English to French IT Translator Blog

[Fix] Trados Error: The file you are opening does not contain any bilingual segments

This problem occasionally happens when you are trying to open and work with Word files in SDL Trados Studio 2011/2014. After you select your file, Trados displays an error window, with either “The file you are opening does not contain any bilingual segments” or “The file contains “tw4winMark” style used to mark up bilingual documents”.

Most of the time, you will be able to fix the issue by checking the “Process files with tw4winMark style” option in Trados’ options.

To do this, go to Options > File Types > Microsoft Word 2000-2003 (or Microsoft Word 2007-2013) > Common and check “Process files with tw4winMark style” as on the picture below. Don’t forget to apply the setting for both Word 2000-2003 and Word 2007-2013.

Trados word error

If the setting above doesn’t work…

Some users reported that they still had the issue after checking the option above. In this case, and as a last resort measure, save your Word file with the .rtf extension and you should be able to work with it. Please note, however, that formatting of the original document may be altered, so do it with caution.

By Anthony Teixeira | May 25, 2015 | Trados |

[Fix] Trados Studio 2011/2014 Name cannot begin with the ‘”‘ character, hexadecimal value 0x22. Row 1, position 144

Some translators reported the error message “Name cannot begin with the ‘”‘ character, hexadecimal value 0x22. Row 1, position 144” occasionally shows up when they are trying to save target .doc files from SDL Trados Studio 2011/2014.

The problem is apparently caused by Trados not handling comments very well inside .sdlxliff files. The fix here is pretty simple: save your comments separately and delete them from Trados.

As an alternative solution if if this tip doesn’t seem to work, you can also try to change the format of the source file (for example to .rtf) and then retranslate the document using your TM. Use it only as a backup solution, a the formatting may end up looking a bit different.

In general, Trados comments and .doc files are not very good friends. Comments are one of the suspects you will want to inspect closely whenever with have issues with saving target Word files from .sdlxliff.

By Anthony Teixeira | May 23, 2015 | Trados |

I have no problem with MT, but PEMT still doesn’t work for me

My previous post on Post-Editing Machine Translation (PEMT), generated more reactions that I would have thought. Some were positive, some less. More specifically, some perceived my text as a rejection of Machine Translation (MT) and its recent progress as a whole. I would like to clarify a number of points (no, I’m not a dinosaur) and reiterate my lack of interest for commercial PEMT projects – I will explain in further detail why they don’t make sense to me, regardless of how much MT improved over time.

No, I have nothing against MT

In fact, I use it in my translation tools! It’s a great way to generate lists of words for predictive typing, which indeed saves me a bit of time and reduces stress for my fingers. As as I said a few times as well, MT can be great for research purposes, especially for individuals. For these reasons, I am happy to see MT improve, both as a translator and as a human being.

Yes, statistical MT engines are improving

MT engines of today are smarter and keep learning from bilingual texts. It means that compared to legacy systems, they have a much better understanding of context and can string together pretty decent sentences if the right references are available. I have no doubt they will keep on improving, as long as there are people to train them.

No, I’m still not interested in PEMT projects (for publication purposes)

In my previous post, I made the mistake of referring to PEMT projects as if they were all identical. Post-editing machine translation for training purposes is something I would have no problem with. I would charge an hourly fee for this and all would be good.

The projects I mentioned (or meant to mention) are those for which we, translators, are asked to provide a discount to edit texts that went through some MT engine. Usually, this will be Google Translate or a very slightly customized version of it. The goal of people offering such projects is to get a translation ready for publication at a reduced price, which has nothing to do with MT engine training.

Here, we have two possible cases:

-The text was processed through a generic system, say Google/Bing Translate. These engines are using bilingual texts from sources that are so different in terminology, style, quality, etc. that the resulting text is generally very inconsistent and poorly written.  Why one would want to give a discount for a text you need to rewrite from zero?

-The text was processed through an industry-specific, well-trained engine. Let’s go even further and suppose the target text comes together near-perfect. It still doesn’t cut it for me. When all I have is the text generated by the MT provider, I still have to look very carefully at the source and target segments and make sure everything is there and properly translated. Again, it can be very, very easy to let a mistake slip (say, a missing negation) because the MT engine used its “best match” and failed to translate the part it had no reference about.

If the generated translation is good, it means a very close translation already exists somewhere and the engine knows about it. In this case, at translation memory would work better, as it would allow me to see where exactly the new text is different and where I have to be careful. If the TM is approved and no proofreading is required for the existing part, the changes can be done very quickly, much more than if I had to check the whole segment.

To put it simple, a good MT output means there is a good TM available out there (maybe not in a TM format as such, but something that could be converted easily), and I’d rather work with the TM in question for practical purposes.

