| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Opinions on popular CAT tools Thread poster: Steve Simpson
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| A case for mQ | May 20, 2021 |
I would go for mQ over Trados any day; the only thing mQ does worse is handle complex termbases (but it can make simpler ones directly out of Excel files, for which you'll need special software in Trados). Trados is buggy and keeps losing parts or all of your work when crashing, and sometimes the loss is beyond recovery. mQ saves all the segments you have confirmed, and I can't remember a single time it crashed on me. When you hit a segment, mQ shows you a list of TM and TB matches, and all it t... See more I would go for mQ over Trados any day; the only thing mQ does worse is handle complex termbases (but it can make simpler ones directly out of Excel files, for which you'll need special software in Trados). Trados is buggy and keeps losing parts or all of your work when crashing, and sometimes the loss is beyond recovery. mQ saves all the segments you have confirmed, and I can't remember a single time it crashed on me. When you hit a segment, mQ shows you a list of TM and TB matches, and all it takes you to insert one or another is to click Ctrl+. Trados will not even show you less-than-perfect TM matches if the TM contains a 100% match (imagine: you've translated a segment, and then you hit another segment containing the same text, only without a full stop in the end, and the only thing you see in the TM window is a perfect match – badly mistranslated by someone else), and only one keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-T) is available for inserting the topmost TM match. Once, I had a 120k-word document, and Trados spent about 5 minutes opening it, but died 1 minute after I started working (and kept doing so on every restart), but mQ (a portable version, in that case) opened the same document much faster and had no problem handling it. There are more reasons why I like mQ better than Trados, but it doesn't mean the latter cannot get a job done. Some people say these two are becoming less and less relevant, and modern-day translators go for things like Memsource – and I certainly would like to give Memsource a try, but in my employment situation it makes no economic sense to purchase a monthly subscription ▲ Collapse
| | | | Stepan Konev 
Russian Federation
Local time: 00:25
English to Russian
| Trados v. memoQ | May 20, 2021 |
Even though I like memoQ too
Denis Fesik wrote:
Trados will not even show you less-than-perfect TM matches if the TM contains a 100% match (imagine: you've translated a segment, and then you hit another segment containing the same text, only without a full stop in the end, and the only thing you see in the TM window is a perfect match – badly mistranslated by someone else) Why not? You just need to check a setting for that: Search for fuzzy matches even if exact match found (Project Settings or Options > TM > Search).
and only one keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-T) is available for inserting the topmost TM match. You can use Ctrl+1 to insert the topmost TM match, or Ctrl+2...n for others.
Also, you can make a glossary from Excel too. The above-referenced "special software" is just a free converter. Opening a converter for Trados is no longer than opening a term base import wizard in memoQ.
Both Trados and memoQ have their advantages and disadvantages.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 23:25
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Denis Fesik wrote:
Trados ... keeps losing parts or all of your work when crashing, and sometimes the loss is beyond recovery. mQ saves all the segments you have confirmed...
Well, what I like about Trados vs. MemoQ is that Trados saves your translations in a file (SDLXLIFF), whereas MemoQ saves it in a large, nebulous database. If I want to have a file from MemoQ (e.g. to create a backup of my translation), I first have to remember to export to MQXLIFF.
| | | | Steve Simpson
Italy
Local time: 23:25
Swedish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | translation files | May 20, 2021 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Well, what I like about Trados vs. MemoQ is that Trados saves your translations in a file (SDLXLIFF), whereas MemoQ saves it in a large, nebulous database. If I want to have a file from MemoQ (e.g. to create a backup of my translation), I first have to remember to export to MQXLIFF.
Thanks, that is very interesting - I prefer the Trados approach.
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Stepan Konev wrote: Why not? You just need to check a setting for that: Search for fuzzy matches even if exact match found (Project Settings or Options > TM > Search). and only one keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-T) is available for inserting the topmost TM match. You can use Ctrl+1 to insert the topmost TM match, or Ctrl+2...n for others.
