Dragon Dictate and Wordfast in Word 2011 on Mac

Last week, I purchased a MacBook Pro with an SSD drive and eight GB of RAM. In the work that I do, I require special Translation Memory software, and I choose to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking on my Windows machines instead of typing.

I wanted to comment in some detail on the performance of this set up just in case anyone else is thinking of going the same route.

To cut to the chase, Dragon Dictate only works properly on a Mac within the software’s own Note Pad. If you are coming from Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Windows, you are in for a terrible disappointment, and if you would like to use Dragon Dictate in a wide range of programs – from browsers to Microsoft Word – you are likely to regret this purchase.

In the reviews of Dragon Dictate for Mac online (such as at amazon.com), there are some mentions about how slow the program is within Word. The Translation Memory software I choose to use is Wordfast Classic, which runs as a set of VBA commands within Word – in other words, I need to use Dragon Dictate on a Mac the way I use it on Windows: to dictate what I say, not to navigate around my computer. In particular, the Translation Memory software has a whole array of keyboard shortcuts to speed up work.

It turns out that there is a “golden rule” for Dragon Dictate on Macs that I have never encountered for Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Windows – you cannot use the keyboard at all at any point during the dictation session. Since I am fortunately not handicapped, I do not need Dragon to navigate around my computer; I simply use it so I do not have to type in what I am saying. Dragon has allowed me, since 2005, to look at a text in one language and speak it aloud in English – et voilà, when I looked down, the text was already typed there for me with 99% accuracy.

This simply does not work with my particular configuration now. Dragon Dictate has all sorts of glitches on Mac OS. Like its predecessor, MacSpeech, Dragon Dictate leaves leading spaces all over the place every time you move the cursor by hand. On various user forums, you will learn that the command “purge cache” can be used to stop that from happening. Basically, the program tries to remember everything in the text you are working on so that if you want to correct something somewhere, it will know where to go to. If you ask the program to purge (erase) the cache, it will assume there is no text and start from scratch. At least, that’s what the manual says.

In practice, the purge-cache command only gets rid of the space. The first word you say will be capitalized, so if you don’t want that word capitalized, have fun trying to tell the computer that.

In fact, the situation is even worse, as the manual itself says – take a look at this screenshot:

Essentially, this blurb means that you are still screwed every now and then even if you do not use your keyboard while dictating.

All of this would be completely unnecessary if Dragon Dictate had a mode that allowed you to completely do without all of these commands and just have the program dictate exactly what you say. If you want a capitalized word, you will have to say “cap,” and if you want a leading space, you will have to say “space.” Then, if you don’t say either thing, you get no space and a lowercase word. That would be a lot more convenient than what the program does now.

If you would like to see how terrible all of this is, visit my video here (give the video about 20 seconds to start showing something; for some reason, it's gray for the first 20 seconds after I uploaded it):

If any translators would like to comment,  I'd love to hear what you have to say, especially if I am getting some things wrong here.

Another "Plagiator" bites the dust

As I mentioned a while back, another prominent German politician, Koch-Mehrin, was accused of plagiarism, and yesterday her university nullified her doctorate.

I wondered in that previous post why so many of the people under review seem to be from conservative parties, and it turns out – according to a colleague of mine over at Heise, who put together the chart you see – that those parties actually have the largest number of doctorates. Not only are the Greens a relatively small party in the German Parliament, but only around 10% of its MPs have a doctorate – half as many as in the CDU or the FDP (Koch-Mehrin's party).

So perhaps the swarm is not as politically motivated as it may seem.

Disappointingly, Koch-Mehrin has yet to step down from her position as a high-level MP in European Parliament (where she continues to make a killing), nor has she admitted any guilt. On the contrary, on the nightly news last night, there was speculation that she might take the university to court to challenge the legality of revoking her doctorate.

German video on US coverage of Merkel's visit

German public television has a very impressive online video library, where most things are available – even for downloading – for at least a week.

I was thus impressed to find this video below online for downloading when a reader of this blog commented that it must have been a local paper the Germans were complaining about when they didn't like the coverage of Merkel's visit. On the news program during lunch time, the correspondent in Washington shows that, in addition to covering Libya and Syria, the New York Times covers “a senator's sex scandal” (probably Mr. Weiner) and something about US TV moderators, while the Washington Post at least mentions Merkel's visit – but only in terms of her “evening dress,” referring readers to the lifestyle section.

On another news show (I can't remember which, so I couldn't look for the video), the Washington correspondent came to the same conclusion (one of the papers focused on the desert at dinner: apple strudel) after looking at major US papers and commented that, while Obama may treat Merkle as an equal, Berlin is obviously by no means on the same level with Washington – meaning that it's a big deal for Germans when Obama visits, but Germany is simply not as important for Americans.

For what it's worth, I didn't get the impression that this conclusion was drawn in malice, but simply stated as a matter of fact.

Merkel in US

The German media are incredulous about their Chancellor's reception in the US – not because she has been poorly received, but because so little attention is being paid to the event in the media. Repeatedly, reporters on German TV flipped through US newspapers to show what the US reports on – and to show that Merkel's visit just barely warrants a mention alongside all the wars the US is fighting and a number of things that seem trivial from abroad (and are, in fact, trivial).

Thanks for the mention!

From Telepolis, where my publishing career started:

Former German Chancellor Schmidt on killing of Osama

Yesterday, Helmut Schmidt – the former German chancellor who is also a frequent contributor to German weekly newspaper Die Zeit – stated that the murder of Osama bin Laden violates international law. He also said that Americans have become used to "not viewing international law as binding for themselves."

I don't know much about international law, but it seems a no-brainer to me that a country cannot assassinate someone. Schmidt makes an interesting comparison with the attempted assassination of Hitler, which he said did not violate international law, but I don't follow his reasoning. First, I'm not sure what the law was before the end of World War II; second, it was not a state, but individual Germans (who wished to take over the state) who attempted to assassinate Hitler.

Whatever the case, the most interesting thing for me remains the drastically different reaction to the killing of Osama in the US and in Germany.

Germany and US on Osama killing

The first thing I thought when I heard the news about Osama's killing was, "Is that legal?"

It's apparently not a question that a lot of Americans are concerned about, though it was pretty much the first thing discussed over here. German Chancellor Angela Merkel commented in wag-the-dog fashion that she was "pleased that Osama was killed," which drew a lot of criticism from within her party (which calls itself Christian) as to whether anyone can be pleased about a killing.

Now that the initial excitement in the US has died down a bit, the voices asking tough questions are moving into the foreground – such as Harpers, where John R MacArthur wrote this week of

the unseemly displays of patriotic fist-pumping by Americans who feel themselves superior to chanting Islamic radicals

Those were indeed interesting images (and MacArthur asks a lot of other tough questions, so it's worth reading in full). It's hard to understand why Americans don't realize how these images are seen around the world. Over here in Germany, it was a mixture of head-shaking and indifference, but – aside from politicians, whom diplomacy prevents from voicing criticism – few were pleased, much less dancing in the street. And Germany is a close American ally; I wonder how those images of Americans dancing in the street were seen in places like Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.