Translation questions

[Ann Zdunczyk]

Hi Alexandra, 

I have been working in the translation area since the early 90's, and now do
freelance work for numerouse translation houses. I have been working with
unstructured framemaker since version 3.0 Unix. If you find a good
translation agency then you will have an up to date memory (database) for
your documents. You should not have to do any extra work on you Framemaker
documents at all. When you send an updated document or even a new document
to the translation agency they will do an analysis of your document(s)
against the memory (database) that they have on file. This will allow them
to see how much of the document will have to be is new. They will then use
this memory (database) to translate you document(s). This will update your
memory (database) to contain the new or changed information from your new
document(s). 

Before I became a freelancer I worked for AT&T's and Lucent Technologies'
in-house translation department. We worked heavily in Framemaker and used
Trados as our Translation Memory software. We were very satisfied with the
way Trados worked with these files. Later we out-sourced a lot of out
translation and DTP work. We would receive the documents from the
translation agency and as a normal practice we would regenerate any
generated text (TOC, Index etc.). In the beginning we would find problems
with the regeneration, usually in the Index. We would fix this but would
also let the translation agency know what problems we were finding.

One thing you want to remember is that the memory (database) is yours. When
you work with a translation agency make sure that you discuss this with them
up front. If you decide to move to a new agency you can then provide them
with the memory, otherwise the new agency will have to start from scratch
with your translation. There are was to recreate the memory (database) but
it will cost you.

For one of the translation agencies I work with I use Trados or SDLX to do
analysis on there documents and in a lot of cases do the DTP once it comes
back from the translators. I still work in Framemaker along with most of the
other desktop publishing software and graphic software on the market.

If you have additional questions please let me know and I will do my best to
answer.

Z

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Ann Zdunczyk
President
a2z Publishing, Inc.
Language Layout & Translation Consulting
Phone: (336)922-1271
Fax:   (336)922-4980
Cell:  (336)456-4493
http://www.a2z-pub.com
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