Translation memory and machine translation: MetaTexis

Translation memory and machine translation: MetaTexis

Now that an SDL-Trados version which supports MT (for limited file pairs) is due to be released anytime soon, I think it is worth remembering that there are applications which have had MT capabilities for years now.

One of them is MetaTexis. It gives you the option to choose between two online machine translation engines or you can use an application installed locally. The range of pairs is as big as those online engines (see the table below for an example).

So how does one use machine translation with MetaTexis?

❶ Click Alt+Shift+O to display the Document options dialog. Go to Machine Translation tab.
❷ Click on Google via internet. Click Set selected server active/inactive. Active should be displayed below the Status header.
❸ In Activity section select Translate every segment.
❹ In Results section, uncheck Show results in Scout and check Show in main translation box if empty.
❺ Click OK. Translate as you normally do.

Now you will see your translation units being automatically translated. You can edit them and commit them to the translation memory as you normally do with a translation memory match.

In the example below, you can see some text translated with MetaTexis and Google machine translation engine which I pasted from Jost Zetzsche's latest Tool Kit.





Originally published at translatum: Translation memory and machine translation: MetaTexis (a case study)

Automatically replace in MetaTexis the English question mark with the Greek one

MetaTexis has this amazing feature whereby one can run any macro when a translation unit is activated or when it closes. The following is an implementation to replace the English question mark in MetaTexis with the Greek question mark following a question to the developer.

1) Add the following Macro (in blue) to the macros in Normal.dot:
a) Press Alt+F8 in Word
b) Select Normal.dot in Macros in. Click on one of the existing macros.
c) Click Edit.
d) Paste the macro below an End Sub statement.
e) Close the window (it will be saved automatically).


Sub Greekquestionmark_En-El()
If Selection.End <= Selection.Start Then
Exit Sub
End If
With Selection.Find
.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
.Text = "?"
.Replacement.Text = ";"
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindStop
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With

End Sub

2) In MetaTexis General Options tick the check box Run these command before closing a TU, and click the button Add.

3) In the dialog shown, select the option Macro and click the button Select.

4) In the dialog shown, search for the macro Greekquestionmark_En-El and select it.

5) Close all dialogs by clicking OK buttons.

Then the macro you added will be executed when you close a translation unit (TU). This saves you from changing the English question mark to a Greek one. If you are working on a Greek text and you want the opposite, namely convert Greek question mark to English one, then use this modified macro:

Sub Greekquestionmark_El-En()
If Selection.End <= Selection.Start Then
Exit Sub
End If
With Selection.Find
.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
.Text = ";"
.Replacement.Text = "?"
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindStop
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With

End Sub

How can you do this in other CAT tools?

Trados

Pretranslate the document checking Segment unknown sentences. And then run find/replace. Only the target text will be replaced. The disadvantage with pretranslated text is that fuzzy matches will not be inserted automatically and you will have to use the Get translation button (or if you have Trados 7, Alt+Shift+Insert). See also Keyboard shortcut for Get Translation in Trados Workbench & TagEditor

Déjà Vu

Simply find/replace in target text once you pretranslated the document and replaced unknown target segments with source segments.

MetaTexis workflow - modified

This is a modified workflow than the one suggested by the developer including information on disabling other CAT tools to avoid conflicts, shortcut optimization and export of files, TMs and terminology databases.


1. Launch Word. If you have Trados or Wordfast disable them. Go to Tools | Templates and Add-ins and uncheck Trados6.dot, MultitermIX.dot, Wordfast.dot. (if they exist). If you have a different Trados or Multiterm version their names will differ accordingly. This means that they will be disabled for the current Word session.

2. Open file with Word. For html files use Alt+O. For Excel and PowerPoint use MetaTexis | Microsoft Office | Import Excel file or Import PowerPoint file.

3. Launch start assistant either by pressing Alt+Shift+S or Alt+Down.

4. At step 2 choose source and target language.

5. At step 3 create or select a translation memory (TM – extension .mxa).

6. At step 4 create or select a terminology database (TDB – extension .mxt). TMs and TDBs are saved by default in these folders, but I advise you to save your dbs in the same folder (or subfolder) as each translation project (for easy transfer of dbs and files to other machines).

7. At step 5 enter personal data of the translator.

8. At step 6 you decide which action you want executed. Click Finished.

At this point you may select to pretranslate the document if you already have a TM with similar material.

9. Press Alt+Down to open a TU and translate. If you have a fuzzy match, place the cursor in the TU, edit it, press Alt+Shift+Enter to set it or click on the toolbar, and then press Alt+Down to move to next unit.
To ease the workflow do this: assign to Alt+Down the function Select translation and open next TU. To do this: Go to the General options, select the Shortcuts tab, click button Default, then click OK. The command Select translation and open next TU should now have a shortcut. To change the shortcut, just double click the item in the shortcut list. In order to simply move to the next unit without closing you could assign the shortcut Open next TU to Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Down; in effect this is a reversal of the two shortcuts and their respective functions.

10. If you want to move to the previous unit press Alt+Up.

11. Each time an un-translated segment is opened, the TM and the TDB will be searched automatically (by default).

12. If you want to search the TM: select source term and click Alt+Ctrl+T,or select target term and click Alt+Ctrl+Shift+T.

13. If you want to search the TDB: select source term and click Alt+Ctrl+G,or select target term and click Alt+Ctrl+Shift+G.

14. If you want to add a term to the TDB press Alt+Shift+N or select source word, press Alt+Shift+J, then select target word, press Alt+Ctrl+Shift+J, a dialog appears with these words, click Enter and they are saved.

15. If you have made manual edits to the document (without opening TUs) click Alt+Ctrl+Shift+F to save all TUs in main database or when you clean up check the Update Memory box (normally checked by default).

16. When you are finished click Alt+Ctrl+Shift+F to clean the document. (If you want to create a Trados version click on the Trados checkbox.) A clean document is created with the string “[Final Version]” added to the filename.

17. Rename the file to something more appropriate (i.e. “…_el.doc”) and deliver it to the client. If the they want Trados files deliver those as well. If they want the TM, go to MetaTexis, Import/Export, Import/Export TMs, select TMX, select TMX version 1.4 and export. This TM can be easily imported to any CAT tool.