Also referred to as CAT tools, these are computer software programs designed to aid translators by generating a memory data base or translation memory (TM) of the project at hand. These programs help save time and sometimes a substantial amount of money to the client, playing an invaluable role in terminology consistency. In large projects we can offer a discounted price to our clients for repetitions, called full matches or fuzzy (not exact) matches.

CAT tools allow us to handle terminology management, automated quality assurance, and translation memory. We are able to offer several types of CAT tools to handle projects, examples of which include: Wordfast, SDL Trados, and other.

CAT tools are not to be confused with machine translation (MT). While TMs are aids to help perform a translation in a more efficient way, MTs represent software designed to actually perform the rendition of material from the source language into the target language. This system can be very efficient when a “gisting” of a foreign text is needed, but cannot perform accurate translations, especially in languages with complex grammar rules, ex.: Romance or Slavic languages. Google Translate is an example of MT.

As stated in an ATA article: “… need to remember that translation certainly has a human face and that translation technology is indebted to the actual translator.”