To sum it up:

– MT is useful

– PEMT for training purposes is fine

– PEMT to produce a professional translation is a waste of translator and client money

By Anthony Teixeira | May 20, 2015 | Opinion, Post-editing (machine translation) |

Post-Mortem: French Localization of Project CARS

As a freelance game translator, it is rare that I am allowed to mention who I localize for and what games I work on. It is even rarer that developers spontaneously offer to add my name to the credits. Project CARS is one of those lucky exceptions. Translating the game into French was both fun and challenging, and I would love to share my experience with both gamers and game developers.

Getting started

The files we got for localization from Slightly Mad Studios were pretty simple – standard Excel files with source/target columns plus other technical data. Something easy to plug into any professional translation environment.

The first part of the translation consisted in creating a glossary of terms that would need to be consistent throughout the translation. Since the volume was large, it can be easy to let inconsistencies appear.

From there, the actual translation could start.

Localization challenges

Besides the usual challenges a translator faces, Project CARS came with its own specifics:

– Fact accuracy: The game is very rich in car racing facts, and a good knowledge of motorsports was a vital asset for this project. While the developers did a fantastic job at gathering interesting information for cars, teams and series sometimes decades old, there were still a few small mistakes or inaccuracies left when localization started.

This is hardly avoidable for such a massive project, of course, but it meant that as translators, we had to keep an eye out for potential blunders. I’ll share a small example: in the game, you will find a short biography of Lewis Hamilton, a F1 world champion (2008, 2014 at the time I am writing this article). It is mentioned that the Briton became the youngest F1 world champion ever with his first title in 2008, which was absolutely true at the time. The way the text was written led to think that this record still holds, which isn’t the case (Sebastian Vettel lowering the bar just 2 years later).

When I saw this, I made sure my translation left no ambiguity. The issue was then reported to the developers, who got it fixed in the source text as well. This example shows how important specialization is: a game translator with no interest in motorsports couldn’t have spotted this issue.

– Copyright issues: In the early versions of the source text, some parts were clearly written in a way that avoided any reference to series names that Slightly Mad Studio may not have been allowed to use. Initially, Lewis Hamilton was described as a “Grand Prix” champion, a term that kept showing up in several descriptions. The term “Formula 1” eventually appeared in game descriptions, but this was another potentially dangerous people. As a translator, it could have been tempting to think “Hey, he’s a F1 champion, I’ll just write that” and land your client in hot water.

Of course, as a good practice, it is always recommended not to add things that are not in the source text. But this example shows how small alterations can lead to big trouble.

– Translation of fictional names and series: Translating existing series, events and team names is not a big deal, but what about fictional ones? The big question here was: do we translate all fictional series names, none of them or only some of them? In the latter case, on what criteria do we decide to translate a name or not?

This was a tough one to come up with. In French, we do translate “Formula One”, but not “Super Formula”. So what should happen to “Formula Rookie”? For the French localization, I decided to look at how we usually proceed in French to translate series names, starting from the lower categories. I would then determine what was the existing equivalent series for each fictional one, and translate their names or not based on that.

– Technical terms and past concepts: As I said before, the game is rich in detailed car descriptions. And despite loving both games and motorsports, I have to admit some of the technical terms and concepts were slightly beyond my expertise. I know the basics of setting up race cars, aerodynamics, ride height, gear ratios and so on, but some terms were really specific.

There were also references to technical concepts that are not used anymore on race cars. Since I was not even born at the time some of these technologies were out and that Internet didn’t exist at the time, I had to scratch my head a few times.

This was the hardest part of the game to translate for me, but a few online searches and the explanations of Slightly Mad Studio helped me come up with the right French terms.

Communication with Slightly Mad Studios

As I mentioned above, the game refers to a lot of historical facts and sometimes advanced technical terms. Inevitably, there are times when you need to have a little more background information or context to put a good translation together.

The translation team shared a common query sheet where we would add all our questions for the developers. The list soon became very long, which is natural the large volume of the in-game texts and the number of languages the game was localized into. The big challenge here was for the very busy developers to keep up with these questions so that equally busy translators could go ahead with their job.

Thankfully, the communication was smooth and the guys at Slightly Mad Studios always made sure to reply in a timely manner with easy-to-understand explanations. It is easy to think you can just pitch your texts at translators and just wait for the translation to come in, but developers have a great role in localization success. This project was a perfect example of that.

Conclusion

As a video game and motorsport enthusiast, working on Project CARS’ localization was an immense privilege for me. The project itself offered interesting challenges, and the degree of involvement of Slightly Mad Studios was key to its success. I would encourage developers in general to adopt the same attitude: be attentive to your translators’ needs and be ready to help them when they need it. Every bit of information you share helps make localization better.

