Report computer aided translation

REPORT
MASTER ERASMUS MUNDUS 2010
Patrick Martinez
Translation and Interpretation Department – University of Alicante

The use of Computer Aided Translation Tools in professionaltranslation, including revision and project management, has been spreading over the last decades and nowadays it is almost generalized. CAT tools and more precisely translation memories,constitute a tool which allows the translator to work more efficiently, improving his productivity and giving the final product more coherence and cohesion which would be more difficult to achievewithout the use of the said tools.

The Translation and Interpretation Department of the University of Alicante has decided to design a high quality CAT training program through the studyand application of Translation Memories programs on a professional level.

Nowadays two TM programs are leading the market and are becoming the translator’s preferred tools: Wordfast andSDL Trados.

This is the reason why the Translation and Interpretation Department of the University of Alicante has decided to purchase enough licenses of both programs in order to organizea training course which will allow the students to obtain a full theoretical and practical understanding of both programs.

On the methodological side, the student will first obtain atheoretical explanation including a description of the translation and project management workflow through the use of both Wordfast and SDL Trados, and then, on the next phase of the training,the student will apply its knowledge to real translation projects.

The practical application of the theoretical knowledge obtain through the training course will be done in the differenttranslation subjects included in the Master. The main objective of the TM course is to offer the students the possibility to use TM tools as they would do it in a professional environment.