Project - Pre-translate

On the Pre-translate page, you set up and start pre-translation.

When you pre-translate a document, memoQweb searches the translation memories and LiveDocs corpora in your project and inserts the best available match for each segment.

If there’s no exact match, memoQweb can:

  • Assemble the segment from smaller fragments.

  • Use machine translation to suggest a translation.

  • Join or split segments to improve matches.

What's more?

  • You can control the quality of the matches used in pre-translation.

  • memoQweb can also automatically confirm and lock segments that were successfully pre-translated.

  • Before pre-translation starts, memoQweb can save a version of the document, allowing you to review the changes andreturn to the previous version if needed.

  • After pre-translation, memoQweb runs an analysis to show how much of the text was filled in and the quality of the matches.

Pre-translation won’t start when memoQ TMS is running an automated task in an online project. When this happens, you’ll see a message asking you to wait a few minutes. This isn’t an error—once the task is done, you can continue with pre-translation.

How to get here

  1. Log in to memoQweb as an administrator or a project manager.
  2. On the Active projects list, click a project.
  3. At the top of the screen, click the Translations tab.
  4. In the list, select one or more documents.

  5. Above the list, click Pre-translate.

    The Pre-translate page opens:

    Pre-translate page showing the row with basic information: number of documents, languages, number of segments, words, and characters in translation: lookup, TM-driven segmentation, confirm//lock, versioning, create statistics.

What can you do?

The info bar at the top of the page shows:

  • How many documents are selected. Hover over the blue information icon icon-info to view the document names.

  • The source and target languages of the project.

  • The total number of segments in the documents.

  • The number of words in the documents (both raw and weighted).

  • The number of characters in the documents (both raw and weighted).

Use the dropdown in the Lookup tab, under the TMs and LiveDocs corpora section.

You may tell memoQ not to insert a match if the match rate is not good enough. Choose one of these options from the dropdown:

  • Exact TM or corpus match with context: Pre-translate a segment only if there is a context (101%) or a double-context (102%) match.
  • Exact TM or corpus match: Pre-translate a segment only if there is an exact (100%) match or a context match.
  • Good TM or corpus match: Pre-translate a segment only if there is a match above the "good match threshold". This is defined in the TM settings. To check this setting: In the memoQ desktop app, open the project. If the autopilot is on, turn it off. On the left, click Settings. Click the TM settings icon-mqop-s-tmsettings icon, and edit the TM settings profile that is active in the project.
  • Any TM or corpus match: Always pre-translate a segment if there is a match, no matter the match rate. In fact, it must still be above minimum match threshold (60% by default). To use this, you must turn off TM-driven segmentation (see below).

Only unambiguous matches: If you check this check box, memoQweb will pre-translate a segment only if there is exactly one exact (100%), context (101%), or double-context (102%) match. If there are two or more, the segment will not be pre-translated. You must choose Exact TM or corpus match with context or Exact TM or corpus match from the dropdown.

Tell memoQweb which TMs and corpora you need to use for each language:

  1. Click the Select TMs and LiveDocs corpora link.

    The Select TMs and LiveDocs corpora for pre-translation window opens:

    The Select TMs and LiveDocs corpora window showing translation memories and LiveDocs corpora available for use. In the bottom-right corner are the OK and Cancel buttons.

    memoQweb uses the TMs and corpora which have their check boxes checked.

  2. To check or clear the check boxes for each TM or corpus: Click the Select all or Deselect all links.

  3. To save your changes and return to the Pre-translate page: Click the OK button.

  4. To return to the Pre-translate page without saving: Click the Cancel link.

Check options for each kind of pre-translation:

Perform fragment assembly: If there is no match from the translation memories or from the LiveDocs corpora, memoQweb can insert a fragment-assembled match. To make it work, turn on this switch. To fine-tune the details, use the check boxes below. You can choose what counts as a fragment, and how memoQ should put together a fragment-assembled match from them.

Under Matches to include, you can choose to replace terms, non-translatable items, numbers, results of auto-translation rules, and fragments from translation memories and LiveDocs corpora. Normally, memoQweb will use all of these to replace parts of the source text. If you do not want to use one or another, clear the check box of one of these items.

Next, choose how much the fragment-assembled match should cover from the source text. Choose one of the radio buttons under Suggest only:

  • Full matches covered by one single hit: The fragment-assembled match must cover the entire source segment, consisting of one single fragment match. Practically, this turns fragment matching off.
  • Full matches covered by several hits: The fragment-assembled match must cover the entire source segment. This means that every word of the source segment must be replaced by something from the resources.
  • Matches with a coverage of at least: Only part of the source text must be replaced. To set how much, choose a percentage in the box next to the radio button. Normally, memoQ offers fragment matches if it can replace more than 50% of the source text.

You can have fragment-assembled suggestions that does not contain any source text. In this case, text that cannot be replaced will not be there in the suggestion. For this, check the Delete source text without any match check box.

Normally, memoQ adjusts the lowercase/uppercase setting of the terms to the source text that is replaced. To stop this, check the Do not change the case of terms check box. When this is checked, memoQ will keep the lowercase/uppercase setting from the term base.

