Questionnaire Translation and Review:
Life Outside Excel Without Loss of Information

Using LQE in the CAT Tool to
Document Linguists’ Interventions

Using LQE in the CAT Tool to
Document Linguists’ Interventions

Manuel Souto Pico

Lead translation technologist @ cApStAn
LQE restful API developer (PRESENTER)

Steve Dept

Founding partner @ cApStAn
Intervention categories framework

Briac Pilpré

Independent senior Java developer
OmegaT core developer / LQE plugin author

cApStAn Linguistic Quality Control

  • Founded in Belgium in 2000
  • Methodology for standardised evaluation of translation quality
  • Offices in Brussels and Philadelphia
  • Close cooperation with academic world

Translation review in surveys

To date, the most widespread approach to language tasks (translation, verification, etc.) in surveys typically involves:

  • a translation tool (aka CAT tool), where the linguist enters or edits the target-language version, and
  • a monitoring tool (an Excel file), where the linguist
    • checks translation and adaptation guidelines and
    • documents their interventions.

to translate
and to review

translation editor

monitoring form

Translation review in surveys

copy-paste

to document interventions

to check guidelines

The problem we try to solve

Monitoring forms tend to be unwieldy, because:

  • ​they pose a distraction for the reviewer, who must cycle back and forth between two or more windows

copy-paste

translation editor

monitoring form

Translation review in ILSA's

to translate
and to review

to document interventions

to check guidelines

The problem we try to solve

Monitoring forms tend to be unwieldy, because:

  • ​they pose a distraction for the verifier, who must cycle back and forth between two or more windows
  • they have many columns that require a large screen or a lot of scrolling, most of which the reviewer doesn't really need to see.
  • there is no connection between the actual translation data and the related documentation, which entails a lot of copy-pasting.

OmegaT

OmegaT is a CAT tool (or translation editor). It is:

  • Free software (free as in freedom and free of cost)
  • Multiplatform (it works on Windows, macOS, Linux)
  • Filters for more than 30 file formats (XLIFF, DOCX, etc.)
  • Follows translation industry's open standards closely
  • Open source: you may modify the code (or hire a developer to do it for you) to suit your own requirements
  • Customisable and expandable by means of scripts/macros and plugins

The improvement we propose

The goal:

  • Let the reviewer focus better on what really matters to them.

In practice:

  • New panes within OmegaT's window
  • A new approach to data collection and use

The means:

  • Reduce complexity of the working environment
  • Let the reviewer see the translation notes and document their interventions directly in the translation tool

to translate
and to review

translation editor

monitoring form

copy-paste

to document interventions

to check guidelines

Linguistic Quality Evaluation

to translate
and to review

translation editor

to document interventions

to check guidelines

Linguistic Quality Evaluation

demo

Intervention categories

The intervention categories, subcategories and severity levels are not hard-coded in the LQE, but can customised depending on the project and the client, by means of a configuration file.

 

T&A notes + LQE in OmegaT

  • The linguist can read the notes and document interventions in OmegaT
  • Each issue has:
    • Category
    • Severity
    • Comment
  • Writes LQE reports to:
    • local Excel file, and/or
    • remote database (cApps)
  • LQE reports are available on cApps

manuel.souto@capstan.be

Code

LQE plugin for OmegaT

  • https://github.com/briacp/omegat-plugin-lqe

LQE back-end

  • https://github.com/msoutopico/capps-lqe-backend