Processing the documents during translation activity.

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Marchitan Irina, senior lecturer, Dep.Translation, Interpreting and Applied Linguistics

Methods and procedures of computer assisted translation

Course requirements Attendance at least 75% of classes. Active participation during classes. Home assignments DULY prepared. 2 test papers successfully fulfilled.

Individual projects: (due date at least 1 week before the end of the

semester) 1. Bilingual texts (app. 25 000 signs each) 2. Translation memory containing 200 units. 3. Terminological database containing 200 terms.

Stages of work in written translation1. receipt of the text (ST) from client

creation of e-mail address conversion of files (PDF, scanned images MS Word)

2. evaluation of the volume of the text using MS Word, FineCount, SDL Trados

3. establishing the price

Stages of work in written translation 4. translation of the text

5. editing of the text

6. updating terminological bases and translation memories

7. sending the text (TT) to the client

Important! Select appropriate ID: floricele@yahoo.com

iulecka@yahoo.com alexandru_traducator@yahoo.com sergiu_botnaru@yahoo.com worldtext@yahoo.com

Evaluation of the volume of the text The units of measuring the volume of

specialized translation services are extremely varied and numerous at the level of national or global suppliers.

It is often confusing and customers of these services can be easily misled by the wide range of procedures used for the evaluation of the text volume.

Source Text vs Target Text

Due to the linguistic differences between languages the volume of the ST and TT may not coincide.

MATERIAL ŞI METODE DE CERCETARE

2.1.CRITERIILE DE INCLUDERE / EXCLUDERE A PACIENŢILOR ÎN STUDIU

Includerea pacienţilor

Perioada de includere a pacienţilor în studiu a fost de 12 luni.

Selectarea pacienţilor pentru includerea în studiul preconizat a fost efectuată în 5 spitale de tuberculoză (Institutul Ftiziopneumologie, Spitalul municipal de tuberculoză, mun. Chişinău, Spitalul de tuberculoză Vorniceni, departamentul de tuberculoză a spitalului municipal Bălţi, departamentul de tuberculoză al spitalului de profil larg al Ministerului Justiţiei) şi centrele de microscopie din toate teritoriile administrative ale republicii. În perioada ianuarie – decembrie 2006 au fost incluşi în studiu toţi pacienţii cu tuberculoză pulmonară caz nou, recidive, re-tratament cu rezultatul metodei culturale pozitiv, care au fost depistaţi şi luaţi în tratament conform strategiei DOTS.

119 words, 762 signs n/s

МАТЕРИАЛ И МЕТОДЫ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ

2.1. КРИТЕРИИ ВКЛЮЧЕНИЯ / ИСКЛЮЧЕНИЯ ПАЦИЕНТОВ В/ИЗ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ

 Включение пациентов в исследование

Период участия пациентов в исследовании длился 12 месяцев.

Отбор пациентов для участия в запланированном исследовании был проведен в пяти туберкулезных больницах (в Институте фтизиопневмологии, в Муниципальной туберкулезной больнице мун. Кишинэу, в туберкулезной больнице Ворничень, в туберкулезном отделении муниципальной больницы Бэлць и в туберкулезном отделении широкопрофильной больницы Министерства Юстиции) и в центрах микроскопии во всех административных территориях республики. В период с января по декабрь 2006 года в исследование были включены все впервые выявленные пациенты с легочным туберкулезом, случаи рецидивов , повторного лечения с положительным результатом культуры, которые были выявлены и приняты на лечение по стратегии DOTS.

112 words, 772 signs n/s

Предмет договора. 1.1. Заказчик поручает, а Посредник

обязуется выполнить ряд определенных фактических действий в целях нахождения оптимального контрагента (далее по тексту настоящего договора -Поставщик), готового поставить продукцию Заказчику в соответствии с условиями последнего.

1.2. Оказать Заказчику содействие в заключении договора купли – продажи (поставки) между ним и Поставщиком.

1.3. Оказать Заказчику услуги по сопровождению договора купли-продажи (поставки) после его заключения между Поставщиком и Заказчиком.

63 w / 464 s

1. Subject of the agreement. 1.1. The customer entrusts, and the

Intermediary is obliged to execute a number of definite actions with the purpose of finding the optimal contractor (hereinafter the Supplier), ready to deliver production to the Customer on conditions of the latter.

1.2. To render the Customer assistance in making contract regarding sale and purchase (delivery) between him and the Supplier.

1.3. To render the Customer services related to the contract of purchase (delivery) after it is concluded between the Supplier and the Customer.

86/467

When to count the volume based on the Source Text: Main reasons for calculating the

volume based on source language documents are the following:

- total volume and exact price are known before the translation is done

- implies transparent relations between the client and translation supplier

When to count the volume based on the Target Text:

On the other hand, the reasons for calculating the volume based on target language documents are the following:

- target docs represent translation proper- cases when source documents can not be evaluated are avoided - implies confidence between the client and translation supplier

Very often there are cases when it is not possible to calculate the number of primary units in ST: protected PDF docs, scanned images, printed materials, Flash presentations, subtitles incorporated in movies.

