by Paul Kußmaul
This work is a textbook for students of translation studies. It stands out from the crowd because of the way it's written: it's clear and practical, and doesn't get overly abstract when it addresses theoretical aspects of cognition and semantics. The author taught translators at the University of Mainz in Germersheim, Germany, for many years and often draws on what he experienced in his classes, introducing questions the students had and explaining how they tackled linguistic problems encountered during translation exercises.
The book is divided into eight chapters and spans 230 pages in its third, revised edition (from 2015). The first edition of it appeared in 2007, so it seems to be popular (and justifiably so in my opinion). Each chapter is followed by a short section with exercises to practise what has just been covered in the book, and some suggested answers can be found at the back, which is handy.
I like the variety of topics in this book. Initially, the author discusses lexical "false friends", ambiguity and knowing which word or meaning to pick in a dictionary (is a brush a "Pinsel" or a "Bürste" in German?). He looks at semantic prototypes and "framing" (1.5) in connection with mental images of words and situations to be translated and then covers words that are "hard to translate" (1.7).
Some of the examples he picks are taken from questionnaires in English that were translated for mass surveys in various European countries (ISSP surveys). These often contain references to culture-specific terms, such as "National Insurance Contributions", but even words like "local" or "government" (p. 88) can turn out to be tricky to translate and call for careful reflection (pp. 37, 38). One of the key points Kußmaul makes is that words don't live in isolation, but in a specific cultural setting (2.1), which a translator also needs to bear in mind.
Here are a few more points he covers: how close should a translation be? (chap. 3), the need to differentiate (3.3), how to go about researching a term or subject (4.1), linguistic v encyclopaedic knowledge, expanding your vocabulary by learning new meanings of existing words, going beyond dictionaries when their entries fail to help (4.2), referring to online resources (IATE, Wikipedia, Google, etc.) and analysing texts properly to deduce the right meaning of a word in its context (dictionaries don't always offer the right answer!).
In the second half of the textbook, the author looks at cognitive translation processes (chap. 5), creativity in translation (6), visualising and scenes (7), and problem-solving as a translator, along with various practical strategies and techniques (8) translators can use.
In a nutshell, then, "Verstehen und Übersetzen" is a useful, hands-on textbook that is well worth reading. And astonishingly for a German textbook, it's actually easy to follow.
Link to the e-book on the publisher's website (Narr Verlag). You can also order a printed copy of the book online or from any bookshop.
Best,
Carl
Thursday, 3 February 2022
]]>Yes, you guessed it - I'm on about manuscripts this time. Here are a few links to glossaries on the Web and in print that I've found useful in my own editing and translation work about codicology:
I'll be adding more links as time goes on. Please let me know of any helpful ones you are familiar with so I can take a look at them and possibly share them here.
One printed work in German that is related and deserves a mention here is "Buchmalerei. Terminologie in der Kunstgeschichte" by Christine Jakobi-Mirwald, particularly Chap. 12, which is a 27-page mini-dictionary of German terms in English, French and Italian.
Another notable dictionary that is in English is Peter Beal's "A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology, 1450-2000", published by OUP. This printed work is pricey, but there's a Kindle version of it (an e-book) that's good value and handy when working on a computer or tablet. Beal's dictionary is a comprehensive one with clear definitions for all the entries.
For more links to glossaries and academic articles on manuscript terminology, check out Dagmar Riedel's blog post here.
Hope you find these tips helpful.
Regards
Carl
(A page of a 15th-century manuscript showing Vincent of Beauvais, the author, working on it.)
(Wikipedia Commons, public domain)
If you haven't had the foresight to save the installation file beforehand, don't worry – all is not lost! All you need to do is go to a page on the memoQ website and download the right installation file from there – it's https://www.memoq.com/en/downloads.
The versions of memoQ you can currently find here go back all the way from the newest one to memoQ translator pro 4.2, which was released several years ago.
Download the file, save it to your desktop (for example) and double-click on it to install it over the existing installation. The next time you launch memoQ, this earlier version will be used automatically.
And that's all there is to it!
Best,
Carl
]]>The procedure you need to do this is simple enough:
First of all, call up the Command Prompt ('Eingabeaufforderung' in German) as the administrator:
In Windows 10, move the mouse cursor over to the Start button in the taskbar (it's a window symbol), right-click your mouse and select the correct prompt from the list that then appears (there are two prompts, one of which is for the system administrator. Select that one). Instructions for various other Windows systems are provided here.
