| 1. Duolingo | |
Duolingo is the brainchild of Luis von Ahn of Carnegie Mellon University. It's European Cup time, so you'll have to forgive my nationalist chest-beating for a moment when I say that he is a much more adept Dutchman than his compatriot soccer players (ouch!).
Most of you have seen his very fun and engaging TEDTalk, and I'm really excited that Luis is going to be the keynote speaker at this year's conference of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas, which will follow the ATA in the fall in San Diego. In the meantime, though, if you haven't seen the video, take a few moments to watch his TEDTalk. If you do, you'll learn that he and his team developed the CAPTCHA -- and especially the reCAPTCHA -- programs to verify authentic users on websites and decipher OCR'ed books in the process. What he learned from the reCAPTCHA program inspired him to go on to his next project: Duolingo.
To a translator, the premise behind Duolingo sounds crazy at first: users who don't know a language can learn that language (so far Spanish, German, and French) while simultaneously translating content. But Luis and his team are making it work by doing two things: First, their e-learning system -- which is quite reminiscent of systems like Rosetta Stone -- allows the system to evaluate users' language level in a fun, game-like context. At the same time, it uses numeric logic: By having thousands translate the same sentence, maybe even folks with different language levels, comparisons of different translations by numbers of occurrence will give indications on how to assemble the final translated sentence. Plus, since the language learners actually view many of the sentences in context, a cohesive translation just may emerge. (You can actually Google where those individual sentences come from, which is kind of fun.) How "good" is the translation? Well, that's another matter. The key question: Will it be better than machine translation? You bet.
I'm grateful to Tool Box reader Christian Taube, who spent some time a few weeks ago to use Duolingo and document it in a well-thought out manner. I've uploaded his document to my website (take into account that today's system already looks a little different).
Here are some thoughts that I can't help pondering. The system won't leave its beta phase until next week, so it's possible that it hasn't really come to the forefront of our attention as translators. And maybe (in fact, likely) learning a new language is not uppermost on the minds of most translators, anyway. Still, I think it's strange that very few voices from our community are raising questions about Duolingo. For instance, in this long list of user questions, not a single one worries about translators, while developers and others are expressing worry about the continued viability of their own professions.
Now, I'm not "worried about our profession," but I am looking forward to asking Luis at the AMTA conference about the document upload site that just went live. (You might not be able to access this without an account, but I have a few extra invites, so let me know if you need one. Or you can wait until next Tuesday when the whole site goes live.) Here you can apply to have your documents translated by the large masses of language learners. The page specifies that "uploading a document and retrieving its translation is 100% free, though in the future we may charge for speed and accuracy." It'll be interesting to see whether this turns into a great opportunity for professional translators or not.
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| 2. Fluent Developments (Premium Edition) | |
It's been almost exactly two years since I wrote about Fluency for the first time in this newsletter (Premium subscribers can read the lengthy review in the archives in the June 20, 2010 edition) and shortly after that in Multilingual Magazine. One area that I really stressed in those reviews was the speed with which this new translation environment tool developed. For instance, I mentioned one case during my testing where I discovered and reported a problem with their PDF conversion process. The next day they simply threw out the responsible plugin and replaced it with a completely different one. Problem fixed. Needless to say, such nimbleness cannot be expected from most other companies. (By the way, in the meantime they have replaced their PDF plugin once more, substituting it with the BCL easyConverter that most competitors are also using.)
With a rapidly developing company like Fluency, I had two choices: report on new developments every other newsletter (each time a new feature was added) or just observe for a while to see what happens with the tool after some time has passed. I chose the latter.
I had a chance this week to talk to Carl Christensen, one of Fluency's main developers, and upgraded my own version to the latest build. (I struggled through multiple re-starts to manually upgrade through the many missed upgrades. Don't be like me: fortunately and previously unbeknownst to me, there is a little application that does it all in one step.)
