Translation assistance software

For some types of translations, especially specifications, we use translation assistance software.

What is a translation memory?

The database called a ‘translation memory’ includes portions of text and the equivalent of these portions in another language.

This allows sentence segments to be stored and reused. This method is called ‘computer-assisted translation’.

This is not to be confused with ‘machine translation’, which is commonly used to translate texts for which there is no need to use translators, but which gives very approximate results.

Translation memory: some exceptions

Moreover, this software is very rarely used for literary, editorial or touristic texts.

In fact, as these contain few repetitions in the source text, the aim is actually not to have repetitions in the target text.
Furthermore, translation assistance software is not all suited for use with this type of texts.

The advantages of translation assistance software

In summary, here are some of the advantages of translation assistance software in repetitive texts:

• It saves time: the translator does not need to retype the entire text and spends less time doing research.
• It saves money: identical passages that can be saved and reused in the text are deducted when the price is calculated.
• A translation memory is quite useful for technical texts in which most of the text is the same in one version as in the previous version.