By Andrzej Zydron,
xml-Intl Ltd.
In the localization industry, there is a total lack of consistency among word or character counts, not only between rival products, but even among different versions of the same product. The same can be said for word processing software: word and character counts differ among vendors and versions. An additional problem is that none of this software provides any proper verifiable specification as to how the actual metrics are determined. You have to accept them as they are.
This is effectively the same situation that existed for weights and measures before the French Revolution established a sane and uniform system that everyone could agree upon, one that we still use today (with minor exceptions).
Trying to establish a measure for the size of a given localization task poses a real problem for the professional who is trying to calculate a price. The differences in word and character counts among different translation or word processing tools can be as much as 20 percent. And such a gap can mean the difference between profitability and loss.
Realizing that this problem needed to be addressed by an independent industry body, LISA OSCAR undertook the task, in 2004, of establishing a standard that everyone can agree on and that can be independently verified.
Nearly three years later, we finally have a far-reaching and considerably reviewed approach to this problem. The core of the new standard comes under the umbrella concept of Global Information Management Metrics Exchange or GMX for short.
We all know that word and character counts are not the only measure of a given localization task. Thus, GMX comprises three standards:
# GMX-V (for volume)
# GMX-Q (for quality
# GMX-C (for complexity)
GMX-V is the first of the three standards to be completed. Work will commence in 2007 on GMX-Q and GMXC. Quality (GMX-Q) will deal with the level of quality required for a task. For example, the quality required for the translation of a legal document is much higher than that for technical documentation that will have a relatively small audience. Complexity (GMX-Q) will take into consideration the source and format of the original document and its subject matter. For example, a highly complex document dealing with a specific tight domain is far more complex to translate than user instructions for a simple consumer device.
All of the GMX family of standards relies on an XML vocabulary for the exchange of metric data. Using the three standards together, it will be possible to have a uniform measure for defining the specific aspects of a localization task, to a point where one can completely automate all the pricing aspects of the task and exchange this data electronically.
GMX-V
GMX-V is designed to fulfill two primary roles:
* Establish a verifiable way of calculating the primary word and character counts for a given electronic document.
* Establish a specific XML vocabulary that enables the automatic exchange of metric data
As with all good standards, GMX-V is itself based on other well established standards:
* Unicode 5.0 normalized form
* Unicode Technical Report 29 – Text Boundaries
* OASIS XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF) 1.2
* LISA OSCAR Segmentation Rules Exchange (SRX) 2.0
WORDS AND CHARACTERS
GMX-V mandates both word and character counts. Character counts convey the most precise definition of a localization task, whereas word counts are the most commonly used metric in the industry.
OTHER METRICS
The XML exchange notation of GMX-V allows for the exchange of all metrics relating to a given localization task, such as page counts, file counts, screen shot counts, etc.
CANONICAL FORM
One of the main problems with calculating word and character counts is the sheer range of differing proprietary file formats. Trying to establish a standard that addresses all formats is impossible. GMX-V required a canonical form that effectively levels the playing field. Such a common format is available through the OASIS XLIFF standard, which is now supported by all of the localization tool providers.
Within XLIFF, inline codes are interpreted as inline XML elements. The inline elements are not included in the word and character counts, but form a separate inline element count of their own. The frequency of inline elements can have an impact on the translation workload, so a separate count is useful when sizing a job. Punctuation and white space characters are also featured as additional categories.
GMX-V addresses all issues related to counting words and characters in the XLIFF canonical format. Since the sentence is the commonly accepted atomic unit for translation, it proposes sentence-level granularity for counting purposes within XLIFF.
GMX-V does not preclude producing metrics directly from non-XLIFF files, as long as the format for counting is based on the XLIFF canonical form for each text unit being counted. This can be done dynamically on the fly, and it requires an audit file for verification purposes.
WORDS
GMX-V uses “Unicode Technical Report 29 (TR29-9) – Text Boundaries” to define words and characters. This provides a clear and unambiguous definition of word or “grapheme” boundaries.
LOGOGRAPHIC SCRIPTS
Word counts have little relevance for Chinese, Japanese, Korean (CJK) and Thai source text. For these languages, GMX-V recommends using only character counts.
There is a proposal before ISO TC 37, submitted by Professor Sun Maosong, relating to the automatic identification of word boundaries for CJK languages. Should this recommendation become a standard, GMX-V should reference it for the provision of CJK word counts.
QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE MEASUREMENTS
GMX-V counts fall into two categories: how many and what type. The primary count is unqualified. For example, how many characters and words are in the file? This is the minimal conformance level proposed for GMX-V.
A typical translatable document will contain a variety of text elements. Some of these elements will contain non-translatable text, some will have been matched from translation memory, and some will have been fuzzy matched by the customer. Therefore, it is important to be able to categorize the word and character counts according to type, in order to provide a figure in words and characters for a given localization task. GMX-V also provides an extension mechanism that enables user defined categories.
COUNT CATEGORIES
Apart from the total-word-count and total-charactercount values, GMX-V also includes these count categories:
* In-context exact matches – An accumulation of the word and character count for text units that have been matched unambiguously with a prior translation and that require no translator input.
* Leveraged matches – An accumulation of the word and character count for text units that have been matched against a leveraged translation memory database.
* Repetition matches – An accumulation of the word count for repeating text units that have not been matched in any other form. Repetition matching is deemed to take precedence over fuzzy matching.
* Fuzzy matches – An accumulation of the word and character count for text units that have been fuzzy matched against a leveraged translation memory database.
* Alphanumeric-only text units – An accumulation of the word and character counts for text units that have been identified as containing only alphanumeric words.
* Numeric-only text units – An accumulation of the word and character counts for text units that have been identified as containing only numeric words.
* Punctuation characters – An accumulation of the punctuation characters.
* White Spaces – An accumulation of white space characters.
* Measurement-only – An accumulation of the word and character count from measurement-only text units.
* Other Non-translatable words – An accumulation of other non-translatable word and character counts.
* Automatically treatable text – A count of automatically treatable inline elements, such as date, time, measurements, or simple and complex numeric values.
VERIFIABILITY
Any measurement standard must have a reference implementation, as well as an authoritative body that tests and validates the measuring instruments. In the US, this is provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In order to be successful, GMX-V must provide for a certification authority that will (1) maintain reference documents with known metrics and (2) provide an online facility to test given XLIFF documents. In this way, both customers and suppliers can be confident that GMX-V provides an unambiguous and reliable way of quantifying a localization or global-information-management task.
NON-VERIFIABLE METRICS AND EXCHANGE NOTATION
There are many instances where it is not possible to verify electronically the metrics data, such as screen shots, number of pages, etc. GMX-V allows for the annotation and exchange of all relevant metrics for a given localization task.
SUMMARY
GMX-V has been widely peer reviewed and published for open public comment for eighteen months. Much valuable feedback has been submitted and incorporated into the standard. All major localization tool providers have been consulted, to insure no obstacles to implementing it. GMX-V also provides a specification that can be used by word processing tool vendors and localization tool suppliers. It provides a consistent and unambiguous common standard for word and character counts.
Further details of GMX-V are available at the following URL: www.lisa.org/standards/gmx
ClientSide News Magazine - http://www.clientsidenews.com/
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
GMS Spotlight. Staying ahead of the curve
By Eric Richard,
VP, Engineering,
Idiom Technologies, Inc.,
Waltham, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
www.idiominc.com
Working in the translation and localization industry is like constantly working in a pressure cooker. Customers want to get more content translated into more languages with higher quality on faster schedules. And, while the volume of content is scaling up, the costs of translating that content cannot scale up at the same rates.
What makes this problem even more challenging is that this isn’t a short term issue; the amount of content that is going to be translated is going to increase again next year and the year after that and the year after that, for the foreseeable future.
Because of this, translation providers are constantly under pressure to find ways of eking that next round of efficiency out of their processes and cost out of their suppliers to meet the never-ending demands for more, more, more.
The first year a customer asks for a rate cut, it might be possible to squeeze your suppliers to get a better rate from them. But, you can only go back to that well so often before there is nothing left to squeeze.
The next year, you might be able to squeeze some efficiency out of your internal operations. Maybe you can cut a corner here or there to stay ahead of the curve. But, again, there are only so many corners to cut before you are really hurting your ability to deliver quality results.
So, what happens when you run out of corners to cut and low-hanging fruit to pick? How do you deal with the never-ending demands to do more for less? How can you get a non-linear improvement in your efficiencies to help get ahead of the curve?
THE ANSWER IS TECHNOLOGY.
In the 80’s, the technology solution of choice was translation memory (TM). By deploying TM solutions, translators could reuse their previous work and could suddenly process a higher volume of work than before.
Over the past years, translation memory has spread throughout the entire localization supply chain. Translators and LSP’s now use client-side TM in their translation workbenches to improve their efficiencies. And more and more enterprises are realizing that if they own their own TM, they can cut down on their costs and increase the quality and consistency in their translations.
The great news in all of this is that efficiency across the board has increased.
The tough part is that most of the low-hanging fruit in terms of gaining efficiencies may already be behind some early adopter companies. The reason? TM-based solutions are becoming more and more ubiquitous throughout the translation and localization supply chain. That said, however, there are still many companies out there who are ready to drive even more efficiency from the supply chain and, in some cases, start looking for ways to increase top line revenue opportunities.
Once early leaders recognized the value of TM, the search was on for the next big technology solution that could help them stay ahead of the curve. And the solution came in the form of applying workflow to the localization process; by automating previously manual steps, companies could achieve major increases in productivity and quality. Steps previously performed by a human could be performed by machines, reducing the likelihood of errors and freeing up those people to work on the hard problems that computers can’t solve.
