Phrase Platform

I mainly translate using Phrase Localization Platform and I teach my students as well. I have a subject at the university that is part of the curriculum where I teach them how to use Phrase Localization Platform as a translator. I am also aware of some assignments by dedicated project managers. I mainly translate in the software.

In my translation work, for example, legal documents such as contracts, sometimes without identity data, have been very useful in speeding up my work and making it faster. In an academic setting, I have used Phrase Localization Platform for translating technical texts and analyzing them with my students from segment to segment. There have been a variety of projects I have worked with.

Phrase Localization Platform has very useful functions with regard to speeding up a translator's work. I have also noticed that Phrase Localization Platform is very user-friendly compared to some other software that has emerged over the past two years because it is intuitive and when you have some translation problems, for example, it is very easy to use term bases and also AI-generated translations without much effort. Phrase Localization Platform helps you to focus precisely on translation, not navigating through the IT interface.

At the moment, I do not work at a translation agency anymore, but I think that Phrase Localization Platform offered a great use for project managers as well. It was very intuitive and user-friendly. Both project managers and translators could interact well with each other. For example, you could add comments in the software, and I think Phrase Localization Platform is based on the KISS principle, keep it simple. For me as a translator, it is always useful when you have simple and clear workflows, which Phrase Localization Platform is fluent in.

Communication with project managers and also when the texts needed editing was very time-efficient. The communication between a translator and an editor was excellent. I also noticed that my translations were of high quality because I did not have to focus so much on the tool but on the translation, and the software helped me to optimize my work by taking away more difficult or tedious tasks, for example, entering numbers and repetitions. I had more time to focus on the content.

The user interface is very clear and user-friendly and finding terms and speeding up my translation process by filtering segments is very easy and user-friendly compared to some other new software. Phrase Localization Platform is my first option at the moment.

Filtering segments has helped me to speed up the process because I filter the shortest segments first to confirm them and if there are any non-translatables or repetitive segments, then it is also helpful in this regard. Filtering also helps me to find similar segments or similar content very fast without too many clicks on other buttons. The term finding is useful when I'm selecting the relevant term and it auto-suggests what I should put in. These two functions have made my lengthy translation process very useful.

Regarding the AI or generative AI functions, they may help to speed up the process and make it more efficient, but at the same time, I am really supportive of machine translation output that Phrase Localization Platform is offering. Sometimes in a translator's work, it is more useful to base your translation process on MT output and term bases rather than generative AI output because it may make the process more complicated.

I think in the era of generative AI, it could be improved in a way that generative AI is able to understand or focus on domains within the translation. The translation process is supported by AI, but at the same time, AI distinguishes between domains, for example, legal, technical, or medical texts. I do not have to prompt so much in order to use generative AI as a supporting agent, but rather distinguish between those domains. That is the layer I am missing. At the same time, I do not want Phrase Localization Platform to become just a tool, but an assisting agent for translation.

At the moment, I am not certain about the needed improvements because it really is the best translation software at the moment for me. It is very convenient to teach it to university students as well because it is so clear. However, it may be worth considering that translators do not need more tool-based data or information, but rather a focus on the translation process. Thanks to software, translators have more time to focus on the content and communication of the translation texts rather than just the tool and its functionalities because if too much time is spent on learning those functions, it hinders the translation process.

I believe the year was 2017 when the translation agency that I worked at adopted Memsource and then Memsource became Phrase Localization Platform. I have been using it since 2017 or around that time, which is a long time.

I remember that there were some outages, but they were fixed very quickly and I do not remember Phrase Localization Platform disrupting my work in any way, so it is stable.

With large translation projects, there were some problems because the input was too large sometimes and it kind of delayed the whole process. All in all, I think Phrase Localization Platform is very reliable with growing workloads and they are also developing this scalability. I think Phrase Localization Platform has become more efficient in servicing bigger projects and more users. I am handling it by myself at the moment, and in spring I had 13 students working on that, so we managed well and did not have any disruptions or delays.

I have not had contact with customer support really because these few outages were addressed directly on their website. I think they would be great because project managers were mainly communicating with them.

Before Phrase Localization Platform, or Memsource as we remember, I mainly used MemoQ and then also Trados. When you translate, you cannot really choose the software. In Estonia, translation agencies do not solely use one program or platform. They use several depending on the client's needs, so I can say MemoQ and Trados.

From my individual perspective, I have seen that I got faster as a translator, so of course, there was an increase in salary because my work was performance-based. At the moment, I am not so certain about the performance and money gains because I am currently not actively translating, but I think it is the perfect tool to teach to students because its logic is similar to those translation tools that have been on the market for about 20 years, including Trados and MemoQ. The benefit is that you can teach the initial logic and then the students can use other translation programs because they are already familiar with that. Phrase Localization Platform just makes it easier to learn.

At the translation agency, I did not come into contact with issues regarding pricing. It was up to project managers and their managers and the owner. I cannot comment on that. At the university right now, we got a free academic license, which I am very grateful for because teaching Phrase Localization Platform to future translation students is of utmost importance, so they could launch their careers and comply with the needs of the market.

At the translation agency, I did not have the power to choose. It was the management's decision. For the university, Phrase Localization Platform was a very good option because of the user-friendliness function.

I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

I am of the opinion that nothing is perfect. There is always room for improvement, but I think Phrase Localization Platform ranks really high because I have also worked with other translation software, and as a translator, I really appreciate that Phrase Localization Platform has taken the time to question or ask questions from translators as the real users of the software.

I trust that Phrase Localization Platform is aware of security issues and I am somewhat skeptical of AI at times because it is a rather black box. We do not see how it is functioning inside. At the same time, I am pretty sure that when we use mailboxes and other features, Phrase Localization Platform has thought about security and confidentiality in other matters. I am trusting the process.

