Machine Translation: A Smartcat Review

I arose this morning with the intention of recording my next video in my translation management series, and then I realized I have laryngitis…best laid plans, and all that. Instead, I will share with you my experiences with Smartcat.

No, I am not about to brag about one of my five cats, although if you ask, I will be happy to share. CAT refers to computer-aided translation. According to Wikipedia, “Smartcat is a cloud-based translation and localization platform that connects businesses, translators, and translation agencies in a single ‘Connected Translation’ delivery loop.”

I am currently contracted with a large global NGO, that is in the process of implementing Workday, a cloud-based, finance and human resource planning system. The system is rolling out in waves, and the production environment is continually being updated as the system is customized for the NGO.

At the same time, the NGO needs to train their staff quickly on the most current implementation. This means that training is being produced and constantly revised. Because of the constant changes, using a voice-talent and a translation agency would be time consuming, and cost prohibitive. For these reasons the company opted for text to voice audio, and Smartcat for the translations. I have always worked with translation vendors, for the primary reason of producing a quality translation that looks like it was produced for the targeted audience. Can Smartcat do this?

First, the company holds the license for Smartcat, although there are free versions available, so I cannot report on the actual use of the tool itself, only the translation results. I work in Storyline 360, which has a translation export tool. It allows me to export all the text in an XLF file. This is an XML formatted file based on the XLIFF (XML Localisation Interchange File Format) specification developed by the OASIS Technical Committee; used as a standard means of exchanging localizable data and related information in a lossless format (Source: FileInfo.com). This file is imported into Smartcat, translated to the selected language, and returned to me as an XLF file that I import into Storyline. This process has been seamless, but how is the actual translation?

I know enough French and Spanish to be dangerous, and the translations have been surprisingly good. There are limitations and quirks which I will share:

Inconsistent translation of sentences

If you have the exact same sentence in multiple places on a slide, for example: a caption and notes. Check to make sure the translations matched. I have found that although the English was identical in several places. The translation was not.

Inconsistent translation of words

Even if you use the same word consistently, throughout the course, such as “Manager,” several synonyms may be used in the translation, for example:

English: manager

Spanish: jefe, gerente, director

French: manager, gérante, directeur

The translation might not match the intent of the original language

This is trickier, especially if you do not know the language. I discovered this because of my limited language knowledge. I would read the sentence in Spanish and think, “that is not exactly what I remember it saying.” I would enter the sentence into Google translate to see what it translated to in English, and find I was correct. I would then find myself rewriting the sentence in English, inserting it into Google for re-translation into the target language, re-translating that to English, and so on, until I got acceptable results. This sentence was particularly problematic in both Spanish and French:

Original English: Reorder columns, such as moving a column to the top, to the bottom, up one or down one, by clicking the applicable arrow. 

Smartcat Spanish Output: Reordenar las columnas, como mover una columna hacia arriba, hacia abajo, hacia arriba o hacia abajo, haciendo clic en la flecha correspondiente. 

Google translate to English: Reorder columns, such as moving a column up, down, up, or down, by clicking the corresponding arrow.

English revision: Reorder columns, such as moving a column up, down, up one row, or down one row, by clicking the corresponding arrow.

Final Google Translate to Spanish: Reordenar las columnas, como mover una columna hacia arriba, hacia abajo, hacia arriba uno o hacia abajo uno, haciendo clic en la flecha correspondiente.

On the whole I thought that Smartcat did a good job, and is excellent in a situation like this for inexpensive, quick translations,  but it does not replace the need for a proper review by a SME who is a native language speaker of the target language.