Companies who have deployed workflow solutions into their localization processes regularly see immediate improvements. This rarely means reducing staff. Instead, it often means pushing through more content into more languages faster than before with the same staff.
For many organizations that have not yet deployed workflow solutions, this is a great opportunity to improve their efficiencies. Like TM, however, workflow has already crossed the chasm and is moving into the mainstream. Large localization organizations have already deployed workflow solutions and many have even gone through second round refinements to their systems to get most of the big wins already.
For those customers who have already deployed a workflow solution, the real question is "What’s next?" What is the next generation solution that is going to help them deal with the increases in content and keep their advantage in the market?
It is my belief that the next big wave is going to come by combining together the previous two solutions – translation memory and workflow – with another emerging technology: machine translation (MT).
Creating an integrated solution that provides the benefits of both translation memory and machine translation in the context of a workflow solution will provide companies with the ability to make headway into the content stack and start translating more and more content that was previously not even considered for translation.
There are many models in which these technologies can be mixed together.
The simplest, and least disruptive, model is to flow machine translation results into the exact same process that is used today. The result is a process that has been dubbed "machine assisted human translation". The process starts just as it would today with the content being leveraged against a translation memory and resulting in a variety of different types of matches (exact, fuzzy, etc.). But, before providing these results to the translator, this new process takes the most expensive segments – those that do not have a suitable fuzzy match from TM – and runs those segments through machine translation. The end result is that there is never a segment that needs to be translated from scratch; the translator will always have content to start from.
Obviously the devil is in the details here, and the real success of this model will be tied directly to the quality of the results from machine translation. If the machine translation engine results can provide a good starting point for translation, this approach has the ability to increase the productivity of translators.
On the flip side, the most radical model would be to combine machine translation and translation memory together but without any human translator or reviewer involved. The key to this approach is to take a serious look at an issue that is traditionally treated as sacrosanct: translation quality.
"It is my belief that the next big wave is going to come by combining together the previous two solutions-translation memory and workflow-with another emerging technology: machine translation"
In traditional translation processes, quality is non-negotiable. It is simply a non-starter to talk about translating your website, product documentation, software UI, or marketing collateral in anything other than a high quality process.
However, does this same requirement hold true of all of the content that you want to translate? Are there specific types of content for which the quality level is slightly less critical?
Specifically, are there types of content you would not normally translate, but for which the value of having a usable translation is more valuable than having no translation? For example, there may be types of content for which time-to-market of a reasonable translation is more important than taking the time to produce a high quality translation.
For content that fits into these categories, you might consider an approach like the one described above to produce what Jaap van der Meer of TAUS calls "fully automatic useful translation (FAUT)."
It is absolutely critical to understand that this is not proposing that we replace humans with machines for translation. Instead, this is looking at how we can use technology to solve a problem that is too expensive to have humans even try to solve today; this is digging into the enormous mass of content that isn’t even considered for translation today because it would be cost prohibitive to do using traditional means.
The best part of combining machine translation and translation memory with workflow is that the workflow can be used to determine which content should use which processes. The traditional content for which high quality is imperative can go down one path while content that has other requirements can go down another path.
"Translation memory and workflow are by no means mainstream at this point"
You might think that this is science fiction or years from reality, but the visionary companies in the localization industry are already deploying solutions just like this to help them deal with their translation problems today. They see this approach as a fundamental part of how they will address the issue of the volume of content that needs to be translated.
This solution is in the midst of crossing the chasm from the early adopters to the mainstream market. While translation memory and workflow are by no means mainstream at this point, some of the early adopters of content globalization and localization technologies are already looking for the next advantage, a way to keep up with steadily increasing demands. Clearly, these companies should strongly consider integrating machine translation into the mix.
ABOUT IDIOM® TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Idiom® Technologies is the leading independent supplier of SaaS and on-premise software solutions that enable our customers and partners to accelerate the translation and localization process so content rapidly reaches markets worldwide. Unlike other companies serving this market, Idiom offers freedom of choice by embracing relevant industry standards, supporting popular content lifecycle solutions and partnering with the industry’s leading language service providers.
As a result, WorldServer™ GMS solutions are fast becoming an industry standard, allowing customers to expand their international market reach while reducing costs and improving quality. WorldServer is used every day by organizations possessing many of the most recognizable global brands to more efficiently create and manage multilingual websites (e.g., AOL, eBay and Continental), localize software applications (e.g., Adobe, Beckman Coulter and Motorola) and streamline translation and localization of corporate and product documentation (e.g., Autodesk, Cisco and Business Objects).
Idiom is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with offices throughout North America and in Europe. WorldServer solutions are also available through the company’s Global Partner Network™. For more information, please visit www.idiominc.com.
ABOUT ERIC RICHARD - VP, ENGINEERING, IDIOM TECHNOLOGIES
Eric Richard joined Idiom from Chicago-based SPSS, where he served as Chief Architect. Previously, he wore several hats as co-founder, Vice President of Engineering, and Chief Technology Officer at NetGenesis (acquired by SPSS), where he directed the company's technology development.
In 2001, Eric was a finalist in the Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
VP, Engineering,
Idiom Technologies, Inc.,
Waltham, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
www.idiominc.com
Working in the translation and localization industry is like constantly working in a pressure cooker. Customers want to get more content translated into more languages with higher quality on faster schedules. And, while the volume of content is scaling up, the costs of translating that content cannot scale up at the same rates.
What makes this problem even more challenging is that this isn’t a short term issue; the amount of content that is going to be translated is going to increase again next year and the year after that and the year after that, for the foreseeable future.
Because of this, translation providers are constantly under pressure to find ways of eking that next round of efficiency out of their processes and cost out of their suppliers to meet the never-ending demands for more, more, more.
The first year a customer asks for a rate cut, it might be possible to squeeze your suppliers to get a better rate from them. But, you can only go back to that well so often before there is nothing left to squeeze.
The next year, you might be able to squeeze some efficiency out of your internal operations. Maybe you can cut a corner here or there to stay ahead of the curve. But, again, there are only so many corners to cut before you are really hurting your ability to deliver quality results.
So, what happens when you run out of corners to cut and low-hanging fruit to pick? How do you deal with the never-ending demands to do more for less? How can you get a non-linear improvement in your efficiencies to help get ahead of the curve?
THE ANSWER IS TECHNOLOGY.
In the 80’s, the technology solution of choice was translation memory (TM). By deploying TM solutions, translators could reuse their previous work and could suddenly process a higher volume of work than before.
Over the past years, translation memory has spread throughout the entire localization supply chain. Translators and LSP’s now use client-side TM in their translation workbenches to improve their efficiencies. And more and more enterprises are realizing that if they own their own TM, they can cut down on their costs and increase the quality and consistency in their translations.
The great news in all of this is that efficiency across the board has increased.
The tough part is that most of the low-hanging fruit in terms of gaining efficiencies may already be behind some early adopter companies. The reason? TM-based solutions are becoming more and more ubiquitous throughout the translation and localization supply chain. That said, however, there are still many companies out there who are ready to drive even more efficiency from the supply chain and, in some cases, start looking for ways to increase top line revenue opportunities.
Once early leaders recognized the value of TM, the search was on for the next big technology solution that could help them stay ahead of the curve. And the solution came in the form of applying workflow to the localization process; by automating previously manual steps, companies could achieve major increases in productivity and quality. Steps previously performed by a human could be performed by machines, reducing the likelihood of errors and freeing up those people to work on the hard problems that computers can’t solve.
Companies who have deployed workflow solutions into their localization processes regularly see immediate improvements. This rarely means reducing staff. Instead, it often means pushing through more content into more languages faster than before with the same staff.
For many organizations that have not yet deployed workflow solutions, this is a great opportunity to improve their efficiencies. Like TM, however, workflow has already crossed the chasm and is moving into the mainstream. Large localization organizations have already deployed workflow solutions and many have even gone through second round refinements to their systems to get most of the big wins already.
For those customers who have already deployed a workflow solution, the real question is "What’s next?" What is the next generation solution that is going to help them deal with the increases in content and keep their advantage in the market?
It is my belief that the next big wave is going to come by combining together the previous two solutions – translation memory and workflow – with another emerging technology: machine translation (MT).
Creating an integrated solution that provides the benefits of both translation memory and machine translation in the context of a workflow solution will provide companies with the ability to make headway into the content stack and start translating more and more content that was previously not even considered for translation.
There are many models in which these technologies can be mixed together.
The simplest, and least disruptive, model is to flow machine translation results into the exact same process that is used today. The result is a process that has been dubbed "machine assisted human translation". The process starts just as it would today with the content being leveraged against a translation memory and resulting in a variety of different types of matches (exact, fuzzy, etc.). But, before providing these results to the translator, this new process takes the most expensive segments – those that do not have a suitable fuzzy match from TM – and runs those segments through machine translation. The end result is that there is never a segment that needs to be translated from scratch; the translator will always have content to start from.
Obviously the devil is in the details here, and the real success of this model will be tied directly to the quality of the results from machine translation. If the machine translation engine results can provide a good starting point for translation, this approach has the ability to increase the productivity of translators.
On the flip side, the most radical model would be to combine machine translation and translation memory together but without any human translator or reviewer involved. The key to this approach is to take a serious look at an issue that is traditionally treated as sacrosanct: translation quality.
"It is my belief that the next big wave is going to come by combining together the previous two solutions-translation memory and workflow-with another emerging technology: machine translation"
In traditional translation processes, quality is non-negotiable. It is simply a non-starter to talk about translating your website, product documentation, software UI, or marketing collateral in anything other than a high quality process.
However, does this same requirement hold true of all of the content that you want to translate? Are there specific types of content for which the quality level is slightly less critical?
