Frequently Asked Questions
- What is Lingotek?
- What is a Language Search Engine?
- Is Lingotek intended to replace traditional translation memory tools?
- What languages can translators use on Lingotek?
- Why is Lingotek unique?
- Will my TM's or my documents remain private and safe? How can I be sure?
- How can you provide this service for free?
- Is Lingotek free forever, or are you just getting me hooked so you can charge me later?
- Is the free version the complete product, or just a trial version?
- What is the difference between the private server version and the free version?
- Are you going to sell advertising on my translation page?
- How can I contact customer service?
- Now that Lingotek is free, will you continue to add features? How will you determine which features to add?
- Will you continue to fix bugs?
- Where will I get training? Will Lingotek still provide it? At no charge?
- Will we still see Lingotek at trade shows and expos?
- Do you have any tutorials to help me learn how to use Lingotek?
- Is there a way for Lingotek to use things that I've translated in the past to help me with my projects?
- I don't have any completed translations to upload. Is Lingotek still worth using?
- What is meaning-based searching?
- What is the difference between the Open TM Vault and Closed TM Vaults?
- Is it safe to save my translations to the Open TM Vault?
- Will bad translations from the Open TM Vault show up in my work?
- I am not getting any results, or not getting results that are very helpful. Why is that?
- Is there a way to export my Translation Memories so that they can be shared with other translators or used in other programs?
- What is XLIFF?
- What is LingoAlign?
- Is it safe to upload my sensitive documents to Lingotek?
- Will the servers be secure and available (back-ups, redundancy, etc.)?
- From a language company perspective, do you have any systems in place to ensure that non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements are not breached by contract translators using Lingotek?
Registration and Licensing Questions
General Lingotek Questions
Q. What is
Lingotek?
A. Lingotek is an online
translation research tool for translation professionals.
It is the only tool of its kind - a Language Search Engine
Q. What is a
Language Search Engine?
A. As you translate, Lingotek searches content from other translations that you
and others have made as you translate, returning meaning-based results to quickly reuse.
Q. Is Lingotek
intended to replace traditional translation memory
tools?
A. Lingotek extends the concept of
content reuse well beyond the capacities of traditional translation memory (TM) tools.
Lingotek can be used in situations where TM tools would not
work and can replace them as a higher value, more affordable
solution in any situation. In addition, all of your TM memory files/content that you have created
with traditional tools can be imported into
Lingotek and used immediately for your Lingotek projects.
Q. What
languages can translators use on Lingotek?
A. Lingotek is a universal Language Search
Engine. In other words, it has the ability to work with any language pair.
Q. Why is
Lingotek unique?
A. Lingotek is unique because
of the following capabilities:
- No software to install, configure or maintain - completely web based!
- Stop burning CDs, e-mailing and faxing
- Finally, a secure, controlled translation process
- Reuse through instant, meaning-based searching
- Global dynamic source of multi-lingual content
- Automatic on-the-fly collaboration of entire projects
- Multiple translators on the same project
- Start translation and reviews almost simultaneously
- Features you want delivered faster
- Use Lingotek technology to gain new customers
Q. Will my TM's or
my documents remain private and safe? How can I be sure?
A.
Yes. When you upload a document or a TM you will have the option to store your data in either the Open TM Vault
or a Closed TM Vault, which is a private, personal vault. While we encourage you to share your data with others
through the Open TM Vault whenever possible, we understand that sometimes you will be translating sensitive
documents. When you choose to store your data in a Closed Vault it will be safe on our secure servers, and
no one (not even other people in your own company) can see it unless you grant them access. For more information,
see our Security Questions.
Q. How can you provide this service for free?
A.
Our primary revenue stream comes from selling private server versions of our technology to organizations
that want to search their own data. We used to sell personal subscriptions to Lingotek for $30/month,
but we found that these subscriptions were costing us as much to market as we were
making. We decided to give the online public version away free in order to become more well known.
The information and input from our free customers is invaluable in helping us to fine-tune and improve
our software for our profit-making versions.
Q. Is Lingotek free forever,
or are you just getting me hooked so you can charge me later?
A. Yes, it will be free forever.
We have no plans to ever charge for personal access to Lingotek.
Q. Is the free version the complete product, or just a trial version?
A.
The free version is the full version. You will have access to all of the features of the software.
