So, I suppose, the original idea of a CAT tool was something like this: Let’s create a simple text editor combined with a database and let this program constantly search for segments already stored in memory from previous translations to offer them to the translator so that he/she can re-use them in the text he/she is currently translating. And of course, this is a wonderful indea which can save you a ton of time and effort! Long gone are those days when we used just a MS word and manually typed every single word from our PDF source… speaking nothing of those ancient translators who actually used mechanical typewriters… that must have been pure hell.
Well, and there’s yet another aspect to it: the money! Of course. Imagine you have 1000 words to translate but with 50% of them already stored in your translation memory. This means you actually only translate 500 words…. but you charge the whole 1000!
Well…. unfortunately not anymore. I suppose, in those early days when Trados was really new and only few people knew about it, this must have been great. Easy money, right?
But of course, very soon, translation agencies got wind of this new technology and decided to use it for themselves, thereby effectively removing the financial benefits from the translator, as they introduced their CAT payment grids.
For those who don’t know what a CAT grid is: it’s an analysis and financial calculation of the document to be translated, where all text segments are weighed according to their level of „fuzziness“.
Well, this does not sound very clear, so let me try once again: If you translate a sentence that is NOT yet stored in the translation memory, then this is called a “no match” or “new“, which means that you have to put in all your effort and translate it form scratch.
On the other hand, if a sentence (or as we say: “segment“) is already stored in your translation memory from previous translations, this is called the “100% match“, because such segment will be simply pulled out from the translation memory (i.e. a database) so that you don’t have to translate it at all, meaning you have almost no work with it.
And then we have everything in between, so those are the 1-99% matches, or “fuzzies” as we call them. And you can imagine that a 99% fuzzy will require almost no work, because such segment is almost identical to the one already stored in memory. It can just differ in a comma in the middle of the sentence.
On the other hand, a 75% fuzzy is already pretty much different and chances are that it’s actually quicker to translate it from scratch than to look for and fix any differences from the segment stored in memory.
And all this is also reflected in your financial remuneration: you will get your full price per word for any “no matches” and some 10% or even nothing at all for 100% matches. You will get a dime or two for 99% matches, a bit more for 85% matches and chances are they pay you your full price for 75% or less matches because they require quite a lot of work.
And this brings me back to the CAT grid: It’s a neat table with all those percentual maches arranged in colums …. that get summed up and weighed to get the final price for the translation job.
Well, this sounds perhaps fair…. but didn’t they tell you when you were buying your CAT software that you will get those 400-500 euros very soon back because this CAT tool will save you lots of work? They did, didn’t they!?
So, soon you will get pretty much red-pilled. A CAT tool is not a wonderful tool that will make you lots of money. It’s become a necessity if you want to get a translation job at all. Because they will ask you: Do you have Trados? No? Then get it, we cannot work with you otherwise.
It has also become a tool for the agencies and possibly end customers to squeeze as much money from their translators as they possibly can. Sure, I only have limited experience with direct clients, but as far as I can say, they know nothing about CAT tools at all. So I wouldn’t be too much surprised if big agencies actually squeezed all the possibly money from their translators on all those fuzzies and 100% matches… but charged full price to the end clients!
I should perhaps say that even if you remove the financial benefit, a CAT tool can still be fairly useful: Its’ certainly more comfortable to work with: you have the source and target segment right next to each other so that you don’t have to look for it with your eys. You can also very easily search in your translation memories (you can for instance look up terms that you don’t really know how to translate and check them in your translation memory to see how such terms have already been translated by other translators). It will also automatically preserve the text formating so your target document in your target language will look more or less the same as the source… and you don’t need to worry too much about formatting it yourself.