Specifically, are there types of content you would not normally translate, but for which the value of having a usable translation is more valuable than having no translation? For example, there may be types of content for which time-to-market of a reasonable translation is more important than taking the time to produce a high quality translation.
For content that fits into these categories, you might consider an approach like the one described above to produce what Jaap van der Meer of TAUS calls "fully automatic useful translation (FAUT)."
It is absolutely critical to understand that this is not proposing that we replace humans with machines for translation. Instead, this is looking at how we can use technology to solve a problem that is too expensive to have humans even try to solve today; this is digging into the enormous mass of content that isn’t even considered for translation today because it would be cost prohibitive to do using traditional means.
The best part of combining machine translation and translation memory with workflow is that the workflow can be used to determine which content should use which processes. The traditional content for which high quality is imperative can go down one path while content that has other requirements can go down another path.
"Translation memory and workflow are by no means mainstream at this point"
You might think that this is science fiction or years from reality, but the visionary companies in the localization industry are already deploying solutions just like this to help them deal with their translation problems today. They see this approach as a fundamental part of how they will address the issue of the volume of content that needs to be translated.
This solution is in the midst of crossing the chasm from the early adopters to the mainstream market. While translation memory and workflow are by no means mainstream at this point, some of the early adopters of content globalization and localization technologies are already looking for the next advantage, a way to keep up with steadily increasing demands. Clearly, these companies should strongly consider integrating machine translation into the mix.
ABOUT IDIOM® TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Idiom® Technologies is the leading independent supplier of SaaS and on-premise software solutions that enable our customers and partners to accelerate the translation and localization process so content rapidly reaches markets worldwide. Unlike other companies serving this market, Idiom offers freedom of choice by embracing relevant industry standards, supporting popular content lifecycle solutions and partnering with the industry’s leading language service providers.
As a result, WorldServer™ GMS solutions are fast becoming an industry standard, allowing customers to expand their international market reach while reducing costs and improving quality. WorldServer is used every day by organizations possessing many of the most recognizable global brands to more efficiently create and manage multilingual websites (e.g., AOL, eBay and Continental), localize software applications (e.g., Adobe, Beckman Coulter and Motorola) and streamline translation and localization of corporate and product documentation (e.g., Autodesk, Cisco and Business Objects).
Idiom is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with offices throughout North America and in Europe. WorldServer solutions are also available through the company’s Global Partner Network™. For more information, please visit www.idiominc.com.
ABOUT ERIC RICHARD - VP, ENGINEERING, IDIOM TECHNOLOGIES
Eric Richard joined Idiom from Chicago-based SPSS, where he served as Chief Architect. Previously, he wore several hats as co-founder, Vice President of Engineering, and Chief Technology Officer at NetGenesis (acquired by SPSS), where he directed the company's technology development.
In 2001, Eric was a finalist in the Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Need for Translation Services In a Global Economy
By Shohreh Fleming
The pace of economic migration in the global economy is quickening and the voice of the world is becoming more cosmopolitan. As businesses, corporations and government bodies expand, the requirement for them to communicate with their evolving populous in a meaningful way becomes all the more pertinent, not to mention challenging and exciting.
If a country is to prosper it needs to engage with its population. Where a system for dialogue exists to serve a multi-cultural society, there will also exist a harmony of expression and application.
The birth of the internet has made a seemingly endless stream of information available to anyone who has access to a computer with a web connection. The internet is also vital for business. It creates a new arena where companies are able to showcase their particular products and services in fresh and innovative ways to new and diverse audiences.
From launching an ad campaign in Polish to translating an e-mail from a client in Moscow; the challenge of utilising the internet to widen the appeal of your company must be met, if growth and success are to form any part of an organisations agenda.
The presence of translation service providers on the net is yet another boon to the global economy; giving voice to ideas, plans and proposals the world over providing a much needed platform for far-reaching and meaningful communications with the rest of the planet. Aiming to create a bridge upon which ideas and communications can cross without obstruction, to pave the way for free, open and creative communications without boundaries or obstacles.
The advantages of language services on the broader global economy are perhaps not immediately apparent. But if a company, whether large or small, is to get involved with it's public in a meaningful way it needs to approach them in a manner that is conducive to them, not to marginalise them and therein reduce their presence in the world economy.
Companies express their cultural sensitivity by providing their diversifying customer base with materials tailored to suit their own languages. Indeed, for a company not to offer this kind of information would be short-sighted and not make good business sense.
The aim of any company or corporation is to offer the same high quality product or service to its expanding customer base. If that base consists largely of individuals from many different countries, then a solution needs to be found.
For example, a company sees a gap in a potential market for a new or existing product; the problem presented to them is simple; extending the message that their company wishes to express in a culturally sensitive and appropriate manner.
It would not simply be enough to translate an ad campaign into Albanian, Bambara or Chechen without an understanding of the kind of world your message is going to be heard in. Enter the translation services provider.
With the advent of the global economy the role of the translator is an almost indispensable one. The need for businesses to communicate with their client base means that there will always be a requirement for a translator.
This means a lot of work for professional language services: a company setting up a South-East Asian headquarters would need to overhaul the bulk of its commercial as well as training materials without losing any of its corporate timbre. Such an undertaking is costly and important to execute correctly from beginning to end.
Simply translating material would not be sufficient; a translator would need to know what kind of message the company is anxious to convey to their new client base and set the tone for the promotion or corporate identity. Certain symbols or ideas that are seen as the norm to one country may be highly offensive to another. In this manner, cultural sensitivity is extremely important.
So, the role of a translation services provider is not simply to transpose a set of texts or materials from one language to the next, but also to engage with the culture who speaks that language. In partnership with the business or government body, this creates an invaluable link to its population in order that it may speak openly and clearly to all.
About the author:
Shohreh Fleming is CEO and co-founder of Prestige Network Ltd., and Translation Services-UK.com.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
The pace of economic migration in the global economy is quickening and the voice of the world is becoming more cosmopolitan. As businesses, corporations and government bodies expand, the requirement for them to communicate with their evolving populous in a meaningful way becomes all the more pertinent, not to mention challenging and exciting.
If a country is to prosper it needs to engage with its population. Where a system for dialogue exists to serve a multi-cultural society, there will also exist a harmony of expression and application.
The birth of the internet has made a seemingly endless stream of information available to anyone who has access to a computer with a web connection. The internet is also vital for business. It creates a new arena where companies are able to showcase their particular products and services in fresh and innovative ways to new and diverse audiences.
From launching an ad campaign in Polish to translating an e-mail from a client in Moscow; the challenge of utilising the internet to widen the appeal of your company must be met, if growth and success are to form any part of an organisations agenda.
The presence of translation service providers on the net is yet another boon to the global economy; giving voice to ideas, plans and proposals the world over providing a much needed platform for far-reaching and meaningful communications with the rest of the planet. Aiming to create a bridge upon which ideas and communications can cross without obstruction, to pave the way for free, open and creative communications without boundaries or obstacles.
The advantages of language services on the broader global economy are perhaps not immediately apparent. But if a company, whether large or small, is to get involved with it's public in a meaningful way it needs to approach them in a manner that is conducive to them, not to marginalise them and therein reduce their presence in the world economy.
Companies express their cultural sensitivity by providing their diversifying customer base with materials tailored to suit their own languages. Indeed, for a company not to offer this kind of information would be short-sighted and not make good business sense.
The aim of any company or corporation is to offer the same high quality product or service to its expanding customer base. If that base consists largely of individuals from many different countries, then a solution needs to be found.
For example, a company sees a gap in a potential market for a new or existing product; the problem presented to them is simple; extending the message that their company wishes to express in a culturally sensitive and appropriate manner.
It would not simply be enough to translate an ad campaign into Albanian, Bambara or Chechen without an understanding of the kind of world your message is going to be heard in. Enter the translation services provider.
With the advent of the global economy the role of the translator is an almost indispensable one. The need for businesses to communicate with their client base means that there will always be a requirement for a translator.
This means a lot of work for professional language services: a company setting up a South-East Asian headquarters would need to overhaul the bulk of its commercial as well as training materials without losing any of its corporate timbre. Such an undertaking is costly and important to execute correctly from beginning to end.
Simply translating material would not be sufficient; a translator would need to know what kind of message the company is anxious to convey to their new client base and set the tone for the promotion or corporate identity. Certain symbols or ideas that are seen as the norm to one country may be highly offensive to another. In this manner, cultural sensitivity is extremely important.
So, the role of a translation services provider is not simply to transpose a set of texts or materials from one language to the next, but also to engage with the culture who speaks that language. In partnership with the business or government body, this creates an invaluable link to its population in order that it may speak openly and clearly to all.
About the author:
Shohreh Fleming is CEO and co-founder of Prestige Network Ltd., and Translation Services-UK.com.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Thursday, May 28, 2009
At Arm’s Length or Close to the Vest? The Optimal Relationship between Clients and Vendors
By Anil Singh-Molares,
EchoMundi, LLC,
Bellevue, WA, U.S.A.
Anil[at]Echomundi.com
http://www.echomundi.com/
The relationships between vendors and clients go through their ebbs and flows (more insourcing, followed by more outsourcing, followed by…). As predictable as the swings of a pendulum, all of us - clients and vendors - go through our normal gyrations back and forth. And it is all in an attempt to find that elusive, but allegedly perfect, middle ground - but where is it? And beyond the question of where to place work (inside or outside), the question is more about the right tenor of vendor-client relationships--at arm’s length or close to the vest? The answer, I will argue, is both, in the right proportion.