Weirdly enough, I have the "Search for fuzzy matches" box checked, but sometimes it still fails; Trados is big and buggy. You set the Autosave to 1 minute, but still you cannot be sure your work will be saved if Trados dies on you (that might as well knock you back a couple of hours). And I tried Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, etc.: it just doesn't work (maybe you need the latest version of Trados for that). Oh, and I used illegal characters in my post, so "Ctrl+" should have been "Ctrl+(suggestion number)"
Update: I've figured out how this Ctrl+1 thing works: you're supposed to press the number keys above the letters, i. e. the ones I never use because I have a numeric keypad
[Edited at 2021-05-20 17:26 GMT]
| | | | Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 00:25
English to Russian
| Probably because of wrong settings | May 20, 2021 |
Denis Fesik wrote:
Weirdly enough, I have the "Search for fuzzy matches" box checked, but sometimes it still fails; The setting applies to a specific TM of your choice. Also, there are two levels for this setting: Options (for future projects) and Project Settings (for current project). I am pretty sure that it fails because it is wrongly set and because you use different TMs in different projects.
Trados is big and buggy. You set the Autosave to 1 minute, but still you cannot be sure your work will be saved if Trados dies on you (that might as well knock you back a couple of hours). I never experienced this (over 15 years of using Trados). Even if autosave fails, you save each next segment in your TM by confirming it. I just can't imagine how one can lose anything with this workflow... I suspect this also happens because of lack of knowledge. People often "lose all their work" when they create a project with a project TM without knowing it. They confirm segments into their project TM and then just can't find their work trying to find it in their main TM instead of the project one.
And I tried Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, etc.: it just doesn't work
Update: I've figured out how this Ctrl+1 thing works: you're supposed to press the number keys above the letters, i. e. the ones I never use because I have a numeric keypad Not a problem at all. You can assign Ctrl+Numpad numbers for the same functionality. I have many shortcuts in Trados borrowed from memoQ like 'Quick Add New Term' (Ctrl+Q), Merge Segments (Ctrl+J), etc. No problem.
Trados can hardly work with real big files unlike memoQ, that's true. But most of your other assumptions stem from not reading or not knowing how to use the software.
[Edited at 2021-05-20 23:30 GMT]
| | | | | Here's my point | May 21, 2021 |
Stepan Konev wrote:
Even if autosave fails, you save each next segment in your TM by confirming it. I just can't imagine how one can lose anything with this workflow... I suspect this also happens because of lack of knowledge. People often "lose all their work" when they create a project with a project TM without knowing it. They confirm segments into their project TM and then just can't find their work trying to find it in their main TM instead of the project one.
True, you can set things up and work around problems, but I'm not the kind of person who wants to take long hours to study the ins and outs of Trados, I just want a translation tool that works. Why am I supposed to distinguish between project TM and main TM when working on a project? Why is it that when I hit "Update Main TM" and then hit "Update Project TM," just to be safe, nothing gets saved in the TM? I had a couple of times when, after crashing, Trados would remove the check mark I (definitely!) had in the Update box next to my TM in settings, and when I restarted my work, I couldn't see it was gone, so now I have to double-check if it's there. I remember a fatal error that made it impossible for me to continue using Trados, and I couldn't find a solution in any forum out there and was only able to fix the problem by reinstalling Windows. I do learn from my mistakes, but my point is that Trados somehow seems configured to be unfriendly to me as a user, while mQ has always been friendly
Maybe, after all, Trados takes such effort to study because they wanted to keep their support lines busy and to sell entry-level, intermediate, and advanced study courses, or maybe the complexity can be explained by the need to maintain huge capabilities I don't know of because I don't need them
[Edited at 2021-05-21 08:00 GMT]
| | | | Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 00:25
English to Russian
Everybody chooses what they like. You just made wrong assumptions that others could rely on. That's why I mentioned it.
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| More about lost work | May 21, 2021 |
Stepan Konev wrote:
You just made wrong assumptions that others could rely on.
Maybe there is another wrong assumption I'm making: you said you coudn't imagine how one can lose any work if Trados is properly configured, but here is my work pattern: I make random edits to my own translations as I go, and sometimes the edited segments are hundreds of rows away from each other, and there is no way I can keep in mind which segments I have edited. Now, if my TM is connected and the Update is on, the changes do get saved, but then as Trados crashes and knocks me back an hour or so, I reopen the file and see that all my edits are gone, and the only way I can bring them back is by going through every segment manually, checking them against the TM. Is there a clever alternative solution to this problem? Some method by which I could retrieve all my edits in one move? This thing gave me lots of headache when I was working on big documents. The only trick that seems to work by way of preventing this is to keep pressing Ctrl+S as often as practicable. To be fair, my Trados has been pretty well-behaved lately (knocking on wood), but it doesn't mean I'm enjoying what I'm doing in it at the moment, which is editing a massive TM (I know a better tool for this, but it only takes in a 25000-segment portion of the TM)
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
I *did* experience one near-fatal corruption of memoQ after a crash. It started giving odd error popups instead of loading stuff.
