment at all unless it clearly needs to be edited, so there's no prospect of accidentally messing anything up (touching wood!).

Was adapting to a new system worth your while?

Definitely. Firstly, it's amateurish not to know something about the new technologies, even if you then decide not to use them much if at all. Secondly, the QA aspects of a CAT tool are worth a lot. However, you can waste the potential ROI completely by allowing agency clients to reduce the payment for your work. I don't do that . Mind you, as a rather "senior" translator (I was in my 50s when I took up the profession), I've only managed to take a nibble at the very basics of CAT tools. I'm glad I invested a little money and a few grey hairs in my Wordfast Classic licence though.

Would you say that translators who don't use any such tools are missing out on something?

They are missing out on some potential clients - which won't bother them at all if they have more than enough work. And they're not getting maximum leverage from their previous work, which is a shame but their decision. For an older translator it just says something about their adaptability (or lack of); for a young one I'd have thought it would be a serious red flag to agency clients.


Christine Andersen
Dan Lucas
neilmac
P.L.F. Persio
Craig Thomas Smith
Rachel Waddington
 
Daniel Frisano
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Italy
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English to Italian
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5-10% at most Aug 13, 2018

The gain in productivity or accuracy during translation is marginal. Segmentation and working side-to-side speed up the process a bit - it becomes easier to keep the flow going, so to speak.

One should also keep in mind that utility is zero during non-translation phases (research, proofreading, formatting, overheads).

CAT tools are really helpful only when there is a very large number of repetitions, which doesn't happen too often.

Overall, I estimate that
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The gain in productivity or accuracy during translation is marginal. Segmentation and working side-to-side speed up the process a bit - it becomes easier to keep the flow going, so to speak.

One should also keep in mind that utility is zero during non-translation phases (research, proofreading, formatting, overheads).

CAT tools are really helpful only when there is a very large number of repetitions, which doesn't happen too often.

Overall, I estimate that Wordfast, the only CAT tool that I use after trying 6 or 7 of them, saves 5-10% of my time to obtain the same result. I could easily do without, but hey, that 5-10% accounts for a good half hour a day available for non-work activities, so why not take it?

I still use no CAT at all perhaps 2-3 times a month, and a few times per year just paper and pencil, then doing the first proofreading run while copying the first draft to file. Quite inefficient, but getting your hands dirty every once in a while is good practice.

[Edited at 2018-08-13 15:21 GMT]
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Valérie Ourset
Lucien Rousseau
Peter Close
 
Gerard de Noord
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English to Dutch
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CAT has been around for a while Aug 13, 2018

Hi Richard,

I've been a Wordfast user since 2001 and have hardly translated anything wihtout CAT ever since. For many of us there is no before and after CAT, we jumped in as soon as we decided to make a living as translators.

Cheers,
Gerard


 
Samuel Murray
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Netherlands
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English to Afrikaans
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@Richard Aug 13, 2018

Richard Varga wrote:
CAT tool users, in terms of percentage, how much more efficient are you in your work thanks to CAT tools? Was adapting to a new system worth your while?


I made the switch to CAT tools at a time when I had to deal with many repetitive jobs, so for me the switch was a boost. After getting used to translating with CAT, I became unaccustomed to translating without CAT. I now struggle to translate without CAT.

It's difficult to explain why, but: imagine what it would feel like to translate or type a text, but you don't have the use of arrow keys (only Backspace, Home and End). The frustration that you'd feel would be similar to the frustration I feel when I have to translate outside of a CAT environment.

I can't give a percentage, but an increase in speed isn't the only thing that matters. CAT increases comfort.

Would you say that translators who don't use any such tools are missing out on something?


No, I think you should find a way to translate that you feel comfortable with. You can read up on all the benefits of using CAT tools, but if you don't use it, you won't miss it.


P.L.F. Persio
 
Tony M
Tony M
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SITE LOCALIZER
Some help for some texts Aug 13, 2018

I have always been a bit of a Luddite and resistant to CAT tools, but have been using Wordfast Classic for soem years now, on jobs where I feel it is useful.