I'm happy to report that the overall speed of introducing novelties has slowed to some degree throughout the last 24 months, but it's still kept an impressive pace. In fact, the velocity is such that it might take more time than you would like to wade through all the different "old" and new features. I've complained in the past about "feature creep" in memoQ, and I sense the same danger here: features upon features upon features, each helpful to some user's whimsy, but to understand and use them all you might have to set aside some serious learning time.
The good thing is that you can also choose to ignore some of the finer features, simply use the default settings, and chances are you'll get going in no time and make good headway.
The user interface is very much like it used to be and still different from most other tools that use a table-based display of source and target text. The Fluency makers felt from the start that they wanted an interface where the source text is displayed in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get format, with a separate area for the ongoing translation and a third where the already-translated target text is displayed. (This section now allows you to replace the <<segment>>placeholders with copies of the source text for strings that you have not translated yet.) And, as an addendum to the last go-around of articles, many improvements have been made to the display of formats such as HTML and PowerPoint.
The lower part of the main window is reserved for language resources, which naturally include the TM and termbase. What's different here is that Fluency comes with a large number of open-source language resources for more than 40 languages, so the Terminology area will be filled with lots of suggestions from those sources unless you disable that under Tools> Preferences> TM & Term Settings, which I would tend to do. To the very right you can see an area with many tabs, most of which gives you access to a variety of Internet and internal resources, including search engines and dictionaries; of course, you can configure these to your heart's content. A couple of clever things here: One tab leads you to the Google Translate site, and since that access is "browser-based" rather than "API-based," you don't have to pay for the hits as you do in competing tools. If you prefer to use machine translation as a more closely integrated part of the workflow, you can use Google Translate with your API key and pay for it (under Tools> Preferences> Machine Translation & OCR) or select from several other machine translation options. I did experience some technical hiccups when trying to change MT engines, but nothing too major.
The other tab that's remarkable is called Collaboration, a feature that allows you not only to chat with collaborators but also to share documents in real-time to work on them together.
The file formats that Fluency supports have always been impressive, even including MS Publisher -- a much maligned and yet sometimes necessary-to-translate format. Newer formats now include the software development format .po/.pot (which is increasingly becoming a standard format for TEnTs), MS OneNote, and Wordfast .txml files.
Other new features include a segment filter that allows you to order the translation sequence of your translation file (which in my opinion is a little awkward since it is fashioned after filters in tools with table-like displays), an AutoSuggest component that is based on an also newly introduced automatic sub-segmenting of the TM, a proofread tool that allows you to view your source and target in a complete WYSIWYG environment side-by-side (this is not included in the Freelancer edition), and a helpful bilingual term extraction that will help to fill termbases on the basis of translation memories provided they have at least 5000 translation units (you can access this under Translation Memories> Manage Translation Memories> Tools> Mine TMs). I tested the term mining on the basis of a 50,000 translation-unit TM and was surprised at its speed. The results were OK -- not great, but good enough to fill my termbase after some editing
When I talk to developers, I'm always most interested in hearing what they have to say about where they see their tool positioned and in which marketplaces. So I asked.
There are three different versions of Fluency: Freelancer, Professional, and TM & Term Server. For the first two you can choose to include the resources for one, six, or all 40+ languages. The difference between the Freelancer and Professional versions essentially consists of the ability to connect to a server version of Fluency (only Professional can). With a starting price of $399 and $499 respectively, they certainly are still at the low end of the spectrum when it comes to TEnTs. The server edition for LSPs also comes relatively inexpensively and includes floating Professional licenses. This said, the marketing strategy is sort of a no-brainer for Western Standard, the makers of Fluency: it's the price point for a tool with a feature set that compares very well with its competition.
Presently the main focus of Western Standard's marketing strategy is very small LSPs as well as other small organizations in the US and South America that take advantage of the much-used hosting services for the server-based solution. This follows marketing campaigns for US governmental agencies and the freelance market.
After watching Fluency for a couple of years now, I think they are destined to become one of the players to watch. While they have not stormed the market like memoQ, for instance, they have shown some real foresight and consistency with their development efforts coupled with excellent customer support (as numerous users have reported to me).
