11.1 - Support Tools Typology

Support Tools for Translators
Professional translator, except for some sort of CAT tool, also has a need of other tools that would make sure that the final output is free of spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, or other typos. Therefore if his/her translation workbench does not include spell-/grammar- and style-checkers, custom-dictionaries, glossaries they have to look elsewhere for help. The most common support tools that perform on-line or final checks include the following:
spell checkers: compare translated texts against a large dictionary for misspelling;
grammar checkers: look for grammatical errors occurring in a text such as repeated words or ungrammatical phrases that do not conform to the pre-determined set of grammatical rules. A grammar checker/corrector software will certainly help people find all kinds of mistakes. Grammar checker is also very helpful for those who are very busy. A grammar check will always find errors and make necessary corrections that will help to save time.
style-checkers: look at irregular sentence aspects such as length of sentence, punctuation and/or other stylistic features)
glossaries: are usually custom-built by a translator or a client; lists of terms belonging to a specific subject field with or without definitions.
All of the above features are also incorporated in the present SDL Trados Studio 2009 and are generally referred to as QUALITY ASSURANCE (QA).
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Reflection #1: Which of the tools above do you think is most important? Justify your answer.
Quality Assurance (QA)
SDL Trados Studio 2009 provides functionality to check translations for potential problems such as number and punctuation errors. The QA check can work in two ways:
- In real-time, i.e. when a translation is confirmed, the target segment is instantly checked for a number of specified QA criteria.
- In batch mode, i.e. a QA check is performed on the whole document after translation.