Working with TRados-centric clients

[Steven P. Venti]

I have a job offer from an agency for a translation that needs to be delivered
to the end client as a TMX file. The agency would like to have me do the
translation, but I use Felix and, having no familiarity with Trados, don't
have a clue as to what a TMX file is.

My first impression is that, if they send me the manuscript as a Word file, I
ought just to send the translation as a Word file and let them create whatever
they need by themselves in Trados.

Their idea is to send me the manuscript as a TMX file, and that I deliver the
translation either as TMX or in a format that is easily converted to TMX.

At the moment, it is still unclear as to what format the end client will use
to submit the manuscript, but does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can
do the work in Felix but submit a file format that is easily converted to TMX?

TIA

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Steve Venti
spv...@bhk-limited.com

I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer
for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that
I have suffered for things that I am guilty of.
-- Bartolomeo Vanzetti
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[Charles Aschmann]

Steve,

This does not make a whole lot of sense.

TMX is Translation Memory Exchange format. It is used for translation
memories, not for files.

The only thing I can think of is that your client would send you a TMX
file in which the source had been copied into the target. You would
translate only the target leaving the source. However, working in a TMX
file would be fraught with danger if you overwrote a code, so I cannot
imagine that the client really wants to do this.

Perhaps the client wants to send you a Translation Memory in TMX form.
In that case, you can use the TMX file in Felix without alteration.
Felix opens TMX files.

You would open the document in Word and translate as you normally do.
You could make a separate Felix memory for the job and then export it to
TMX (Felix does this well) to send to the client.

If I were you, I would tell the client that you can translate the file
(in Word I presume), use any TMX memory they send for reference and send
them both a translated file and a TMX memory of the translation. All of
this is simple with Felix.

Charles Aschmann

[Steven P. Venti]

Charles Aschmann <asch...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This does not make a whole lot of sense.
>
> TMX is Translation Memory Exchange format. It is used for translation
> memories, not for files.

You are right, Charlie, and I apologize for getting this screwed up.

Everywhere I wrote TMX in the original post, please read: TTX

[Ryan Ginstrom]

> On Behalf Of Steven P. Venti

> Everywhere I wrote TMX in the original post, please read: TTX

Right, TTX makes a lot more sense.

The short answer is that if you can convince to let you deliver the actual translated file with your TM in TMX format, you can work with this client. It may take some more work on the client's part to wrangle your TM into the SDL world.

In my experience, clients want to use TTX files because they can automatically insert translations into 100% matches, and not pay for them.

It's quite possible to translate the original file, and agree to a discount rate for TM matches. However, the SDL process is so hard to set up that (again, in my experience) most clients who have gone down the SDL road are not prepared to step away from it.

A final observation is that the "TTX" format is somewhat deprecated by SDL (they are now pushing SDLXLIFF as their preferred file format), so this client may be on the more conservative side technologically.


Regards,
Ryan

Ryan Ginstrom
Felix Computer Assisted Translation
sup...@felix-cat.com
http://felix-cat.com/

[Steven P. Venti]

"Ryan Ginstrom" <sup...@felix-cat.com> wrote:
> The short answer is that if you can convince to let you deliver the actual
> translated file with your TM in TMX format, you can work with this client.

Thanks, Ryan. That is what I suspected.