Translation questions

Tue Oct 10 04:09:14 PDT 2006

Alexandra,

as a French translator and technical writer using FrameMaker as well as 
Trados, I totally agree with what other people have said on this issue : if 
the translation company knows its job, you ought to send FM files in the 
native language and have them sent back translated and perfectly laid out, 
in FM format and with an updated TM (Translation memory).

Any change you might do in a file will appear clearly to the translator when 
translating under Trados : you do not have to do anything (add change bars, 
create Excel files with change records or whatever...) except send your 
files and pay only for the translation of changed parts.

Yours,

Mathieu.

>From: "Karen Story" <karens at microen.com>
>To: <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
>Subject: Re: Translation questions
>Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 10:14:06 -0700
>
>Hi Alexandra,
>
>To save money, we break our books into small files, and only hand off the 
>files that have changed. This saves us a lot of money in translation costs, 
>but it means that we have to do all the file integration and resolve 
>missing fonts and a few other issues. Every so often we hand off the whole 
>book, because the older sections get out of alignment with the translation 
>memory. If your compay can afford it, it's best to always hand off 
>everything to the vendor.
>
>We hand off FrameMaker files, not mif files.
>
>* Can't translators take the latest mif files from you and use TRADOS to
>identify what has changed?
>
>Yes, but they will charge you for every word, even the words that were 
>already translated.
>
>* What if the database from the translator is out-of-date? Can't they
>build a new one based on new files?
>
>Yes, but this costs money.
>
>* Is there really a difference in this process (re:TRADOS) if we used
>Word?
>
>Don't use Word! The Frame to Mif to Trados and back process works just 
>fine.
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 2
>Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 12:12:13 -0400
>From: "Alexandra Duffy" <aduffy at nemetschek.net>
>Subject: Translation questions
>To: <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
>Message-ID:
>	<D95492FBBB38E9479AE33C0FC06AC0FC681568 at EXCHANGE.nemetschek.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>
>Hello,
>
>FM 6.0 unstructured
>ePro WWH 5.0
>
>We recently translated our documentation set (two manuals, about 1,600
>pages) into Spanish. This wasn't a very smooth process, but it was
>accomplished by sending our .mif files to the translator, who uses
>TRADOS. The translator was selected based on the lowest bid.
>The translator did create the database files that are used for
>facilitating future translation; however, once we got the files back
>from them, there were so many errors and changes required that we
>question the usefulness of the database files. Our Spanish FrameMaker
>files are now significantly different from the files that they gave to
>us.
>
>Now we are moving on to the next version of our software, and facing
>difficulties understanding how to mark what has changed since the last
>version, and translate only the new/changed text. What we ended up doing
>is comparing our English files in FrameMaker, and, using the CMP files,
>added the new/changed text into the Spanish files, marked with a
>Translation condition. This was a huge chore. I just KNOW that others do
>not do it this way. The managers are not happy with the amount of time
>this took, and we aren't happy because it was very tedious.
>
>I have read the white paper about translation that is often mentioned,
>but the process is still not clear to me. I don't really know what
>TRADOS can do and how the translators use it with .mif files. (The PTBs
>claim that TRADOS works *much better* with Word, and why do use
>FrameMaker anyway?) I also know that many of you have switched to
>structured FrameMaker to solve some translation issues (like these?) but
>at the moment, switching to structured with our small, very busy dept.
>is cost- and time-prohibitive.
>
>If you are still using unstructured FrameMaker and translating your text
>through several versions, I would like to know:
>
>* What your companies do to mark text that has changed? How do you move
>the translation up to the next version?
>* Can't translators take the latest mif files from you and use TRADOS to
>identify what has changed?
>* What if the database from the translator is out-of-date? Can't they
>build a new one based on new files?
>* Is there really a difference in this process (re:TRADOS) if we used
>Word?
>
>I think we're making this way harder than it needs to be and would
>appreciate your input.
>Please, can you CC: aduffy at nemetschek.net, as I am on the digest.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Alexandra Duffy
>Senior Technical Writer
>Nemetschek NA
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