Anyway, an experienced translator has necessary tools for processing the majority of such docs with the view to make them editable. (but it takes time)

Thus, the volume can be calculated based on processed docs for providing the exact offer.

Both source documents and target docs can be calculated based on the following measure units:

- word

- sign

- line

The sum total of these units can generate a notion of “page of translation” that is more understandable for clients.

A page in translation can be considered: 1 page - 1800 signs without spaces, 1 page - 300 words, 1 page - 40 lines of 60 signs as well as many other variations. 1500-1700 signs (with/without spaces) 500 words

In practice one can obtain these primary units (words, signs or lines) by means of „Word Count" tool in Microsoft Word.

Special attention should be paid to the notion of space.

Any white space generated by editing software is a space. It can be space between words, tab sign used for alignment, other unprinted signs.

Taking into account spaces while establishing the volume of translation can be extremely misleading, especially when making an offer based on the target text. Spaces can be inserted intentionally to obtain bigger volume.

Words 367/ signs wt/s 2032 signs with spaces 2395

Words 367/ signs wt/s 2032 signs with spaces 3980

Calculation of the volume of translation using as the unit of measure physical page is the most misleading for clients, but unfortunately the most available and understandable for many of them.

This notion is taken by analogy with the translation of standard official documents (ID cards, certificates). But in case of electronic documents pages can contain more or less text.

Many clients consider that a request like „We have a book containing 182 pages to be translated”� is enough for obtaining correct price offer.

Such a request does not allow to evaluate the real volume of translation work to be done.

500 words/ 2650 s wt/s 1500 words/ 7950 s wt/s

Another trick that misleads clients is an offer that states lower price X per unit (word, sign) but for a page of a smaller volume.

For example, X EUR per page containing 1500

signs without spaces in comparison with

Y EUR per page containing 1800 signs without spaces.

???

The 1st offer can lead to the total amount that is bigger, although tariff X is smaller than Y.

Compare the offers by suppliers based on the same unit of measure.

5000 signs X = 1 euro; Y = 1.1euro 1. 3.3 pag = 3.3 euro 2. 2.7 pag = 2.97 euro

Using the word as a unit of measure is probably the most adequate method to get an fair price that exactly evaluates the efforts of the translator. For professional (translation) purposes the word is defined as a sequence of alphabetic characters (letters).

Only honest and indeed competitive suppliers can make offers based on the number of words to be translated using Word Count and other advanced tools for evaluating the volume of work (e.g. SDL Trados, FineCount).

In this case one should be aware that the number of words should be smaller that the number of words shown by Word statistics, as numbers, punctuation signs and other special characters should be excluded.

Except for some languages (e.g. Arabic) numbers remain unchanged (are not translated) and should not be included into the offer.

Evaluation of the volume of text by the time unit, e.g. hour, is also quite misleading. One translator can be more lazy and less productive that another and in such case will be paid more, though unjustified.

Still, taking into account the degree of specialization of the text and its format, the time required for its translation may differ significantly.

Microsoft Word calculates Everything that is placed between 2

spaces: words, numbers and symbols.

Should numbers and symbols be calculated?

triangle given SAS (two sides and the opposite angle)= (1/2) a b sin C triangle given a,b,c = [s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)] when s = (a+b+c)/2 (Heron's formula) regular polygon = (1/2) n sin(360°/n) S2

   when n = # of sides and S = length from center to a cornertriangle given SAS (two sides and the opposite angle) - 51 words

triangle given (Heron's formula) regular polygon    when of sides and length from center to a corner - 28 words

Microsoft Word does not calculate Text in blocks, footers/headers, etc.

Microsoft Word does not calculate OLE objects (Object Linking and

Embedding), e.g. Excel tabels, inserted into Word document, figures, graphs with text.

FineCount or PractiCount and Invoice Software FineCount and PractiCount and Invoice – is

software that calculates words, signs in many types of files: DOC, RTF, XLS, CSV, PPT, PPS, WPD, PDF, HTM, HTML, SHTML, XML, SGML, ASP, PHP.

The use of such software allows more precise evaluation of the text volume.

Translation software

Wordfast and Trados – calculates the text in footnotes, headers/footers except for OLE objects.

Analysis of software

Numbers and symbols

Foot-notes

Header/ footer

Blocks with text

OLE Objects

Tags (special formatting)

MS Word yes no no no no yes

Trados no yes yes yes no no

Wordfast no yes yes yes no yes

FineCount

yes yes yes yes yes yes/no

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Home task

How to calculate the volume of the text in MS Power Point, MS Excel?

???