On a totally new job for a new customer where there is little or nothing in the archives that I can leverage, creating a glossary as I go along seriously slows me up; this was the initial hurdle that put me off using CAT. However, once I have "taught" my CAT tool the words I want it to "remember" in its glossary, that can save
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I have always been a bit of a Luddite and resistant to CAT tools, but have been using Wordfast Classic for soem years now, on jobs where I feel it is useful.

On a totally new job for a new customer where there is little or nothing in the archives that I can leverage, creating a glossary as I go along seriously slows me up; this was the initial hurdle that put me off using CAT. However, once I have "taught" my CAT tool the words I want it to "remember" in its glossary, that can save me a great deal of time. At its very best, with a customer I've been working for for years and subject matter that I am very familiar with and is largely in the glossary, I have noted up to 300% increase in productivity — but that is exceptional! It is also a reflection of the fact that I am not a very fast typist, hence the glossary aspect, once taught, saves me the most time. I very rarely work on texts where there is enough repetition to make the actual TM much help, though the concordance facility sometimes helps me recycle small sections of existing TUs.

That said, there are many instances where I find the frustration of working within segments overwhelmingly handicapping, and I lose a lot of the time I might have saved by either manually forcing segmentation, or else in post-editing.

I am currently working on a large document where the glossary function is useful, because of the terminology repetition; BUT the author's undisciplined writing style and formatting is making it a real headache, having to constantly adjust the segmentation on about 50% of all segments!

One thing I have found useful, in instances where a customer has given me previosuly-translated documents, has been to spend the time before translation aligning these into a TM, which I am then able to use as I start translating, and also, with concordance to check terminology with existing translations; sometimes, I have no choice but to depart from previous translations, where there are clear errors, but at least this system helps me highlight those, which I can then warn the customer about.

Generally, for most of the material I work with, I don't both with CAT, but for a few specific customers that give me certain kinds of documents, it does soemtimes come in handy.
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P.L.F. Persio
 
B D Finch
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France
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French to English
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Don't know, yes and yes Aug 13, 2018

Richard Varga wrote:

CAT tool users, in terms of percentage, how much more efficient are you in your work thanks to CAT tools?


No idea and wouldn't want to waste time finding out.

Richard Varga wrote:

Was adapting to a new system worth your while?



Yes. I started with Wordfast Classic, which is an add-on to MS Word, so not too steep a learning curve. Then moved on to Wordfast Pro and it's a long time since I used Wordfast Classic. The latest WFP5 has had some teething problems and one thing I like rather less about it is that it's a more closed system, so can't share TMs and glossaries with WF Classic as I used to. That makes me more dependent upon it not breaking down.

I like the segmentation, which both makes me look at smaller chunks and is a safeguard against missing anything out. Obviously, automatic leverage of repetitions is a time-saver and ensures consistency. Also seeing previously translated close matches below what I'm translating, with the differences picked out in different colours is useful and sometimes prompts me to rethink and modify a previously translated segment. It also prevents me from mistakenly repeating a near-match translation, which might be wrong because of a small, but significant, difference.

Being able to add terms to glossaries, together with reference notes to support or qualify the glossary entry is extremely useful, as is the highlighting of glossary-listed terms in the current segment.

Adding notes as I go along is very useful. Some of these notes are intended for the client and some are for myself, to highlight things I want to review or research later. At the end, I can export any notes that I haven't dealt with and deleted and send them to the client as translator's notes. Or, I might do this part of the way through, just picking out the notes I want the client to comment on while I'm still translating the document. The final notes might also include supporting information on why I made a particular choice, or a comment on a problem with the source text.

Richard Varga wrote:
Would you say that translators who don't use any such tools are missing out on something?



Yes.

So, what are the downsides?

1. Cost of the CAT tool;
2. Danger of becoming too dependent upon it and relying less on memory;
3. Not looking at the text in its proper format while translating. This isn't a problem, as I have the original document open on annother screen and refer to it as needed.
4. Occasional, time-wasting technical problems.
5. Tags can be a pain, but they do get the correct formatting copied directly to the translated document.