Use machine translation if there's no TM match: If there is no match from the translation memories or from the LiveDocs corpora, memoQweb can insert a machine translation of the source segment. To do that, it will use the machine translation services set up in the project's MT settings resource.

To make it work:

  1. First, switch it on.

  2. To set up the MT settings resource, use the Resource Console's MT settings page in the memoQ desktop app.

  3. Then add the resource to the project on the Settings page in memoQ online project.

Use machine translation with AIQE values: 

With an AI-based quality estimation (AIQE) service, you can use more than one MT services in the same pre-translation. The AIQE service will choose the best service for each segment. To do that, it will use the machine translation services set up in the project's MT settings resource.

To make it work:

  1. First, switch it on.

  2. To set up the MT settings resource, use the Resource Console's MT settings page in the memoQ desktop app.

  3. Then add the resource to the project on the Settings page in memoQ online project.

Use TM-driven segmentation:

memoQ can automatically join or split segments if there are better matches that way. If you are pre-translating for good (or better) matches only, memoQweb can try to join or split segments to see if there is an exact match that way. To do this, turn on the Automatically join and split segments for best match switch. Then, if there is no exact match for a segment, memoQweb will check if the segment plus the next ones offer a good or an exact match. If joining does not work, but there is an exact match for the first part of the segment, memoQweb will split the segment after this exact match, and it will continue to examine the second part of the split segment for automatic joining and splitting. To fine-tune the details, use the settings below.

A document is 100% complete when all segments are confirmed as translated or reviewed, and only these confirmed segments count in progress information. memoQweb can automatically confirm or lock pre-translated segments for you. If you don't want others to change the translation, you can also lock these rows.

To do this, in the Confirm/Lock section on the page:

  1. Select which segments should be confirmed or locked under the TM inserted match rows based on match rate dropdown:

    • Do not confirm or lock segments: Pre-translated segments will stay in the pre-translated status.

    • Exact match: Confirms and/or locks exact (100%) or better matches.

      Be careful with this setting. Without the context, pre-translation may insert inadequate translations.

    • Exact match with context: Confirms and/or locks context (101%) or better matches.

    • Exact match with double context: Confirms and/or locks double-context (102%) matches.

    • Only if match is unambiguous: Use this option to avoid confirming or locking a segment if there are two or more exact or better matches.

  2. Next, specify what should happen to a segment with the match you're looking for. Under Change status to dropdown select:

    • Pre-translated: If you don't want to change the status of the segments.
    • Translator confirmed: Sets the segments as Translator confirmed.
    • Reviewer 1 confirmed: Sets the segments as Reviewer 1 confirmed.
    • Reviewer 2 confirmed: Sets the segments as Reviewer 2 confirmed.
    • Make rows locked: Use this option to lock the confirmed segments.

  3. Then, if you use machine translation and AI-based quality estimation, decide on MT inserted match rows based on AIQE:

    To use the confirm or lock function for MT matches, first select and activate AIQE.

    Part of the page showing MT inserted match rows based on the AIQE section. This section consists of the Rows to confirm/lock based on MT-AIQE score checkbox and the percentage selector, as well as the Change status to dropdown, and below the dropdown, there is the Make rows locked checkbox.

    Here you can:

  • Set the MT-AIQE score above which you want to lock or confirm rows.

  • Specify what should happen to rows with the selected score.

    Under the Change status to dropdown, you can select:

    • Pre-translated if you don't want to change the status.
    • Translator confirmed: Marks the segments as confirmed by Translator.
    • Reviewer 1 confirmed: Marks the segments as confirmed by Reviewer 1.
    • Reviewer 2 confirmed: Marks the segments as confirmed by Reviewer 2.
    • Make rows locked: Use this option to lock the confirmed segments.

memoQweb can take snapshots of a document before and after pre-translation. This way you can check the changes, or return to the previous version if anything goes wrong.

Normally, memoQweb doesn't take snapshots of the documents, neither before nor after pre-translation.

Part of the screen showing two checkboxes allowing users to select when they want to create a minor version snapshot before (first checkbox) or after (second checkbox) pre-translation.

To do this, use the settings in the Versioning section:

  • Create minor version snapshot before pre-translation: Use this option to create a new minor version before pre-translation. We recommend adding a Note.
  • Create minor version snapshot after pre-translation: Use this option to create a new minor version after pre-translation. We recommend adding a Note.

memoQweb (legacy) can combine pre-translation and statistics in one go. To make it work, turn on the Perform statistics switch. The analysis report will appear on the project's Reports page.

Here you can choose how the analysis report that will run after pre-translation.

For a detailed description, read the documentation about:

If some target segments already have text, pre-translation overwrites them in some cases, and leaves them as they are in other cases:

  • Empty (Not started) segments are always filled in if there is a match.
  • Previously pre-translated segments are overwritten if memoQweb has a better match than the one that was used earlier.
  • memoQweb will not change edited or confirmed segments. If you need to overwrite these segments, you need to clear them first using the Clear translations command using the Clear translations command in the webtrans translation editor.

When you finish

To run the pre-translation, and return to the Translations page, click the Pre-translate button.