FAQ
Who can benefit from Transcelerator?
Transcelerator can be used by any Bible translation team that:
- Uses or wants to use an existing list of comprehension checking questions (primarily from the article Questions for Testing Translations in Translator’s Workplace) as a basis for preparing checking questions. If you have a different set of questions that you would like to use instead, it might be possible. Please use the contact form to request special help with that.
- Uses Paratext to draft the translation.
- Would benefit from a printable script to use in checking sessions (note: Transcelerator’s raw data is XML, so it is also possible to use this in other ways.)
- Has one or members proficient enough in English (or one of the localized versions) to use it as a source language for translation of comprehension checking questions.
Can Transcelerator be used to check Deuterocanonical books or other non-Scripture material?
No, the built-in checking questions are for Scripture references in the Old and New Testaments only, and various aspects of the navigation and biblical terms lookup assume Scripture material.
Can Transcelerator be used to translate questions into a language of wider communication (LWC)?
Since Transcelerator is a Paratext plugin, it can only be used to translate questions for Scriptures that are in a Paratext project (not a resource). If you have access and rights to a project for a LWC, you are welcome to use Transcelerator to translate questions for it. Note: if you do the work to translate the questions into a LWC, you will have done much of the work needed to make a localized version for Transcelerator so that set of questions can be used as the basis for translating questions for checking a vernacular translation in the area where the LWC is used. If you are willing to share your work to benefit others, please use the contact form to reach out and let us know.
What if members of the translation team are not proficient enough in English to be able to translate the questions?
Transcelerator includes French and Spanish versions of all questions, answers and notes. Most of these are “auto-translated” and have not been carefully reviewed, but they are probably mostly good enough to be usable. We have set up a Crowdin project and hope to see these translations refined and reviewed in the near future. Tok Pisin is another language that has been requested, but no plans are currently in place to work on that. Use the contact form to let us know if you have a need for a localized version in a specific LWC or if you might be able to help translate (or fund the translation) of the materials into a language your project needs. By the way, there is also a localization in “British English” for teams more comfortable with the British spellings of words.
Are there limitations when displaying the questions in languages other than English?
Even when displaying the questions in French or Spanish, Transcelerator still uses the English version of the underlying question for most of its processing. This has several benefits, including allowing you to change the display language without losing the translations (because the data is always stored based on the English version). Unfortunately, this does entail some limitations:
Can the output from Transcelerator be used for other things besides comprehension checking?
Within your legal rights to use the Scripture text portions that are included in the script, you can use the output as you wish.
Is translating a “canned” set of questions the best way to check comprehension?
Please discuss with your project leadership, translation consultant(s), and other colleagues the pros and cons of using this approach as part of your strategy for ensuring a quality translation. Transcelerator does allow the addition of custom questions and the deletion or modification of existing source questions as needed.
Do we have to translate all the questions?
No. You can filter to show only the questions for certain books or passages. You can also skip questions that you don’t want to translate. When you generate the checking script for a particular passage, if you have not translated all the relevant questions, you have the option of omitting the skipped questions or including the original (English) version of the question (in case you want to translate it “on the fly” when conducting a live comprehension checking session). We are considering possible future enhancements to help users know which questions have been deemed most useful by other teams in similar projects.
Does Transcelerator work with Keyman?
Transcelerator does work correctly with Keyman. If you use Keyman and have run into problems with keyboard switching, please download the current version to solve this problem.
Is it possible to make the checking script smaller?
The Generate Checking Script dialog box has an options tab. There are check boxes there (selected by default) to include the entire vernacular Scripture passage before each section of questions, as well as to include the questions, answers and notes in the Language of Wider Communication. If your process does not require all those elements, clear the corresponding check boxes to reduce the size of the script (and save a tree if you’re printing it out). Transcelerator currently does not allow you to just export the questions without the Scripture text, but if that’s what you need, feel free to write a feature request. Meanwhile, you could accomplish it with a custom cascading style sheet that hides the unwanted content.