[Edited at 2018-08-13 15:25 GMT]


neilmac
P.L.F. Persio
 
Armine Abelyan
Armine Abelyan
Armenia
Local time: 23:00
English to Armenian
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CAT and clients Aug 13, 2018

I would answer by this way- As a translator and further already agency, I was always thinking that CAT may improve the number of customers,so we have purchased. No improvement happened once we purchased for instance Trados that was required so much time before to start the projects. So this is not really the asset.

Tom in London
Slobodan Kozarčić
neilmac
 
Kevin Fulton
Kevin Fulton  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 15:00
German to English
Variable Aug 13, 2018

A number of years ago I had to translate a series of documents pertaining to outfitting a car body painting plant. I had to do a fair amount of terminological work for the first document which also contained a lot of boilerplate language pertaining to legal liability, intellectual property rights, disclaimers, etc. The second document dealt with a similar operation and contained the same boilerplate text. The main differences had to do with quantities, capacities and through-puts as well as addi... See more
A number of years ago I had to translate a series of documents pertaining to outfitting a car body painting plant. I had to do a fair amount of terminological work for the first document which also contained a lot of boilerplate language pertaining to legal liability, intellectual property rights, disclaimers, etc. The second document dealt with a similar operation and contained the same boilerplate text. The main differences had to do with quantities, capacities and through-puts as well as additional operations. I finished the second text in half the time of the first. The third document was considerably longer, although it also contained much of the data from the first two documents as well as the boilerplate with minor modifications. Translating that document took no longer than the second document, thus freeing me to take a fourth document in the series.
Skip ahead 5 years...
I was offered another job on the same topic (different customer). Although some of the technology and boilerplate had changed, I was happy to see that I could put most of the prior work to good use.
I won't bore you with other examples, but I have found using a CAT tool useful for managing terminology, translating repetitive text (common when working with the same customer over time) and helping me to be a more **efficient** translator.
But this didn't happen overnight. I first used a CAT tool in 1998 on a highly repetitive text, and learned a painful lesson on garbage-in, garbage out.
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Dan Lucas
neilmac
P.L.F. Persio
sam@fr-uk
Matheus Chaud
Craig Thomas Smith
 
DZiW (X)
DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
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No statistics, no representative sample Aug 13, 2018

According to a few (and old) sources like this blog, with a relevant 50k+ units TM/glossary, translation via CAT could be some 30% faster for similar texts. However, even 100% fuzzy matches require checking and even modifying. The problem is (1) agencies usually want several CATs and (this blog, with a relevant 50k+ units TM/glossary, translation via CAT could be some 30% faster for similar texts. However, even 100% fuzzy matches require checking and even modifying. The problem is (1) agencies usually want several CATs and (2) after sentence-by-sentence segmentation some languages and style-guides often require heavy post-editing (rewording, re/paraphrasing, re/moving, cutting, concatenating, and so on). Why, it's possible to combine free/online and commercial CATs, yet while paragraph-by-paragraph segmentation makes translation units (and texts) more coherent, such segmentation would result in lower fuzzy matching. Also note, that CAT does make translation rather choppy, so mostly it's not very good for literature/fiction. Here is where a balance man comes)

I agree that CATs are somewhat like getting about on crutches, slowly deteriorating one's natural skills and habits, so I used to print out bilingual texts and practiced reading, rephrasing, and translating back and forth on-fly. Unfortunately, nowadays fast-paced globalization perverts even good ideas, twisting translation into cheap MT post-editing.

[Edited at 2018-08-13 17:38 GMT]
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P.L.F. Persio
 
Hipyan Nopri
Hipyan Nopri  Identity Verified
Indonesia
Local time: 02:00
Member (2005)
English to Indonesian
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CAT Tools Increase Productivity Aug 14, 2018

Given the extremely expensive prices of CAT tools, at least by Indonesian translators' standard, now I am using two free online tools: MateCat and SmartCat.

Both greatly increase my productivity and facilitate my translation works.

Without CATs, I could translate on average 2,500 words per day. With them, I translate 2,500 words in just half a day.

They are really helpful if the documents contain many repetitive words.

If the current documents
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Given the extremely expensive prices of CAT tools, at least by Indonesian translators' standard, now I am using two free online tools: MateCat and SmartCat.

Both greatly increase my productivity and facilitate my translation works.

Without CATs, I could translate on average 2,500 words per day. With them, I translate 2,500 words in just half a day.

