Yesterday, the following survey dropped into Translation Blog’s inbox, and we thought we should share it with you – not least because there is a chance to win an iPad2 in January – which would be a great start to the New Year.SmartMATE, a full Machine Translation (MT) and Translation Memory (TM) platform designed for use by almost anyone who needs to translate text from one language to another, caused quite a stir at a number of conferences and exhibitions such as TAUS and Localization World in 2011.We got in touch with Richard Stangroom at SmartMATE.co to give him the chance to explain in more detail. The SmartMATE team want translators and interested people to have a go on the system, build an engine and use the platform, before letting them know what you think by answering the short survey. The link to that survey is here (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/smartmate_feedback) and at the bottom of the page.
Over the last six months we have been offering users free trials of the SmartMATE system with a selected band of individuals and companies, giving them a chance to get their hands on the system and have a play with its features. We then listened to the feedback, continued to develop it and now we have it ready, in Beta at least.
As a result of the initial tests with users not only did we build an editing environment, but we also decided to roll our Translation Memory and Machine Translation systems into this one web-based system.
The full SmartMATE platform, which includes the ability to build your own MT engine, full TM integration, the use of your own glossaries, and the new editing environment will be launched for commercial use in January, so we are keen to get as much feedback as possible now, in order to find and fix any remaining issues with the system. This is where the readers of Translation Blog can help us.
We want to give you free use of the system until the full launch – and you will still qualify for a 30 day trial. Not only that, but for your assistance, you will also be entered into a prize draw for a chance to win an iPad2!
The system is built on XML Localisation Interchange File Format (XLIFF, .xlf format) and supports this perfectly, although we have also built in file filtering for MS-Word (.doc/.docx, but not .rtf). All these documents will be supported by the editing environment. Pure text (.txt) and SDL Trados Tag Format (.ttx) are also supported for MT and TM only.
We’re particularly keen to hear what you think of the quality of our MT, and if it matches the experience of the people who regularly use the technology, such as Bartosz Rogowski, a Polish translator, who had this to say:
“The problem with machine translation was always that you had to choose between two options; using a system that relied on C++ expertise, which leads to a lot of sleepless nights, or buy an inferior ‘out of the box’ ‘one size fits all’ solution, that may not meet your quality standards. SmartMATE has solved the problem by bridging the gap between these two options, improving the quality of the output and being very easy to use.
“SmartMATE lets you build different engines that will, for instance, imitate incomprehensible jargon used by your customers, and will remember the 1500-item list of terminology that your other customer requires. A great new tool for translators!”
Once again, to qualify for the competition, have a go with SmartMATE by registering at www.smartmate.co, and then fill out this quick survey once you have finished: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/smartmate_feedback .