Because:
a) they are obviously made just for the financial benefit of the agencies / end customers without paying any regard to the comfort of work of the translator. That’s for instance the infamous German tool, so beloved in Germany…. which makes me feel like hanging myself every time I am forced to work with it. On the other hand, it makes me hone my negotiating skills: Sure, I can do that. But I will kindly ask you for a 50% surcharge, because just about everything in this Software Aus Pakistan takes 2x more time and work to achieve …. (and no, it’s not SAP, the software for enterprises).
b) there are so many of them now. So, I just paid some 500 bucks for the Trados studio…. and then Kilgray manage to convince agencies that memoQ would be a good idea, meaning in turn for me to pay yet another 500 bucks for this software too. Yes, sure, you can get a licence from the agency for free, but they only have so many of them and they are allocated dynamically every time you launch this software. This means you might manage to get a licence today, but tommorrow perhaps not… which will cause delays in delivery. So they urge you to get your own paid copy of memoQ… so you just buy it, naively thinking this will bring you more jobs from that agency. And it won’t, they just used you to their own advantage. So you are left with a piece of software you only use occassionaly and you are 500 bucks in minus.
And this might slightly spoil your mood.
c) they are different, which becomes tedious. The keyboard shortcuts are mostly different. The colors are different – especially that yet another German tool so beloved in Germany seems to be specifically made to induce psychedelic attacks and possibly burn out your retina. Sure, you can redefine your keyboard shortcuts and colors…. but do I wanna be bothered by that?
So next time you see yet another CAT tool, you get suspicious. Do I have to pay again? Do I have to learn yet another system designed by maniacs to annoy translators as much as possible?
And this brings me to my own tool. As I realized this morning, people think it’s yet another CAT tool… and so they get annoyed, probably because of the reasons mentioned above. I totally get it. Believe me. Because I am one of you, a translator. But this tool is NOT a CAT, it’s actually designed for you, the translator, to bring you back those financial benefits and the comfort of work you have been robbed of.
You can now translate MS Word/Excel files directly using ChatGPT-4o, DeepL, ModernMT,... Read More
Users on Windows 7 might have experienced issues when activating Bohemicus. This was due to my... Read More
Voicetyping requirements These were my requirements when creating the voicetyping feature... Read More
People usually try to export their files from Across to e.g. Trados, because Across is a pain... Read More
This is how you REMOVE your machine-translation markers from your memoQ files:... Read More
I have added support for the latest iteration of ChatGPT, the gpt-4o version. Simply select it... Read More
I have improved the DeepL glossaries functionality - Bohemicus will now go through your glossary... Read More
Create and use your own DeepL glossaries... You can create a glossary for DeepL manually... Read More
You can rephrase any text in many languages using ChatGPT You can rephrase any text in many... Read More
Use artificial intelligence to automatically create your glossaries You can now use... Read More
Dear Translator, in the video below, I am going to show you how you can easily use machine... Read More
Me pretending some work… I have been a professional technical translator since 2007, ... Read More
Learn how to use Bohemicus with Crowdin I am going to show you how you can very effectively use... Read More
What's new: improved machine-translation-marks remover, now removes also the AMT marks... Read More
If you are a translator, I am sure, you want to make more money. Just like everyone. But well,... Read More
You can use Bohemicus to keep track of your business records, and to issue invoices. Before you... Read More
This feature can be very helpful when you need to preview the content of a Trados package. For... Read More
You can very easily remove those light-blue AT or NMT marks in machine-translated... Read More
This has happened a couple of times to me: I just forgot to do a job! This usually happens to me... Read More
This post can especially be useful to users of older SDL Studio versions. If you are using newer... Read More
What's new Support for online CAT tools (SmartCat, Crowdin, XTM, Coach...) has been... Read More
The PDF format is truly ingenious - documents in the PDF format will appear exactly as... Read More
Before I explain the basic idea behind all CAT tools, let me consider the naive approach to... Read More
This post is only for those interested in hard-core deep-level computer programming. It was... Read More
