Pushing myself to push the panic button...

[alexpgp]

It took me a while, but I finally got up the guts to admit I was wrong in my choice of memoQ for the 40K Job. This is due primarily to there being about a gazillion "false tags" embedded in the source document, but more so, to the fact that the tag replacements in what memoQ provides strip away too much context, so that I need to have a printed copy of the source file next to me to understand what the source text is trying to say.

"Tags" are one way that some translation memory products deal with stuff that's either not translatable (such as graphics) or involve some kind of formatting (such as superscripts, subscripts, bold, italic, etc.). "False tags" are elements within the source document that don't really do anything, except to fire off the "insert a tag here" routine inside the translation memory product.

Through my experience in using "tag"-oriented software (e.g., Déjà Vu), I know there are ways to deal with (eliminate) false tags, and in documents where the embedded graphic or Greek letter or superscript occur a few times on a page (or even paragraph), ordinary tags are generally not a problem. But the 40K Job is filled with stuff like:

где k следует определять, как в {1}Л.2.4{2} настоящего приложения, но с заменой характеристик пояса на характеристики элемента решетки: {3} на большее из значений d или {4}, t на {5} и {6} на {7}.

which translates to

where k should be determined as in {1}J.2.4{2} of this attachment, but with the flange characteristics replaced with those of the lattice element: {3} with the larger of d or {4}, t with {5}, and {6} with {7}.

In this segment, all of the tags except the first two, which as far as I can see are "false tags," are place markers for inline graphics used that were used instead of typing out, e.g., D_b.

What makes this worse with memoQ is that the tags can't be rearranged (unfortunate, as it forces some awkward wording from time to time), and some tags don't appear at all (the software "helpfully" doesn't even show a tag if the tagged element occurs at the very beginning or very end of a segment, which on occasion just exacerbates the awkward wording).

Anyway, I've just spent about 15 minutes exporting what I've done so far back into a bilingual Word document. Here's crossing my fingers that I can do the rest in Wordfast, and do it within my deadline, which my client has extended (and which I've blown through half of already without really moving forward).

Cheers...

Comments

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

yes, this is one annoying failing of memoQ - it's just too helpful when it comes to tagging (grumblegrumble). However, it's a failing of the person who created the document in the first place, if they didn't know how to use styles properly (i.e. the great majority of Russian secretaries and engineers!)

Sometimes when the tagging is excessive, but the original document is obviously just text, I run it through Word and reset the styles. Select everything, choose "remove formatting" and reformat the headings and numbered lists, then re-import into memoQ. It's often much quicker to do this then muck around with tags, and the document looks exactly the same as the original.

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

also, it seems that some versions of Word (pre-2007, at a guess) change fonts when going from Russian to English in the middle of the sentence, and then keeping those font tags in the text. memoQ unfailingly picks those up...

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

For Pete's sake (poor Pete!), if I had a nickel for every stupid, ill-considered, off-the-wall method of Doing Stuff in Word Without Actually Using Features Intended for Such Stuff, I'd pay off the national debt.

I particularly love users who "shoehorn" formats in such a way that, if you delete the right space, the appearance of several pages goes directly and completely to hell.

Gotta love 'em (can't hang 'em!).

Cheers...

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

Oh, I HEAR you, loud and clear, even across a continent and an ocean!