Courses in LSP Translation

Teachers as well as students should be familiar with TM tools and should know how to use them. They should also make sure that they know the contents of all eCoLoTrain TM courses.

The main learning objective of these courses should be to enhance competence in LSP translation, in a real-life working environment. It is important to stress that the focus of the course is on specialised translation not on translation memory tools.

• LSP translation courses must be planned for at least two (if not four) semesters. Courses should be held regularly – e.g. two hours weekly or four-hour seminars every two weeks. This would depend on the time devoted to them in the host programme – Bachelors (BA), Masters (MA), etc.
• The subject field for the entire LSP translation course – at least for one semester – should ideally be defined in close collabaoration with the teacher of the subject field. Since both undergraduate and postgraduate translation studies programmes may be structured differently depending on the institutions or countries offering them, it is worth mentioning that some institutions offer special courses on the most common fields of specialisation for translators – usually economics, law and technology. Such courses are intended for translation students to acquire specialised knowledge in these fields. Working together with the subject-field teacher allows LSP translation teachers to choose texts to be translated that correspond to the contents being covered in the subject field classes. This makes it possible to maintain learning continuity in a specialised field.
• Specialised texts to be translated during the course should be selected with a certain continuity and progression in specialisation and translation difficulty in mind. Throughout the whole course requirements of translation practice should also be considered, e.g. also by selecting texts in different formats on related subjects (Word documents, websites, PowerPoint presentations, etc.)
• Teachers should bear in mind that aside from preparing course content (texts, background materials, etc.), they must also consider technical issues, such as defining user rights and user IDs for the use of databases by students – this is, however, usually done by system administrators or CAT tool specialists.
• Since creating a translation memory database is not itself a topic for LSP translation courses, teachers should use an existing one if possible.
• If a translation memory database is not available, teachers can refer to the eCoLoRe training kits to see if they find translation memories in the language pairs and subject fields required. If no TM is available, teachers can alternatively create one and populate it using an alignment tool and parallel texts in the corresponding languages of the course.
• Before filling the database, teachers must predefine the database structure. The teacher can predefine different attribute/text fields such as subject field, file name, course name and semester according to the course objectives.
• Depending on course objectives, teachers may want to prepare the use of a given error typology to classify students' incorrect translations found in the TM database, or search for information to develop their own typology based on students' errors.

To learn more about variations of LSP translation courses integrating the use of translation memories according to available technology

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