Manuel Souto Pico

Translation technologist

Contents

  • Education
  • Work experience
  • Current role

1996

2000

Grade in Translation and Interpreting
University of Vigo

Grade in translation and interpreting

  • 1996-2003
  • en, fr > gl
  • major: economics, law, technical
  • terminology
  • end of finals assignment

Skills I learned

 

 

  • The approach: Terminology (theory and practice)
  • The medium: Dynamic web development
  • The topic: Galician traditional clothing

Research assignment on terminology that turned around three axis:

Web development (dynamic)

HTML

The language used to build web pages.

PHP

A server-side programming language.

MySQL

A database query language.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en" dir="ltr">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title></title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Hello world</p>
  </body>
</html>
SELECT username FROM table.users WHERE user_id == $user_id
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en" dir="ltr">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title></title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Hello ${username}</p>
  </body>
</html>

Web development (dynamic)

HTML

The language used to build web pages.

PHP

A server-side programming language.

MySQL

A database query language.

XML

Javascript

CSS

Python

data

XSLT

Maîtrise en traduction specialisée

  • Université Rennes 2
  • 2003-2004
  • terminology, XML, VBA, translation
  • never finished... (shame on me)

Job

 

 

  • Develop a multilingual glossary (en, fr, es, da)
  • Write job specs for developers
  • Write mockups and PoC
  • Design the term database and query interfaces
  • Design conceptual map

Terminologist, IIEP - Unesco

Masters in Applied linguistics

  • IULA - Pompeu Fabra University
  • 2004-2006
  • terminology, NLP, variation
  • introduction to research (DEA...)

What I (l)earned

 

 

  • Gender studies
  • Machine learning: feature selection
  • Regular expressions
  • Text linguistics: cohesion and consistency

Master thesis about gender identification

EOI

العربية

cApStAn (2006-2013)

  • Revising XLIFF files in OLT
  • Documenting interventions in kilometric Excel files
  • Occasional technical tasks (text processing)

Freelance Galician verifier (reviser)

  • Welcome to the surveys and assessments world
  • Intervention categories
  • Experience as QA expert (mostly in Galician)

What I (l)earned:

Lionbridge (1y)

  • Only mobile devices: Nokia, Motorola, etc.
  • Linguistic testing in Galician
  • Functional testing in other languages, e.g. Arabic

Software localization testing engineer

  • Good (first) experience
  • Prestige
  • Working for a global leader in the localization industry

What I (l)earned:

STAR (4y)

  • Transit NXT, TermStart NXT, WebTerm
  • Technical support to clients and users
  • Termbase management, occasional XSLT
  • Translation memory management
  • File preparation

Terminologist and technical support

  • Problem-solving skills, analytical mindset
  • Excellent insight into CAT tools and file prepp, e.g.
    • Extraction
    • Segmentation
  • Started learning about localization data standards

What I (l)earned

XML

  • Syntax without a predefined vocabulary, many open-source localization data standards are based on:
    • XLIFF: interoperability format for translation files
    • TMX: exchange format for translation memories
    • SRX: exchengae format for segmentation rules
    • TBX: exchange format for termbases
    • QTI: question and test interoperability

Lionbridge (1y)

  • Tourism and leisure verticals
  • Translation quality, e.g. LQI manager
  • Language asset manager
  • QA automation

Language coordinator

  • Large regular expression expertise
  • Deeper familiarity with quality management
  • Deeper familiarity with the localization industry

What I (l)earned

cApStAn (9y)

  • Back to ILSA and surveys, from the tech side
  • Started with spontaneous audit
  • CAT tool support
  • Localization engineering, e.g. file preparation
  • Internationalization and data standards advice
  • Workflow automation (server applications)
  • Web applications

Translation technologist

  • Better programming skills (Python, APIs, etc.)
  • MT and PE
  • Quality in assessment/survey localization

What I (l)earned

Internationalization advice

Some examples:

web apps / APIs

cApps

  • VeryFire
  • MemoryLn
  • xDiff

@msoutopico