Project managers might find the most value from computer-aided or -assisted translation (CAT) tools during the preparation phase, when seeing the stored translations automatically applied to the new project they are working on. However, CAT tools' major benefit is in the main translation and review process.
CAT tools have a feature called translation memory that can store and retrieve source and equivalent (human translated) target sentences. For a specific source text, translation memory can list past translations, for both fully (100%) matched and similar source sentences. The latter is called fuzzy matches. For example, Click the OK button to continue might be suggested as one of candidates for another sentence like Click the Next button to continue. Translation memory can also show different 100% match translations if previously stored for a sentence.
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This means that translators have access to a variety of translation memory entries and can compare all suggested translations for reusing or creating the best translation. The translation memory panel in the CAT tools can display who previously worked on the entry. For example, if one of the suggested entries was last modified by the reviewer from the end customer, it most likely reflects the language style or expression specified or preferred by the customer.
The CAT tools' integrated terminology management features can help the creation of your team's own list of translations, such as keywords specific to an industry or a set of products or services you offer. In addition to help maintain the translation consistency, the feature can have details to give more context to translators' terminology usage.
In many terminology features, default fields are provided for describing the conceptual information and notes on usage for each terminology. Translators can easily identify the customer's expected translation for a specific terminology when the target language requires different translations for different contexts. A typical example of this can be the English word account. If the CAT tool has a Domain field, it can be used for contextual explanations like "Systems administration" for translation A ("user" account) and "Banking" for translation B ("bank" account).
So, take full advantage of the translation memory and the terminology panels in CAT tools to efficiently deliver quality translations.
Note: The behaviours of these features can change depending on your setup. For example, storing translation variations for one sentence can be disabled in your translation memory. Terminology views can be configured for smaller displays by hiding any informational field. Make sure to find the suitable tool configurations for yourself.