Memsource Reviews

I frequently use Phrase TMS both for translations and proofreading. I do not own a copy of the software myself, but use online resources provided to me by various translation agencies. I have had experience using CAT engines before, but was impressed by how simple and intuitive Phrase TMS is. I have never had a problem with the software, which is not something I can say about other CAT software. I didn't need to install anything, I just use a browser with a username and password provided by the agencies. Everything I need is in the software, though I am sure there are a lot of other tools and features that I do not know about.

There are few things I dislike about Phrase TMS. Because I only use the web browser version, I'm sure there are more features that may be included that I do not even know about. The only other thing I can think of is that I cooperate with several agencies over Phrase TMS, so there are a lot of usernames and passwords to keep track of.

I use Phrase to translate or proofread documents for various agencies. So there are multiple translators populating the translation memories and termbases, so that simplifies the translation/proofreading process.

I've just started in the translation field and Phrase was the first software I used to help with Portuguese/English translations.

I thought I would find it difficult, as it was a very new concept for me, with several features, but, to my surprise, the adaptation was smooth and quick.

I'm very pleased with the experience, and with the way Phrase has helped me with productivity and adapting to this new area.

I've noticed that if I take a longer time between translating one passage and another (which can happen more or less frequently, depending on the size and complexity of the subject), the software ends up automatically inserting a passage in the text's original language instead of the target language. This can be resolved quickly by selecting the translated passage manually, but ca be a little upsetting sometimes.

I must also emphasize that, like any automatic software, the translation is unlikely to be 100% correct, and it is necessary to analyze the translated content thoroughly before finalizing the text. The accuracy of the translation also depends on the author's writing style, their eloquence, the clarity and organization of their text, all of which will have an impact on the quality of the machine translation. This, like any job, requires research, attention, and effort. I complement the translations with Deepl and then I get a highly satisfactory result.

For me, the biggest benefit of Phrase is the possibility of dividing the text into sections—something I never thought would be significant in the process, but it makes all the difference—making it much easier to understand and translate the section without noise. The fact that Phrase learns your translation preferences is another big plus, because all the translators of the company I'm working at can help to improve each other's text, and this is especially true for specific terms (names of national institutions, terms for medicine, agriculture, mathematics, chemistry, etc.) that are hard to translate from the original language to the target language, or vice versa. Because of the way Phrase fine-tunes its sensitivity to translated terms, many terms that I would have wasted a lot of time researching are already translated correctly the first time, which is only possible because of the work and effort of my team, the benefit of which we reap with Phrase.

With Phrase, the work and time involved in translating a text word for word, manually, is simplified by the automatic translation feature. Even though some parts may have to be modified to better suit what the author wanted in the original text, knowing that the software is memorizing our preferences and is constantly modifying and improving, the more we translate within it, gives us more confidence in relying on technology for translation. Productivity increases and we are able to translate more in less time, with guaranteed quality.

As a translator, I like how snappy the software is, either as an online tool or whenever I'm using the desktop version of it. Unlike other CAT tools available on the market, it doesn't demand too many resources from your computer.

It's easy to use and all my clients also seem to be quite satisfied with it as well, proofreading/review tools work like a charm as well. I've been using it for the past couple of years and really got nothing to complain about it, and it seems like the industry is adopting it widely as well. I've been working on Phrase at least once a week with one of my clients and it's been a delight!

It's worth noting that they recently added a new "dark mode" feature, a must-have if you're looking at a bright screen for hours on end.

I haven't found any issues that impact my experience with Phrase so far.

It's a lightweight solution that packs a whole lot of substance without hogging down computer resources.

Among the upsides definitely are straight-forward and user friendlty interface. a variety of useful features incuding but not limited to workflow management, term base management. pre-translation analysis, term extraction, project templates.

Nothing in particular to be mentioned here. However. it would be great if the system could process pdf files (though it might be a restriction just for academic license users).

I teach CAT tools at the university. To me. Phrase is an ideal instrument for familiarizing translation students with cutting-edge technology and simulating lifelike environments for translation project management.

Translation quality is beyond expectation. It can translate with even minor nuances in different contexts. I think Phrase is a closest example of how AI can help human in near future. On top of that, Phrase provides synchronization features such as Search, Replace All ... no matter how long your text is. These such features do not only enhance your translation productivity but also ensure its consistency and accuracy. I would love to 100% recommend Phrase to professional localization/ translation companies.

Still, there is 1 point that I think Phrase should improve. Phrase app on mobile set restricted on supporting features like Search, Replace All .. which takes translators quite a lot of time to review the whole translating text. I hope they can improve the mobile app soon.

I tend to translate inconsistently due to length of the text. Phrase helps me so much with SEARCH feature. It helps me to keep consistency better and improves my translating quality.

Phrase is user friendly, feels intuitive and has helpful side tabs for extra resources. The blue arrows on the right side of the target segments show if the segment is a repeated segment. This is quite helpful, but what is even more practical are the double blue arrows which show which segment in the job is the first one of the repeated segments, which can be needed when wanting to change a whole series of repeated segments by making changes to just one.

At this point, I cannot recommend any changes. Everything looks the way it is supposed to.

It automatically uses both machine translation and translation memories when working for the international client I'm working for which is using Phrase as its preferred platform.

The quality that best impressed me about Phrase TMS is that it allows several translators to work simultaneously on the same project without the risk of discrepancy.

When I first started using Phrase TMS, I found it a bit difficult to make the best use of it. I had to get some technical support from experts. If it has any downside probably it's that the early stages of the setup could be a little frustrating.

The biggest problem that we translators face especially in such big translation projects as what3words is the problem of coordination. When multiple people work on the same project the likelihood of committing errors increases. Since we started using Phrase TMS with (more than 60 translators working on the same project) we haven't faced any problems related to coordination and that's because of Phrase TMS.

It has everything a linguist needs to translate, edit, and post-edit, with the options to customize every little detail, including punctuation in different languages.

It would be a great idea to have it set itself up depending on the language in terms of punctuation, among other things. For example, even though most projects I work with are English-Spanish, I have to set up the proper quotation marks every time. Also, the tags should be easier to work with every time.

I have been delivering projects in many work fields, and it is incredible to notice how broad the vocabulary we can find is. The CAT tool is also able to translate almost perfectly in many situations.

The ability to streamline the translation process has been a huge asset to the company I work for. The use of translation memory helps to cut down on linguist fees. The interface is very user-friendly and when any questions arise, Phrase support is very helpful. Phrase was easy to implement into our daily work and is easy to use. We use the program daily and it is very effective and time saving.

There is not anything specific that we dislike. But a recommendation we have is it would be nice to have the ability to control information flow between task resources who are working on a job together.

We are saving a tremendous amount of design time by using Phrase. Using an IDML file as our source file has allowed our formatting time to drop drastically, which has cut our overall timelines significantly, making our customers very happy.

I've used other translation suites, and Phrase takes the cake. It has so many powerful features, I use it every day and am just scraping the surface.

A lot of the AI features could be much smarter. For example, after I put terms in the TB and even forbidden terms, the pre-translation keeps using terms I don't want instead of the ones I do. It also doesn't learn from corrections I make over and over again, like the style of punctuation I want.

It saves me a lot of time and is much more organized than doing everything in Word files like I used to.