Translation companies play an important role in the ever more dynamic and high-paced international business and communication landscape. Speed, efficiency and consistent quality are crucial to keep up with high competitiveness of the market. Translation companies therefore need the right tools like those designed for CAT (Computer Assisted Translation) in order to provide accurate and timely translations.
CAT tools are the go-to tool for many translation companies as they help streamline the translation process by offering translation memory, machine translation, translation workflow management, and built-in quality assurance.
CAT tools offer many advantages for professional translation companies
● Firstly, they allow previously translated material to be stored in a translation memory, which helps speed up the translation process by automatically recognising matches between a source and a target document. This saves both time and money by reducing the need for manual re-translation.
● They also have a handy machine translation feature, which is particularly helpful for specialised or complex source material.
● Finally, CAT tools offer translation workflow management, which enables the tracking and management of translations in multiple languages.
Top 5 CAT (Computer Assisted Translation) tools that can make all the difference for translation companies as well as freelance translators
- SDL Trados Studio: As one of the market leaders in the industry, this brand has been on the market for 30 years, offering a comprehensive suite of CAT programs and other tools that allow for increased productivity and quality assurance. Its software features translation memory, terminology, machine translation, and software localization.
- Wordfast Pro: This CAT tool is an easy-to-use, cloud-enabled tool that helps manage multiple languages and streamline the translation process. It is a multi-platform tool allowing translators, language service providers and multinational corporations to handle their translations.
- MemoQ: It was first designed to improve the quality and productivity of work performed by freelance translators. It allows for reuse of previous translations – from translation memory, terminology management and machine translation, all the way to quality control and reporting. Using an intuitive interface, MemoQ helps simplify the translation process, pre-translation and QA.
- Fluency Now Professional: It is an affordable and efficient CAT tool for professional translators, especially freelance translators because of its affordability and is available on Windows, OSX and Linux.
- Catapult: This is a cloud-based tool, accessible from anywhere via any web browser with a versatile repertoire of built-in functions from translation memory, team collaboration to glossaries, MT and much more. It is also very easy-to-use and highly secure web app.
Although there are other tools, each with their own benefits and additional features, we have only presented the most commonly used ones. After trying these, it is of course advisable to also do some research within the pool of others such as OneSkyApp, Smartcat, Smartling or Transifex. Many of both the most commonly and less frequently used tools also offer a free trial version, so you can test them out thoroughly before you commit to a full subscription or license.