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CAT for translating srt files.
Thread poster: Nasriddin Klichev
Nasriddin Klichev
Nasriddin Klichev
Uzbekistan
Local time: 01:26
English to Russian
+ ...
May 26, 2019

Hi all,

What CAT tools are best for translating SRT files? So far, I tried MATECAT, it did not help: it translated the caption groups separately from the context. And SMARTCAT, which was almost there merging several caption groups into one segment, BUT one has to insert the line break tags to the target manually, which creates much of routine work. To conclude, I need something like SMARTCAT but with tags autoinsertion function.


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:26
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Nasriddin May 26, 2019

Nasriddin Klichev wrote:
It translated the caption groups separately from the context.


Can you give us an example of what you mean by "caption groups" and "context"?


 
Nasriddin Klichev
Nasriddin Klichev
Uzbekistan
Local time: 01:26
English to Russian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
I mean... May 26, 2019

By Caption groups I mean a single subtitle unit that appear on a screen, sometimes it may not be the whole sentence, one sentence may appear in two or more groups, for example:

7
00:00:22,910 --> 00:00:25,963
Pyrosomes meaning fiery bodies,

8
00:00:26,110 --> 00:00:28,693
create spectacular light shows,

9
00:00:28,900 --> 00:00:32,513
sending brilliant blue and green flashes across the ocean.

One sentence her
... See more
By Caption groups I mean a single subtitle unit that appear on a screen, sometimes it may not be the whole sentence, one sentence may appear in two or more groups, for example:

7
00:00:22,910 --> 00:00:25,963
Pyrosomes meaning fiery bodies,

8
00:00:26,110 --> 00:00:28,693
create spectacular light shows,

9
00:00:28,900 --> 00:00:32,513
sending brilliant blue and green flashes across the ocean.

One sentence here is divided into 3 groups or subtitle units, so CAT translates them in isolation.

[Edited at 2019-05-26 12:45 GMT]
Collapse


 
Thayenga
Thayenga  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:26
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
WordFast Pro May 26, 2019

...does a very good job.

The only problem is that you have to copy the time codes over to the right column. If you just translate on, it will automatically insert the previous time code.


Yaotl Altan
 
Nasriddin Klichev
Nasriddin Klichev
Uzbekistan
Local time: 01:26
English to Russian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Wordfast May 26, 2019

@Thayenga

Ok, added to the "wish list", Thank you!


Thayenga
 
Nasriddin Klichev
Nasriddin Klichev
Uzbekistan
Local time: 01:26
English to Russian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
MemoQ May 26, 2019

But what about MemoQ, does anyone have experience translating subtitles with it?

 
Jan Truper
Jan Truper  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:26
Member (2016)
English to German
memoQ May 26, 2019

Nasriddin Klichev wrote:

But what about MemoQ, does anyone have experience translating subtitles with it?


In order to produce good subtitles which adhere to general standards (length restrictions, reading speed, etc.) you need good subtitling software which also lets you futz with the timecodes, etc.
No CAT tool is anywhere close to giving you the tools required for this.

If you don't care about all this and just want to somehow hammer out the text, you can easily translate .srt files in memoQ -- they even offer a video window that syncs to the text (see https://help.memoq.com/current/en/memoQ-video-preview-tool/memoq-video-preview-tool.html ).

(Edited to add a space after the link so it can be clicked on, eventhough there really shouldn't be a space...)

[Edited at 2019-05-26 14:40 GMT]


 
Nasriddin Klichev
Nasriddin Klichev
Uzbekistan
Local time: 01:26
English to Russian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
MemoQ May 26, 2019

Jan Truper wrote:

In order to produce good subtitles which adhere to general standards (length restrictions, reading speed, etc.) you need good subtitling software which also lets you futz with the timecodes, etc.
No CAT tool is anywhere close to giving you the tools required for this.

I do not need this all, I receive a video with an SRT timecoded already.

If you don't care about all this and just want to somehow hammer out the text, you can easily translate .srt files in memoQ -- they even offer a video window that syncs to the text (see https://help.memoq.com/current/en/memoQ-video-preview-tool/memoq-video-preview-tool.html
I am trying it now, but have not got a good grasp on it yet.
I do not know how to enable the MT, is it paid?


