freelace translator laptop

TRANSLATOR’S (TOP) GEAR

Posted Leave a commentPosted in For other translators, Translator’s life

Today’s post is somewhat technical, just like the previous one about tools for translators. This one is about translators’ equipment. It’s dedicated to those of you who are at the beginning of your translation career path. I’m going to tell you more about the computer equipment which is good for translators at present (i.e. 2024). I’ll focus on PCs and laptops with Windows, as they […]

translatorion narzędzia do tłumaczenia

TRANSLATORS AND THEIR TRICKY TOOLS

Posted Leave a commentPosted in For other translators, Translator’s life

You certainly have some ideas about how the translator’s work and the process of translation itself looks and what are the typical translators’ tools. The most common preconceptions usually involve the translator sitting in front of a computer, ‘transcribing’ the source text – in a digital or printed form, looking up words in a big, old, traditional bilingual dictionary (or a pile of dictionaries), and […]

słowniki książki dla tłumaczy

HOW TO USE DICTIONARIES IN A SMART WAY?

Posted Posted in About language, For other translators, Translator’s life

In my previous article, I gave you a long list of the key dictionaries (mostly online ones) that we use at Translatorion when translating and proofreading. I hope you’ve found them useful in your language-related activities. If you have any questions concerning more specialised dictionaries – feel free to ask. DICTIONARY AS A TOOL A dictionary is more than a tool – and the art […]

Translatorion tłumacz prawnicze

THE FEATURES OF AGREEMENTS THAT MAKE TRANSLATION EASIER

Posted Posted in For other translators, For our clients

Some time ago I wrote a text about the features of technical documentation that make translation easier. As I was writing that post, I realized that I could write a similar article about translation of agreements, terms and conditions, and similar legal texts. TRANSLATION OF AGREEMENTS AND LEGALESE Legal texts are in a way similar to technical documentation. If their writing is sloppy, they become […]

tłumacz translatorion

THE FEATURES OF TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION THAT MAKE TRANSLATION EASIER

Posted Posted in For other translators, For our clients

I translate a lot of technical documentation, mainly instruction or installation manuals. Translation of such texts requires some knowledge of the topic in question, skill, attention to detail, and most importantly common sense. Yet even the best translators can go from mildly upset to seething with fury when an instruction manual poses problems and difficulties due to its poor structure and editing. I have decided […]

translator dictionary

THE TRANSLATION PROCESS – HOW DO WE DO IT?

Posted Leave a commentPosted in For other translators, For our clients, Translator’s life

In our previous entries we’ve told you what our standard days look like, what we actually translate, what tools (like CAT software here and there) and hardware we use. Now we would like to tell you what we actually do when we translate and what our translation process is. Translation process – first steps Of course, this entry presents some general notes about our translation […]

czysta strona

TABULA NON RASA, OR WHEN A PAGE IS MORE THAN A PAGE

Posted Leave a commentPosted in For our clients

We often receive texts with a client’s note that “there’s only five pages, I want the translation done by tomorrow morning.” However, it turns out that these “five pages” are written over from margin to margin in small font size, with narrow line spacing, and, on top of that, in columns. What do we do then? How to calculate translation size? As you can see […]

pile of documents

HOW TO PREPARE A TEXT FOR TRANSLATION

Posted Posted in For our clients

This article is about the source texts sent to us to be translated. How to prepare a text for translation so that the process of translation is smooth and undisturbed by unnecessary problems? As a client, you can do a couple of things which will help the us, the translators, achieve an even better quality of the target text. You can save the translator’s time […]

translation cat

SO WHAT IS THIS THING ABOUT TRANSLATORS AND CATS? – PART II

Posted Leave a commentPosted in For other translators, For our clients

In the previous entry, I told you what Computer Aided Translation software was and, also, I covered the CAT basics, namely translation memories (TMs) and glossaries. Today I’m going to describe some other useful features of CATs. Since at Translatorion, we operate on Wordfast PRO, I’ll focus on this programme. Projects – where files are gathered First of all, the texts we translate are grouped […]

Fot. Rafał Soliński

SO WHAT IS THIS THING ABOUT TRANSLATORS AND CATS? – PART I

Posted Leave a commentPosted in For other translators, Translator’s life

As we have already mentioned, a majority of translators have cats. Or CATs, actually. What are they? What can they do? What are their functionalities? How do they help? Do they release translators from all their duties and let them fool around and do nothing? The nature of CATs    The CAT abbreviation stands for Computer Assisted (or Aided) Translation. So, CATs are programmes which accelerate […]