 

By Anthony Teixeira | May 16, 2015 | Case studies, Game localization |

How I Got Started as a Freelance Translator

There are many paths that can lead to a career in freelance translation. Some studied translation or languages at university, and then started working in-house before establishing themselves as freelance translators. Others come from completely different fields and pretty much learned the job on the field, which is my case.

I graduated from university in 2008 with a degree in IT and software development. I could have started working in that field in France right away, but I wanted to explore the world a little bit while I had the chance. Japan turned out to be the destination, and while I was planning it as a short-term experience, I am still there with no plans to return to my home country.

Freshly arrived in Japan with little knowledge of the local language and a modest CV, I settled for the best I could find: a job as a developer for an English-speaking start-up, which happened to be a localization agency. In such an environment, work is never in shortage and everybody has to wear several hats. My business card said I was a “technical director”, but as it turned out, I was a developer, a software translator, a web marketing consultant, a recruiter, a tester and a project manager (plus a few I forgot).

It was a great environment to grow, because it gave me a full insight on how the translation industry worked while gaining experience as technical translator.

About 2 years later, personal projects encouraged me to pursue a new career, and moving to deep countryside meant freelancing was the only reasonable option for me. Having done different jobs in my previous company, I tried to do them all as a freelancer and did the classical beginner mistake of spreading myself too thin. By trying to do so many different things, I ended up doing none of them well enough, and it took me some time to figure it out what I was doing wrong.

At some point, which I guess is when my finances kindly asked me to get things moving forward, I took a step back and had a deep look at what I was doing. It is when I realized that of all the projects I was working on, the translation ones were my favorite. Not that all was perfect at the time, but it was the area to which I wanted to start dedicating more time.

Once I decided I wanted to be a full-time freelance translator and give it all my energy, it didn’t take very long before projects started pouring in. This is how I got things started. Of course, at that time, I still had so much to learn. My rates were low and I, like many newcomers, tended to accept projects that were a bit outside the scope of my knowledge. But this is for another story.

When I was at university, I never thought I would ever work as a professional translator. In fact, hadn’t I worked for a translation agency at some point, it would most likely have never happened.  It probably is the biggest lesson I learned in my entire life: the best way to find the job of your dream is to try and experiment as many things as possibly, and see what you really enjoy doing. For me, the results were beyond anything I could imagine just a few years back.

By Anthony Teixeira | May 9, 2015 | Personal |

Another Example of SDL’s Terrible Support (Trados Studio 2015 Thread on Proz)

I already mentioned what I thought of SDL’s support in my short review of Trados Studio 2014. Whenever you ask for a bug fix or a feature that seems slightly beyond the reach of the developers, the conversation soon turns to personal attacks. This is always the translator’s fault for a reason or another, and why should they spend time fixing bugs when there are lengthy workaround available? New buggy features are much more likely to generate quick cash, after all.

Today, on Proz, a user was asking whether it would be possible for SDL to make it easier to work with Trados files in other software – even offering to pay for it if necessary. I would like to mention here that other competitive tools offer such features.

Here is what they had to say about it:

… you want SDL to provide a standalone tool that would allow you to do anything other than work with our tools. What sort of business model is that? Would you provide your translation memories and termbases to your clients so they can use them to give the work to someone else? Sounds the same thing to me. (…)  I toyed with responding until I thought better of it. We are already doing enough to facilitate the things you talk about, more than any other vendor. But I think any explanation I make is wasted on you.

I think the quote speaks for itself. By the way, it seems our friend has no idea how things work in 90% of the top 100 translation agencies. Conversations like this happen on translation forums almost weekly. At this point, I am very seriously considering to other CAT tools.

By Anthony Teixeira | May 3, 2015 | Opinion, Trados |

Free eBook recommendation: The Bright Side of Freelance Translation

I just found out about quite a nice eBook for freelance translators: The Bright Side of Freelance Translation.

Freelancers’ fora are typically full of complaints and laments: low rates, clients late with payment, unreliable tools, communication issues and the lot. The great thing about this book is that it gives us something a little different. It is essentially a compilation of success stories from established translators, and I could relate to a lot of them.

On the top of being heart-warming, these anecdotes contain tons of interesting pieces of advice, ideas and tips to move on with your career as a freelance translator. Very valuable for new and aspiring translators, and a great motivation factor for more experienced ones, like me. Check it out!