While running vendor relations at Microsoft in the mid-1990s I developed that company’s "strategic localization partner" program. Through this program, many of the constituent companies of what would later become BGS, the Mendez group, and Lionbridge were developed with significant input from Microsoft: Opera, Translingua, Meta, Gecap etc… With only one notable exception, all of these companies were very successful in the nineties. The hallmarks of the "strategic partner" program that we established were designed to lower the barriers between vendor and clients by emphasizing common teams and objectives, and an approach of "if they succeed, we win" rather than "if we make the vendors fail, we win (as our jobs will be more secure)." We emphasized very tight communication links, virtual teams, frequent trips and training to each other’s sites, as well as bonuses and other incentives, such as guaranteed profitability in some cases. The proverbial "us and them" did not exist - rather we all belonged to the same team.
Did it work? Yes and No. Some Microsoft divisions embraced the concept, some rejected it. But the concept of vendors as extensions of client teams (rather than simple providers to them) did begin to take hold. And this approach yielded many notable achievements, particularly in the consumer space, for instance with the creation of Microsoft’s encyclopedia, where we had dedicated vendor teams worldwide for a period of 7 years. In this context, it is noteworthy that in those instances where we pushed the "close to the vest" concept, both clients and vendors achieved their common objectives: good quality at reasonable cost for the client, and increased profitability for the vendors. Similarly, instances where the "at arm’s length" concept was used invariably resulted in higher costs and lower quality for the client and significantly reduced profitability for the vendors. In addition, the "arm’s length" approach also produced considerable churn in the vendor base of those groups using this approach, as vendors left in frustration or were ousted in favour of the "next best thing."
Where are we today?
Before joining Microsoft in 1991 I ran a translation company in the Boston area. Now at the helm of Echomundi LLC, an International Services company, I find the contrast between my experience as both a vendor and a client instructive and informative in answering the question of how close vendors and clients have or should become:
What has changed:
* The industry is far more mature and professional. Localization as a discipline, rising wages and respect for language specialists, growing sophistication in tools and approach are all readily apparent. The process has been streamlined and codified to a large extent. Various CMS, TM and Project Management tools have also helped reduce costs and increased consistency.
* As a rule, there also appears to be more frequent contact between clients and vendors, more training sessions, conferences, meetings, trips etc.
* However, many types of interactions between clients and vendors now seem principally driven more by increasing efforts to "measure and quantify" quality, productivity etc. In this context, the notion of "Service" is now largely defined as success in meeting the client’s metrics on a job to job basis (as indeed we are all measured one job at a time), and not as much on creative problem solving, flexibility, adaptability, transparency and innovation.
What remains the same:
There are certain limitations inherent in the client-vendor relationship that cannot be overcome. That is, when one party pays the bills it has the right to set expectations of service as it deems fit. Conversely, once they have accepted the terms and conditions of a particular client, service companies have an obligation to respond to their client’s requirements to the best of their ability. This fundamental axiom is unchangeable.
And now to return to our basic question: At Arm’s Length or Close to the Vest?
The "Arm’s Length" approach in its ideal application has obvious benefits: each party treats the other as a professional entity, there are clear expectations and deliverables, an optimized use of technology, and tightly controlled costs and profit margins. The downside, however, is glaring: if you as the client don’t develop strong and lasting relationships with your vendors, they won’t be your vendors for long (either because you will tire of them or they will tire of you). By maintaining too much distance from your vendors, they are never motivated to really integrate with your approach. In short, they can become clinical and dispassionate (if not unmotivated and indifferent). One additional drawback of this approach is that it also easily lends itself to bureaucracy run amok, where it can become more important to "follow the rules" than to "get the job done" - surely self-defeating.
The "Close to the Vest" approach in its ideal form seeks to eliminate the barriers between clients and vendors. Through frequent interaction, joint training, and team building the vendor becomes an extension of the client’s team. Both parties share the pains and rewards of individual projects. Both put themselves on the line to a greater degree in innovative problem solving and troubleshooting. And by building relationships for the long haul, the investments that each party makes in the other are more resilient. The downside to this approach, however, can be possible "subjectivity" in measuring work and an unwillingness of one party to honestly hold the other party accountable when mistakes occur.
The Ideal
Really what we all (clients and vendors) want is a combination of both the "Arm’s Length" and "Close to the Vest" approaches - that is, deliverables and costs that can easily, objectively and professionally be measured on the one hand, combined with cordial personal relationships, which are essential for effective problem-solving, on the other. This "middle ground" will vary according to the individual requirements of clients and the capacity of the vendors that they select to meet those requirements, but it is clearly a combination of the benefits of both approaches.
Clients and Vendors that hew to this joint approach will find increasing satisfaction in their relationships on all levels: quality, cost, profitability and service. In this context all of us should strive to be "understanding professionals" rather than exclusively one thing or the other.
Born in Holland and raised in Europe and the United States, Anil Singh-Molares is a global citizen, a global entrepreneur and businessperson. From 1991-2003, Anil worked as a Senior Director at Microsoft Corporation, where he implemented Microsoft’s "strategic localization partner" program. Since leaving the software giant, he founded and serves as CEO of EchoMundi LLC, a rapidly growing international services firm that helps corporations do business abroad. He can be reached at Anil@echomundi.com.
Copyright © 2006 Anil Singh-Molares. All rights reserved.
This article was originally published in GALAxy newsletter:
www.gala-global.org/GALAxy-newsletter.html
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
EchoMundi, LLC,
Bellevue, WA, U.S.A.
Anil[at]Echomundi.com
http://www.echomundi.com/
The relationships between vendors and clients go through their ebbs and flows (more insourcing, followed by more outsourcing, followed by…). As predictable as the swings of a pendulum, all of us - clients and vendors - go through our normal gyrations back and forth. And it is all in an attempt to find that elusive, but allegedly perfect, middle ground - but where is it? And beyond the question of where to place work (inside or outside), the question is more about the right tenor of vendor-client relationships--at arm’s length or close to the vest? The answer, I will argue, is both, in the right proportion.
While running vendor relations at Microsoft in the mid-1990s I developed that company’s "strategic localization partner" program. Through this program, many of the constituent companies of what would later become BGS, the Mendez group, and Lionbridge were developed with significant input from Microsoft: Opera, Translingua, Meta, Gecap etc… With only one notable exception, all of these companies were very successful in the nineties. The hallmarks of the "strategic partner" program that we established were designed to lower the barriers between vendor and clients by emphasizing common teams and objectives, and an approach of "if they succeed, we win" rather than "if we make the vendors fail, we win (as our jobs will be more secure)." We emphasized very tight communication links, virtual teams, frequent trips and training to each other’s sites, as well as bonuses and other incentives, such as guaranteed profitability in some cases. The proverbial "us and them" did not exist - rather we all belonged to the same team.
Did it work? Yes and No. Some Microsoft divisions embraced the concept, some rejected it. But the concept of vendors as extensions of client teams (rather than simple providers to them) did begin to take hold. And this approach yielded many notable achievements, particularly in the consumer space, for instance with the creation of Microsoft’s encyclopedia, where we had dedicated vendor teams worldwide for a period of 7 years. In this context, it is noteworthy that in those instances where we pushed the "close to the vest" concept, both clients and vendors achieved their common objectives: good quality at reasonable cost for the client, and increased profitability for the vendors. Similarly, instances where the "at arm’s length" concept was used invariably resulted in higher costs and lower quality for the client and significantly reduced profitability for the vendors. In addition, the "arm’s length" approach also produced considerable churn in the vendor base of those groups using this approach, as vendors left in frustration or were ousted in favour of the "next best thing."
Where are we today?
Before joining Microsoft in 1991 I ran a translation company in the Boston area. Now at the helm of Echomundi LLC, an International Services company, I find the contrast between my experience as both a vendor and a client instructive and informative in answering the question of how close vendors and clients have or should become:
What has changed:
* The industry is far more mature and professional. Localization as a discipline, rising wages and respect for language specialists, growing sophistication in tools and approach are all readily apparent. The process has been streamlined and codified to a large extent. Various CMS, TM and Project Management tools have also helped reduce costs and increased consistency.
* As a rule, there also appears to be more frequent contact between clients and vendors, more training sessions, conferences, meetings, trips etc.
* However, many types of interactions between clients and vendors now seem principally driven more by increasing efforts to "measure and quantify" quality, productivity etc. In this context, the notion of "Service" is now largely defined as success in meeting the client’s metrics on a job to job basis (as indeed we are all measured one job at a time), and not as much on creative problem solving, flexibility, adaptability, transparency and innovation.
What remains the same:
There are certain limitations inherent in the client-vendor relationship that cannot be overcome. That is, when one party pays the bills it has the right to set expectations of service as it deems fit. Conversely, once they have accepted the terms and conditions of a particular client, service companies have an obligation to respond to their client’s requirements to the best of their ability. This fundamental axiom is unchangeable.
And now to return to our basic question: At Arm’s Length or Close to the Vest?
The "Arm’s Length" approach in its ideal application has obvious benefits: each party treats the other as a professional entity, there are clear expectations and deliverables, an optimized use of technology, and tightly controlled costs and profit margins. The downside, however, is glaring: if you as the client don’t develop strong and lasting relationships with your vendors, they won’t be your vendors for long (either because you will tire of them or they will tire of you). By maintaining too much distance from your vendors, they are never motivated to really integrate with your approach. In short, they can become clinical and dispassionate (if not unmotivated and indifferent). One additional drawback of this approach is that it also easily lends itself to bureaucracy run amok, where it can become more important to "follow the rules" than to "get the job done" - surely self-defeating.
The "Close to the Vest" approach in its ideal form seeks to eliminate the barriers between clients and vendors. Through frequent interaction, joint training, and team building the vendor becomes an extension of the client’s team. Both parties share the pains and rewards of individual projects. Both put themselves on the line to a greater degree in innovative problem solving and troubleshooting. And by building relationships for the long haul, the investments that each party makes in the other are more resilient. The downside to this approach, however, can be possible "subjectivity" in measuring work and an unwillingness of one party to honestly hold the other party accountable when mistakes occur.
