Text alignment in a tool for translating revised documents

A simple tool which deals with a particular special case of the "re-translation" problem, which occurs when a new version of a previously translated document needs to be translated, which could substantially increase the productivity of translators which deal with technical documents of frequently modified products.

Abstract

this paper I describe a simple tool which deals with a particular special case of the "re-translation" problem. It occurs when a new version of a previously translated document needs to be translated. The tool identifies the changes between the two versions of the source language (SL) text and retrieves appropriate sentences from the target language (TL) text. With that, it creates a bilingual draft which consists of sections in the TL text from the existing translation and update materials from the SL text, thereby reducing the effort required from the translator. This tool could substantially increase the productivity of translators which deal with technical documents of frequently modified products (software-based products are the best example of that). If this is true, it suggests that simple solutions can be very effective in addressing "real-life" translation problems