How useful are CAT tools?

Abstract. It has been argued that the use of CAT software impacts translation work in ways that are at least three-fold: improved quantity, improved quality, and improved control over the whole translation process. Consequently, unrestricted adoption of CAT tools seemed to be the logical step to be taken by every professional in the field. However, such unanimous adoption of CAT tools has not yet become a reality. In spite of all its usefulness, criticism of CAT abounds. This paper aims at discussing the usefulness of CAT from a more balanced perspective. It presents and discusses the results of an informal investigation of the use translators are making of CAT utilities, based on the answers by members of an online group for professional translators to the question: How useful are CAT tools?

1. Introduction
In spite of the massive amount of time and money invested in the development of more efficient Machine Translation (MT) platforms in the last decades, it seems clear that a semantically consistent, discourse-aware, error-proof non-human translation system is still a goal to be pursued for many years ahead (Arnold et al, p. 01). However, research in this area has led to significant advancements in a correlated field, namely that of Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT)1, resulting in a large number of CAT software being released in the market. Such software, broadly grouped under the label of CAT tools, offer the translator an array of resources aimed at increasing translation quality and the translators productivity (Barrachina et al, p. 04; Hutchins, p. 11). The CAT tool label is in fact an umbrella term covering a very varied group of computer-based systems which seek to address translators most relevant necessities in their daily struggle to transfer concepts and ideas from a language to another. CAT tools, as their name suggest, are not intended at replacing the translator, taking over all the subtasks involved in the translation process (which is not yet possible, for reasons not to be discussed in this short article). Their purpose is more modest, and therefore more feasible: they focus on tackling some of these subtasks, thus reducing the cognitive load on the translator and boosting their translation output, as well as improving the quality of the final product (Craciunescu et al, p. 08; Lab, p.166). The number of tools in a CAT platform varies from package to package, but even the lowest priced systems usually include built-in spell checkers, grammar checkers, and facilitated search to electronic or online dictionaries, glossaries and, sometimes, linguistic corpora. More complex platforms and that complexity usually results in much higher prices - offer a richer set of modules including terminology management tools, access to terminology databases, indexers (text search utilities), concordancers, text aligners, and perhaps the most valued of all CAT tools, translation
1 AKA Computer-Aided Translation, Machine-Aided Translation, Machine-Assisted Translation.

memories (Craciunescu et al, p. 08). There are packages that go as far as offering users a number of project management tools, aimed at helping translators deal with a several tasks at the same time or at assisting crew leaders at translation agencies/offices in the management of complex jobs involving various translation professionals. Given the high level of complexity of the translation process, from the point of view of the cognitive operations involved and the several specific abilities translators must develop to do their job properly (Craciunescu et al, p. 04), the case for such help as that provided by CAT tools is easily made. They are currently a well-established subject in many serious translator training programs all over the globe, and the market seems to have accepted them enthusiastically, judging from the number of translation agencies working fully or mostly in CAT-based fashion. It has been argued that the adoption of CAT software impacts translation work in ways that are at least three-fold: improved quantity of work done, improved quality of the tasks completed, and improved control over the whole translation process. The use of CAT software, especially translation memories (TM), allegedly allows the translation professionals to take in more tasks and have them accomplished faster, consequently improving their productivity and their income. TM utilities suggest the right word to be used in every situation, provided that word has been encountered before and added to the translators terminological database, which the software also builds and manages automatically (Craciunescu et al, p. 09). With time, the non-stop growing of personal databases and the facilitated search to other databases online results in a substantial part of each task being pre-translated even before the translator starts working, which certainly provides for faster completion of jobs and the possibility of new jobs being accepted by the translator. However, these quantitative benefits would not be so impressive if such increased turnout did not prove to be equally superior in terms of quality. The use of CAT software is also presented as conducive to better final texts, given the higher terminological consistency resulting from the employment of TM tools, for instance. Additionally, the translator can invest the time saved as a result of the adoption of CAT utilities to concentrate on further reviewing the final work, which will certainly have an impact of the quality of the translated text. A final pro-CAT argument concerning quality touches a very sensitive area for many overworked professionals: a large part of the boring, time-consuming, mechanical typing is done by the software automatically, thus contributing to an increase in the amount of time the translator spends effectively translating, that is, performing at a more sophisticated level of text elaboration. The resulting boost in professional satisfaction is argued to have made a difference in the life of many translators. Finally, the introduction of task management modules into some of the most complex CAT platforms is said to result in better control over the whole translation process, which starts with the reception on the originals and ends with the delivery of the translated text within the deadline agreed with the client (and the payment for the work done). Free-lance professionals as well as resident agency translators and their managers can benefit greatly from the automatization of such non-technical steps of the job such as assigning parts of a task to different translators, checking work progress,