The Ideal
Really what we all (clients and vendors) want is a combination of both the "Arm’s Length" and "Close to the Vest" approaches - that is, deliverables and costs that can easily, objectively and professionally be measured on the one hand, combined with cordial personal relationships, which are essential for effective problem-solving, on the other. This "middle ground" will vary according to the individual requirements of clients and the capacity of the vendors that they select to meet those requirements, but it is clearly a combination of the benefits of both approaches.
Clients and Vendors that hew to this joint approach will find increasing satisfaction in their relationships on all levels: quality, cost, profitability and service. In this context all of us should strive to be "understanding professionals" rather than exclusively one thing or the other.
Born in Holland and raised in Europe and the United States, Anil Singh-Molares is a global citizen, a global entrepreneur and businessperson. From 1991-2003, Anil worked as a Senior Director at Microsoft Corporation, where he implemented Microsoft’s "strategic localization partner" program. Since leaving the software giant, he founded and serves as CEO of EchoMundi LLC, a rapidly growing international services firm that helps corporations do business abroad. He can be reached at Anil@echomundi.com.
Copyright © 2006 Anil Singh-Molares. All rights reserved.
This article was originally published in GALAxy newsletter:
www.gala-global.org/GALAxy-newsletter.html
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Translations.com – Alchemy Merger Story
By Tony O’Dowd,
CEO and President - Alchemy Software Development
By Phil Shawe,
Co-founder of TransPerfect,
President and CEO of Translations.com
By Keith Becoski, ClientSide News
www.translations.com
CSN: Tony, I saw it mentioned that the purchase process for Alchemy was a competitive situation and that Translations.com was the high bidder. Was there anything else driving the Board’s decision besides maximizing their investment?
TONY: There were a number of factors that drove this decision from our side. For starters, Translations.com is one of a few localization service providers that invest heavily in technology solutions. It was also important to us that we brought something complementary to the table. While Alchemy is a market leader in delivering next-generation TM technology to over 80% of the world’s leading technology companies, Translations.com boasts one of the most widely-adopted workfow platforms in GlobalLink. Since there’s little cross-over in functionality, integrating these two technologies will be rapid from a development perspective, yet powerful for our combined clients. Lastly, Translations.com’s track record of executing successful industry mergers, retaining virtually 100% of staff and clients, and supporting incoming entrepreneurs as they continue to operate their divisions autonomously, also helped us to solidify our decision to merge.
CSN: Phil, what was it about Alchemy that made Translations.com stretch a bit fnancial-ly to make this merger a reality?
PHIL: First and foremost, our mergers are about the people. With Tony, co-founder Enda McDonnell, and the rest of the Alchemy team, we saw a talented group of localization technology veterans who shared our focus on innovation, growth, and client satisfaction. Beyond the wealth of technology talent, Alchemy’s proven and proftable business model is unique among the localization industry’s technology providers. While Alchemy’s leadership in the Visual Localization Tool market is well-established, it gave us extra comfort that we’ve relied on Alchemy technology internally for over five years and have first-hand experience with how effectively CATALYST streamlines the localization process. Lastly, it’s not only Alchemy’s past achievements that impressed us, but also its prospects for the future. We’re very excited to be building on Alchemy’s success and investing in future Alchemy software product offerings.
CSN: Tony, you’ve stated that you intend to stay on with the business post-close. As a shareholder of Alchemy, who has now seen a return from that investment, why stay aboard?
TONY: I’m way too young to think about simply hanging up my hat. What would I do? So the motivation for me in doing this merger was more about opportunity than it was about exiting and doing something else. While I may not have always enjoyed all of the administrative tasks associated with running a company, I have been in the localization industry for 22 years and I’ve always enjoyed it immensely. So for me, the decision to stay on and to be part of driving the growth and development of one of the world’s premier players in this industry is an easy one. And as Phil said, it’s all about the people. My due diligence about the people I’d be working with, as well as the spirit of the merger discussions themselves, led me to believe that this is an interesting and talented group of people for me to join up with.
CSN: And why do you feel this move is right for Alchemy clients?
TONY: Again, Translations.com and Alchemy can combine our R&D spend and deliver more innovative technologies for our clients. Translations.com is a proftable, private company with a very healthy Balance Sheet. In other words, our clients can be confdent that when they are making an investment in technology, they are doing so with a partner who has consistently been fnancially stable. Not motivated by meeting quarterly numbers for the public markets, Translations.com has the advantage of being long-term focused and, as part of our transaction, has pledged long-term investment in Alchemy R&D. Additionally, the combination of our technology with the GlobalLink GMS product suite will enable our clients to achieve greater levels of effciency and scalability in their localization processes. I also believe Translations. com’s post-merger history of retaining employees, management, and clients also makes this the right move for our clients.
CSN: OK, but you’ve failed to touch on the issue on everyone’s mind, what about the loss of independence?
TONY: Our clients value innovation more than independence. Alchemy will operate as an independent division within Translations.com and will continue to develop, distribute, and support our own products. Additionally, the senior management team, such as me and Enda McDonnell, will remain in our existing roles, continuing to exercise our leadership and vision over Alchemy CATALYST and Alchemy Language Exchange. Unlike recent localization industry acquisitions which resulted in large-scale layoffs, we shall be investing in and expanding the development efforts at Alchemy and launching new and exciting technologies later in the year.
CSN: Generally, though, the technology in this industry does seem to be getting gobbled up by the service providers. Who benefts from this?
TONY: Speaking about the Translations.com/Achemy deal, our clients are the ultimate benefciaries of this merger. Technology is playing an increasingly important role in the optimization and effciency of our clients’ localization processes. Even small and medium sized companies see growth opportunities in overseas markets. To take advantage of these growth opportunities they need to localize quickly, cost-effectively, and with high quality. Technology will drive these effciencies making localization more accessible to a wider range of companies and enterprises.
Combining these technology advantages with a full service offering will suit some of our clients. However, we are mindful of the fact that choice is important to many of our clients and that is why Alchemy will remain a fully independent division within Translations.com and our tools will continue to be service provider agnostic.
Because we don’t have overlapping technology, our clients do not need to be concerned about which product lines will be supported in the future, and which will be killed off. Stability, security and a defned roadmap for future development for our combined software offerings will also work to the beneft of our clients.
CSN: What do the language service providers need to know about this and what do the end clients need to know?
TONY: Probably both groups need to know the same things. Alchemy has developed CATALYST into the optimization tool of choice for the localization process, and this development has served all who manage localization, whether they are an LSP or an end client. So what all localization stakeholders need to know is that Alchemy and Translations.com intend to work together collectively to continue investing in and driving the evolution of CATALYST and Alchemy Language Exchange, which are not captive and are used in conjunction with other LSPs’ services.
PHIL: We also feel that increased competition in the localization technology sector will drive more innovation, and this transaction is likely to result in increased competition.
CSN: Phil, how will this merger differ from the SDL/ Idiom merger which is leaving a perceived lack of independence and choice?
PHIL: Translations.com has a reputation of merging with companies and retaining virtually 100% of the entrepreneurial skills and enthusiasm of the existing teams and management. This has proven to be a very successful strategy. While I don’t know that it’s accurate to say that this approach to M&A is unique, it certainly does differ from the approach of SDL, the obvious comparison here given their recent and past technology acquisitions. In fairness, they are a public company with a requirement to operate and to consolidate acquired businesses in a way that makes sense to investors. As a private company, Translations.com is free to take a more long-term approach, and we see the value in supporting entrepreneurs and their businesses.
Furthermore, the Alchemy/Translations.com merger differs from – again the natural, but not entirely analogous, comparison – SDL/Idiom, in that this merger has not manifested a direct contradiction of a promise. Many clients and partners asked Idiom directly if they intended to sell the company to a service provider. Idiom sold their solutions on a promise to remain independent. Alchemy made no such promise because, without the same access to confdential partner information that is inherent in the way WorldServer functions, there was never any reason for CATALYST to be sold with a pledge of independence.
CSN: How has the recent SDL/Idiom merger affected Translations.com?
PHIL: As far as companies performing services through an Idiom platform, Translations.com is probably among the largest in the world. However, you never saw a public partnership announced. One reason is that Idiom competes directly with our GlobalLink suite of products. However, another reason was that we felt we couldn’t predict the future actions of venture capitalists that controlled Idiom, and envisioned the potential of them selling out to a competing LSP.
Now, of course we’re concerned that SDL has, in effect, purchased our pricing information and other knowledge we once considered confdential, because it is stored on Idiom servers. As there is nothing legally preventing SDL from making use of this information to compete for service revenues, we expect them to cross-sell aggressively into those accounts.
When you step back and think about it, Idiom was losing over $5 million a year and SDL has competing and overlapping technology, so why buy the company for over $20 million? It may be that the real value in the deal for SDL shareholders is simply the future ability to cross-sell more services through 1) the built-in dependency and high-switching costs associated with being a technology vendor and 2) the access to once-confdential proprietary competitor information.
Note that there is nothing “wrong” with what SDL is doing by pursuing this strategy. Quite the contrary, having spent $20+ million of their shareholders’ money, they now have a fduciary obligation to maximize that value, and make the most of their new-found client relationships and competitor information.
After the Idiom deal, we feel how we’ve always felt about SDL: their technology is primarily about three things; a Trojan Horse with which to establish diffcult-to-break relationships to better sell services, an image necessary to fetch them a higher valuation in the public markets (i.e. a software vs. services valuation), and a vehicle that they’ve quite cleverly used to get competitors to help fnance their R&D and operations.
