Historically, CAT tools only offered the possibility of re-using your translations. The document that needed to be translated, was split up into parts called “segments” (usually sentences), and the translated segments were stored in a memory, the Translation Memory (TM), which was referred to during the translation. In due course, more and more resources have been added. The following is an overview of the resources CafeTran Espresso 2015 currently offers. The number of resources you can connect to is unlimited, so you can have any number of TMs, Termbases, and web resources simultaneously.
- The TM. The translation memory for segments. It’s still there, and it’s the only resource you really can’t do without. It’s a TMX mark-up file that offers far more features than the original TMs, including fuzzy matches and easy but extensive maintenance from within CafeTran.
- The Termbase, a memory for words and phrases, very similar to the TM, with the same benefits.
- The Glossary (also called Lexicon or tab del) for terms and phrases, a plain, tab delimited text file that’s past its expiry date. It doesn’t offer the goodies the Termbase offers, and it’s a left-over of the days you could only “connect” to one Termbase.
- The Database. In CafeTran, a simple relational database (SQLite by default), that allows for very fast searching gigabytes of data (think of the DGT) because it’s indexed. It can also create a (TMX) file by “recalling” data from the database.
- Web resources. You can search websites from within CafeTran, and the results are shown in the CafeTran interface.
All resources can “float” so you can give them a more prominent place on you screen, or even move them to a second monitor. Click to enlarge.
- Machine Translation (MT), also integrated in the user interface. Results can be triggered by going from a segment to the next one, or manually. The free MyMemory is the default MT, Bing and other MTs are included in the Options.
- TM-Town. A very recent development. I’m afraid I haven’t tried it yet. You search your own resources, but it offers extras like tokenisation.
You may also want to have a look here for my take on the settings of TMX resources.
