We can all agree that the world is not what it was 30, 20 or even 10 years ago. The translation business is no different.

No one in our team is old enough to have experience writing their translations on a typewriter, buried behind piles of books. Yes, paper books which have to be physically browsed through. Today, everything is becoming electronic, and the main tool of a translator is now their computer, where CAT tools should not be missing.

What exactly are CAT tools?

No, the term CAT tools has nothing to do with cats.

It is an abbreviation for “Computer-Aided Translation”. Nowadays, every serious translator simply must use them.

But do these tools really translate instead of the translator?

Make no mistake: Translation tools do not translate in place of the translator (you are probably thinking of a completely separate field called “machine translation”) but support them with its set of features that contribute to faster and higher-quality translation due to more consistent terminology, properly used numerical values, and more.

Let us take a look at the most common and useful features offered by translation tools such as memoQ, Trados Studio, Across, Wordfast and many more.

TM or Translation Memory

The most common feature is a TM or Translation Memory.

It stores the translations done by the translator and when similar text sections (or segments) come up, the translation tool displays that a similar (or perhaps even the same) part of the text has already been translated in the past so that the translator only needs to adapt it or even use it without performing any change.

TB or glossary

Another very important feature is the TB or Term Base, also called the glossary.

It stores the specific terminology of the client and the translation tool alerts the translator or proofreader during the translation process or QA in case the desired term was not used.

QA or Quality Assessment

We have already talked a little about QA or Quality Assessment.

It checks the matching of the numbers between the original and the translation, potential double spaces and spaces in front of the punctuation that should not be there, the adherence to the glossaries, correct spelling and more.

​A feature that remedies any lapses of the translator/proofreader.

Is that really all?

Of course, these tools offer even more features that translators can use very well: spell-checking, automatic conversion of units and date and number formats, concordance to search through previous translations, and more.

To sum up, an extremely powerful tool, which makes our Turnkey Translations® what they are and saves our clients from many a sleepless night (not to mention lower translation costs).