In summary, we respected SDL as a tough competitor before they bought Idiom, and we expect them to continue to be a tough competitor. As always, we look forward to the challenge of going head-to-head with them in the marketplace, on both services and technology.
CSN: So Tony, what’s the “real story” in terms of value to the market place? How and why will this be a positive alliance for the industry?
TONY: The ‘real story’ is about offering choice. Our clients want to manage their localization content more effciently across multiple localization service providers. A solution that is vendor agnostic, using web based architecture and built on open standards that offers enterprise level scalability is key to their continued growth. This is where Translations.com and Alchemy have invested heavily over the past few years.
CSN: Phil, what does this merger mean in terms of your competitive position?
PHIL: Over the past several years, Translations.com has been fortunate enough to be one of the fastest growing players in the localization industry. Enterprise localization clients are increasingly aware of the value we bring to the table. With the addition of a market leader such as Alchemy, we expect to see this trend continue.
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
CEO and President - Alchemy Software Development
By Phil Shawe,
Co-founder of TransPerfect,
President and CEO of Translations.com
By Keith Becoski, ClientSide News
www.translations.com
CSN: Tony, I saw it mentioned that the purchase process for Alchemy was a competitive situation and that Translations.com was the high bidder. Was there anything else driving the Board’s decision besides maximizing their investment?
TONY: There were a number of factors that drove this decision from our side. For starters, Translations.com is one of a few localization service providers that invest heavily in technology solutions. It was also important to us that we brought something complementary to the table. While Alchemy is a market leader in delivering next-generation TM technology to over 80% of the world’s leading technology companies, Translations.com boasts one of the most widely-adopted workfow platforms in GlobalLink. Since there’s little cross-over in functionality, integrating these two technologies will be rapid from a development perspective, yet powerful for our combined clients. Lastly, Translations.com’s track record of executing successful industry mergers, retaining virtually 100% of staff and clients, and supporting incoming entrepreneurs as they continue to operate their divisions autonomously, also helped us to solidify our decision to merge.
CSN: Phil, what was it about Alchemy that made Translations.com stretch a bit fnancial-ly to make this merger a reality?
PHIL: First and foremost, our mergers are about the people. With Tony, co-founder Enda McDonnell, and the rest of the Alchemy team, we saw a talented group of localization technology veterans who shared our focus on innovation, growth, and client satisfaction. Beyond the wealth of technology talent, Alchemy’s proven and proftable business model is unique among the localization industry’s technology providers. While Alchemy’s leadership in the Visual Localization Tool market is well-established, it gave us extra comfort that we’ve relied on Alchemy technology internally for over five years and have first-hand experience with how effectively CATALYST streamlines the localization process. Lastly, it’s not only Alchemy’s past achievements that impressed us, but also its prospects for the future. We’re very excited to be building on Alchemy’s success and investing in future Alchemy software product offerings.
CSN: Tony, you’ve stated that you intend to stay on with the business post-close. As a shareholder of Alchemy, who has now seen a return from that investment, why stay aboard?
TONY: I’m way too young to think about simply hanging up my hat. What would I do? So the motivation for me in doing this merger was more about opportunity than it was about exiting and doing something else. While I may not have always enjoyed all of the administrative tasks associated with running a company, I have been in the localization industry for 22 years and I’ve always enjoyed it immensely. So for me, the decision to stay on and to be part of driving the growth and development of one of the world’s premier players in this industry is an easy one. And as Phil said, it’s all about the people. My due diligence about the people I’d be working with, as well as the spirit of the merger discussions themselves, led me to believe that this is an interesting and talented group of people for me to join up with.
CSN: And why do you feel this move is right for Alchemy clients?
TONY: Again, Translations.com and Alchemy can combine our R&D spend and deliver more innovative technologies for our clients. Translations.com is a proftable, private company with a very healthy Balance Sheet. In other words, our clients can be confdent that when they are making an investment in technology, they are doing so with a partner who has consistently been fnancially stable. Not motivated by meeting quarterly numbers for the public markets, Translations.com has the advantage of being long-term focused and, as part of our transaction, has pledged long-term investment in Alchemy R&D. Additionally, the combination of our technology with the GlobalLink GMS product suite will enable our clients to achieve greater levels of effciency and scalability in their localization processes. I also believe Translations. com’s post-merger history of retaining employees, management, and clients also makes this the right move for our clients.
CSN: OK, but you’ve failed to touch on the issue on everyone’s mind, what about the loss of independence?
TONY: Our clients value innovation more than independence. Alchemy will operate as an independent division within Translations.com and will continue to develop, distribute, and support our own products. Additionally, the senior management team, such as me and Enda McDonnell, will remain in our existing roles, continuing to exercise our leadership and vision over Alchemy CATALYST and Alchemy Language Exchange. Unlike recent localization industry acquisitions which resulted in large-scale layoffs, we shall be investing in and expanding the development efforts at Alchemy and launching new and exciting technologies later in the year.
CSN: Generally, though, the technology in this industry does seem to be getting gobbled up by the service providers. Who benefts from this?
TONY: Speaking about the Translations.com/Achemy deal, our clients are the ultimate benefciaries of this merger. Technology is playing an increasingly important role in the optimization and effciency of our clients’ localization processes. Even small and medium sized companies see growth opportunities in overseas markets. To take advantage of these growth opportunities they need to localize quickly, cost-effectively, and with high quality. Technology will drive these effciencies making localization more accessible to a wider range of companies and enterprises.
Combining these technology advantages with a full service offering will suit some of our clients. However, we are mindful of the fact that choice is important to many of our clients and that is why Alchemy will remain a fully independent division within Translations.com and our tools will continue to be service provider agnostic.
Because we don’t have overlapping technology, our clients do not need to be concerned about which product lines will be supported in the future, and which will be killed off. Stability, security and a defned roadmap for future development for our combined software offerings will also work to the beneft of our clients.
CSN: What do the language service providers need to know about this and what do the end clients need to know?
TONY: Probably both groups need to know the same things. Alchemy has developed CATALYST into the optimization tool of choice for the localization process, and this development has served all who manage localization, whether they are an LSP or an end client. So what all localization stakeholders need to know is that Alchemy and Translations.com intend to work together collectively to continue investing in and driving the evolution of CATALYST and Alchemy Language Exchange, which are not captive and are used in conjunction with other LSPs’ services.
PHIL: We also feel that increased competition in the localization technology sector will drive more innovation, and this transaction is likely to result in increased competition.
CSN: Phil, how will this merger differ from the SDL/ Idiom merger which is leaving a perceived lack of independence and choice?
PHIL: Translations.com has a reputation of merging with companies and retaining virtually 100% of the entrepreneurial skills and enthusiasm of the existing teams and management. This has proven to be a very successful strategy. While I don’t know that it’s accurate to say that this approach to M&A is unique, it certainly does differ from the approach of SDL, the obvious comparison here given their recent and past technology acquisitions. In fairness, they are a public company with a requirement to operate and to consolidate acquired businesses in a way that makes sense to investors. As a private company, Translations.com is free to take a more long-term approach, and we see the value in supporting entrepreneurs and their businesses.
Furthermore, the Alchemy/Translations.com merger differs from – again the natural, but not entirely analogous, comparison – SDL/Idiom, in that this merger has not manifested a direct contradiction of a promise. Many clients and partners asked Idiom directly if they intended to sell the company to a service provider. Idiom sold their solutions on a promise to remain independent. Alchemy made no such promise because, without the same access to confdential partner information that is inherent in the way WorldServer functions, there was never any reason for CATALYST to be sold with a pledge of independence.
CSN: How has the recent SDL/Idiom merger affected Translations.com?
PHIL: As far as companies performing services through an Idiom platform, Translations.com is probably among the largest in the world. However, you never saw a public partnership announced. One reason is that Idiom competes directly with our GlobalLink suite of products. However, another reason was that we felt we couldn’t predict the future actions of venture capitalists that controlled Idiom, and envisioned the potential of them selling out to a competing LSP.
Now, of course we’re concerned that SDL has, in effect, purchased our pricing information and other knowledge we once considered confdential, because it is stored on Idiom servers. As there is nothing legally preventing SDL from making use of this information to compete for service revenues, we expect them to cross-sell aggressively into those accounts.
When you step back and think about it, Idiom was losing over $5 million a year and SDL has competing and overlapping technology, so why buy the company for over $20 million? It may be that the real value in the deal for SDL shareholders is simply the future ability to cross-sell more services through 1) the built-in dependency and high-switching costs associated with being a technology vendor and 2) the access to once-confdential proprietary competitor information.
Note that there is nothing “wrong” with what SDL is doing by pursuing this strategy. Quite the contrary, having spent $20+ million of their shareholders’ money, they now have a fduciary obligation to maximize that value, and make the most of their new-found client relationships and competitor information.
After the Idiom deal, we feel how we’ve always felt about SDL: their technology is primarily about three things; a Trojan Horse with which to establish diffcult-to-break relationships to better sell services, an image necessary to fetch them a higher valuation in the public markets (i.e. a software vs. services valuation), and a vehicle that they’ve quite cleverly used to get competitors to help fnance their R&D and operations.
In summary, we respected SDL as a tough competitor before they bought Idiom, and we expect them to continue to be a tough competitor. As always, we look forward to the challenge of going head-to-head with them in the marketplace, on both services and technology.
CSN: So Tony, what’s the “real story” in terms of value to the market place? How and why will this be a positive alliance for the industry?
TONY: The ‘real story’ is about offering choice. Our clients want to manage their localization content more effciently across multiple localization service providers. A solution that is vendor agnostic, using web based architecture and built on open standards that offers enterprise level scalability is key to their continued growth. This is where Translations.com and Alchemy have invested heavily over the past few years.
