These days, new technologies are imperative for any translator.
It’s very probable that the documents our clients send us will be in a digital format. That is why we need to rely on the right tools to make our job easier and more agile. We talked about these programs in the Software post. In this post we will focus on the physical aspect of the computer (Hardware).
Naturally, translations must be made by computer. It is useless to hand out manuscripts that have to be copied to a computer by a data recorder that may or may not have errors. Practically speaking, any computer in the market is of use, it only needs to be powerful enough for a Word processor to run. However, to avoid chaos it is recommended to have a big screen if not multiple screens. These screens are used in professions that deal with large quantities of data such as: Stock brokers, police, video editors, etc…
The main operating systems that are available in the market (Windows, osX, Linux) are easy to set up this way. For example, on our center screen we can have the job we are working on: the translation of a web page with a translating memory. On our left screen, the original site which we will consult to verify context and other elements. And finally on our right screen we can see our finished job.
This allows us to work and see the parts of the process simultaneously without having to switch Windows every now and then. Which usually causes confusion as we lose track between the original, the translation, or a test document because of the constant switching of Windows/tabs.
