A reliable translation memory system (TM) speeds up the process of converting multiple documents into another language. Once you start translating multiple pieces into the same language, you often find portions of text will be the same or very similar across all of them. You’ll also find yourself using a lot of the same words and phrases related to your topic or industry.
To save your translators repeating the same work over and over again, we use variants of translation memory system to cut out the repetition and speed up the workflow and cut the cost of your project.
So what makes a good translation memory system?
Industry leading translation memory system
The first thing you need for a good translation memory system is industry leading software. Here at translate plus, we use our own i plus platform, which automatically breaks your translations into individual sentences and stores them in a database. As soon as i plus detects any repetition in your future translations, it will pull out the relevant translations and place them in your new document.
As your translation memory database grows, the more it will speed up future projects and the more you save.
The same thing goes for repeated industry terms and phrases. These are automatically pulled out of your database and placed in your documents, saving translators from repeating previous tasks.
Human intervention
No matter how much repetition occurs across your documents, a translation memory system won’t get you all the way. You still need language experts to handle the content your database has never seen before. It’s not simply a case of filling in the gaps of your database though.
The same words and sentences repeated in a different context can result in a different meaning. It’s never safe to assume previous translations will be accurate in future cases and your language experts are there to make sure translation memory never impacts the quality of your translations.
Proving the value of translation memory
It’s easy for us to tell you how much time and money a decent translation memory system can save you, but this doesn’t prove anything. Like any other technology you invest in, a good translation memory system needs to prove its value – otherwise you’re simply paying for it and hoping for the best.
The good news is, proving the effectiveness of machine translation is fairly straightforward. We clearly state the overall translation cost and machine translation savings on every quotation, so you can see the difference in plain numbers.
The value in using a memory translation system isn’t purely financial, though. Aside from speeding up project turnaround and lowering cost, it also helps you maintain brand consistency. When you have a collection of documents to translate over a long period of time it can be challenging to keep the same tone and voice throughout.
A translation memory system maintains this consistency while your language pros provide the flexibility when it’s needed.
If you need any more information on translation memory or the rest of our language services, get in touch with our team of experts today.