Machine aided human translation

[Jennifer O Neill <writer -at- ARITECH -dot- COM>]

I now realise that I used the wrong term in my search to help our
sales offices with their translation problems. I should have used
machine-aided human translation and not machine translation.

My company's working language is English but not everyone in the
different national offices knows English so our sales offices are
keen to find some way to translate memos and short paragraphs.
We would go broke if we had to send everything, no matter how
short, to a professional translator. Most of these items are internal
documents so are never seen by customers. Large documents are
indeed sent to translation agencies (our manuals are written with
localisation in mind). Our German sales office are now excited by a
product produced by IBM and a German company called "Personal
Translator" which helps them translate their memos. I've seen the
results and the English needed a lot of cleaning but I at least was
able to get an idea of what was being discussed in the memo (2
paragraphs) without knowing German. Using this software they can
now get an initial crude translation from English to German which
then they must clean but they save time as they no longer have to
translate from zero. We're talking memos here, not manuals. I have
learnt that there is also a software package for translating
Italian/English called Petra Personal Translator, also by IBM and
an Italian company. Has anybody used it? What I need to know is
whether there are other similar products on the market and what
they are like. Is there a French/English translation aide available
for small translations?

Cheers,

Jennifer


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