watching out for approaching deadlines and keeping records of payments received and due. In a quick analysis, therefore, the arguments in favor of the use of CAT are undeniably strong enough to account for its widespread adoption by both freelancers and salaried translators worldwide. Some agencies have taken that use to the point of making it a requirement for anyone wishing to become part of its translation staff, and in recent years many clients have turned the file formats yielded by the most famous CAT tools obligatory for the delivery and acceptance of translated texts. As a consequence, the adoption of CAT technologies by every translator and translation office has come to seem inevitable, eventually; it was the logical next step to be taken by those wishing to survive in the market in the aftermath on the definitive CAT revolution. It was just a matter of giving the market the necessary time to adapt the new work settings brought up by this new set of digital translation tools. However, years have passed and such unanimous adoption of CAT tools has not yet become a reality, in Brazil and in other countries as well. In spite of all its usefulness, criticism of CAT software abounds, and translation professionals all over the world have tested, used and given up MT and other related software either partially or completely, or have not considered it worth the effort to even start using such tools. This paper presents the results of an informal investigation of the use translators are making of CAT utilities, based on the answers 45 members of an online group for professional translators have given when asked the question that names this short article: How useful are CAT tools? The question was posted as a thread on an international forum for translators (Professional Translators and Interpreters ProZ.com)2 hosted by Linked In3, a well-known professional online network. The arguments presented by the respondents cast a lucid, critic light on CAT advantages and weak points, and indicate that a more balanced evaluation of these computer-based utilities is in order.

2. Methods
This study was based on the responses 45 (forty-five) members of an online group for professional translators provided to the question How useful are CAT tools?, posted on an international forum for translators (Professional Translators and Interpreters ProZ.com), hosted by Linked In, a professional online network. It is therefore a very simple, unpretentious investigation, given its limited scope and the methods adopted for the collection of the data presented. Our aims, far from bringing up an exhaustive discussion of the topic, were solely to give translation professionals and students some grounds on which to base their reflections on the alleged universal applicability and usefulness of the group of computer-based translation utilities referred to as CAT tools. Until the moment this article was finished, The Professional Translators and Interpreters ProZ.com forum on Linked In, which started on July 10, 2008, had 30,287 members. The forum thread from which we collected the data presented here
2 URL: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Professional-Translators-Interpreters-ProZcom-138763 3 URL: http://www.linkedin.com

was started a month before this paper was written, on March 21, 2013, and has received 149 comments by members from all over the world (again, until the moment this paper was finished, since the thread is still on and continuously collecting more comments). During that short period of time, forty-five different members of the forum contributed to the thread, including initial comments on the subject and responses to the comments by the other participants. Quite often, one single comment contained responses to several other comments, which greatly enriched the discussion. Comments varied greatly in length, from one line to several paragraphs of text. The content of the messages referred to different aspects of the topic in order, according to each participants opinion about the usefulness of CAT tools. The comments were grouped according to the main aspect addressed, and the main points highlighted by the thread participants are discussed in the following section.

3. Discussion
As a prominent member of the forum thread (in term on number of comments posted 11 out of a total 149 responses) pointed out, the participants positions concerning the usefulness of CAT tools seemed to fall neatly into three categories: (1) those who use CAT software for all or most translation jobs they receive and see more advantages than disadvantages to their use; (2) those who will not use CAT in any situation, having tried them and found them not worth the trouble; and (3) those who do use CAT when requested to do so (by agencies or clients), but would rather not use them, or who are trying to use them as a way to adapt to the new job market and the new technologies, but are not yet fully convinced CAT tools are really helpful. Analyzing all the comments, however, we consider that three other groups could be added to the that initial categorization, namely (4) those who believe that CAT tools are useful in some situations but not so much in others, and therefore will alternate their use with more traditional translation methods, according to the tasks at hand; and (5) those who have never tried any CAT tools and therefore can not really contribute for the discussion, since their arguments are derived from other sources of information than their own experience, and those who have not directly contributed to the discussion, posting comments which did not address the question of the usefulness of CAT software. Although the amount and nature of the data collected for this paper does not allow for proper statistical treatment, we divided the positions taken by the 45 participants of the forum thread considered for this study into the 5 groups above, as follows: Group 1 18 participants Group 2 2 participants Group 3 4 participants Group 4 9 participants Group 5 12 participants

