5 useful data visualization tools for translators

Introduction

Language translators are in a world of their own. Our job involves meticulous preparation and quality checks before putting the finishing touches.. U.S We have a small set of applications and online tools that we use to check the quality of our work.

It is very possible that these tools have repeatedly saved you from working all night. I know I definitely fall into this category!, since I use CAT and other tools on a daily basis! By automating my workflow and helping me with checks and other things, these tools and apps have helped me spend more time focusing on the things that matter most.

One thing that has always interested me: take advantage of the most useful applications for translation. It makes a lot of sense to me because the tools I use are helping me to be more productive and offer quality work to clients..

Recently, I have come across a fascinating topic: the paper of display to help translators create more accurate and creative translations. And that's the idea behind this post.

The role of visualization in translation

Then, while looking for more options to try, I found this document called “Translation through visualization”. It was written by a professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, who spoke about an important aspect in professional translation: Problem resolution.

Let's be realistic, the job of a translator involves a lot of problem solving, and this is where we should be good.

According to the document, one thing that could help translators troubleshoot more effectively is visualization.

Let me give you a simple example.

Suppose you are translating a technical manual that involves a complex engine. Evidently, there are many different parts of that engine that you need to translate correctly, but, to do it, you must understand how the whole machine works.

What an interesting project to work on, truth?

Of course, the best way is to refer to pictures, schematic drawings, videos and other images depicting the engine. By analyzing them, can truly understand the role of each component and, therefore, be in a better position to provide a more accurate and quality translation.

We use images to communicate complex machines because our minds are good at processing them. In reality, about 65 percent of the population are visual learners, so they prefer to learn and remember information through visual communication.

Therefore, it is likely that you are also one of them, so I would appreciate some images to help deliver a quality translation.

At the same time helping with precision, the images are also great for boosting your imagination in translation. As an example, look at a situation, an object, a person, a poster or whatever might inspire us to do a creative translation.

According to the document, a translator cannot always rely on words to capture the essence of something, so the use of visual items is a great tool to help with that..

This is why I decided to create this list of tools for data and text visualization that you can use to extract meaning and facilitate your work..

Data visualization tools for translators

InfraNodus

A Textexture project, InfraNodus has been created with a purpose: turn text and data into a visual summary to discover ideas. It works by means of a series of powerful network analysis algorithms and text analysis tools to generate a network graph, that the translator can use to boost their thinking procedure.

Using InfraNodus is quite simple:

• Add some text or data to the tool (integration with Google, Twitter, Gephi and Twitter are also available)
• The tool converts the input into a graph showing the connections between the co-occurrences in the textual content.
• The most important data or text is displayed larger to help with navigation through the chart. Words with equivalent meaning or those that appear most frequently are grouped into separate groups with unique colors.
• Navigating InfraNodus features is easy when the graph is complete. As an example, by going to the main menu item in Insight, get access to analytical functions. You can use them to identify structural gaps in charts, understand meanings and contexts, and generate new ideas about how to approach the translation of the text.

Translators' experiences with InfraNodus have also been positive.

“After trying InfraNodus myself, I can tell it could be used to create easy to navigate mind maps, visualize the notes you made to reveal the main concepts”, dice Janusz Gostkowski, translator of TheWordPoint. “Y, decidedly, I can visualize data to get help understanding context”.

“This is my advice: do your best not to clutter up the lines in your visualization just for the sake of doing it”, comparte Joanna Awona, expert in content localization of Beneficiary. “You could easily end up with tons of unrelated data points”.

One last thing: note that InfraNodus supports 7 Languages: English, French, español, Swedish, russian and portuguese.

2. SDL Trados (and accessories)

SDL Trados is an essential tool in the arsenal of every professional translator. Personally, I started using it many years ago and I still use it for many of my projects, especially those that involve data tables and other types of complex content.

Trados is CAT software (computer assisted translation) which is also a magnificent tool for data visualization. You can get a visual overview of the translated document as you work on it from View> Preview (shown with a red arrow in the image below).

The document preview is displayed in the lower right corner.

The function opens the document with its progress as shown, so you can visually see what the translated data looks like and the copy. The window with the above looks small here, but you can expand it to get a more detailed view.

Therefore, this way you can visualize the data as you translate, which helps with general understanding of the content, structure and format.

Accessories

SDL has an app store for Trados that you should definitely check it out. At the same time, useful tools such as multiterm glossaries, vocabulary management and post mappings, it also has data visualization plugins like TAUS DQF.

At the same time helping with quality and productivity monitoring, it also makes it possible to create personalized visual reports on your performance. Analyze all the projects you have worked on and generate tables, graphics and other visual items in a report equivalent to the one shown below.

This can help you monitor your work and find out where you might be underperforming or not meeting your personal goals..

3. OverviewDocs

Initially built for investigative journalists, General description is an open source analysis and visualization tool for processing text documents (despite this, only you can see the documents you upload). It supports a wide range of file types and also in many languages ​​and includes its own search engine to discover documents.

The WordCloud function is one of the most interesting functions for translators. Simply, is a plugin that can search hundreds of documents to create word clouds to categorize and discover texts with the same word.

Despite this, translators aren't the only ones using WordCloud. According to Michael Domm, OmniStar Marketing Manager, a referral marketing software, tracked documents for positive indications from customer feedback and to discover top performing affiliates.

Another worthy feature is text display. To help you become familiar with it, OverviewDocs comes with some default texts (but you can also start processing your own texts right away).

At the same time, you can search multiple search terms in documents at the same time, which could be useful for discovering content in sparsely scanned texts.

4. Text parser

Although it is not quite a text visualization tool, Text parser is a useful alternative to obtain detailed statistics and information associated with the text. For translators, could become a reference tool for dating, evaluating the complexity of the text, the frequency of words and other statistics.

I have analyzed Shakespeare's text and here is the list of statistics generated by the tool:

• Word count
• Number of different words
• Readability according to Fiery Fox Index (an average of the number of words per sentence and the number of long words per word)
• Complexity factors (lexical density)
• Average syllables per word
• Minimum length / sentence maxim
• Frequency and main words (the user can also search for specific words)
• Word length statistics
• Frequency of word phrases

Text Analyzer also makes it possible to obtain web page statistics.

5. Infogram

Infogram is an elegant tool for data visualization, capable of creating infographics, reports, slideshow, maps, dashboards and visual social media items with your data. Simply enter your details and select the type of visual you would like to create, and Infogram will generate quality content.

The good thing is that Infogram comes with a range of templates for your content., so you don't have to think about how to represent the data. The tool can not only help you understand texts, it also represents their work in a compelling and easy-to-understand way.

Final notes

The visual representation of the content of a long and complex text document is something that many translators can benefit from. Either a preview generated in Trados or a conversion to a word cloud, data visualization tools can help decipher both structured and unstructured data.

I hope that at least some tools on this list will also improve your productivity and save you a lot of time!!

About the Author

Anna Medina

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