When Getting a Translation Proposal, Look at the Word, Not the Character
The best advice for those who purchase translation services is to choose translation companies that can quote/quote you based on WORDS and share/share text analysis information with you rather than translation companies that quote you in units such as characters, lines, pages, etc.
Daktilonun keşfiyle beraber yazı birimlerinde bir sarsıntı yaşanmıştır sanırım. Oldukça muğlak sayfa tanımı yerini satır, vuruş ya da bir buçuk satır aralıklı sayfa gibi daha nesnel birimlere bırakmış olsa gerek. Pek çok kalem erbabının beyhude serzenişleri, daktilo kullanıcıları tarafından yavaş da olsa büyük bir tazyikle bastırılmıştır tahminimizce. Her şeyin bir sonu olduğu gibi daktilo döneminin de bir sonu vardı ve bendeniz ve 60’lı yıllarda dünyaya gelen dostlarım daktilo döneminin sonunu görebildik.
The writing era (mi) that started with memory typewriters has stunned even computer scientists and explorers in just a few months with the lightning-fast introduction of computers and word processing programs into our lives.
Developments in the World of Translators over the Years
Towards the end of the 80s, I bought an Olympia typewriter with a floppy disk for the organization I worked for; copy and paste tens of pages of letter of credit texts, correct the dates and numbers and print them on paper, or even on telex yellow tape; done and done. "What is telex?" I can almost hear you ask; unfortunately, those who were born before 1970 missed out on many of the first masterpieces of technology.
A few years hadn't passed when Olivetti "memory typewriters" with tube screens came into the world, where we could see a whole page instead of a single line. Perhaps they had come to the world much earlier, but it was only in the 80s that these blessings arrived in offices in Turkey.
Template texts could now be edited and corrected on the screen without spending much paper and typewriters. The unit of writing was still the number of lines or the typewriter page. The introduction of the computer into our homes and offices was not long in coming, and the capabilities of word processors quickly fascinated all writing professionals, but most of all translators. It seemed that translation work would be much easier in this setup.
The second writing revolution (mi), which began with memory typewriters, was followed by the lightning-fast introduction of computers and word processing programs into our lives, which baffled even computer scientists and inventors. The third writing revolution was hailed with thunderous thunder. On the rare occasions when source texts that needed to be translated came in the form of files that could be overwritten, translators would read the source text, write the target text over the source text and then translate it. This was a great convenience for them.
Most translators who did not have this luxury were in danger of external obfuscation; they would look at the printed source text and translate it on the screen, cutting, copying and pasting it to fit the target sentences. There was usually a ruler on the source text, so that they knew where they were. For a while, there were even tools on the market that were used to hold the leaves upright and also had a sliding ruler; even these were important technological conveniences for translators.
Translation Processes with the Widespread Use of Computers
With the use of computers, the number of characters became a new and more objective unit; the number of lines could be very misleading, especially for measuring the length of source text with tables and illustrations. New text units such as one thousand four hundred characters is a page, or one thousand two hundred characters is a page, or one thousand characters without spaces is a page, etc. have emerged, and I think the definition of a unit such as "one thousand characters without spaces is a page" has become common. But there was still a debate about whether this counting should be done by estimation from the source text or by the character count of the target text, which could be finalized after the work was done.
Fortunately, it was not long before software specifically designed for translation appeared on the market. Programs that remembered human translations, stored them in their memory, translated them spontaneously when the same or similar sentences came up, or offered suggestions, and did so always in the same way and without skipping a beat, made it possible to translate texts, especially those full of repetitions, consistently and quickly.
It was worth the effort and time spent to import the source texts into the program because the similarities in the program's memory easily extracted only the texts encountered for the first time in thousands of pages of texts and presented both the source and target sentences or words in small snippets on the same screen in front of the translator. Days and hours spent on translation and proofreading turned into miraculous minutes and even seconds.
The basic working principle of this Computer Assisted Translation software was that it could detect the similarity of sentences or phrases called "segments", analyze them word by word, and generate the target text that was identical to the translations that had been done before, without any additional effort. The translator was only translating "new words" that needed to be translated for the first time, words that did not have a match in memory. He was no longer confused about his old translations, wondering "what did I say to this word or sentence before, how did I translate it?".
For example, "John went to school by his bicycle." When the sentence was translated once and then 10 pages later, this specially designed software (CAT - Computer Aided Translation) would show the translator that this segment had been translated before, that it had seven words in its memory that matched one hundred percent, and the translator would continue his work by pressing only one key or combination of keys. If this sentence appeared 100 times in the text, the translator was saved from having to translate 700 words, typing them over and over again, and making mistakes while typing.
Introducing New Technologies to Interpreting Service Providers
The translator had saved a lot of time and had to share it with the client, because the client, who is aware of this software, does not want to spend time or money on words that are repetitive, very similar to each other, or that he knows exist in the program memory thanks to previous translations, and he is right.
The basic way of working in translation software is based on segment-level word-based analysis, so character, line and page units should have been on the shelf. What about clients who are not aware of this technology? What about the clients who are not aware of the matching rates of the texts in the text they send for translation with previous translations? They were left to the conscience of the translation providers.
Today, translation buyers are no longer dependent on translation providers who take advantage of their clients' lack of familiarity with translation-related technologies, or who themselves are not technologically savvy or conscientiously competent. At least the translation service buyers who are reading this article or who have met Mirora Translation Ltd. are able to see the value of the service they receive with the expert support and professional translation principles.
Mete Özel
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