Q. What is the difference between the private server version and the free version?
A.
The private server edition has the ability to integrate with other systems
like Idiom World Server, Beetext, Plunet, etc.
Q. Are you going to
sell advertising on my translation page?
A.
We don't have any plans to do so.
Q. How can I contact customer service?
A. Currently, customer service is provided via email. Our support email address is
support@lingotek.com.
Q. Now that Lingotek is free, will you continue
to add features? How will you determine which features to add?
A.
We are dedicated to continually improving our software. We work very hard to determine what translators and
project managers would like implemented, and we are improving our product to meet those needs. If you have
ideas for enhancements that you would like to see, then click "Contact Us" at the top of your page when
you are logged in, or send an email to support@lingotek.com. As we
add features we will announce them via our New Features! page.
Q. Will you continue
to fix bugs?
A.
Yes. One of the reasons that we provide Lingotek for free is to enable us to fine-tune our private server version. If you
find any bugs please report them via the "Contact Us" link at the top of the page.
Q. Where will I get
training? Will Lingotek still provide it? At no charge?
A.
Training is provided online for free on our Training Page
Over time we expect to select some users to provide
training sessions in local areas and at conferences. These individuals
will keep all proceeds from the training and will be certified by Lingotek.
Q. Will we still see
Lingotek at trade shows and expos?
A.
Perhaps, but in a more limited role. We will select a number of shows at which we are hoping
to provide training sessions and answer questions about Lingotek from current and potential users.
How to Get Started Questions
Q. Do you have any tutorials to help me learn how to use Lingotek?
A. We most certainly do. Our tutorials are located on our
Training Page.
Q. Is there a way for Lingotek to use things that I've translated in the past to help me with my projects?
A. Absolutely. Lingotek searches Translation Memory (TM) Vaults in order to provide search results.
There are two different ways to upload content that you have already translated into your TM Vaults.
- If you have been using a Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tool:
- You can directly import your Translation Memory (TMX) files or XLIFF files by clicking "Import Translation Memory" in the sidebar.
- If you have multilingual documents:
- You can align these documents using our LingoAlign tool. This will output an XLIFF file, which you can them import into Lingotek.
As you translate projects in Lingotek they will also be automatically added to your TM Vaults, and will become available for future projects.
Q. I don't have any completed translations to upload. Is Lingotek still worth using?
A. Lingotek is a fantastic tool for translators who are just getting started, or who don't have their own TMs.
Even if you don't have any of your own TMs to upload you will still have access to the Open TM Vault. This is a
a repository of TMs that other translators have chosen to make public. The "architecture of participation" means that the
Open Vault will get better and better as more people use it and choose to make their work available to others.
Technical Questions
Q. What is
meaning-based searching?
A. Words are defined by
the company they keep. The meaning of a word changes fairly dramatically depending on the context in which it
is used (i.e., the words that surround it). Meaning-based searches use computer systems based on new
linguistic search algorithms. Instead of just looking just at the word itself they look at the context of a
paragraph. They can find all
combinations of words in the paragraph with the same meaning,
in the same context. These meaning-based searches are the
core of Lingotek's Language Search Engine (LSE)
technology.
Q. What is the
difference between the Open TM Vault and Closed
TM Vaults?
A. Users of Lingotek have the option of
storing their documents in two categories of TM Vaults: Open and
Closed.
- Open: Lingotek embraces the power of the web to
harness collective translation intelligence through the Open
TM Vault. This extends the traditional concept of content reuse
from what has been generated by you or in your company to
what has been generated in a global social network and
submitted to the Open TM Vault. The content of the Open TM Vault is free
and any Lingotek subscriber can access and contribute to this
ever-growing, dynamic resource.
- Closed: Lingotek gives its users the ability to create one or multiple Closed TM Vaults. Data in a Closed Vault is accessible only by the owner and anyone he or she grants access rights to.
Note: The tool will always search the Open TM Vault, but will only search Closed Vaults that the translator has been explicitly granted access to.
Q. Is it safe to
save my projects to the Open TM Vault?
A. Yes. All documents indexed within
Lingotek's TM Vaults are intentionally fragmented and given unique
ID's that only the original document owner, who has the final
XLIFF file, can see. A person could not rebuild any
documents from the TM Vaults even if they had direct access to
Lingotek's secure servers. For more information, see our Q. Will bad
translations from the Open TM Vault show up in my
work?
