5 min
10 Handy Antidote Functions for Translation
When you need an accurate version of your content in another language, finding the right word takes on a whole new importance. Luckily, Antidote’s tools are available in both English and French! Below are 10 Antidote usage tips for translators, designed to help you write, meet the needs of a range of clients and, most of all, increase your productivity.
Handy Functions to Discover
- Compare the Definitions of Translations
- Look Up a Word “Translated as”
- Look Up Translations for Combinations
- Choose the Right Preposition
- Create Custom Presets
- Set Your Own Rules for the Corrector
- Add Translations to the Dictionaries
- Show or Check One Language Only
- Check for Gender Neutrality
- Compare the Style
Don’t have Antidote in both languages? ▪ If you already have Antidote 11 or Antidote+, add the French Module. ▪ If you use Antidote through your organization, they will need to purchase the bilingual edition.
1. Compare the Definitions of Translations
The best way to check that you’ve found the right translation for a word is to compare the two definitions. With Antidote, you can do this in the same window—no need to switch between resources.
Open the French dictionary on the word you want to translate. Translations, prefixed by the ⇄ symbol, are shown below each definition and expression. Click on a translation to see its English definition in a tooltip.
User guide: ▪ Translations in the dictionary of definitions
2. Look Up a Word “Translated as”
If you want to show only the translations for a word, use the Translated as shortcut in the Compléments section of the Précisions panel.
For example, in the entry for the French verb dire, the English verb say appears in almost all the meanings and sub-meanings. However, the Translated as search brings up a list of words without repetitions, which gives you a wider choice at a glance. This might help to get your ideas flowing!
User guide: ▪ Searching by criteria▪ Searching by criteria for French
3. Look Up Translations for Combinations
The dictionary of combinations gives all the most significant lexical combinations of a word—that is, the combinations with a strong, frequent and spontaneous association in the language. What’s more, every entry is translated. This means you can find an equivalent phrase without having to search for the second term. It also allows you to check how the expression is used via the examples given in the right-hand panel.
User guide: ▪ Translations in the combinations dictionary
4. Choose the Right Preposition
Sometimes the smallest words can be the trickiest to get right, such as prepositions that accompany a verb or an adjective. Make an informed choice using the combinations dictionary and the filter underneath the results. Type in the desired preposition to quickly find English equivalents.
5. Create Custom Presets
What if some of your clients use a formal tone, while others use an informal one? Or you write for Canadian, US and UK clients? Or your texts for social media need to use numerals for numbers under ten?
Create a custom preset for each case and choose the appropriate one directly in the corrector for the text you’re revising.
User guide: ▪ Presets ▪ Custom presets
6. Set Your Own Rules for the Corrector
Another new feature in Antidote 11 is especially useful when writing for others: the option to set your own rules for the corrector. Some of your clients’ preferences will almost certainly differ from yours. Perhaps you usually translate the French word estimation as quote, but one of your clients prefers estimate.
Add a rule in the corrector by selecting quote, then open the context menu (right-click) and choose Add a custom rule.
Specify whether you want an alert or a correction, the replacement to make if so, and an explanation for the tooltip.
The corrector will apply your custom rules, which are shown in purple.
You can even create a list for each client. This makes it easy to activate or deactivate lists according to the text you’re translating.
Custom rules are found in the Customizations window, accessible via the flask symbol in the Windows notification area (bottom right) or in the Mac menu bar (top right).
User guide: ▪ Customizations ▪ Adding a custom rule
Watch the video (in French) about custom rules and presets, two new features in Antidote 11.
7. Add Translations to the Dictionaries
Not only can you add your own words (and your clients’ words!) to your personal dictionaries, you can also include their translations.
For example, if your client uses the French word pseudo in its social media sense, add it to the personal dictionary and include a note that you translate this as handle.
This information will then appear in the dictionary window, just like any other entry.
User guide: ▪ Adding an entry to the personal dictionaries
8. Show or Check One Language Only
If you’re working in a multilingual document, the corrector allows you to show and check French only or English only.
Click on the ⋯ menu to see the display options. Below the elements in the status bar (commands and statistics), you’ll find the language options.
Choose the language to show and check.
These options are especially useful if you’re working in a table, or if segmented passages signal a change in language. For example, you can show both languages to make sure the translation is accurate, but only correct English; alternatively, you can focus on the style of your text by choosing to only show the English version.
User guide: ▪ Configuring the corrector’s main window ▪ Bilingual texts
9. Check for Gender Neutrality
Gender-neutral language aims to eliminate bias in texts by avoiding gender-specific terms where they aren’t needed. It can be easy to forget this when translating, as many terms are gender-neutral in English but not in French, and vice-versa. There’s also an accuracy challenge, as certain French words, such as the articles son, sa, ses do not reflect gender in the same way as the English his, her or their.
Be sure to cover all bases by using the Gender Neutrality filter in the Style view. You will even find suggested replacements in the tooltip. You can also click on the orange title (Gender neutrality in the example) to open the guides, which suggest several ways to make your text gender neutral.
User guide: ▪ The Gender neutrality filter ▪ Different ways to access the guides
10. Compare the Style
When your translation needs to closely follow the writing style of the original text, the Style view in the corrector can help. Launch the corrector for each of the texts and compare the results of the smart filters. For example, you can check whether they have a similar readability score, or whether the register matches.
User guide: ▪ Style view▪ Specific features of Style view for French
One more thing...
Use the Counts filter in the Statistics view to generate a word count. Because the corrector analyzes the text, it can recognize and count elided words, which other writing software can’t do. For example, Microsoft Word counts “it’s” or “j’aime” as one word. In the example below, this makes over 50 words’ worth of difference!
And that’s a big deal if you charge your clients by word. Imagine how many words a year you might be translating for free! Speaking of money, the same filter offers a Billing function that allows you to set the unit price, currency and textual unit (characters, words, sentences or paragraphs) to use.
User guide: ▪ The Counts filter in the Statistics view
Use Antidote Wherever You Write!
Before we go, let’s take a quick look at integrating Antidote into your computer-aided translation (CAT) software. Two major software companies offer their own Antidote compatibility: RWS for Trados Studio Freelance et Trados Studio Professional, and memoQ for memoQ and WebTrans. If you use other software, including online applications, remember that Antidote also integrates into the main browsers and office software suites using the Connectix utility. So you’ll always have access to your faithful writing and translation companion!
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