The elusive promise of productivity / La promesa escurridiza de la productividad

It happened again. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. (EST), my mind abuzz with ideas. So I got up and jotted them down because they seemed critical (read awesome) for an upcoming presentation at the ATA Conference in Boston. But the ideas kept coming.

I could stay in bed no longer; I decided to go for a short, brisk run (more like a trot, actually). It was 6:30 a.m. when I got out of my building’s door and out into the cool morning (57 ºF). I must have trotted for about 6 blocks when I started thinking on how important it is to move (my chiropractor keeps telling me that). We seldom make room for physical movement in our sedentary lives. As I was pondering this, cars zipped along to their routine destinations.

It dawned on me then: we use the wheel, the car, to move efficiently and quickly from point A to B, but the movement is unhealthy for our bodies. Why are we in a rush to move in that fashion? To get there earlier so that we have more time to…do what? To do nothing? I am as guilty as anyone else in this car culture in America.

But, what does this have anything to do with translation? Good answers come to those who wait: bear with me.

When I started my career in translation, my tool was the typewriter. The clickety-clack of keys was so comforting, it was music to my ears. I was probably doing 50-60 words per minute, but I spent more time reading, writing drafts, rewriting sentences and clauses, words and punctuation. Even in the heyday of CAT (computer-assisted translation) tools such as Trados Workbench and Transit in the mid 90s, I was still using what has become the equivalent of a typewriter: ah, the muffled clicking of a computer’s keyboard…still at 50-70 words per minute. I would spend a sometimes inordinate amount of time consulting dictionaries, magazines, and related books and websites to find the right expression…or a hint thereof at least.

I succumbed to the lure of the so-called productivity tools (CAT tools included) in late 1998 as a job requirement. I haven’t looked back since. The only typewriter I own is a portable Underwood model, about 80 years old, that I bought in 2007. It looks quaint in my curio cabinet, a reminder of more productive days of yesteryear. Sure, tools such as Trados and Deja Vu help me translate “faster.” But that’s an illusion. Nobody can write faster than they think, and not all of us think at the same rate.

Companies that sell CAT tools, SDLX in particular, promise us higher percentage rates of productivity as translators. But, is that necessarily a good thing, or even a healthy thing? What CAT tools really do is automate certain mechanical (and visible) tasks in translation, such as repeating already-translated texts and reusing partially or fully translated sentences and words. Nothing more. These tools do not make us better translators; it could be as well that they make us worse writers. Like the wheels of a car taking us fast and efficiently from point A to B, CAT tools take us from one language to another at increased speeds…leaving the road littered with misused words, typos, clunky expressions, awkward syntax, horrifying grammar. And those are not always accidents.

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Trados, Deja Vu in Windows 7

I have been a staunch supporter and continuous user of Windows XP Home and Professional since 2002. I skipped Vista for obvious reasons. When I needed to replace my old Dell laptop for a new rig, I knew it was time to face reality.

So I purchased a HP with Windows 7 Home Premium (good enough for my everyday uses; I don’t need to connect to any corporate network). I also purchased a Windows 7 Professional license (64 bits) to install on my MacBook Pro’s Boot Camp partition. So far, so good.

I installed my work tools on both Windows 7: MS Office 2007, InDesign CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3, Acrobat Pro 8.0, Trados and, my preferred tool, Deja Vu X.

Not long ago, my roommate Tamer, an Arabic translator, caught malware on his Windows 7 machine. I then modified my UAC (User Account Control) settings to the value recommended by Windows as a precautionary measure, on both machines. Bad call.

Please see the different positions in the UAC window:

Windows 7 UAC settings

In the “Always notify” setting, Trados 2007 Freelance will be unable to open translation memories (TMs) and Deja Vu X will give a “the file may be corrupt” message every time you try to open a project file or a translation memory.

The setting I recommend is the one indicated in the figure above. I briefly tried to circumvent this limitation by creating a Standard user account and using the recommended UAC setting. Trados TM files can’t be opened and Deja Vu X TM files become invisible.

Obviously, I practice common sense and use a good antivirus and antimalware program, always updated.