Translating a webpage is a very easy task... if you know how to do it. Definition of a... Read More
Yes, this is indeed possible. I remember those times 13 years back when translating 5000... Read More
This is a short video on how you can configure the Across CAT tool (made by Across GmbH, Germany) ... Read More
These are a few tips I would give to every aspiring translator trying to start his/her career... Read More
(from the translator's perspective) This article is based on my 13 years of experience... Read More
The raison d'etre The Ctrl+Alt+Space shortcut was originally conceived to deal with the... Read More
The new version of Bohemicus is out! What's new: 1) added support for Memsource 2)... Read More
These are the 10 features of Bohemicus I use every day. You can watch this video to see... Read More
Unit conversion is something you will definitely encounter when working as a... Read More
What are they? As soon as you try to machine translate just about anything in any major... Read More
Definition of a clipboard manager For those who don't know what a clipboard manager is.... Read More
So, this is the core idea of Bohemicus: Let's create an interface between you and your CAT... Read More
This is the story of how I became a professional translator. The beginnings I certainly... Read More
So, I suppose, the original idea of a CAT tool was something like this: Let's create a... Read More
And why do some people seem to utterly hate it ...without even trying it out? Am I getting... Read More
I have never really understood this concept. So, an agency requires you to do a translation... Read More
Why is file extension rename useful? You can very easily rename a file extension. This... Read More
You can very easily and conveniently send large files up to 100 MB through the Bohemicus... Read More
What are hotkeys? Hotkeys are the heart of Bohemicus. They are simply combinations of... Read More
If you want to use the speech-to-text feature, you can connect your Android phone/tablet also... Read More
What is it good for? You can very quickly and easily open your pre-defined folders just by... Read More
Setting it up Machine translation is very easy in Bohemicus. First, you need to set it up -... Read More
You can very easily and conveniently launch the Windows Snipping Tool to make screenshots by... Read More
What are hints in hintboxes Every time you press the Ctrl key, a couple of semi-transparent... Read More
Activating Bohemicus is easy. You will need your activation code that you received upon your... Read More
Prerequisities 1. In order to receive a Google API translation key, you will need a Google... Read More
You should set up Bohemicus before you run it for the first time. Set up the machine... Read More
If you want to work with online CAT tools, such as SmartCat, XTM, Crowdin, Coach, etc..., just... Read More
Converting metric/imperial units is very easy with Bohemicus. You can set up 3 hotkeys to... Read More
Now, let's see how to connect your Android phone to your Windows and then to Bohemicus. If... Read More
Why you should use Bluetooth Bluetooth is the preferred way of connecting Bohemicus both in... Read More
In Bohemicus, you can very easily transfer files and folders between 2 or more local computers... Read More
Why do translators and writers take notes Note taking is an important task for all... Read More
How to work with translation memories in Bohemicus Use your own translation memories...... Read More
What is it good for? You can use this function to e. g. distinguish various folders from... Read More
What are they good for? Non-breakable spaces are an important text element in case you want... Read More
We have all been there: you need to google someting, so normally you would just select your... Read More
Quotation marks can be a hassle Different languages use different quotation marks. The... Read More
Make more money as a translator If you are a translator, I am sure, you want to make more... Read More
Bohemicus offers a bunch of text editing features that can be really handy. It is... Read More
Speech recognition, or speech-to-text functionality, or just voice dictation, is... Read More
You can use Bohemicus to interactively search in online dictionaries. How it... Read More
While working with Bohemicus, you can plug-in 2 local offline dictionaries. This can be very... Read More
Voice dictation (speech-to-text functionality) is an extremely important feature of Bohemicus. Why... Read More
ChatGPT 3.5/4 is now supported in Bohemicus to translate using your own glossaries!... Read More
Machine translation can greatly increase your translation speed, there's no doubt about it.... Read More
User using the Windows clipboard What is a clipboard manager? As you probably know there is this... Read More
Here is a video presentation of the Bohemicus Imperial/metric unit conversin... Read More