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3. From TeaMserver to TEAMserver
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The first version of Déjà Vu TEAMserver (previously: TeaMserver) was released a few years ago, and I think it would be fair to say that it did not have the success Atril had hoped for. With TEAMserver 2 this is supposed to change, and there are some indications that it just might.
First of all: What is it? TEAMserver is a completely web-based tool that builds on Déjà Vu technology and allows for the web-based hosting and maintenance of translation memories, termbases, user groups, and reports. The user interface not only has a modern feel to it but is very intuitive and stable. Search features for the termbases and translation memories are available for everyone who has permission, from the PM to the client and translator/editor. Access is based on permission levels, so most user groups have only read-only access. I wish that the many, many different access levels that can be assigned were a little more transparent to the administrator, but, hey, the admin is supposed to receive training, so she should be able to understand how to administer those.
As the database-savvy among you may imagine, the databases are no longer based on the MS Jet engine (which is the MS Access technology) of the desktop versions of Déjà Vu, but on the much more powerful SQL Server database system, so it's possible to handle truly massive amounts of data.
Considering the possible size of the TMs and termbases, the TEAMserver LookUp interface with clever filtering features allows users -- especially end clients or linguists without access to a desktop version of Déjà Vu -- to simultaneously search through all the data, including concordance searches and context searches in the TM.
Most linguists, of course, will never use the web interface since the actual translation, editing, and proofreading work happens in the desktop version of Déjà Vu X2, which not only allows them to connect to the online resources but also to send to-the-minute status reports under Project> Properties> Tracking.
One of the flaws of the earlier version was that translators had to own the very highly priced Workgroup edition of Déjà Vu X to connect to a TeaMserver project. Since there really was no need for the typical freelancer to own that version, it was virtually impossible or really, really expensive to find translators to work with. This has now been fixed: not only can every owner of the Professional version of Déjà Vu X2 use the online databases with adequate access codes, but like many of its competitors, Atril is now also offering floating licenses so that even the free trial version of Déjà Vu can be used if the LSP or client owns enough floating licenses (the translators can request them under Help> Request Floating License).
I was disappointed during my testing with the long delays for the AutoSearch feature in Déjà Vu X2 when connected to online databases, but I was assured that they are presently furiously at work to fix this and round it all up into a highly usable product.
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| 4. Shortcutting the Browser (Premium Edition) | |
As I was helping my just-graduated son (and, no!, I'm not proud -- why would you even think that?) set up the new laptop his grandparents gave him for college, I realized that it would be helpful to have a list of browser-independent shortcuts for browsers. Just in case that formulation didn't make much sense: there are plenty of different browsers out there, but fortunately they share a lot of keyboard shortcuts. And here they are:
- To quickly jump to the address bar: Alt+D (or F6 in most browsers)
- To quickly enter an address: enter the "middle part" ("abc" of www.abc.com) and press
- Ctrl + Enter for *.com address
- Shift + Enter for *.net address
- Ctrl + Shift + Enter for *.org address
(In Opera it's easy to customize the *.com part under Tools> Preferences> Advanced> Shortcuts, and in Firefox by entering about>config into the address field and filtering for "suffix".)
- To change the size of the display: Ctrl + + / - or Ctrl + roll the mouse wheel
- To open the home page: Alt + Home
- To stop loading the current page: Esc
- To refresh the current page: F5
- To show the menu options if they're hidden: Alt
- To show the current page on the full screen: F11
- To get back to the normal display: F11
- To open a new tab: Ctrl + T (do you remember those dark times when there were no tabs in browsers?)
- To open a link on a new tab in the background: Ctrl + Click (not in Firefox)
- To open the downloads manager: Ctrl + J (not in Safari)
- To view the source of the page you're displaying: Ctrl + U (not in IE or Safari)
- To view the history of recently visited webpages: Ctrl + H
Of course, there are many, many more, including all those that are valid everywhere in the Windows world (Ctrl + C to copy, etc.), but these provide a nice start. And they make us all understand why it's really hard to develop a browser-based translation environment tool with keyboard shortcuts that are not already in use by the browser.