Second, scan your Windows system by typing this command in the black prompt window that appears:
sfc /scannow
(Write it exactly that way with a space after 'sfc'.)
The letters 'sfc' stand for System File Checker.
Windows' system files, which are protected, will then be scanned internally to see if they are as they ought to be (i.e. SFC will run a file integrity check). This can take a while, depending on how many files there are, what faults get discovered in the system and how long each repair takes (it usually takes around 10 to 15 minutes).
You'll see the progress that SFC is making as a percentage and will also be able to see if any files are found that really are corrupt, in which case SFC will repair them. The prompt will also tell you when the check has finished.
Carl
Recommended reading
How to Use SFC /Scannow to Repair System Files by Tim Fisher (Oct. 2017)
How to speed up your Windows 10 PC
]]>
Software-maker Kilgray has just released a new version of memoQ 8 that is likely to be something of a landmark development. Although memoQ has been able to import non-scanned PDF files for translation for some time, this was not a particularly strong feature up till now. Version 8.1 changes that, however, as it comes with the ability to link up to Iceni's TransPDF servers to convert PDF files and produce translatable, formatted texts that have been extracted from the source files. PDF files get converted into XLIFF format and can then be imported into memoQ by adding them to a project via a new tab called "TransPDF import/export".
For more information on the steps involved, read Peter Reynolds' post on this feature (Peter works for Kilgray) and then watch this short video about it on YouTube.
To take advantage of Iceni's software, you will need to set up a user account with them first. A trial account is for free. After that, you will need to buy some "credits" off them to be able to use the OCR feature on scanned PDFs and get a PDF file as your target format after translating it.
According to Iceni, their PDF-conversion system supports a wide range of file types, including those from CAT tools like memoQ, Memsource and Déjà Vu. (Memsource has actually already "incorporated" TransPDF the way memoQ 8.1 has.) Rather than having to convert your files on Iceni's website and then import them into your CAT tool, you can now do this through memoQ, which is obviously more convenient.
It's helpful to know that Iceni converts source PDFs into a file with a text-based format for free, so you can translate the resulting file and then send it to your customer for them to check or modify and then export it as PDF themselves, which is really the usual procedure. That way, they will have a copy of the translation in a format they can work with easily; if you were to send them a translated PDF, on the other hand (which Iceni would charge you for producing), then they would essentially be getting a final version off you and could only work with it by using PDF editing software such as Adobe Acrobat or ABBYY PDF Transformer.
If you haven't heard of Iceni's PDF conversion before, why not try it out and see how well it does the job on a typical PDF file of your own? It's an alternative to using an OCR application like ABBYY FineReader and can be used regardless of whether or not you have memoQ.
Regards
Carl
images: memoQ © Kilgray, TransPDF © Iceni
]]>
What didn't I like about Studio 2017?
- It's not very easy to export a TM to TMX format (which is a common file format for exchanging TM data between different programs). You can get around this limitation by installing a special add-on for exactly this purpose or by checking a settings box that allows you to export the TM in 'a Trados 2007-compatible format' (i.e. TMX!).
- Some features that are a standard part of memoQ translator pro are not included in Studio 2017; if you want them, you need to install an add-on from SDL AppStore first. MemoQ lets you import terms from a CSV file, for example, and you can look up tricky terms on the web straight from the translation grid. Not so with Studio (yet, at least):
- The trial version includes a small number of pre-installed apps, but you can't install any extra ones of your own choice (like the Glossary Converter), meaning you can't see what they do or how well they work. (That was disappointing since there were a number of apps from SDL AppStore that I wanted to try out, too.)
- The Studio 2017 software package is considerably bigger than memoQ translator pro's in terms of hard-disk space and takes longer to launch as well.
- Studio 2017 won't run on Windows 8.0, Windows Vista or Windows XP; it will only run on the latest versions of Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. So some versions of Windows are fine, others aren't. Woe you've got the wrong one on your PC!
- Studio 2017 also has issues with certain web browsers and versions of Microsoft Office.
Please read the Release Notes carefully to see if your PC meets Studio's requirements before you install it.
In sum, I enjoyed using the trial version of the program, which in my opinion is the best one I've worked with so far. However, my experience as a user would have been even better if all of Studio's functionality had been available. Since trial versions of programs are intended to persuade potential new users to buy the package, it doesn't make sense to offer them a restricted-feature version that will hamper their productivity rather than boost it. Apart from that, having worked with CAT tools for a good few years now, I found Studio 2017 relatively straightforward to use – many of them now work in a similar way. What I wasn't able to see instantly, however, was what clear advantages the tool has over other sophisticated packages like memoQ.
If you are interested in getting a licence for SDL Trados Studio 2017, I recommend you to take a look at the group buys that frequently take place on Proz.com as you can save a lot of money that way. SDL also runs several promotions a year itself. If you are a member of a translators' association, that may have made a special arrangement with SDL to allow its members to buy the software at a reduced rate. So there are various options you can benefit from.
Regards,
Carl
Related articles elsewhere on the internet
- Product review by Andrea Luciano Damico
- FAQs about Studio 2017 on SDL's own website
- Emma Goldsmith's blog post on fragment recall in Studio 2017, a new feature in Studio to improve automatic assembly of target sentences
- Order a free trial of Studio 2017 from SDL
Dieses vielversprechende Buch erscheint demnächst beim BDÜ Fachverlag. Hier eine kurze Beschreibung dazu:
"Best Practices sind bewährte Verfahrensweisen, d. h. Methoden, Prozesse, Arbeitsweisen und Modelle, die sich in der Praxis bewährt haben und von einem Großteil der Praktiker angewendet und unterstützt werden. Das Werk wendet sich an alle, die mit den Dienstleistungen Übersetzen und Dolmetschen befasst sind, sei es als Ausführende (Übersetzer, Dolmetscher), als Vermittler (Agenturen) oder als Auftraggeber (Unternehmen, Behörden, Institutionen). Die Best Practices legen die Standards der Branche zu Vorgehensweisen beim Übersetzen und Dolmetschen dar. Mehr als 40 Autoren aus der Praxis geben ihr Expertenwissen weiter.
Bis 31.12.2016 gibt es das Werk zum günstigen Subskriptionspreis.
Für BDÜ-Mitglieder gilt bis Jahresende ein einmaliger Sonderpreis."
(Diese Angaben zum Buch sind zuerst am 21.12.2016 auf XING erschienen. Ich gebe sie hier nur wieder. Das Werk klingt, als würde es eine sehr nützliche Informationsquelle für Übersetzer und Dolmetscher sein. Auf der Bestellseite vom BDÜ Fachverlag findet man eine PDF des Inhaltsverzeichnisses als "Leseprobe" zum Reinschnuppern ...)
Frohe Feiertage! Carl
P.S.: Mehr über die Inhalte des Buches erfahren Sie in der Februar-Ausgabe der Fachzeitschrift MDÜ. Einige Aspekte werden darin einen Themenschwerpunkt bilden.
PDFs can either be created from other electronic file formats such as Word .docx files or they can be generated by a scanner. Depending on what settings have been made in the software, the PDF files that are created may or may not be searchable. If they are, then individual words can be found in them thanks to a processing step called optical character recognition, or OCR for short. It's usually quite easy to create an editable Word file thanks to this kind of data processing; in Adobe Acrobat XI, for example, you just select these items in the 'File' menu to export the contents into a new Word document:
The 'tough nuts', in contrast, are the scanned images of paper documents we sometimes get sent, as it can take a lot of time and effort to create a reasonable editable text from these that can then be typed over and translated. To do this, you will need to use OCR software on the file in question to try and turn the image of the document into a set of legible and hopefully correctly rendered words. Sometimes this can work well, especially if you use high-quality programs such as Acrobat, ABBYY Finereader or Nuance OmniPage, which come with powerful character-recognition software. But things don't always go to plan, and the results of OCR'ing a scanned image can also be very disappointing, requiring copious editing – or even a completely different approach to creating a translatable file.
This is the situation you may also find yourself in if you ever get sent a PDF file that has been protected (i.e. 'secured') in some way – by a password, for example, meaning you can only open it or add comments to it if you enter the password first (providing you are authorised to do so). If you don't have the password, you won't be given the full right to use and process the file. This also means you won't be able to copy its contents and paste them into a blank Word file for translation. And what then?
Asking the customer for the password may be the obvious answer here, but if they don't have it themselves and are unable (or unwilling) to get it, what else should you do? Well, there are various suggestions about this on the internet, some of which I've tried out, but have you ever thought of using a simple work-around with a printer? That may be a faster and simpler way of getting round the password-protection issue.
If you are able to print the file out (this may not be allowed, depending on what properties the PDF has been given – see the screen shot below on how to access these in Adobe Acrobat XI), then do so using the best resolution and clearest print you can. Scan the printout and create a brand-new, multi-page PDF from it yourself. Most types of scanner software will let you do this, including the three I've just mentioned.
When the scanner creates the new PDF file, get it to make the file searchable when you check or adjust the settings beforehand; it will then OCR it (don't forget to tell it which language it should recognise first, though). Once you've got the file, check it to see if the quality of the text is okay, and if it is, export the contents into a new Word file. Now you should find you have a Word document that is straightforward to translate. A little editing may be necessary, but not much (utilities like CodeZapper and TransTools Suite will help you tidy the file up if need be).
Thanks to my German colleague Ludger Giebel for mentioning this idea.
Carl
Related links
- My earlier post on converting PDFs into a translation-friendly format using Wordfast Anywhere
- My earlier post on Acrobat XI and Acrobat Reader
- Kilgray, the maker of memoQ, on converting PDFs using various tools, including their own CAT tool
- Eric le Carre on translating PDFs using various free tools
Many translators probably don't even consider using a different font to display text in their CAT tool, but it may well be worth your while to try a few other fonts out from time to time. You may even want to change which font you use in the course of a day as your eyes get tired.
I find that sans serif fonts are particularly easy to read on screen. These include popular fonts such as Calibri and Arial. MemoQ allows you to select a different font from a drop-down list and pick a different size as well. To do this in memoQ 2014, you need to call up the 'Options' menu from 'Tools' in the main menu ...
... and then select the item called 'Appearance' in 'Category'. The dialogue below will then be shown.
To pick a different font, go to the 'Editor fonts' section in the top half and pick a font from 'Font family and size' (click on the downward arrow in the font box to open a drop-down menu listing all the fonts available on your computer). Separate font families are listed for Asian languages like Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
Apart from adjusting the font you'll see in the translation grid, this dialogue box also lets you switch the colour of the text – to do this, move down to 'Editor colors' and click on the box to the right of 'Text color'.
After making your new settings, activate them by clicking on 'Apply' or 'OK'. For some specific help on the options available here, just click on the 'Help' button on the far right.
To call up the 'Options' menu in memoQ 2015, go to the dark-blue 'MemoQ' tab at the top left of the screen, click on it and then move down to 'Options' near the bottom of the list, which will display various items. Pick the 'Options' item (the three cogs) to access the settings in the dialogue.
More details are available in the help documentation or on Kilgray's website.
Regards
Carl
Related links
Paul Filken's blog post on making similar adjustments via the 'View' menu in SDL Trados Studio 2014
In the latest e-mail newsletter sent out to members, one of the points mentioned is what the BDÜ has actually started doing for these needy people now, many of whom are from Syria and other war-torn countries like Eritrea and are applying for long-term residence permits without being able to speak a word of German: it has set up a special page on its national website listing numerous links to language resources of potential use to refugees and their helpers in Germany. Some of these resources are also intended for government authorities to help them interact with refugees and obtain the information they require to deal with applications, for example. So in short, the BDÜ sees its main role as acting as a linguistic and cultural consultant for these three groups of people.
The list of links has been arranged in appropriate categories such as 'General information about life in Germany', 'Learning German', 'Teaching German as a second language' and 'Help for refugees'. The last category includes areas such as interpreters' training on asylum issues and news for refugees in their own languages, as you can see below:
Some of the material listed is available in other languages than German, fortunately. Klett Verlag has produced a refugee guide on living in Germany, which is in English, Arabic and French as well as German, which is a good start in my opinion.
Apart from publishing this list of useful information for the various groups concerned, the BDÜ is also calling on its members to contribute to the Refugee Phrasebook, which is an ongoing project in which a practical phrasebook to help users with basic phrases and terms in German is being compiled with translations in various languages. Words associated with seeing a doctor or being in hospital in Germany are listed here with equivalents in 28 languages, apparently. A juridical phrasebook has just been started on this website as well, which lawyers are contributing to on a voluntary basis.
