So, this is the core idea of Bohemicus: Let’s create an interface between you and your CAT tool. This interface should extend the capabilities of your CAT by a whole host of various features, thereby making you more effective and faster while translating your text in your CAT.
What it means in practice: Bohemicus will add the machine translation, voice dictation and many other features to e.g. the Across CAT tool that does not normally offer anything like that. You can then use machine translation, voice dictation in e.g. Across along with a whole host of other useful features. This functionality can be taken advantage of in virtually any CAT tool, be it Across, Transit, WordFast, memoQ, Trados Studio, XTM, Coach, Crowdin, Smartcat, etc.
I remember that moment very clearly: It happened sometime in 2016 while I was working at a translation. I do have some problems with procrastination, so I left it for the very last moment, just like usual. And there I was: Some 5500 words to be translated in just 5 hours. I knew I would need the Google Machine Translation Plug-in for this. So I set it up in my Trados Studio and started working. I toiled my a*s off, but I was finally able to deliver at 12.00, which was the deadline for this job.
I was really exhausted, but it gave me a lot to think about. Wouldn’t it be great if I could just use such a plug-in in ALL CAT tools? Especially in Across, which I was using a lot during that period.
So, I started researching the internet to find how to do that. I knew I would need some technique how to manipulate a 3rd party application (i.e. my CAT tool) from my own tool. And sure enough, you can always rely on StackOverflow. The solution was quite simple: use the SendKeys method to simulate user keystrokes along with the Clipboard class to be able to copy out an open translation segment, process it in my own tool and then re-insert it back into my CAT tool.
Well, it sounds easy on paper, but took me many hours to tune this up to work reliably.
I then spent many more hours on figuring out how the Google translation API actually works. I was reading that Google’s tutorial all over again and again, but still couldn’t make it work. It was really frustrating. But then I realized I could just take the Google translation API URL, add the text to be translated, add my API key along with my source and target language and just send this to Google as a GET request and read and parse the returned message. And it worked!
Having figured out that SendKey thing along with these GET requests, the rest was just a piece of cake. Soon enough I was able to use machine translation in all of my CAT tools regardless on whether these CAT tools actually supported any machine translation or not. I literally forced them to use it anyway.
Then I concentrated on the other important feature of Bohemicus, the voice dictation, or voice recognition, if you will.
I had been using some voice dictation software before, but the problem was that it only had a limited vocabulary, and most importantly, it was very sensitive to noise. It only worked reliably when there was no surrounding noise. Cooking/boiling noise, radio, street noise… and the program started outputting nonsense. Also, I had to work with a headset, which was annoying.
Also, I should emphasize that I am a speaker of Czech, i.e. a minor language. And as you can imagine, major world software manufacturers do not really bother to support such a minor language, so e.g. the Dragon dictation software is out of question for me. On the other hand, Google reliably support 100+ languages, including Czech, Slovak, or Hungarian to name a few.
But one day I realized that the Android system in my phone offers this voice recognition feature – I could just pose a question and the system would capture it and process accordingly. And it was surprisingly accurate, worked without a headset and tolerated a great deal of surrounding noise. So I said: Hey! Could this be somehow used also for my work?
So, I started researching the Android app market, or Google Play, as they say. There were some apps to capture voice and send it to PC as text, but they were clumsy to use or did not work at all, as they required a Bluetooth/Wi-Fi connection, but I was just not able to connect them to my PC.
I also started researching this Google voice recognition API…. and it turned out that I could actually use it in my PC no problem… the only issue was the price. It’s relatively expensive – for my usual volumes, I would pay some 150-200 EUR a month. And I certainly did not want that. So I returned to this original idea of leveraging the voice recognition feature in my Android phone and somehow sending it to my PC through Bluetooth or WiFi.
And soon enough I found some 30 lines of Java code that did the trick of activating the speech recognition routine in my Android phone.
The remaining problem was the connection, i.e. how to send the converted text back to my PC. After briefly experimenting with a cable connection, I finally decided that Bluetooth and WiFi would be far more suitable. Luckily, research and coding was nothing more than a technicality. Sure, it took some time to tune up, but I made it finally work reliably.
The 2 above features were actually 2 separate software programs at the beginning. I then merged them into just one application, because it just seemed to make sense.
After having coded the 2 main features described above, I decided to add some more features. Especially a clipboard manager, insertion of correct quotation marks and some note-taking, those were the features I wanted the most. I will explain those in more detail in a later article.
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
