1. Transfer mt systems.

Transfer-based machine translation is a type of machine translation. It is based on the idea of interlingua and is currently one of the most widely used methods of machine translation.

Various methods of analysis and transformation can be used before obtaining the final result. Along with these statistical approaches may be augmented generating hybrid systems. The methods which are chosen and the emphasis depends largely on the design of the system, however, most systems include at least the following stages:

Morphological analysis. Surface forms of the input text are classified as to part-of-speech (e.g. noun, verb, etc.) and sub-category (number, gender, tense, etc.) All of the possible "analyses" for each surface form are typically outputted at this stage, along with the lemma of the word.

Lexical categorization. In any given text some of the words may have more than one meaning, causing ambiguity in analysis. Lexical categorization looks at the context of a word to try to determine the correct meaning in the context of the input. This can involve part-of-speech tagging and word sense disambiguation.

Lexical transfer. This is basically dictionary translation; the source language lemma (perhaps with sense information) is looked up in a bilingual dictionary and the translation is chosen.

Structural transfer. While the previous stages deal with words, this stage deals with larger constituents, for example phrases and chunks. Typical features of this stage include concordance of gender and number, and re-ordering of words or phrases.

Morphological generation. From the output of the structural transfer stage, the target language surface forms are generated.

One of the main features of transfer based machine translation systems is a phase that "transfers" an intermediate representation of the text in the original language to an intermediate representation of text in the target language. This can work at one of two levels of linguistic analysis, or somewhere in between. The levels are:

Superficial transfer (or syntactic). This level is characterized by transferring "syntactic structures" between the source and target languages. It is suitable for languages in the same family or of the same type, for example in the Romance languages between Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian, etc.

Deep transfer (or semantic). This level constructs a semantic representation that is dependent on the source language. This representation can consist of a series of structures which represent the meaning. In these transfer systems predicates are typically produced. The translation also typically requires structural transfer. This level is used to translate between more distantly related languages (e.g. Spanish-English or Spanish-Basque, etc.)

2. Wordfast and OmegaT tm-based cat tools.

Computer-assisted translation, computer-aided translation, or CAT is a form of language translation in which a human translator uses computer software to support and facilitate the translation process.

Computer-assisted translation, computer-aided translation, or CAT is a form of language translation in which a human translator uses computer software to support and facilitate the translation process.

When you use a CAT tool for translating you will both be a better and a faster translator. In consequence, you will make more money and/or you will have more leisure time.

How does help to achieve this? CAT means "Computer Aided Translation". A CAT tool is a computer program that helps to translate text documents more efficiently through four main functions:

A CAT tool segmentizes the text to be translated in segments (sentences) and presents the segments in a convenient way, to make translating easier and faster. In MetaTexis each segment is presented in a special box, and the translation can be entered in another box right below the source text.

The name Wordfast is used for any of a number of translation memory products developed by Wordfast LLC. The original Wordfast product, now called Wordfast Classic, was developed by Yves Champollion in 1999 as a cheaper, simpler alternative to Trados, a well-known translation memory program at that time. The current Wordfast products run on a variety of platforms, but use largely compatible translation memory formats, and often also have similar workflows. The software is most popular with freelance translators, although some of the products are also suited for corporate environments.

Wordfast LLC is based in Delaware, United States, although most of the development takes place in Paris, France. Apart from these two locations, there is also a support centre in the Czech Republic. The company has around 50 employees.

Wordfast Professional (WFP) is our next-generation, standalone TM tool designed for corporations, translation agencies, and translators alike. WFP runs on multiple platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.), and opens a wide variety of formats including complex desktop publishing formats. The PM perspective in WFP integrates powerful tools for Project Managers. For a presentation, visit www.wordfast.com, WFP's home base.

Wordfast Classic (WFC) is a CAT tool designed as a Microsoft Word™ add-on. Its lightweight, flexible structure makes it easy to install and use. It is designed to meet the specific needs of the individual translator and translation workgroups that primarily use Microsoft Word to translate. WFC maintains compatibility with Trados and most CAT tools. Read more or download the product brief.

Wordfast Anywhere (WFA) is an online version that merges Wordfast Classic and Wordfast Pro. If you already use WFP or WFC, you'll feel at home. WFA is free at this time, and most of its features will remain free. Click here to see the future of translation.

Wordfast Server (WFS) is a corporate solution that can store and serve very large TMs to Wordfast Pro and Wordfast Classic over the internet, or a LAN.

Qualified network administrators/IT personnel will be able to deploy it without assistance.

Demo modes: both WFP and WFC offer demo modes that let translators perform small production jobs for evaluations (up to 500 segments; emptying the TM/database lets you repeat the demo mode indefinitely). WFS' demo mode only allows evaluation, not production.

OmegaT is a free translation memory application written in Java. It is a tool intended for professional translators. It does not translate for you! (Software that does this is called "machine translation", and you will have to look elsewhere for it.) OmegaT has the following features:

• Fuzzy matching

• Match propagation

• Simultaneous processing of multiple-file projects

• Simultaneous use of multiple translation memories

• User glossaries with recognition of inflected forms

• Document file formats include:

• XHTML and HTML

• Microsoft Office Open XML (Office 2007/2010: .docx, .xlsx, .pptx)

• OpenOffice.org

• XLIFF (Okapi)

• MediaWiki (Wikipedia)

• Plain text

• Unicode (UTF-8) support: can be used with non-Latin alphabets

• Support for right-to-left languages

• Integral spelling checker

• Compatible with other translation memory applications (TMX)

• Interface to Google Translate

OmegaT will run on any system on which the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) has been or can be installed. The JRE is now supplied with OmegaT and need not be obtained separately. OmegaT has been successfully installed on Windows (all versions from 98 onwards), Macintosh OS X and Linux.

Files in Microsoft Office XML format can be translated directly in OmegaT. Files in older MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint formats can be translated following conversion to the equivalent current Microsoft Office formats, or alternatively to the Office Open XML format, which can be done in OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice (also free). To obtain OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice, follow the link from "Third-party software" button on the left.

User requirements

OmegaT is not particularly difficult to install or use, but it does require a willingness to read and follow the instructions. If you have a natural aversion to reading instructions, and your approach to new software is to click on every button you see until something resembling the desired effect occurs, then OmegaT is probably not suitable for you. You should also be willing to obtain and install other (free) software.