Embarking on a Trados project is akin to navigating a multifaceted landscape, with each step demanding a unique set of skills and strategies. Here, I’m excited to share my journey of mastering the entire workflow of a Trados project – from the initial stages of preparation to the final polished output. Join me as I delve into the intricacies, challenges, and triumphs that come with proficiency in Trados project management.
Pre-translation
- Meet With Clients
It’s important to know clients’ expectations, goals, and specific requirements. During the kick-off meeting, we would first figure out whether the client has specific style guide, terminology base and translation memory. Then, we would like to figure out the target audience, expectations regarding tone, style or some specific terminology preferences, deadlines and delivery formats in detail.
- Make a Proposal
Based on the information provided in the kick-off meeting, our team would provide the client with a proposal. A sample is provided as follow.
- Style Guide
Style guide serves as a very important part because the source text would be divided into different parts for each translator to translate. This would help keep the consistency and clarity of the final translation. For example, for a simple literature project, our group would provide a sample like this:
- TM and Termbase
Sometimes we wouldn’t be provided with any translation memory or terminology base. This requires us to make preparation ourselves. We can use AntConc to generate a refined list of terms in advance to ensure the consistency of terminology usage. And we can create a new translation memory for future reference, which would be more time- and cost-effective.
- Segmentation
To make translation more manageable, we will do the segmentation to divide the source text into smaller translation units. This would require us to first set segmentation rules, second to verify and adjust segmentation as needed. This step would help us facilitate more accurate translations.
- Pseudo-translation
Pseudo-translation is an essential part to test the workflow from file import to export, in a controlled environment, and to address any technical or linguistic issues with placeholders, variables, or tags before the actual translation phase. It helps us identify potential issues early in the development process. It can reveal problems with string length, encoding, or formatting that might only become apparent when dealing with different languages.
Translation
The source text is divided into different parts for group members to work on under the style guide. During the translation process, each member would update the translation memory and terminology base monitored by the head of our team. Then there will be post-translation editing by peers and revision, which will be further demonstrated on the next post Revision. The sample of the final project will be presented below. My group also made a video of reflection on Trados and group cooperation, which is also presented below. Welcome to download and comment!