 
Jan Truper
Jan Truper  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:26
Member (2016)
English to German
... May 26, 2019

Nasriddin Klichev wrote:
I am trying it now, but have not got a good grasp on it yet.
I do not know how to enable the MT, is it paid?


http://kilgray.com/memoq/2015-100/help-en/index.html?options_-_machine_translation.html


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:26
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Even if... May 26, 2019

Nasriddin Klichev wrote:
One sentence here is divided into 3 groups or subtitle units, so CAT translates them in isolation.


I suppose it may be possible for a CAT tool to merge these three units into a single segment, but the problem is that subtitle authors don't always use fullstops at the ends of sentences, so a CAT tool can't reliably determine whether three units should be merged or not.

I believe a better approach would be to treat unit boundaries as segment boundaries, but to also allow segment merging, so that the translator can merge parts of a sentence into a single sentence before translating it. The CAT tool should then also remove the intermediate time codes. However, if the text then becomes too long for a single subtitle unit, who will split it up and reset the time codes? Should the CAT tool do it, using averages?

That said, I know of no CAT tool that can do this.


 
Jan Truper
Jan Truper  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:26
Member (2016)
English to German
Truper's law of subtitle translation May 26, 2019

CAT tool + MT = really, really bad subtitles

Juan Jacob
Yaotl Altan
 
Juan Jacob
Juan Jacob  Identity Verified
Mexico
Local time: 14:26
French to Spanish
+ ...
No CAT May 26, 2019

is good for subtitles translation AFAIK.

[Editado a las 2019-05-26 17:51 GMT]


Yaotl Altan
 
Patricia Ferreira Larrieux
Patricia Ferreira Larrieux  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 21:26
Member
English to Italian
+ ...
New SDL Trados Studio Subtitling app May 26, 2019

A new SDL Trados Studio Subtitling app available from the SDL AppStore was recently announced by SDL. However, I haven't tried it yet, so I can't tell you how it works.

Best,
Patricia


Gerard de Noord
 
Juan Jacob
Juan Jacob  Identity Verified
Mexico
Local time: 14:26
French to Spanish
+ ...
I've tried May 26, 2019

DeepL once just for fun on an old movie I translated years ago into English... well, aside she/he/it normal mistakes and some very local expressions, not too bad. Let's say 30% less work. But only 150 subtitles a time.

Yaotl Altan
 
Nasriddin Klichev
Nasriddin Klichev
Uzbekistan
Local time: 01:26
English to Russian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Smartcat is perfect except... May 27, 2019

Thank you all for responses!

But,
Samuel Murray wrote:
I suppose it may be possible for a CAT tool to merge these three units into a single segment, but the problem is that subtitle authors don't always use fullstops at the ends of sentences, so a CAT tool can't reliably determine whether three units should be merged or not.
So far, all the subtitles have been properly fullstopped.


Samuel Murray wrote:
I believe a better approach would be to treat unit boundaries as segment boundaries, but to also allow segment merging, so that the translator can merge parts of a sentence into a single sentence before translating it. The CAT tool should then also remove the intermediate time codes. However, if the text then becomes too long for a single subtitle unit, who will split it up and reset the time codes? Should the CAT tool do it, using averages?

That said, I know of no CAT tool that can do this.
As I wrote earlier, Smartcat is perfect for this except one has to insert all the line break tags manually.
It splits into segments by fullstops adding line break tags between subtitles in the segment but one will have to insert this tags to the target manually. See it here:
smartcat example for proz forum


And,
Is it free or paid?


Finally,
Juan Jacob wrote:
DeepL once just for fun on an old movie I translated years ago into English... well, aside she/he/it normal mistakes and some very local expressions, not too bad. Let's say 30% less work. But only 150 subtitles a time.

From what I understand, it is an MT engine, not a CAT, is it?

[Edited at 2019-05-27 01:59 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-05-27 01:59 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-05-27 02:00 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-05-27 02:01 GMT]


 
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CAT for translating srt files.







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