Thanks to SDL for their responsiveness. This question was answered in a phone call yesterday.

Daniel

I sure wish the answer had been developed here as I have the same question.

Hi Jennifer Doucette

sorry for the late reply. In a nutshell, Language Cloud is the only option for a freelance translator or a small localization department. BeGlobal and ETS are (hope I remember correctly) MT solutions that can be installed on-site, and their big USP is that no data has to be transmitted over the internet. So if your company does really confidential and classified stuff, this might be the way you want to go. Costs are totally out of the question for freelancers. Their quality is quite a bit better than the Language Cloud, which works on a statstical model rather than a neural network, the latter being the state-of-the-art method. I use LC for certain, simple, repetitive translations, where I can train the adaptive engine and use the Glossary to enforce certain translations.

If you are interested in MT, I found a very interesting comparison of MT engines by language pair here:

https://www.slideshare.net/KonstantinSavenkov/state-of-the-machine-translation-by-intento-stock-engines-jun-2019

Maybe that answers your question.

Daniel

Jennifer Doucette

Having said this... the situation is changing and we will be offerring NMT to all users very shortly.  It's natural we will want to remove the SMT models in time as NMT has been a significant game changer in the world of MT.

Paul

Interesting to hear! Will a limited version of it be available to Trados Studio users for free, like LC at them moment? Wit be adaptive? Will we be able to use glossaries to enforce terminology, as currently possible?

Daniel

All good questions and you'll need to wait for full details.  I can tell you that it won't be adaptive yet, although the NMT is probably already better than adaptive SMT.  This will probably be a future enhancement.  There won't be dictionary support yet either, but this is something we will be working on as a priority.

Details of a free version for users of Studio... I think you need to wait for the release.  It's not far away.

Paul

The future is here:

Hi Daniel, Paul:

Which version of Language Cloud is that? I am also a bit confused, I thought it was only possible to use NMT engines within BeGlobal, not within Language Cloud. Are those NMT engines generic ones? If so, which is the difference with the ones BeGlobal offers?

And also: Would it be an option to train those engines with custom materials in the near future?

Regards,

Almudena

Hi Almudena Ballester 

Version of LC: It's the free one that comes with Studio. The "update" checkbox is available, but Paul said it would not be adaptive yet. I've tested it a bit just now, and it's about 3 leagues above the former LC. Very significantly better.

The main thing about the LC (the USP if you want) is the fact that you can upload a MT Termbase as a glossary. This NMT engine does not support that yet, but Paul said it would come soon.

I hope there will be an LC option for small teams. At the moment the price jump from Freelancer to Business is too big.

Difference to BeGlobal: A question for Paul I guess.

Daniel

Almudena Ballester

I think Daniel is using the Beta version of Studio.  You won't see this yet because it has still not been released.

Good to see your feedback on the quality though Daniel.