Phrase Localization Platform

Avantages

C'est un outil de travail très intéressant. Il est très facile d'accès dans toutes ses fonctionnalités.

Inconvénients

Néanmoins j'ai du mal à en profiter au maximum en raison des complexités de certaines fonctionnalités telles que : le glossaire, Translation memories, Term bases

Avantages

The way it handles working directly online with the web-based tool, while allowing you to choose between that and the desktop app feels great. Also I love how clean the tool is, while others have so much visual info in them that you often can't find the one thing you want.

Inconvénients

I wish the QA was more customizable as it often finds too many issues that are not really issues. Also, I wish there was a way to do a "per line" character limit. It seems not CAT Tool as done it yet and it would be a HUGE thing in the game localization industry.

Avantages

Unlike other CAT tools, memsource takes into account the needs of an arguably very important stakeholder group: translators. The user interface is self-explanatory, which makes it easy to get started. All items are where you would expect them to be.

Also, the "aesthetics" of the user interface are helping me to translate. Colors are "logical" (rather than distracting) and all menus and panels are where they should be. This seems like a minor point, but when you stare 8h at a user inteface and you actually focus more on understanding the user interface than doing your work, this will result in reduced productivity and quality.

memsource handles large files well (it doesn't crash, basically) and large files can be displayed on-screen without the need of cycling through different pages. You can just scroll down and read the entrie file.

Inconvénients

The search and replace dialog misses some options. Only basic search and replace options can be carried out.

In the QA dialog, QA results are displayed in a structured manner, however, it sometimes requires extra time to search and fix the actual segment. Fixing inconsistencies for instance is tedious because it requires manual searching for the inconsistency in the file.

Avantages

In general it is an acceptable system with one deal-breaking flaw.

Inconvénients

You have an allotted quota of words you can upload. And it counts every word. If you are uploading words for an offer let's say that counts fully toward your quota. So, you are pitching for a large project, well you are blowing your quota with no return. So that means we have to run Trados in addition to prepare offers. In our case, there was a bug and we needed to upload and re-upload a file. That was a large file, and with that one file, we used-up our entire quota for the coming three month period as we had just paid. That is very unlikely.

Avantages

I have been using Memsource as a translation tool since 2016 and it has continually improved. The company has added useful features while not overwhelming (or irritating) me with constant updates. For the most part I do translations that are not suitable for raw machine translation; however, Memsource has excellent tools for creating translation memories and glossaries that help me keep track of the chosen terminology for any given client or project over time. I also find that jobs and projects are uploaded, tracked and organized in an intuitive way that works very well for me.

Inconvénients

The only challenge I've encountered is the discrepancy between how the cloud version and the desktop version of the software work. They're both good, but there are small differences that slow me down. In the end, I primarily use the cloud version, reverting to the desktop software only when I'm travelling and therefore working without an internet connection.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Phrase Localization Platform

Avantages

I mainly use this for machine translation post editing. The quality of the output is always good and the text is easy to edit.

Inconvénients

I use Memsource through agencies, so there are certain features that I don't use because it's done by the agency. Sometimes autopropogate seems to be missing when I do a normal (non-MTPE) project. Maybe this is because of the settings configured by the agency itself. I'm not sure about this.

Avantages

It works. It's not too terrible to use. Once you've got the flow going, it's fine.

Inconvénients

The UI is very clunky
Their billing/accounts team are super slow to respond and refuse to cancel my plan. I tried to cancel in March and the UI said it wasn't renewing but it did anyway. They say they want 30 days notice but they ignored my request and pinged me for 3 months instead. I would not use this company again or recommend them after this.

Avantages

I like the fact that I can export files in Memsource to a format that I can actually work in and use the tools of my trade. This is genuinely the only thing I like about the program.

Inconvénients

Compared to Google Sheets, this program is simply for managers who value quantity over quality because it provides them an overview of how many scripts are done without them needing to go in and actually read any text.