CSN: Phil, what does this merger mean in terms of your competitive position?
PHIL: Over the past several years, Translations.com has been fortunate enough to be one of the fastest growing players in the localization industry. Enterprise localization clients are increasingly aware of the value we bring to the table. With the addition of a market leader such as Alchemy, we expect to see this trend continue.
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The evolution of localization tools
By Michael Trent,
Lingobit Technologies
Some time ago, only few people knew about software localization tools, but now such tools have become an essential part of software development process. This article tells about transformation of localization software from simple tools developed in-house to powerful software suites that support multiple platforms and languages, provide advanced functionality and make software localization affordable to any company.
First steps
Localization revolves around combining language and technology to produce a product that can cross language and cultural barriers. Initially, software companies considered localization as an afterthought. When the original application was released in English and developers went on vacation, translators were put to work to produce a German, French, Chinese, etc. version. Initially, translators just changed text strings directly in source code, which was time-consuming and an error-prone process. It required translators to understand programming language and review huge amount of source code to translate few lines of text.
Locating translatable text embedded in software source code was very difficult and source code localization made code updates and version management a nightmare. As a result, localization at that time used to be very expensive in both time and money. It often produced unsatisfactory results and introduced new bugs in software.
First localization tools that appeared on the market were no more than simple utilities to simplify some parts of this process by locating text strings and managing code updates. They were limited in functionality and were mostly developed for in-house use and, in most cases, for some particular product. However, for all these difficulties, even those first localization tools allowed developers to reduce localization costs significantly.
The shift of computer software use away from centralized corporate and academic environments to usersT desks called for a shift in products features and functionality. Desktop computer users needed software that would enable them to do their work more efficiently and software also had to be in their local language. Releasing software in multiple languages became necessary not only for big software developers such as Microsoft or IBM, but also for smaller software companies. This triggered development of the first commercial localization tools.
First commercial localization tools used binary localization of executable files, rather than localization of the source code because this approach separated localization from software development. Translators were no longer required to know programming languages and many technical complexities were hidden from translators. Binary localization led to a considerable reduction in number of errors caused by localization and it made possible to easily sync translations when the software updates were released.
Localization vs. CAT tools
Companies that developed Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tools also tried to enter software localization market but most of them failed because they are designed for a different purpose. In CAT systems, output is a translated text, whereas in case of localization tools it is only an intermediary stage. The objective of localization is to adapt the product for local markets. This means not only translation of text, but also resizing dialogs, changing images and multiple other things. To do so, localization engineers get a copy of the software, extract translatable text from multiple files, do the translation, merge the translated files with the software build and produce localized copies of the application.
One of the major strengths of CAT systems is a translation memory but it is only partially useful in software localization for several reasons. Translation Memory database from one product cannot be reused in other products and, what is more, even in the same application same text in is often translated differently.
Riding the dot-com wave, localization tools evolved and by the end of the 1990s took over and implemented CAT tool functionality. Currently, traditional CAT tools no longer play a significant role in the localization industry.
Product-centric localization
Products developed today utilize multiple technologies and combine managed and unmanaged code, web components and even code targeting different operating systems. In large projects, there are hundreds of files that require localization and old tools that use by-file localization and target specific platforms are no longer up to a job. New crop of software localization products add support for folder-based localization, multiple development platforms and unify all localization efforts by supporting translation of help files and online documentation.
Folder-based localization tool
When a project has hundreds of localizable files in different directories, it becomes very difficult to manage without using folder-based localization. Tools that support folder-based localization automatically track new, removed and changed files, synchronize translation between files and keep project structure intact.
When multiple people work on the development of a large application, itTs difficult for localization engineers to track what files with localizable text are added and removed from the project. It used to be time-consuming and error-prone work but tools with support for folder-based localization automate this process by detecting new files, determining whether they contain text for translation and then adding them to the project.
Support for multiple formats
One of the specialties that characterize the localization industry today is support for multiple development platforms. In the past, most applications were developed using only one platform, but over time, products became more complex. Many products today contain both legacy code and new code in different programming languages. WhatTs more, as more products move into the Web, with its multitude of languages support for different platforms, this becomes even more important.
Localization on mobile devices
There are more mobile devices than computers in the world and many products have mobile version. While most people who work on computer have at least basic knowledge of English, majority of mobile phone users do not speak English at all. Support for .NET Compact Edition, Windows CE and Java Mobile Edition is standard in modern localization tools.
Help and documentation
Some software localization products added support for localization of documentation, websites and help. While CAT tools are better suited for translation of large amount of text, localization tools are better at translating text in structured form. WhatTs more, using localization tools for help and documentation allows companies to standardize on one product and lower support cost.
Conclusion
Over a short period, localization tools have gone a long way from simple utilities for in-house localization teams to complex product-centric systems, providing tools for the entire localization process. Technologies such as binary localization and translation memory dramatically increased localization efficiency. WhatTs more, modern localization tools compete in documentation and web content translation space with CAT systems, offering the developer a unified environment for entire software product localization.
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Lingobit Technologies
Some time ago, only few people knew about software localization tools, but now such tools have become an essential part of software development process. This article tells about transformation of localization software from simple tools developed in-house to powerful software suites that support multiple platforms and languages, provide advanced functionality and make software localization affordable to any company.
First steps
Localization revolves around combining language and technology to produce a product that can cross language and cultural barriers. Initially, software companies considered localization as an afterthought. When the original application was released in English and developers went on vacation, translators were put to work to produce a German, French, Chinese, etc. version. Initially, translators just changed text strings directly in source code, which was time-consuming and an error-prone process. It required translators to understand programming language and review huge amount of source code to translate few lines of text.
Locating translatable text embedded in software source code was very difficult and source code localization made code updates and version management a nightmare. As a result, localization at that time used to be very expensive in both time and money. It often produced unsatisfactory results and introduced new bugs in software.
First localization tools that appeared on the market were no more than simple utilities to simplify some parts of this process by locating text strings and managing code updates. They were limited in functionality and were mostly developed for in-house use and, in most cases, for some particular product. However, for all these difficulties, even those first localization tools allowed developers to reduce localization costs significantly.
The shift of computer software use away from centralized corporate and academic environments to usersT desks called for a shift in products features and functionality. Desktop computer users needed software that would enable them to do their work more efficiently and software also had to be in their local language. Releasing software in multiple languages became necessary not only for big software developers such as Microsoft or IBM, but also for smaller software companies. This triggered development of the first commercial localization tools.
First commercial localization tools used binary localization of executable files, rather than localization of the source code because this approach separated localization from software development. Translators were no longer required to know programming languages and many technical complexities were hidden from translators. Binary localization led to a considerable reduction in number of errors caused by localization and it made possible to easily sync translations when the software updates were released.
Localization vs. CAT tools
Companies that developed Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tools also tried to enter software localization market but most of them failed because they are designed for a different purpose. In CAT systems, output is a translated text, whereas in case of localization tools it is only an intermediary stage. The objective of localization is to adapt the product for local markets. This means not only translation of text, but also resizing dialogs, changing images and multiple other things. To do so, localization engineers get a copy of the software, extract translatable text from multiple files, do the translation, merge the translated files with the software build and produce localized copies of the application.
One of the major strengths of CAT systems is a translation memory but it is only partially useful in software localization for several reasons. Translation Memory database from one product cannot be reused in other products and, what is more, even in the same application same text in is often translated differently.
Riding the dot-com wave, localization tools evolved and by the end of the 1990s took over and implemented CAT tool functionality. Currently, traditional CAT tools no longer play a significant role in the localization industry.
Product-centric localization
Products developed today utilize multiple technologies and combine managed and unmanaged code, web components and even code targeting different operating systems. In large projects, there are hundreds of files that require localization and old tools that use by-file localization and target specific platforms are no longer up to a job. New crop of software localization products add support for folder-based localization, multiple development platforms and unify all localization efforts by supporting translation of help files and online documentation.
Folder-based localization tool
When a project has hundreds of localizable files in different directories, it becomes very difficult to manage without using folder-based localization. Tools that support folder-based localization automatically track new, removed and changed files, synchronize translation between files and keep project structure intact.
When multiple people work on the development of a large application, itTs difficult for localization engineers to track what files with localizable text are added and removed from the project. It used to be time-consuming and error-prone work but tools with support for folder-based localization automate this process by detecting new files, determining whether they contain text for translation and then adding them to the project.
Support for multiple formats
One of the specialties that characterize the localization industry today is support for multiple development platforms. In the past, most applications were developed using only one platform, but over time, products became more complex. Many products today contain both legacy code and new code in different programming languages. WhatTs more, as more products move into the Web, with its multitude of languages support for different platforms, this becomes even more important.
Localization on mobile devices
There are more mobile devices than computers in the world and many products have mobile version. While most people who work on computer have at least basic knowledge of English, majority of mobile phone users do not speak English at all. Support for .NET Compact Edition, Windows CE and Java Mobile Edition is standard in modern localization tools.
Help and documentation
Some software localization products added support for localization of documentation, websites and help. While CAT tools are better suited for translation of large amount of text, localization tools are better at translating text in structured form. WhatTs more, using localization tools for help and documentation allows companies to standardize on one product and lower support cost.
Conclusion
Over a short period, localization tools have gone a long way from simple utilities for in-house localization teams to complex product-centric systems, providing tools for the entire localization process. Technologies such as binary localization and translation memory dramatically increased localization efficiency. WhatTs more, modern localization tools compete in documentation and web content translation space with CAT systems, offering the developer a unified environment for entire software product localization.
