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Some
of you will have noticed that TranslatorsTraining.com has been taken
down. Well, let me correct myself: I actually know that quite a few of
you noticed because I received a bunch of emails asking about the
site's whereabouts. We took it down because we felt it was too
work-intensive to keep it updated using the model we had chosen. At the
same time, we never did find the right kind of business model for it.
Plus,
we don't live in Canada!
Non
sequitur? Not quite. Translation-intensive Canada offers a plethora of
very interesting translator training offerings that often receive
helpful support from the government.
One
such very impressive place is called Linguistech.
Though it took me some time to find my bearings on the site, here's
what I discovered. It's a site for translation students who need to
familiarize themselves with translation technology without having to
invest a great deal into purchasing the different tools or even
downloading them. It accomplishes this by offering a virtual desktop
with each of the tools covered that you can then use to go through a
large number of tutorials. Doesn't sound so bad, huh?
I
didn't think so either.
The
problem (at this point) is that a good part of the site is open only to
Canadian students, but I would like to propose a way to change that
(see below.)
There
are parts that are open to all of us, including a library of articles and webinars and the helpful Collection of Electronic
Resources in Translation Technologies or CERTT for short. Within
CERTT you'll find information and tutorials on tools like Acrobat,
Antidote, CatsCradle, CmapTools, Diatopix, DiCoInfo, Electronic
dictionaries, Google, Le grand dictionnaire terminologique, IATE, Le
Migou, LogiTerm, Microsoft Office, MultiTrans, ORBIS, Reverso Promt,
SDL Trados, SynchroTerm, TERMIUM Plus, TermoStat Web, TextSTAT,
TradooIT, TransSearch, WeBiText, Wiktionary, Windows, WordNet,
WordSmith Tools, and YouAlign,
Are
you familiar with all those tools? Didn't think so -- I wasn't either.
This might partly be because they're very Canadian- and/or
EN<>FR-based, and in other cases because they might not represent
the latest and best -- but still a very interesting -- resource replete
with sample files and training materials right at your fingertips.
If
you're a non-French speaker, you might be tripped up because only some
of the materials are available in English (and in some cases you might
also stumble on dead links), but you'll find plenty of materials that
are interesting. To access the virtual desktop, you'll have to pay some
extra, even if you are a Canadian student who has access to everything
else.
The
most interesting thing for those access-blessed students is probably
the Translation
Ecosystem, which allows you to select where you see yourself
and your experience in regard to translation. It then presents you with
a workflow chart and many exercises that are relevant to the different
steps and your maturity level in the process. It's really quite cool,
and it's a shame that more of the tool makers don't have their
technology represented. What you will find with the appropriate login
-- which I was given to review the site -- is that this part is very
lopsided between English and French. The vast majority of lessons are
in French only -- which I guess makes sense for Canada -- but even
Canadians have to admit that other languages would be great to have as
well.
This
brings me to my proposal: What if some non-Canadian universities with
translation degree programs offered to translate the lessons in the Translation
Ecosystem in exchange for their students having access to the site?
Sounds like a win-win to me. (If more than only English were involved,
it could even be a win-win-win....) I mentioned this to Iulia Mihalache as we
were talking about the Ecosystem and she at least seemed open
toward the idea. I hope that this will encourage some teachers among
you to contact her.
Oh,
and my own TranslatorsTraining? I'm still looking for a good place to
upload the files again. As I said, they're a little outdated now, but
they provided a very clever way to compare different tools on an
apples-to-apples kind of basis. If the same proactive teachers think
their university would like to host those, let me know.
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