They are really helpful if the documents contain many repetitive words.

If the current documents I am translating do not have repetitions, I will have the benefits when translating other future documents containing terms that have been translated in previous documents.

Finally, with the increasingly improved quality of automatic translation, the CATs greatly accelerate my ability to find the right equivalent in the target language.

[Edited at 2018-08-14 01:37 GMT]

[Edited at 2018-08-14 06:53 GMT]

[Edited at 2018-08-14 06:55 GMT]
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Samuel Murray
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English to Afrikaans
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If you really want to compare Aug 14, 2018

Sheila Wilson wrote:
Maybe some texts actually take a bit longer, if they're for a new project or a new client. Other texts may be very similar to previous translations and can be at least three times as fast, in my own experience.


Yes, I think that if one really wants to answer the OP's question, one has to compare the speeds with texts that contain no repetitions or fuzzy repetitions. Obviously any tool that help find and type repetitions will result in a slight speed increase, but the real question (I believe) is whether translating a non-repetitive text is faster, slower, or the same speed in and outside a CAT tool.

As Sheila says, some translations can take longer, but I think that that depends mostly on the size of the job (a tiny job is likely to take longer in a CAT tool), whether the file needs extra setting up (e.g. tagging) and the complexity of the CAT tool.

I use mostly Wordfast Classic (WFC), with pre-configured project templates, so when doing a translation all I need to do is select the appropriate template (called INI files in WFC), create a new TM and a new glossary (these three tasks take 30 seconds, which includes the time spent navigating to the appropriate folder, typing in the file names, etc.), and off I go. So, from the start, I'm already 30 seconds slower with CAT than without it. (-: But from that point onwards, the fact that there is segmentation speeds me up. After the translation is done, the file needs to be "cleaned" of WFC-related code, and if the file is long, it can take a minute or longer for the cleanup process to complete (other CAT tools also have end-of-job processes, e.g. generating the target file).

Remember also that using a CAT tool with default settings only will mean longer startup times. If you haven't set up any project/TM/resource templates yet, then configuring a project for each new file might take several minutes each time. Once you've created templates for the types of jobs you regularly get, selecting a template for each project will reduce the starting time dramatically. For example, if you have a client for whom you need glossary settings that differ from the default settings, or whose files need to be tagged in a specific way, or whose files call for customised segmentation or tokenization, etc.

What I like about WFC (I don't want to turn this thread into a CAT tool comparison, though) is the ability to edit the source text on the fly. I don't mean edit the source segments, as many CAT tools now can do, but edit the source document itself, e.g. move around sentences within a paragraph, fix layout issues there and then, move around paragraphs, convert lists to paragraphs and vice versa if appropriate, etc. Most modern CAT tools use an intermediary format, which means that once the file is segmented, you must work with what you have (oh, you can sometimes merge and split segments, but that's it). So, with most modern CAT tools, you have to spend time fixing any potential issues before opening it in the CAT tool, or fixing those issues after the CAT tool generated the output file, and you have to bite the bullet when e.g. you stumble upon a section of tag soup that you didn't see initially. I realise that these comments relate more to quality than speed, but fixing up a file before sending it to the client is part of the job, so having to "fix" files in separate steps is something that can certainly impact your translation speed.


[Edited at 2018-08-14 08:32 GMT]


Christopher Schröder
P.L.F. Persio
 
Baran Keki
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A question for Tom Aug 14, 2018

Tom in London wrote:

I don't use any CAT tools and judging by the endless stream of "help" threads in these forums, I'm constantly delighted that I don't. I certainly don't lack work and I don't feel I'm missing anything.

Needless to say I have no idea whether I would be more efficient or not, were I to use any CAT tools. All I can say is that when I explored them as an option, they wasted a lot of my time that I could have been using to do translations.


Do you avoid clients/agencies that expect (or compel) you to use CAT tools?


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
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Italian to English
Yes Aug 14, 2018

Baran Keki wrote:

Do you avoid clients/agencies that expect (or compel) you to use CAT tools?


Yes. I have plenty of other clients/agencies who like my translations.


Peter Close
 
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Efficiency of using CAT tools in comparison to using none







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