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Change a segment, if the segment before has certain content

Jerzy Czopik

I have the following situation:

In Polish the name of the color will get a different ending, depending on the gender. So I have for example for "red" "czerwony, czerwona, czerwone".

This makes it impossible to translate red to one of those in a highly repetitive file, where I have partially >2000 such position. To make this translation fast, I translated all colors like this "red = kolor: czerwony" (which simply means adding the word "color" before each color name, what makes this repetitive again, as then the name of the color does not depend on gender). This was a good idea, until the customer has changed his file. Now in some places I have this structure:

Part name
color name

which translates perfectly to

Part name
color: name

But then he added

Part name
Color
color name

and I cannot now translate like above

Part name
Color
color: name

Using the advanced display filter I could display all segments, where I have in source either color or color name (for example (Color|red|blue<yellow<brown) in source and "^color: ..." in Polish. But the problem is, I need only to change this segments, where "Color" is followed by "color: ...".

But in my view sometimes the segments do not really follow each other.

Looks like this:

 

Does anyone have an idea, how to automate this?

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  • 0
    HI Jerzy,

    If the file doesn't come already segmented from your client and you are be able to use custom segmentation rules, would a segmentation exception help?
  • 0 in reply to Nora Díaz

    Hi Nora

    Unfortunately not.

    The underlying problem is, that my translation does NOT reflect the real content of the segment.

    I have to translate the following segments, separated by paragraph - and they shall remain as such:

    Color
    red

    Now when I translate this in Polish, I would have this

    Kolor
    czerwony

    But then I also have segments like this

    Machine
    red

    This needs to be translated like this

    Maszyna
    czerwona

    Now I already have translated

    red = czerwony

    Here the "red" does however not translate to "czerwony", but "czerwona".

    So I used a trick and translated "red" to "kolor: czerwony". This way it does not matter, which gender the segment before the name of the color has. I just add the word "color" and make the name of the color fit for every gender.

    Thing is, that I cannot translate

    Color
    red

    to

    Kolor
    kolor: czerwony

    because this way the word "color" is duplicated. So I need to eliminate all occurrences of the segment "Kolor" followed by "kolor: ...".

    This seems to be impossible in Studio, but I think when I search in Notepad++ for "(Kolor)(.*?)(kolor:) " and replace by "\1\2", this will achieve what I need.

    _________________________________________________________

    When asking for help here, please be as accurate as possible. Please always remember to give the exact version of product used and all possible error messages received. The better you describe your problem, the better help you will get.

    Want to learn more about Trados Studio? Visit the Community Hub. Have a good idea to make Trados Studio better? Publish it here.

  • 0 in reply to Jerzy Czopik
    Well, I believe that the only proper way to handle this is to get back to the client with STRONG message to not f*ck up the files like this.
    If they want to have the files translated in reasonable way, they MUST NOT make translator's work as-hard-as-possible :(.

    We are NOT magicians and we do NOT do miracles. Clients MUST finally realize that they must COOPERATE with localization and NOT just throw on us whatever sh*t they make up.
  • 0 in reply to Evzen Polenka

    Well, I'm kinda magician here :)
    And well, I don't know if it is the customer, who messed here. The problem were, is and will be, that text authors do not know the languages, in which the text will be translated, so they're using their language "as usual". And German can be much worse than this "Piece of sales goods" followed by "color" in the next paragraph.
    So blaming the customer here will not work. OTOH translators should be intelligent creatures methinks.

    PS
    Impossibilities will be done immediately, miracles last a bit longer...

    _________________________________________________________

    When asking for help here, please be as accurate as possible. Please always remember to give the exact version of product used and all possible error messages received. The better you describe your problem, the better help you will get.

    Want to learn more about Trados Studio? Visit the Community Hub. Have a good idea to make Trados Studio better? Publish it here.

  • 0 in reply to Jerzy Czopik

    Unknown said:
    The problem were, is and will be, that text authors do not know the languages, in which the text will be translated, so they're using their language "as usual".

    And that's exactly what MUST be changed. This "I don't give a sh*t what happens afterwards" attitude is just plain wrong. I18N exists long enough and these ignorants MUST get familiar with it if they want to do their job. Some things simply must be done at the beginning of the process, they CANNOT be magically fixed only at the end.

    Unknown said:
    Impossibilities will be done immediately, miracles last a bit longer...

    This actually stopped to be funny in my work years ago (just like the "Seven red lines" sketch)... just because of the ignorants mentioned above who take this saying seriously.
  • 0 in reply to Evzen Polenka

    , ,  - and last but by no means least, the lovely !

    Dear Evzen,

    I have never known a client with a "I don't give a sh*t what happens afterwards" attitude as you put it.

    Most clients haven't heard of i18n - in fact I was ignorant* of it until just now, had to look it up.

    *I'm sure that you know that the adjective 'ignorant' only means that someone does not know. It doesn't automatically mean they are stupid, stubborn or wilful. A courteous, informative request to do things differently will usually be acceptable to most clients. However, many clients actually cannot change what has already been set in stone before it reaches them. For example, a very large company whose documentation is authored by technicians in another department, company, town or even country. Alternatively, these days text is exported from a piece of online software and the word positioning and order have to be maintained for the software to be able to re-import it. Facts of life like this mean that there are many possible scenarios where what you say should happen is basically impossible.

    In an ideal world what you say should happen would be possible but in the world most if not all of us work in, as described above, this is not the case. Why get upset complaining about it? I can only aim to return a document that is as good as the original or better. The latter gives job satisfaction no matter how complex the task may have had to be.

    If you wish to turn down everything that does not match the i18n standard, that is your choice. I prefer to have a 'can do' attitude, it makes life much more pleasurable than a 'cannot/will not do' attitude.

    Indeed, I agree with Jerzy's stance 'The impossible will be done at once, miracles may take a little longer' because it is EMPOWERING! I love finding a way to do something that at first seems impossible - plus, thinking that way helps me find solutions faster.

    Have a lovely evening,

    All the best,

    Ali :)
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  • 0 in reply to Evzen Polenka

    , ,  - and last but by no means least, the lovely !

    Dear Evzen,

    I have never known a client with a "I don't give a sh*t what happens afterwards" attitude as you put it.

    Most clients haven't heard of i18n - in fact I was ignorant* of it until just now, had to look it up.

    *I'm sure that you know that the adjective 'ignorant' only means that someone does not know. It doesn't automatically mean they are stupid, stubborn or wilful. A courteous, informative request to do things differently will usually be acceptable to most clients. However, many clients actually cannot change what has already been set in stone before it reaches them. For example, a very large company whose documentation is authored by technicians in another department, company, town or even country. Alternatively, these days text is exported from a piece of online software and the word positioning and order have to be maintained for the software to be able to re-import it. Facts of life like this mean that there are many possible scenarios where what you say should happen is basically impossible.

    In an ideal world what you say should happen would be possible but in the world most if not all of us work in, as described above, this is not the case. Why get upset complaining about it? I can only aim to return a document that is as good as the original or better. The latter gives job satisfaction no matter how complex the task may have had to be.

    If you wish to turn down everything that does not match the i18n standard, that is your choice. I prefer to have a 'can do' attitude, it makes life much more pleasurable than a 'cannot/will not do' attitude.

    Indeed, I agree with Jerzy's stance 'The impossible will be done at once, miracles may take a little longer' because it is EMPOWERING! I love finding a way to do something that at first seems impossible - plus, thinking that way helps me find solutions faster.

    Have a lovely evening,

    All the best,

    Ali :)
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