But then I wrote customer support... which probably wasn't even obligated to respond, since I don't actually pay for a license
...and they resolved it in, I KID YOU NOT, ****3 MINUTES****.
Literally 180 seconds after I filled out the support request form, I had instructions that got me up and running again in my inbox.
... See more I *did* experience one near-fatal corruption of memoQ after a crash. It started giving odd error popups instead of loading stuff.
But then I wrote customer support... which probably wasn't even obligated to respond, since I don't actually pay for a license
...and they resolved it in, I KID YOU NOT, ****3 MINUTES****.
Literally 180 seconds after I filled out the support request form, I had instructions that got me up and running again in my inbox.
No lost data either.
That was kinda impessive.
[Edited at 2021-05-21 14:45 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 00:25
English to Russian
| All CAT tools are just programs | May 21, 2021 |
I lost my precious TM because of memoQ several years ago. It just killed a portion of my TM somewhere in the middle. To be honest, I didn't expect that from memoQ. I had to cut 2/3 of the TM to save what remained.
What regards this
Is there a clever alternative solution to this problem? Did you try pre-translate?
[Edited at 2021-05-21 16:39 GMT]
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 23:25
French to English
Samuel Murray wrote:
MemoQ is not as intuitive as Trados, so you must spend time learning how to use it (which is not a problem, but worth mentioning anyway).
Funny you should say that. I find MemoQ much easier to work with, without any training. I have had to ask the Project Manager for a couple of things that I couldn't find, and apart from that it's been all hunky dory, I've even managed to find a couple of features all by myself. The only thing I dislike is the synchronising that happens at random moments, it's a nuisance, but you can turn it off and have it synchronise only when you decide to exit the software.
Trados on the other hand, I find incredibly clunky. A PM used to send me packages and I was never quite sure where the files would end up. I don't find it intuitive at all, and there are all sorts of things that annoy me. For instance if you start a spell check, it just checks to the end of the file and stops there, so you have to go right to the top of the file if you want to check the whole thing. And then you have to find where you were before you decided to run the spell check. Most spell checks go all the way through and you land up where you were just before you started, which is so much simpler. With searching and replacing there were some annoying little things too, I don't remember.
Also, I was supposed to be entitled to a free starter course and never managed to have it, and they had me pay for a level of support reserved for agencies when it's perfectly clear that I'm not an agency and didn't buy any agency-specific software, and they never refunded me (I will admit to not having insisted enough on this though, at a time when I needed life to be hassle-free), so I really don't like Trados at all and will avoid it like the plague.
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Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 00:25
English to Russian
| False assumption again | May 21, 2021 |
Kay Denney wrote:
if you start a spell check, it just checks to the end of the file and stops there, so you have to go right to the top of the file if you want to check the whole thing. And then you have to find where you were before you decided to run the spell check. I have checked it right now: I scrolled to segment 603 and pressed F7 from there. Studio checked spelling to the end of the document and then returned to segment 1 and stopped at segment 603.
I don't advocate Trados and I criticize much what works real bad in Trados. However people (including myself) often make their statements based on what they just don't know. If you don't know how to assign shortcuts in Trados, it does not mean you can't assign shortcuts in Trados. Obviously memoQ has its learning curve too. I use both tools for years, and still discover new things and features every next week
[Edited at 2021-05-21 16:58 GMT]
| | | | | On pre-translate | May 21, 2021 |
Stepan Konev wrote:
Did you try pre-translate?
You mean, start all over? Didn't work for me: it was an editing project, and pre-translate would insert all the crappy translations I was working so hard to weed out. Trados seemed to favor other people's translations over mine. I had to use all sorts of tricks for that monstrous project, including making a separate TM with nothing but my own translations, but there was no way I could predict every issue that would come my way with Trados; I ended up converting the TM and finishing the project in mQ Portable
| | | | Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 00:25
English to Russian
| No, I don't mean that | May 21, 2021 |
Denis Fesik wrote:
You mean, start all over?
You don't need to start over to pre-translate a file. You did exactly the same manually (by going through every segment manually, checking them against the TM). The Pre-translate could do it for you.
Denis Fesik wrote:
mQ Portable Portable memoQ? Really?
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