There's one more shortcut or context menu command that I like in Internet Explorer. In fact, to my knowledge it exists only in that browser without additional add-ons: If you click on any kind of table (most lists are tables), you can select Export to MS Excel. This opens up Excel, and the complete table is transferred. I find this super helpful for copying glossaries.
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| 5. Linguend | |
In the last newsletter I reported on a new offering by Linguee with which translators can search Linguee's corpus in context. I've been using it quite a bit since then, and I'm blown away by how cool it is to get highly relevant, context-based matches. Or perhaps I should say how cool this was. At least for me and all other US residents....
Translation software vendor Babylon apparently holds an extremely loosely defined patent here in the US which defines that only they can search for a term in any application and have additional information displayed. When Linguee's lawyers became aware of it, they immediately advised the company to withdraw the Linguee Premium and Linguee Professional products from the US market.
I could not believe that this was the end of the story, so I called Linguee, only to hear that this really is the end of the line for US users. There are no plans to challenge this in court, even though the chances for success are apparently decent -- but expensive. I asked whether we should start a signature petition or something similar, but the realism of the Linguee folks stopped that in its track. There's little chance that it would make a difference.
So, again, why all that fuss about a little search gizmo? Because it really is more than a little gizmo. Linguee's corpus is large, and it's nice to be able to search through it on the basis of a single term -- that's what you do in the web interface. But to be able to search on the basis of a term and have the complete sentence taken into consideration while doing so gives you immediate access to the matches you need, or it lets you know that there are no good matches, each of which is helpful information.
So, blessed are those who live in places with different patent laws.
Linguee tools, of course, were available only between English and German (with more languages to come soon). But just to add insult to injury, Terminotix released a search utility -- make that a search toolbar for Word 2007 and 2010 -- that heavily favors yet another language combination.
OK, let's try to guess what language combination that could be.
Here is what we know: Terminotix is a Canadian company with headquarters in Montréal.
So . . .
It must be English<>Inuktitut!
Almost.
Yes, you guessed it: it's English<>French, though there are quite a few Spanish sources available through the tool as well as some other languages with very limited coverage. If you are a French (or Spanish) translator who works in MS Word (not sure why you'd do that, but let's just assume that you haven't started using a modern TEnT yet and still use Word), this toolbar is a must-have (and I'm not joking).
These are the resources you can access with the toolbar: WeBiText, IATE, UNTERM, FAOTERM, Linguee, Termium, Collins Dictionaries, Le Grand dictionnaire terminologique, TransSearch, WTOTERM, ONTERM, Terminav, ConjugArt, Clefs du français pratique, and Dictionnaire des synonymes. You will quickly see that the first few language resources are indeed multilingual, but the majority are indeed limited to the languages mentioned above.
This toolbar allows you to access these sources by highlighting the term and clicking a button. A new window will come up with the matches you are looking for, and you can then replace the original term by simply clicking on the target term.
The toolbar is available for free. Simply write to sales@terminotix.com with information on who you are and what your language preference is and enter "Toolbar" into the subject line.
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| 6. This 'n' That (Premium Edition) | |
Here are some things that I've run across in the past few weeks that are worth mentioning:
If you ever need some fodder to justify the relevance of your profession (and hooray if you don't need that), this article in the Huffington Post by Nataly Kelly might give you just what you were looking for. (Hey, and if you want to say thank you to Nataly, just keep spreading the word to promote our book or participate in the video mentioned in the introduction.)
Kevin Lossner has always been known for his strong opinions, but that's exactly one of the reasons to read his blog. Another reason is his recent series of MemoQuickies describing many of the features of the upcoming memoQ 6, which I'll analyze here in an upcoming newsletter as well.