The majority of the responses, therefore, display strongly favorable views of unlimited CAT tools use, for several reasons, some of which we have already presented in the Introduction to this paper. On the other hand, if we disconsider the responses by the members of Group 5, due to lack of relevant contribution to the discussion at hand, the second most important group in term of number of members is Group 4. These participants of the forum thread report to have tested one or several CAT packages available on the market and detected considerable benefits in their use, alongside with significant pitfalls. Instead of taking grounds definitively for or totally against CAT use, however, their reflections led them to evaluate the level of usefulness of computerbased translation tools in terms of the specific features of different translation, therefore presenting in their comments some of the most balanced and relevant views of the topic. The least numerous groups are constituted by the reluctant users of CAT (Group 3) and by the detractors of such use (Group 2), whose arguments are nevertheless worth considering, for they are derived from problems found during real use of CAT tools in their daily translation practice. Some of the arguments pro-CAT mentioned in the introduction to this paper, which are the backbone of pro-CAT campaigns, have been reinforced by the experiences reported by the forum thread participants, especially the quantity and quality gains these utilities can bring to the translator. In terms of quantity, satisfied users claim that the adoption of CAT has permitted them to do their work faster, due to the amount of pre-translation performed by the software. The use of translation memories (TM) means reduced need to search for terminological solutions on previous translations, since the software automatically consults the database and provides the appropriate term for each situation, provided that the database contains that information, of course. The database itself is managed and updated automatically, so new terms entered by the translation in a new job are retrieved and stored inside the database for future use. That results in ever-growing translation speed and, as a consequence, in an increase in the number of jobs a translator can take, which directly affects the professionals income. As a participant stated, there is no doubt that these tools can save a lot of time for the translator. And time is money. By contrast, however, some translators have reported finding out, after some time trying out different software, that dealing with their multiple functionalities in fact slowed them down as compared to the old, traditional way. Additionally, the alignment of blocks of original text and translated texts presented by most CAT tools is felt to be confusing by some, and some feel it prevents them from seeing the text as a whole. As a consequence, translators may find themselves reviewing and doublechecking the final work to get a grasp of the entirety of the written piece, which results in no real time saving in the end. Still on the time saving aspect of CAT adoption, participants have made comments which are not directly related to the tools themselves but are worth discussing all the same, given the frequency such matters have been presented alongside the forum thread. First, some professionals are not sure if the time they are saving by using CAT software really results in income gains, at least for themselves, since clients/agencies, based on the belief that the use of such tools reduces the difficulty and the time spent on each translation job (which is not always true), ask for discounts from

translators who work with the help of CAT, or require the use of CAT so as to be able to reduce the amounts paid for the translations. The initial investment in the purchase of a CAT package has also been mentioned as problematic, since it may take long for the translation [shouldnt it be translators?] to recover that investment, depending on the volume of work they usually get, and that has an impact on their financial gains. Secondly, translators are faced with the need to invest significant amounts of unpaid time, as a participant put it, trying out different CAT tools in order to find the one that best suits their needs and/or budgets and learning how to make effective use of the different modules offered by CAT packages. Sometimes they work for more than an agency, and are requested to fully master the software adopted by each different employer, as well as having to use TMs supplied by agencies alongside with the originals, with results in the translator losing their independence towards their own work.4 The most complex platforms are expensive for the average freelancer (although there are demonstration packs available, with limited resources, though) and most participants reported on having difficulties to learn how to use the software, due to their user-unfriendly interfaces. The importance of this perception of the difficulties involved in learning a CAT tool and the amount of time that must be invested in training to use them can not be disconsidered; however, we are not develop this topic further since, as a participant very appropriately pointed out, One discussion is how useful CAT tools are. Another discussion is how easy or not they are to learn. 5 The second most important argument in favor of the adoption of computer-aided translation is the improvement in the quality of the texts translated with the help of such software packages. On that matter, the pro-CAT participants of the forum thread confirmed what the theory has affirmed, especially as far as the consistency element is concerned. TMs make it possible for a translator to use always the same translated term for the same term in the original, sparing the professional the effort of searching dictionaries/glossaries several times or having to trust their own memories, which are undisputedly less powerful than the most basic computer. On the other hand, as participants in Group 2 and 4 have insisted to point out, the gains in consistency are not universally relevant. For some, CAT tools may, in some cases, lead translators to making mistakes, since they may come to rely on the software original/target text matching to a point where they may overlook minor mistakes in the results presented by the tool. The very fact that the term translations offered by TMs result from a search on a database of previously translated jobs may keep the translator from realizing that the context of the new translation at hand asks for a different term. This is the strongest argument in favor of a more balanced use of CAT put forward by member of Group 4 absolute consistency is not always desirable, given the different translation areas. A participant reported having tried CAT tools and finding them
4 Although it refers more to the quality of the translated text, which we address in a later moment in this paper, a participant has

reported, on that matter, to hate having to use client TMs. There [shouldnt it be THEY?] are usually full of excruciatingly bad translations that I am ashamed to have associated with my name.
5 He continues: [] Personally I still think that most CAT tools should be more user-friendly than they are, but until that day comes

one solution is getting some training and then assess their usefulness based on that knowledge.