As a worker in the workflow, I cannot view any documents without the potential of a major technical issue requiring a ticket to fix (to which the "fix" was to create an entirely new project), cannot provide feedback to translators as they are working.

The use of translation memory or automated translation or repeat line auto-translation is not a welcome feature in the visual novel sphere, as context dictates how a line may read. For languages where context is not as necessary to understand a line, perhaps this program would be useful, but for the Japanese-English pairing, it absolutely is not.

I am unable to use any of the regular expression or spell check tools without exporting the document to a difficult-to-format DOCX file (if you modify something incorrectly, it will not re-import), and then I cannot upload the completed file and mark it as complete because then I have to manually mark every edited line as complete. And while marking these lines as complete, I have to wait 10-30 seconds every 50 lines while Memsource works to catch up with me marking lines as complete.

Google Sheets is free, has more utilities, and is more user-friendly to navigate and operate.

Avantages

The easiness of use;
Customer support - always on-time and quick response;
90% of answers regarding problems and issues can be searchable via google and solved;
Subscription can be renewed whenever the user pleases (like every 3 months even);
The company and software are always improving and adding new features;
Translation memories can be uploaded into TRADOS;
Traspdf is incorporated into the Memsource;
If you are a starting translator, Memsource should be first CAT tool to get used to as it it is the easiest one in use;
Cloud-based;
Fantastic MT - the best I've encountered so far.

Inconvénients

TRADOS project files cannot be normally incorporated into the Memsource ( I would like to have that option, then I could get rid of TRADOS);
Cannot compare to the TRADOS functionality (therefore, sometimes, Memsource loses TRADS);
A lot of vendors use other CATs, therefore, I cannot use Memsource fully.

Avantages

The affordable price and cloud-based CAT tools.

Inconvénients

Sometimes the server isn't update the translation that was input earlier.

Avantages

It enables to have many different accounts for different translation agencies.

Inconvénients

I didn't understand if it is possible to import a translation memory of Trados Studio.

Avantages

Very user friendly and easy to use. I have instantly become familiar with it and when I had a problem, support always where there to help me out within minutes.

Inconvénients

For Maltese MT is still quite far off to achieving something reliable. Also, in case of translation breakdown, sometimes it is not fair as there could be many mistakes in 100% segments which have to be translated from scratch and be paid peanuts for it as a result. Also tags and small punctuation, or uppercase/lowercase changes can be very daunting but for some reason they are marked 99%.

Avantages

Memsource is easy to use and has a relatively low learning curve, especially as compared to other CAT tools and translation management systems. These two aspects (CAT and management) are integrated quite seamlessly, which should be a big selling point for small LSP clients. Other than that, I find the whole system to be exceptionally responsive and reliable, and the Desktop Editor to be the 'quickest' of all the CAT tools I have used. It may not have quite as many features as something like Trados, but it seems to have everything you need.

Inconvénients

Oddly specific as this may sound, my biggest issue with Memsource is the built-in spell checker - it just isn't very good, at least in English. It responds slowly, flags words that are not misspelled, flags parts of words, and misses rather obvious misspellings. When I right-click to correct an error, the word I am looking for always seems to be at the bottom of the list of suggestions. Other than that, the integration with MT engines could be improved with respect to in-text formatting tags.

Avantages

Convenient and easy to use. Cross-platform unlike Trades. Spellcheck, QA, TM and TB functions helpful. Memsource is the primary CAT tool I use on a daily basis.

Inconvénients

・No grammar checks. Need to download text to Word for final review.
・QA lacks localization context. 「6月」→"June" always comes up as missing a number. Frustrating when a client requires QA to be 100% resolved on larger documents.
・Memsource Editor is lacking and I still don't know how to fully use it. I'd love to not have to work out of a browser as it is a battery hog when out and about. If I have to log in to Editor, why can't I download my jobs directly from there?
・Please allow translators to consolidate accounts. I have one account for each agency I work with, and sometimes multiple accounts per agency. It's hard to keep track of which is which.
・MT is lacking. DeepL's app lets me click on words for alternate translations, so there's no benefit to running a DeepL translation directly in Memsource over their own app.

