But as usual, Kilgray is reading minds and setting out to win another 20 translators' hearts with a great deal on MemoQ licenses for ProZ members. The regular price is € 620. The first 20 ProZ members to sign up at this URL will get the product for € 290 (plus VAT if relevant) or USD 395. I made sure my partner was on the list before I decided to post this; I expect the quota of 20 to be taken quickly. This is a seriously good deal for a superior product.
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Update for May 15, 2009:
I told you so. In less than 24 hours the initial allotment of 20 licenses sold out, and the number available was increased to 40. One would have to be unconscious not to recognize this as the sort of good deal that does not come along very often.
I was one of the 20, and I have to say, I'm not experiencing [i]any[/i] of that "Wow, this is the dog's bollocks!" that I had with my first clumsy tries with Trados, a good several years ago. In fact, I'm thinking that typing in Wordpad making reference to an Excel wordlist might be a faster option. It's early days, and I haven't read the manuals fully yet, but... I'm wondering where the benefits lie hidden.
ReplyDeleteI was one of the 20, and I have to say, I'm not experiencing [i]any[/i] of that "Wow, this is the dog's bollocks!" that I had with my first clumsy tries with Trados, a good several years ago. In fact, I'm thinking that typing in Wordpad making reference to an Excel wordlist might be a faster option. It's early days, and I haven't read the manuals fully yet, but... I'm wondering where the benefits lie hidden.
ReplyDeleteHi Rod - to do italics you have to use the tag brackets. The variations in markup between systems drives me nuts at times!
ReplyDeleteI've found the comments from you and Loek regarding Japanese issues and MemoQ very interesting, as it's quite a different game from the one I'm in. I'm looking forward to learning more. Have you received any useful info from contact with A.Z. yet?
As I suggested on the ProZ thread, I doubt that for your specific challenges you'll find anything to beat the old Trados Word macro interface or an equivalent like the old Wordfast. The benefits are more likely to be found in access to other file formats and a better working method there. Does the LSC function work with the screwy OCR files you get?
Since my attempt at translating an OCR'd Word file, all I've done is translate an Excel file. I haven't used the LSC function yet.
ReplyDeleteThe software feels solid and reliable in a way that Trados never has, but the handling of Japanese isn't there yet. When it suggests a partial translation, it runs all the words together with no spaces as they would be in Japanese (e.g. nospacesastheywouldbe). Putting in the spaces takes time... Maybe there are settings I don't know about yet.
Anyway I need to talk to them about this, and I'm confident that they'll have a solution. Again, totally different from Trados.
I've made contact with A.Z., but we haven't exchanged any info yet.
No spaces? That sounds seriously weird. If there isn't already a setting to deal with that, I'm sure there may be soon. I'm fairly impressed with the pace of updates - another one earlier today!
ReplyDeleteHow does it handle spaces going the other direction? Leave them in where it shouldn't?
I never go the other way so I haven't had cause to find out. In that case, it wouldn't be quite so confusing, because spaced out Japanese is not any less comprehensible.
ReplyDeleteIt occurs to me now that this issue is probably with the LSC function. I was using it without realizing what the function was called.
Since MemoQ seems more 'linguistic' than Trados, I may have to tighten up my term entry habits. Whether this will be worth it remains to be seen.