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Artificial Intelligence:

Cutting Down Translation and

Technical Documentation Costs

More and more companies today are searching for

ways to save on costs for translation and localization

of technical documentation and marketing materials

into foreign languages, as well as into Czech. Some

are going about it by hiring cheaper translators and

agencies but as we all know, a low price also often

means low quality. In the competitive world, however,

companies can hardly afford to sell their products with

poor quality documentation. It has a direct, and very

perceptible, impact on customer satisfaction, which

of course, also affects the saleability of these products.

The solution is to secure translation and localization

of documentation that is of a high quality but is carried

out efficiently to decrease costs.

Software support for translators of technical documentation and other company

materials (e.g. catalogues, fliers and manuals) has already taken off in countries to the

west of our border. This software enables

computer-aided translation (CAT), with the

speciál 2020

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goal of making the work of a professional

translator more effective, while increasing

the final output quality through the use of a

translation memory, fuzzy logic and terminology management. As opposed to the

standard 8 to 10- pages per day, with this

software, a translator is able to translate

about 30 to 70% more, all the while maintaining a high quality level of the translation

(even increasing the quality, thanks to the

advanced functionalities). BMW for example, is one of the pioneers in this respect, as

it has been using CAT software to localize

its user and service manuals into 27 languages for quarter of a century already. Representatives from the German headquarters report that the company saves

hundreds of thousands of Euros each year

and that the completion time for the different language versions of the manuals is reduced greatly. Let us look at the basic CAT

software principles, which significantly improve the localization process in terms of

efficiency and quality.

A Few Important

Reminders to Start

d

CAT software does not replace the translator. It merely makes the translator's work

more effective, all the while improving the

quality of the work. It uses a translation

memory, thanks to which the software remembers every translated sentence that

the translator ever wrote. When this identical sentence appears again, it is automatically pre-translated (with the option for

the translator to check it, of course). This

function saves, both, time and money, especially in texts where certain passages

are repeated over and over again (this is

typical of technical documentation). Another advantage of this functionality is

the consistency of the

translation and terminology