Free Software for Translators

Corinne McKay's post 'Resources for free and open source software users' reminded me that I have wanted to try a linux distribution for some time now, just to check if I could “survive” in translation without Windows almighty.

I have an Ubuntu LiveCD which I have never tried for more than an hour, and my intention was to start from that. But I have recently found a distribution made exclusively for translators, Linguas OS. It is also a LiveCD, which means there is no need to install anything on the computer to try it. You just put the CD in, restart the computer, and when it comes back you find the Linguas OS fully operative. A nice option before installing without knowing whether we are going to like it or not.

Linguas OS includes all kinds of the applications needed in daily translation:

• OmegaT a CAT software / translation memory program.
• OpenOffice, office suite.
• Seamonkey web browser.
• Project Management Software, Planner.
• Apart from other software and toold as calendar, multimedia player, .pdf reader, conversion format software, etc.

For some time now my old laptop is asking for retirement, and my idea was to leave it as a test zone for linux when I buy a new one (I am waiting for Windows 7, so that will be in a few months' time). But, seeing this, I am going to be able to try it with no need of installing more software on my old laptop. If I like it, I will consider installing it for good, but that will be when I have the new one.

For my position regarding the Windows/Linux dilemma is a practical one. Yes, I think Linux the best option, but when it comes down to reality customers will need total compatibility with MS Windows, so it is essential to work with Windows, even it is just to check that everything works as it should before handing in the final files to the customer.

Have you tried? Do you find any singificant differences between final results of translations made with Windows software and those made with Open Source software?

The Freelance “Sorroundings”

I have recently had a major change in my life, and one of the consequences is that I have moved to another apartment.

Having my soon-to-e home-based work in mind, I have arranged one of the rooms as a studio/office in order to have a space for that activity alone.

I have put into practice all advice I have found for furniture, light, arrangements and such, but today I have realised there is something quite essential that I had not taken into consideration.

Since I work part-time in the mornings, I am not usually at home. Being Sunday, today I had a late breakfast, and was about to start my computer to check mails, new posts on the blogs I follow, etc., when I started to hear more noise than usual.

Yes, the neighbours upstairs. Yes, they have a cute litttle girl trampling up and down the apartment. And yes, her teenage brothers were trying to ignore the trampling by turning up the volume of their rap music. Some time later, it was the mother, cooking lunch while singing 80s songs. Not a bad singer altogether, but I could certainly do without that.

OK, let’s not panic. Not all is lost: at least, I haven’t bought the apartment, I can always move if it gets unbearable.

A little analysis and reasoning leaves me with the following:

a) This is Sunday morning, it is not an everyday thing. Kids go to school, parents have to work… week days won’t be like this.

b) In the worst case scenario, I could always synchronise schedules and do the things I do more concentration at times when they are less noisy.

c) I could talk to them about it, but I really doubt a 5-year-old girl and two teenagers are so easy to convince.

Of couse, I am anticipating things. Up to now, I have spent several afternoons at home and I haven't been bothered much. But the noise today has made me think.

What do you do about “sorroundings”? Have you ever had noisy neighbours issues? How did you manage?

Human vs. Machine Translation

The usual controversy that has existed in the translation field for some years now. Will machines replace blood and flesh translators?

I am not going to add any new insight that has not been already discussed, I just want to add some thoughts for all those who still think translating is little more than write the same thing, but in another language.

Translating is more than just that, more than just looking up some terms on the dictionary, or in the internet.

At a linguistic level, grammar, spelling and syntax skills are necessary. Besides, another thing to bear in mind is the technical terminology for each sector: a satellite, for instance, is not the same thing for astronauts than for workers of industrial detergency machinery.

At other levels, it is essential for a translator to possess and important cultural background, since the knowledge of customs, culture, etc related with both source and target languages are essential when conveying a message from one language to another accurately.


Having said this, it will be logical to think that a machine does not have the necessary skills to tell apart contexts and amniguities, however vast its database may be.

In order to illustrate this (and with this I do not intend to criticize the software, which I consider quite effective, within its limitations), I have turned to Google Translate .


I have typed the following in English, to obtain results in Spanish and Galician:


"Translation costs will add up to a total amount of 100"

In Galician: "Traducción custos ha engadir ata un diñeiro total de 100."

In Spanish: "Los costes de traducción se añaden a un total de 100."

As we can see, the translation from English to Spanish is quite accurate and correct, while the result of the translation to Galician is far from acceptable: its syntactic order is chaotic.

Another test, this time from Spanish to English:

"Las cotizaciones bancarias sufren cambios diarios" has resulted in the following English sentence: "Prices changed daily banking". As we can see, in this case the translation changes the message completely: "Los precios cambiaron la banca diaria". Nothing to do with the source.

To spot that type of errors, to tell the difference between the ambiguities a text may show are part of the tasks a translator carries out unconsciously and which software is very far from achieving, at least for the time being. It is true that in certain language pairs, specially if they are similar, the results are amazing, but in languages whose syntaxes are very different results are often completely

Ver ese tipo de incorrecciones, distinguir entre las ambigüedades que puede presentar un texto, son parte del trabajo que un traductor realiza inconscientemente y que el software está muy lejos de conseguir, al menos de momento. Bien es cierto que en ciertos pares de lenguas, sobre todo si son similares, el porcentaje de correccion es sorprendente, pero en lenguas cuya sintaxis presenta diferencias notables los resultados son a veces totalmente unintelligible.

And it is precisely this kind of thing that it is hard to explain a client who says that hiring you is very expensive, and that anyone can do it with online translation software. It is difficult to explain that software cannot tell apart between social, cultural or religious differences, that it does not have into account the grammatic cathegory of words, etc. The client is not interested in that: what he/she is interested in is getting the best result with the least inversion possible.

The ideal situation would be to educate the client in the importance of prioritizing quality over cost, but it is something difficult to achieve, specially in a moment like this. Even so, we will have to keep trying.

More than once a client has remarked, 'Translator charge too much for something you can do on Google. with some time, I could do it myself.' How do you face this attitude? Do you have any success stories of 'conversion' of this client profile into a client appreciating the perks of professional quality translation?