Work process

Work process

Have you ever asked yourself what the work process at your translator is like? Even in the age of state-of-the-art technical equipment and artificial intelligence, a “miracle software” providing ready-to-use translations of complex technical texts at the push of a button is nowhere in sight. It is true, though, that translations of such texts in the quality and speed expected by the market (and with the consistency required for the translation of related documents) can only be achieved with the support of so-called computer-aided translation – CAT. The key element in this respect are so-called translation memories (TM) – databases, in which in each case a text segment from the source language is saved together with the corresponding translation. Then, when a new text is translated, the TM software examines for each text segment whether one or more segments already exist in the database that meet a pre-defined level of similarity with the text segment currently to be translated. If this the case, the TM software suggests these matches, enabling the translator to decide whether or which one he or she wishes to use. Besides, the database may be searched for technical terms and firmly defined translations can be determined for certain words or groups of words.

Against this background, it becomes clear why it is relevant, whether “your” translator has already repeatedly translated texts similar to your current one in the past: only if this is the case he or she will be able to also translate extensive documents in high quality in a short time.

The translators at HK Translations use the acknowledged TM systems SDL Trados and memoQ. In the 10 years since the foundation of the company, approx. 2,000 documents from the areas of law, business & finance were translated with these tools; the TM databases of HK Translations include approx. 250,000 pairs of text segments.

The translators working for HK Translations use: