TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
It is not clear to me why you got Trados training or even own Trados.
Normally, Trados is a tool used by translators, not people who are merely
managing a translation process. I'm not clear on what you would use it for
in your situation. If the help had been translated once before into Italian
without the use of any CAT (Computer Aided Translation) tool like Trados,
then maybe you could use the Alignment tool in Trados to create an
English-Italian translation memory. (Although doing an alignment is also
something normally done by a translator.) But that doesn't apply in your
case. Maybe Trados has some capability that I don't know about that would
give it a genuine use for you.
As far as managing the translation memories, there's so little to it, I
don't think it can even be called "managing". You simply include the
translation memory as an additional deliverable due from the translators
when they deliver the final Italian documents. Then you save the translation
memory files until your English help has changed enough to need
retranslating into Italian. You will send the translation memories, along
with the latest English, to the translator who should give you a deep
discount on the sentences that were already translated.
I do recommend that you insist that the translation memory be delivered not
just in native Trados format, but in TMX format as well. The latter format
can be opened and used in all the major CATs, so when you next go shopping
for a translator, you are not limited to those that own Trados.
>My company has completed an Italian translation of our product and I'm
>responsible for managing and maintaining the translation of our online help
>and training. I was wondering if some more experienced people out there
>could offer some advice, web pointers, books, etc. on managing the
>translation process, including translation memories.
>
>I've received training on Trados and will be meeting with my group to
>discuss how to organize files, including help and training files and the
>translation memories for future translations. We're expected to produce a
>new Italian version of our product about 4 weeks after the American release
>goes out this fall and a Spanish version of our product is planned for
early
>2002.
>
>I'm trying to make the process go as smoothly as possible in addition to my
>other duties of continuing to update the online help file for our product.
A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
+++ Miramo -- Database/XML publishing automation. See us at +++
+++ Seybold SFO, Sept. 25-27, in the Adobe Partners Pavilion +++
+++ More info: http://www.axialinfo.comhttp://www.miramo.com +++
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