Avantages

Memsource is a light-weight CAT tool which brings almost all the same features that other flagship options (like MemoQ, Trados Studio, etc). It works smoothly, it is intuitive and has a good integration with their web-based option, so you can download project files to work offline and upload it back to your client/company server.

Inconvénients

For those used to other CAT tools, you may miss one or another option. Overall, it seems that Memsource is a more 'basic' alternative, which will give you all the most used features, but may not be as robust as some competitors when it comes to filtering options, TM management, batch tasks, etc.

Avantages

Memsource's biggest strength is in how lightweight it is compared to the largest competitors, maximising the time a translator spends on actually translating, instead of waiting for the TM or search window to update, or a script to finish running. All the features you'd expect of the more traditional translation suite competitors with some slightly more modern design.

Inconvénients

Memsource suffers a little when it comes to tools for multi-stage projects (with proofreading or other QA steps), where the UX becomes more cumbersome. The concordance search function could also use some more advanced functionality.

Avantages

This tool is intuitive and easy to use for translators.

Inconvénients

The QA features could be improved, enabling to ignore all the similar cases.
Some of the MT suggestions could be improved (sometimes it also suggest translation in different target languages, which makes no sense).
The formatting tags could be improved enabling to see exactly their meaning.

Avantages

- easy to use as non technical person with the interface
- easy to use as developer. Simply update a json file with two easy command line
- the team is helpful and fast to replay

Inconvénients

The web interface for different project it can be improve. We found our self often to click on language then project and then choose the language again.

A painful point was the impossibility to push different versions of the json file but since some months the team develop a git-like functionality with branches and so on and it solve this problem perfectly.

Avantages

The separate editor is very useful and works very well. Very efficient Quality Assurance tools. Smooth workflow.

Inconvénients

I really like this product; I couldn't find any cons

Avantages

Customer Support is always happy to help, and they respond in a human and useful way. It's also quite fast and has a lot of features.

Inconvénients

You can order translations directly from PhraseApp, but the quality is quite poor, even if you pay for the business option. Also, in terms of UX it could be improved quite a lot, allowing users to do some tasks easier with less clicks.

Avantages

Memsource does pretty much everything I would expect from a CAT tool. Support is super reactive when we have any questions. We are using it on a daily basis, we couldn't live without Memsource.

Inconvénients

We had some struggle to use the Machine Translation feature at the beginning. But we had a meeting with Memsource, and everything was crystal clear afterwards (again, great support).

Avantages

Working in the cloud makes it low-hassle to switch from computer to computer and pick up where I left off. The interface is clean and easy to use compared to Trados.

Inconvénients

The QA feature picks up a lot of irrelevant points that can be annoying to go through manually. The preview feature is useless for complicated layouts.

Avantages

Ease of use is by far the biggest benefit of Memsource compared with other tools. It's not overloaded with unnecessary features and makes my job quite straightforward.

Inconvénients

They really need to focus on collaborative features as we often work in a team with other translators and we have to see comments left by other people to avoid asking same questions to our project managers or clients. Would be great to see a commenting feature that would allow all project participants see each other comments on each particular string.

Avantages

This tool is very easy to learn how to use compared with the complicated Trados and memoQ. It has all the key features of these others tool too, without the bugs.

Inconvénients

Nothing is missing and I don't see what can be improved. I absolutely love Memsource!

Avantages

I've been using Memsource ever since I started working as an in-house translator, and the experience has been great. It is a handy tool that can be used online or as an installed app on your computer.

Memsource is very easy to operate, and it helps me work efficiently while meeting my set goals.

Inconvénients

There aren't many things I dislike about Memsource. The only thing that might be worth mentioning is that the context notes and preview could be slightly better.