extremely useful for IT texts, or anywhere where consistent terminology is used: legal, medical, or any other straightforward narrative or description, for example, but not so much for literature. 6 It is also important to keep in mind that, since TMs are updated according to the volume of translation work done, an individual translator has to take a large number of jobs or concentrate on only one subject field in order to be able to build a TM which is large enough to be as helpful in terms of consistency as the time/money invested on the CAT tool would suggest. Some CAT platforms search external TMs and online TMs (sometimes sent by agencies alongside with originals or made available on the agencys portal, as mentioned before), but the translator may not agree with the terminological choices resulting from search on outer sources, feeling that the resulting translated text looks like a Frankenstein monster, as a participant has put it. Again, there is some grounds for the feeling, expressed by some participants, that many times it is the agency, not the translator, who really benefits the most from the adoption of CAT the number of works managed by an agency surely justifies the investment. The type of original can be an important element to influence a translators choice to use or not to use a CAT tool provided that there is really a choice based only on textual features or personal preferences. However, no rarely the professional does not have the choice, due to some conditions the use of CAT require and that are not always within a translators reach. First and more obviously, CAT tools are commonly referred to as if they came prepared to tackle any given language pair or pairs which is not true at all. Participants of the forum thread have reported not being able to benefit from CAT simply because they could not find a package that deals with the languages they work with, or could not afford the most complex platforms that do have resources on those languages. This is true, according to the comments gathered for this paper, for German and Portuguese, which are important national and international languages. Some limitations to the use of CAT are rather prosaic, but with real and serious impact on the spread on computer-based translation apart the cost element, already discussed at length before. Hardware requirement, for instance, can be a hindrance to CAT use in poorer areas the most powerful packages require equally powerful, expensive machines, as well as non-stop Internet connection availability. Since agencies often impose on the use of TMs available online on their websites, and since some freelance-affordable CAT tools operate over web servers, their use is not a choice for those translators operating on slow, unsteady connections. Finally, there are document format considerations to be made. Although there is a clear movement towards inter-intelligibility, some tools still yield outputs in formats that can only be processed within that specific tool. That can be a serious problem for translators working for several different agencies, as mentioned before, and can lead professionals to giving up CAT whatsoever. Originals are often sent in in formats that a certain tool does not deal with, and the consequent back and forth convertions [pretty sure the word is conversions] add an extra load of work on the translator. Aware of
6 On that matter, another participant states his point of view as follows: Translating works of fiction needs proper setting, like quil

[my guess is that its QUILL, with double LL xD] and scent of paper. I then use also good old dictionary in print. All the other works are best done with trusty CAT.

this fact, CAT software developers have invested in equipping their packages with several conversion and text formatting tools, which is a much welcome improvement of their systems, although it is not yet available for all CAT software in the market. Again, the more expensive, the more complete they will be.

4. Conclusion
Given the modest, unpretentious scope of the present study, we have tried to build on the comments made by the participants of the forum thread we used as data [I think theres something missing here, like, a whole idea, but Im not sure. I couldnt translate this sentence properly I couldnt answer this question that Ive made: what did we try to build on the comments?, and the next sentence is different, it doesnt say anything about it], and use the information thereby provided as the background for a brief discussion of the usefulness of CAT tools as felt by their primary target users professional translators. Our sample was limited and therefore statistically irrelevant, but the analysis of the results has indicated that the use of CAT is not yet consensus inside the area and sometimes not even feasible for all members of the professional translation field. Although the majority of the opinions gathered point clearly in a proCAT direction, there is still a long road ahead for CAT developers, if they are [I have a feeling that theres a word missing here, and this is making the translation quite hard my guess is willing] to make their software more user-friendly and more widely applicable and usable. However powerful these tools may become in the future, however, it is important to keep in mind that their purpose is not to replace the translator, but to help him to [again, another word missing, this time I think it is do] his job more efficiently. Quoting one of the participants of the present study, Human intelligence, professionalism and experience combined with technology certainly make for success.

References
Arnold, D., Balkan, L. et al. (2001). Machine Translation: An Introductory Guide. Blackwell Publishers, London. 2nd edition. Barrachina, S., Casacuberta, F. et al (2008). Statistical Approaches to ComputerAssisted Translation. In: Computational Linguistics, Volume 35, No. 01, pages 328. Craciunesco, O., Gerdin-Salas, C. Stringer-OKeeffe, S. (2004). Machine Translation and Computer-Assited Translation: A New Way of Translating? In: Translators and Computers, Volume 8, No. 03, pages 1-11. Hutchins, W. (2004). Machine Translation Over Fifty Years (2001). In: Histoire, Epistemologie, Language, Volume 22, No. 01, pages 7-31. Lab, Frderique (1988). La Traduction Automatique. In: Bulletin de lEPI, pages 165170.