Alan Melby and Lola Bendana have published the short 100-page booklet Almost Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Translation that you can download for free right here. It's a helpful introduction into translation, with one part for clients and another for translators and project managers. You'll find some great links, helpful suggestions on how to communicate with clients, and a good overview of our profession. I found the Summary of Revision Principles on page 42 especially helpful.
The Big Wave is a quarterly web-based journal that specializes in language technology. The first issue was released awhile back and had some interesting articles on the role of standards in language and translation technologies.
The Big Wave's review board is filled with illustrious names such as Renato Beninatto, David Canek, Konstantin Dranch, Federico Garcea, Luigi Muzii, and Kirti Vashee. The project is the brainchild of some former students of Luigi, and if the journal is able to continue to publish articles as interesting as its first edition it will be something to watch (and read.)
The upcoming July issue will focus on "competence models in translator training programs," and the October issue on "collaborative platforms in authoring and translation." You can find the call for papers right here.
I love our profession (most of the time) and the generous and passionate folks who are part of it. The other day I received an email from Ludvig Glavati from the land of creativity, aka Ukraine, about a number of applications he has developed and would like to share. Ludvig had read my article on voice recognition and was convinced that he had met a comrade in arms in his quest to "turn translation into interpreting." I'm not sure that I would go so far -- I think there are some real differences in the skill set of the professionals who work in each of these occupations -- but I think Ludvig's tools are thought-provoking to say the least.
Aside from tools for dictating, he has also developed a different set of tools (all in a Word toolbar that you can download for free) with which he attempts to create an environment that allows the translator to focus only on the text without formatting, matches, or other distractions. Once the translation is done, the resulting TM can be applied to the rest of the complete text and formatting etc. can be applied.
To that purpose he has a whole host of tools that strip any formatting, turn a (bilingual) document into a table, expand and contract cells in a table, turn a table into segments, and so on. I don't find his overall strategy so impressive -- he explains it in this PowerPoint presentation -- because to me it seems he actually might create more work in the process, but I can see a lot of use for the individual tools.
To come back to the dictation part, he has also developed a voice recorder and a speed changer for playing the recording -- there is no good voice recognition in Russian, he says, so he needs to dictate for a transcriber. One of the features of his Word toolbar is called the Marquee tool, which presents you with a running stream of text with adjustable speed within Word to ease the dictation. It's a very clever idea that I had never thought of.
Tom Finnis suggested an interesting tool: Actual Title Buttons. While unfortunately not free, it's a tool that helps you manage your screen real estate in various ways by adding buttons to your application windows that make them behave differently (like placing them in the System Tray, making them transparent, copying their content, etc.). I've previously written about individual tools that do one or another of these things, but this does it all, so maybe it's worth shelling out the $20.
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| 7. MTV -- Machine Translation Views | |
The biggest MT-related news clearly was the drying up of Yahoo! Babelfish and its replacement with Microsoft Bing Translator. I've already rhapsodized about its historic significance in the introduction, and I've also written a little more about it in this article in the Translation Journal.
Google announced last week that it's following Microsoft in offering a mix of translation memory and machine translation for websites. Well, it did not actually mention Microsoft in the blog post, but it's taken MS's idea and run with it (must feel good for Microsoft to see it happen this way).
And as I mentioned before, it's not a bad idea: You can implement the machine translation plugin on your site and have your users correct the machine translation, which you then need to approve. Once that's done, it's entered into a sort of site-specific translation memory, which will always be queried first before machine translation kicks in so you can be sure that the corrected translation will be given preference. I put up a now slightly outdated sample of the Microsoft product on my website awhile back.
The benefit to Google and Microsoft is clean and corrected data, which will help them build better machine translation engines.
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8. New Password for the Tool Kit Archive
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As a subscriber to the Premium version of this newsletter you have access to an archive of Premium newsletters going back to May 2008.
You can access the archive right here. This month the user name is toolbox and the password is foundintranslation.
New user names and passwords will be announced in future newsletters.
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| The Last Word on the Tool Box Newsletter | |
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