A. Nothing will show up in your work unless you choose to put it there.
Lingotek is not a machine translator. It is designed as a tool to help you to translate
better and quicker, not to create translations for you. For this reason, the editing panel will
automatically insert only translation segments that match the
original document 100%, and even then you will be able to edit the translation as needed.
Q. I am not getting any results, or not getting results that are very helpful. Why is that?
A. We have worked very hard to create a search tool that does a superb job of searching and
retrieving the best results available. The primary reason for no results or poor results is that our Vault doesn't
have very much data from the language pair that you are searching. As you add more data to your own TM Vaults and
as more and more people add their translations to the Open TM Vault the results should get better and better.
Q. Is there a way to export my Translation Memories so that they can be shared with other translators or used in
other programs?
A. TM Vaults can be exported into XLIFF files, which is the industry standard for multilingual documents.
These can then be shared with others or used in other translation programs.
Q. What is
XLIFF?
A. XLIFF is a XML file format. It is a
standard for organizing and holding multilingual documents.
It was developed by the OASIS Consortium (
http://www.oasis-open.org
While Oasis created the XLIFF standard, they are not
responsible for creating tools to use the standard. That is
why Lingotek initiated the open source project File2XLIFF4j
(http://file2xliff4j.sourceforge
Q. What is
LingoAlign?
A. LingoAlign is a text alignment tool that subscribers to
Lingotek can use to align existing translations of source and
target documents. Once aligned, this content can be loaded
into Lingotek for reuse. LingoAligntakes two separate documents containing text in two
different languages and aligns them paragraph by paragraph.
The resulting output is a file (XLIFF) of source paragraphs
with each translated paragraph contained in a single
Translation Unit.
Security Questions
Q. Is it safe to
upload my sensitive documents to Lingotek?
A. Yes. We have multiple security systems in place to protect your documents.
First, we store your documents on secure servers, in a secure location.
In addition, we store source and target documents as unlinked paragraphs.
Documents are not searchable or viewable in Lingotek except by those who own the document.
If a document owner saves the document to a Closed TM Vault, then the source and target segments
paragraphs are searchable and viewable only to the document
owner and those to whom he or she has granted access rights. Even translators who have been granted
access to the TM Vaults can never view the whole of any document stored there. They
only see one paragraph at a time, and only if that segment relates to what is
being translated. This capability keeps you in control and secure while increasing
flexibility. Whether you put your documents in Open or Closed TM Vaults only the original document owner
has the whole document and the translation when it is complete.
Any movement of documents or data (uploads, downloads, etc.) occurs completely on Lingotek's secure
servers. This is much more safe and secure than the current practice of sending documents through
email, postal mail, etc.
Q. Will the servers
be secure and available (back-ups, redundancy, etc.)?
A.
Our servers are hosted in secure facilities, in an
installation where many of the world's banks house their servers.
As far as backups and redundancy go we mirror everything and have a
triple redundancy built in. Each server has 45 hard drives and
16 processors. We only need 15 hard drives and 4 processors to handle
the load on a single server. The others are backups in case of
a failure. So the answer is yes, we are very committed to the security of your data.
Q. From a
language company perspective, do you have any systems in place to ensure that
non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements are not
breached by contract translators using Lingotek?
A. Currently in the industry if you need sensitive
information translated you have to trust that all translators
and reviewers that see the document will keep the information
confidential and not misuse it. With Lingotek, translators no
longer receive full, unfragmented copies of any documents they translate.
They are granted access to the document online over secure
servers, one section at a time. Their translations are then loaded back onto the secure
servers where the document owner only
has access to the full file. Likewise, translators cannot pass
the job off to someone else without you transferring the job to the other person's Lingotek account.
Only the document owner
or language company project manager who put the data into the
system can grant a person access for translation and review.
When you are done with a project you have on Lingotek a
complete record of who has seen the content.
Registration and Licensing Questions
Q. What happens
to my documents, TM's, and content if I decide to cancel my
subscription?
A. Naturally, by canceling your
subscription you will lose access to all of the tool's features and
benefits, but you will not lose your data. By using the industry standard file format, XLIFF,
you can port your content to any other tool. The ability to
transfer documents and TM's from this system to another is
guaranteed.