I wonder what supportive action is being taken by translators' and interpreters' associations in other EU countries affected by the current wave of immigration. What is happening in Greece, Italy and Sweden, for example? What does the umbrella organisation known as FIT have in mind, if anything? If you know of any similar projects outside Germany, please let me know about them.
Regards,
Carl
Related topics
Images: logo © BDÜ, screen shot taken from the BDÜ's resources page, 'Hilfe für Flüchtlinge'.
Nähere Infos zur Anmeldung finden Sie in meinem letzten Beitrag sowie auf der Verbandswebsite.
Zum Glück gibt es aber zahlreiche andere Seminare als Alternative dazu, u.a. vom BDÜ e.V., wie etwa ein Workshop für Existenzgründer am Freitag, 20. November 2015 in Köln oder die Veranstaltung "Existenzgründung für Übersetzer und Dolmetscher" am selben Tag in Karlsruhe. Schauen Sie ruhig das Angebot in Ihrer Nähe und benachbarten Bundesländern an.
Viele Grüße
Carl
Vorkenntnisse sind nicht notwendig.
Referentin: Dr. Thea Döhler, Trainerin und Beraterin für Sprachmittler und deren Berufsverbände.
Teilnahmebeitrag für das zweitägige Seminar (einschließlich 1 Mittagessen sowie Pausenverpflegung und Seminarunterlagen):
Mitglieder: 150 Euro
Nichtmitglieder: 190 Euro
zuzüglich 19 % Mehrwertsteuer.
Frühbucherrabatt (€ 10,-) verlängert bis 27. Oktober 2015! Die Anmeldung läuft schon.
Für weitere Infos und die Möglichkeit, sich online anzumelden, siehe hier.
.......
Weitere Infos zum Thema Berufseinstieg vom Verband ADÜ Nord: http://www.adue-nord.de/leistungen/berufseinstieg/
Einsteigerstammtisch der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer in Hamburg am 29. Oktober 2015 ab 19:30 Uhr im Abaton-Bistro im Grindelhof, Grindelallee 14a, 20146 Hamburg.
Übrigens, der Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer e.V. (kurz: BDÜ) hat neuen Übersetzern und Dolmetschern ähnlich viel zu bieten. Zum Thema "Wie wird man Übersetzer oder Dolmetscher?", zum Beispiel, siehe die Informationen auf dieser Seite.
Für BDÜ-Seminare und Webinare, siehe hier. Unter anderem ist das Seminar "Was Sie schon immer über Existenzgründung wissen wollten" am 3. November in Saarbrücken für Einsteiger höchst relevant.
Viele Grüße
Carl
................
Nachtrag am 6. November: Soeben hat der BDÜ eine neu überarbeitete und erweiterte Ausgabe des Buches "Erfolgreich selbstständig als Dolmetscher und Übersetzer" herausgegeben. "[A]uch erfahrene Kollegen können mithilfe dieses Bandes aus dem BDÜ Fachverlag ihr eigenes Geschäftsmodell auf den Prüfstand stellen und Antworten zu Versicherungsfragen oder Kalkulationsmodellen finden", heißt es. Das Werk kostet ca. € 22 und ist hier erhältlich. ISBN: 9783938430606.
Bilder: Logos © ADÜ Nord e.V., BDÜ e.V.
Here are some of the topics that are going to be discussed according to Proz:
View the full programme here, after which you can click here to register as an attendee. (It's free!)
N.B. If you attend at least one live event, this will give you free access to recordings after the event, which you can watch any time for a period of at least 90 days.
For events concerning CAT tools on 29 September, see the special programme here. This will include the following talks:
I'm sure you'll find something worthwhile as the topics are very varied. There are also quite a lot of pre-recorded webinars to accompany the two-day event that you can watch on demand, i.e. whenever it suits you.
Regards,
Carl
Related links
FIT (the International Federation of Translators) on International Translation Day
The British Library's day-long programme of events on translation in London on 2 October ("An opportunity for translators, students, publishers, booksellers, librarians, bloggers and reviewers to gather and debate")
Topic-related sites