By Anthony Teixeira | May 2, 2015 | Opinion |

What’s a Good Game Translation Anyway

If you are interested in game localization in general, you have probably read one of the numerous articles about poor/farcical translations. As in many industries, you only seem to hear about translators when they screw up. As frustrating as it can be for a professional translator, you will have a hard time finding articles about great game translations.

In general, I think the average-gamer doesn’t have a good understanding of what goes into translating a game. A few years ago, I found a topic on a gamers’ forum about one specific text string in a game, in French. The turn of that sentence was a a little weird indeed, and the poster concluded that the game containing it was poorly localized.

The game in question was Zelda: A Link to the Past on SNES, one of the Nintendo machine’s most notable games, and a very well translated one at that. I’m not sure what was the volume of the source text for this game, but it had to be at least a few thousand words. And these words were beautifully translated. The linguist really managed to put out a well written script with her own style, rather than translate the whole thing literally, as so many people do in the game industry.

Then, for a single, isolated sentence, some people decide the whole work was to throw away. It wasn’t even that bad of a sentence. The phrasing was a little odd, but it still made sense and was grammatically correct.

It’s a shame people focus so much on what’s wrong with translations and forget to see the good in them. For this game in particular, the quality of the French script really added to the game atmosphere, a very important component of action-adventure games. Most people would see this as a job well done by developers and fail to see how important of a part the script was for their experience.

Nowadays, for big productions, you’ve got professionals writing scripts. It’s not so rare anymore to see people from Hollywood contributing to games. But back then, script writing was mostly done by people who were not really interested in it, as they had more important business to do – that is putting the game together and making it functional. At that time, translators really had a chance to take over the “raw” script in place and turn it into something more compelling and memorable. The French version A Link to the Past is all about that, and it really inspires me in my work. When I’m not sure what’s the best way to put a sentence in French, I think of what would be best for gamers, even if it means I have to rewrite the complete sentence from scratch.

Good game localization allows you to enjoy the game as if you were a native speaker playing the original version. A great game localization makes it even more enjoyable. You may call it imperfect, but A Link to the Past definitely belongs to the latter category.

By Anthony Teixeira | April 20, 2015 | Game localization, Opinion |

Why Some Professional Translators Occasionally Work At Low Rates, And Why I Don’t

I used to be very surprised to see very capable and apparently successful translators occasionally accept working at rates most of us would consider very low, if not ridiculous. After talking to such professionals, I came to realize that it was mostly down to personal values and work approach.

Here, I will be talking about full-time professional translators, not students, part-timers, those who translate as a hobby and so on. Let’s also forget about cost of living considerations this time. The question here is: Why would one work for (much) less than what they normally consider a reasonable rate?

Working for less than usual can make sense in two situations:

– Translators in a relatively early phase of their career: Starting out as a freelancer is not easy. Nothing new here of course, but it’s important to remember how things were like in the early days. Sporadic projects, clients asking for references/experience you couldn’t get precisely because of such demands, invoices piling up…

You could spend your whole days working on promoting your services, but it can soon become horribly repetitive tiring. Accepting to work at a relatively low rates under these circumstances can help you keep your head up, gain experience and pay bills. It will take most freelancers at least 2 years to start being financially comfortable, which is why you will sometimes see professionals with some degree of experience and a decent client base accept poorly paid jobs.

– Work philosophy: If you have strict work hours, you may adopt the “something is better than nothing” philosophy. Let’s say you work 40 hours a week, no less, no more. You choose to allocate 10 hours to marketing/learning/administrative tasks, which leaves 30 hours/week for translation. Of course, you will want to use these 30 hours for well-paid work whenever possible. However, since you’ve decided you would spend 30 hours in front of your computer anyway, non-working time is wasted time (and money).  Translators who go by this philosophy will do their best to fill their schedules with projects at their regular rates, and fill the gaps with the next best thing.

If your goal is to make as much money as possible, this method works fairly well. Even if you mostly refuse work from companies offering very low rates, they will keep coming back since cheap translators delivering good work are rare. Whether such a way of dealing with translators makes sense for such companies on the long run is, of course, a different story.

In the end, it comes down to what you want most: more money or more time for yourself.

At some point in my career, I decided that I would rather spend more of my time doing the things I love and stop working under what I set as a minimum rate. I have a certain amount of time dedicated to marketing and accounting tasks every week. What if I complete them and my translation projects by noon on a weekday? Great! That’s an afternoon I can spend in family or for my hobbies.

I don’t work at low rates because I value my personal time, but I understand some people have different goals or a different philosophy. What matters is that you know what is more important for you. If you do, you will never need to hesitate again when someone offers to fill the remaining time on your schedule for a job under your standard rates.

By Anthony Teixeira | April 9, 2015 | Localization, Opinion |