There have been some errors, for example, in Estonian, some terminology may be off or there may be some errors. All in all, I think it is quite reliable. At times, it depends on the text. If you have a contract template, for example, it may be reliable and accurate, but at the same time when you have a press release or a museum text, then you have to be very critical of it. Because translation is not about putting one word into another language, but rather trying to grasp the idea of transferring and communicating the message from one language to another depending on the domain, whether it is legal, medical, technical, museum, entertainment, marketing, and so on. It is difficult to generalize because it depends on the text I am translating.

The translation agency where I worked used a private cloud. It was secure, and no data could be given out. It was a private cloud and it was on-premises as well. Employees had their own login credentials and then they could work in a cloud.

I believe it was a local telecommunications provider.

Phrase Localization Platform is user-friendly and supports the translating process, and I give this platform a rating of nine. For me, it is the first CAT tool to start with.

My main use case for Phrase Localization Platform is primarily for IT translation projects or marketing projects.

Regarding my main use case for Phrase Localization Platform, I use it mainly for Toshiba marketing projects, and in the past, some other customers have requested that I use it for other projects, but none were particularly specific or stood out to me.

Phrase Localization Platform has not positively impacted my organization or my freelance work.

The specific reason why Phrase Localization Platform has not had a significant positive impact is because it is not frequently requested by customers, and I am uncertain whether it will become more widespread among customers globally. This lack of adoption means it does not shorten my productivity time or help reduce my workflow or speed up my processes.

The best features Phrase Localization Platform offers are that it is quite easy to use, although I do not prefer Phrase too much overall.

What makes Phrase Localization Platform easy to use for me is mainly the interface, which is quite intuitive. The main interface has a dashboard that is very accessible, and you can find options that are intuitive with all the main ones immediately visible and easy to locate.

While discussing the features of Phrase Localization Platform, what is frustrating is that you cannot customize the shortcuts with your keyboard, and it is also not easy to export and use external QA software such as Xbench. This is quite frustrating because every translator is accustomed to different QA tools, and this should be an option that is immediately available.

Regarding improvements for Phrase Localization Platform, another negative aspect is the browser compatibility. When I use Firefox, I need to increase the character size because I cannot see it clearly, but when I use a larger character size, you lose some parts of the options visually. This could be improved, as well as the overall organization, as it is not a tool I prefer.

I have been using Phrase Localization Platform for approximately five to seven years.

Phrase Localization Platform is not installed locally; I use it on the cloud within my customer's platform, where I was required to create an account with a username and password, and then I access Phrase Localization Platform through their platform. I presume this is a private cloud setup.

I would rate Phrase Localization Platform a seven out of ten.

I chose seven out of ten because I cannot say that it is a bad tool, but it is not a ten because it is not a perfect tool compared to Trados or other tools I have used. I give it a seven because it is not bad enough to receive a five or four, but it does need some improvements.

I cannot provide information about AI capabilities in Phrase Localization Platform because I am not permitted to use them with my customers, and I do not have any experience with AI within Phrase Localization Platform.

I do not know which cloud provider I use for accessing Phrase Localization Platform because it is my customer's cloud provider.

My advice to others considering Phrase Localization Platform is to use it for very simple projects, not complex projects. I especially recommend avoiding projects that require extensive searching in translation memories or term bases, or projects with complex structures such as PDFs full of photos, images, or tables.

My main use case for Phrase Localization Platform is translating and proofreading texts for my clients. I do not have anything else to add about my main use case or the types of projects I handle with Phrase Localization Platform.

The best features Phrase Localization Platform offers are that it is pretty fast to use and it is similar to other CAT tools from my field, so it is easy to start working with it.

What stands out to me about its speed and similarity to other CAT tools when I am working on projects is that it is an online tool, so I do not have to wait much for segment confirmation and to load my projects.

Phrase Localization Platform has positively impacted my work and my clients, but from what I know, they are not fully happy about some features, especially regarding the AI translations because for Polish, which is my target language, they turned out to be of low quality.

Unfortunately, I do not know about any positive outcomes or benefits I have noticed in terms of workflow, speed, or client satisfaction because I am not working this closely with the client.

I would add that I do not prefer some of the UI choices, especially when I use the LQA feature, because when I finish the translation, the pop-up messages are hiding some important buttons for me, and I often forget to confirm a specific feature, which is problematic for my end client.

I would improve Phrase Localization Platform by enhancing the UI so that the most important parts, the buttons, are not hidden behind the pop-up messages. I would also add some more customization features such as colors and a dark mode, for example, changing the QA feature so that I can do it in batches instead of segment by segment because this makes me slower. Additionally, a customization of key binding would be useful.

These cover my main concerns about the needed improvements.

I have been using Phrase Localization Platform for around five years.

Phrase Localization Platform is usually stable in my experience.

I have no idea how Phrase Localization Platform's scalability is from what I have seen because I am not dealing with scalability issues.

I have not needed to reach out for customer support from my perspective.

I have not switched to a different solution; I use MemoQ on a regular basis and Crowdin.

I have not evaluated other options before choosing Phrase Localization Platform; it is what is provisioned to me as a freelance translator, so I am using various solutions depending on the client.

I am not dealing with pricing and setup for Phrase Localization Platform because I am a freelance translator, so a license is provided to me.

I do not know if I have seen a return on investment such as time saved or fewer manual steps that I could share because I am not dealing with those topics.

I have not seen any improvements needed that we have not discussed yet. I am happy that the notification system started to work and I receive notifications about new comments to my mailbox, and that is an improvement.

I would advise others looking into using Phrase Localization Platform that they might be interested in Crowdin because it seems to me that it has some better UI features and more integration. I would rate this product a 7 out of 10.