Automatic translations in Weblate

l10n
#1

Hi all,

Following the request made by Stanislav and Olivier on automatic translation built-in support in Weblate, we discussed the topic yesterday during our team meeting.
Currently we rely on automatic suggestions from Weblate TM and amaGama TM, meaning there is no AI added.
The possibility to include Aws, Microsoft, Google, DeepL, Baidu and more is already there in Weblate, see:
https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/admin/machine.html

Doing some research on the different translators available, I've seen some are really high in costs and/or do not cover a large range of languages. Traductor requests to be added in credits, I don't know for others.

Yesterday, Olivier proposed Matecat (https://www.matecat.com/) which is an open source project. He is using it with the Brazilian community and it gives them very good results. From what I've tested, it supports a large range of languages, can be used locally. However not relevant here, I found their support for a large type of file formats very interesting too.

Could you give a test to Matecat and let me know:
- if that would work for your language
- if there are more appropriate translators for your language that already exists (for example, Hossein told us about https://github.com/targoman for Persian).

Thanks a lot in advance for your help!
Cheers
Sophie

#2

Hi all,

Hi all,

Following the request made by Stanislav and Olivier on automatic translation built-in support in Weblate, we discussed the topic yesterday during our team meeting.
Currently we rely on automatic suggestions from Weblate TM and amaGama TM, meaning there is no AI added.
The possibility to include Aws, Microsoft, Google, DeepL, Baidu and more is already there in Weblate, see:
https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/admin/machine.html

Doing some research on the different translators available, I've seen some are really high in costs and/or do not cover a large range of languages. Traductor requests to be added in credits, I don't know for others.

Yesterday, Olivier proposed Matecat (https://www.matecat.com/) which is an open source project. He is using it with the Brazilian community and it gives them very good results. From what I've tested, it supports a large range of languages, can be used locally. However not relevant here, I found their support for a large type of file formats very interesting too.

Could you give a test to Matecat and let me know:

So it seems following Ilmari's researches that my request to test Matecat is irrelevant. I'm copying his mail in the other thread here:

#3

Hi

I ran an empiric test on 3 services, namely Google, ModernMT, and LibreTranslate, all for the language I translate, pt-BR. The test was run on untranslated Help strings and when weblate translation memory gives no match.

I found Google the most accurate. To be honest, it seems Google knows the string to translate belongs to an office suite spreadsheet Help string...

ModernMT not good enough, some basic context mistakes.

LibreTranslate quite good actually and promising. My remarks on LibreTranslate:

* Occasionally, an extra period before a closing tag.

* occasionally, errors on tags: <input>BETA.INV...</input> returned <input/>BETA.INV...

* the more tags in the string, the more it get confused and renders poorly.

* Admittedly, some strings in English are poorly written. The software does no miracles, poor English returns poor translation.

* Mistakes in gender determination, if the 2 above are true

* Lousy to detect UI terms (Dialog boxes elements) from normal nouns.

* With confusing English, The usual "word-by-word" translation, returns English-y Portuguese that demands a manual intervention.

However, I still think translators will benefit to have machine translation as suggestion alongside memory translation. If LibreTranslate can "learn" form existing translation memory, I'll expect improvements.

test strings run on LibreTranslate
* minor intervention
** major intervention

https://translations.documentfoundation.org/translate/libo_help-master/textscalc01/pt_BR/?q=state%3A<translated&offset=8
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/translate/libo_help-master/textscalc01/pt_BR/?q=state%3A<translated&offset=9

#4

Hi Sophie

I tried Matecat and it works well for Dutch translations.

Cheers,
Kees

sophi schreef op 23.02.2022 15:46:

#5

Hi Olivier,

Thank you very much for your detailed report and your tests!
Cheers
Sophie