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Monday, May 25, 2009
Translation Buyers' Views on Technology Independence
By Ben Sargent,
Senior Analyst,
Common Sense Advisory
In late mid-2008, Common Sense Advisory asked buyers of translation services for their views on technology independence among their software and language vendors. Over half the 30-plus respondents hailed from North America; 35 percent were from Europe; the balance were scattered across that amorphous continent known as "Rest of World."
Our first question asked, "How important is it for your technology vendor to be a different company than the firm that provides translation services?" About 60 percent said technology independence was "somewhat important" or "very important."
Source: Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
Stated more bluntly, we were asking buyers what they felt about using technology tied to a specific language services provider (LSP), such as Lionbridge, Sajan, SDL, or Translations.com. Given the high proportion of "very important" responses coupled with zero buyers stating "very unimportant," the balance of opinion among buyers tilts radically toward concern on this topic, even though 39 percent said it was "not important."
Next, we asked buyers if a guarantee of independence from the vendor would influence their purchasing decision. Over 80 percent indicated that it would.
Source: Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
Expect non-service vendors to take advantage of this buying criterion, in both marketing platitudes and in the more hand-to-hand combat of direct selling. However, not all buyers will take such promises at face value. Last year, two notable independent software companies, Alchemy and Idiom, were swallowed by large LSPs (Translations.com and SDL, respectively). When we asked how recent mergers and acquisitions (M&A) had affected their views regarding vendor independence, 60 percent of buyers told us industry consolidation had raised their skepticism about any vendor's ability to remain independent over time.
Other reactions included 25 percent who said they were pushed to explore internal development options; 35 percent who set off to look for new independent vendors; and 45 percent for whom it triggered an exploration of open source solutions. Only 16 percent say the consolidation did not alter their views on vendor independence.
Source: Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
But apparently many companies did not need M&A activities to trigger their interest in open source. When we asked if it was likely their company would use open-source software for translation automation projects, nearly three out of four said they are "somewhat likely" or "very likely" to do so. This receptiveness could bode well for an open-source Global Sight — if Welocalize succeeds in mobilizing a community and eliciting a sense of ownership beyond itself.
Source: Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
Fewer companies are developing their own solutions for translation automation. Half said they were not, 30 percent said they were, and 20 percent claimed to be thinking about it.
Translation Buyers' Views on Technology Independence
Source: Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
So, our survey comes down to two conflicting datapoints:
* Our research on translation management systems (TMS) shows that most high-scoring systems are offered by language service providers, not by independent software vendors (ISVs). Suppliers such as Lionbridge, Sajan, SDL, and Translations.com are not only LSPs, but leading proponents of TMS in the openly available enterprise or captive "house" categories (house systems are available only through service agreements with those LSPs).
* However, buyers unequivocally tell us they worry about vendor independence and that it affects buying decisions.
This cognitive dissonance explains the difficult selling environment that LSPs find themselves in when pushing their proprietary technology approaches. And why unaffiliated software vendors have clay feet when it comes to the question of independence. Across, Beetext, and Kilgray have no financial ties to LSPs — yet. Maybe these new players will be the ones who finally turn the corner and prove that ISVs can survive in this service-oriented marketplace. But over the last decade, LSPs have harvested pretty much every leading software vendor in the space — more than 10 companies in all. Common Sense Advisory anticipates that acquisition by an LSP is still the most likely "exit strategy" for any globalization software vendor (GSV) operating today.
Published - April 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Senior Analyst,
Common Sense Advisory
In late mid-2008, Common Sense Advisory asked buyers of translation services for their views on technology independence among their software and language vendors. Over half the 30-plus respondents hailed from North America; 35 percent were from Europe; the balance were scattered across that amorphous continent known as "Rest of World."
Our first question asked, "How important is it for your technology vendor to be a different company than the firm that provides translation services?" About 60 percent said technology independence was "somewhat important" or "very important."
Source: Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
Stated more bluntly, we were asking buyers what they felt about using technology tied to a specific language services provider (LSP), such as Lionbridge, Sajan, SDL, or Translations.com. Given the high proportion of "very important" responses coupled with zero buyers stating "very unimportant," the balance of opinion among buyers tilts radically toward concern on this topic, even though 39 percent said it was "not important."
Next, we asked buyers if a guarantee of independence from the vendor would influence their purchasing decision. Over 80 percent indicated that it would.
Source: Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
Expect non-service vendors to take advantage of this buying criterion, in both marketing platitudes and in the more hand-to-hand combat of direct selling. However, not all buyers will take such promises at face value. Last year, two notable independent software companies, Alchemy and Idiom, were swallowed by large LSPs (Translations.com and SDL, respectively). When we asked how recent mergers and acquisitions (M&A) had affected their views regarding vendor independence, 60 percent of buyers told us industry consolidation had raised their skepticism about any vendor's ability to remain independent over time.
Other reactions included 25 percent who said they were pushed to explore internal development options; 35 percent who set off to look for new independent vendors; and 45 percent for whom it triggered an exploration of open source solutions. Only 16 percent say the consolidation did not alter their views on vendor independence.
Source: Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
But apparently many companies did not need M&A activities to trigger their interest in open source. When we asked if it was likely their company would use open-source software for translation automation projects, nearly three out of four said they are "somewhat likely" or "very likely" to do so. This receptiveness could bode well for an open-source Global Sight — if Welocalize succeeds in mobilizing a community and eliciting a sense of ownership beyond itself.
Source: Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
Fewer companies are developing their own solutions for translation automation. Half said they were not, 30 percent said they were, and 20 percent claimed to be thinking about it.
Translation Buyers' Views on Technology Independence
Source: Common Sense Advisory, Inc.
So, our survey comes down to two conflicting datapoints:
* Our research on translation management systems (TMS) shows that most high-scoring systems are offered by language service providers, not by independent software vendors (ISVs). Suppliers such as Lionbridge, Sajan, SDL, and Translations.com are not only LSPs, but leading proponents of TMS in the openly available enterprise or captive "house" categories (house systems are available only through service agreements with those LSPs).
* However, buyers unequivocally tell us they worry about vendor independence and that it affects buying decisions.
This cognitive dissonance explains the difficult selling environment that LSPs find themselves in when pushing their proprietary technology approaches. And why unaffiliated software vendors have clay feet when it comes to the question of independence. Across, Beetext, and Kilgray have no financial ties to LSPs — yet. Maybe these new players will be the ones who finally turn the corner and prove that ISVs can survive in this service-oriented marketplace. But over the last decade, LSPs have harvested pretty much every leading software vendor in the space — more than 10 companies in all. Common Sense Advisory anticipates that acquisition by an LSP is still the most likely "exit strategy" for any globalization software vendor (GSV) operating today.
Published - April 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Sunday, May 24, 2009
The translator’s point of view: goodbye quality, hello Quality!
By Estelle Renard
estelle [at] traducteurs-av . org
Languages & the Media 2008 - 7th International Conference on Language Transfer in Audiovisual Media
As presented by Estelle Renard on behalf of the ATAA
Last year, the sensation at the French box office was not a Hollywood blockbuster, but a small comedy about language differences and the prejudices and bonds they produce. Bienvenue chez les Chtis was a huge success and over half the French population went to see it. This film, relying as it does on language and linguistic jokes, should have been lost in translation. It was not. Thanks to the competence of the English translator and the director’s attention to it, the subtitles were so good that a Guardian journalist suggested that this tour de force deserved the creation of a whole new Oscar’s category for subtitlers. It is because it was so well translated that this film has had the chance of an international career.
If this story proves something, it is not the refinement of the French people's tastes, but the value of the work of audiovisual translators.
And indeed,
- it it is not only that without translation, an audiovisual product will not cross the borders of the country where it was created,
- nor that without a good translation, the program will be aired, but not appreciated as it should be and sometimes, not even understood.
- Translation is even more than that, it gives an added value to what we call a “product”, if we want to use the language of business.
This story is also interesting, because the comedy of cultural differences and especially those embodied in language is the ultimate challenge for an audiovisual translator. It demonstrates that what we do is something that is, essentially, not quantifiable. This 'something' that cannot be quantified is also at the heart, the very core of the industry in which we work. Creativity and efficiency cannot be measured or quantified in industrial and business language.
So how can we evaluate something that is not quantifiable? This question seems relevant, but in our industry, it leads us down the wrong path. In this sector, all companies, whatever their size, boast about the high quality translations they provide. At the same time, they boast that they can achieve that quality for a price defying all the odds, shrinking year after year. My question is : what is behind that boast? I would like to demonstrate how quality, as defined by the industry, always results in a cut in the rate paid to the translator. Why is this the case?
The key words of global translation companies are:
- Standardization / globalization
- Productivity
- Technology
Let us see how each of them works in regard to audiovisual translation and if they are a means to achieve efficiency. Can they achieve quality?
Standardization
The issue here is not technical standardization such as in file or video formats, which obviously aid the circulation of audiovisual programs. I am talking about the standardization of intellectual work.
The use of templates provides an eloquent example of the confusion between quality and cost cutting. The main (and only) advantage of a template is that spotting has to be done only once, no matter how many languages the program is translated into. When using a template, translators have to fit their subtitles into spotting that was designed for another language.
- English template : Bad Girl (8 characters)
- Translation in polish : Niegrzeczna dziewczynka (22 char)
In the example above, the Polish words need a lot more time to read than the English. Using a template, this extra time is not available. The template cannot be changed. It is obviously a bad idea to provide the same template for languages that are so different. Quality spotting is adapted to each language, not the contrary. Templates are the exact opposite of what would ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience for the viewer.
Therefore, standardization is a way to save money but not to produce a good translation. The only thing it can deliver is productivity.
What does productivity mean for a translator?
The translator is an individual, not a company. For him, there is no economy of scale. Higher volume does not mean higher profits. Program for program, he will not make more profit if he translates 10 films than if he translates just one. He will earn the same for each film and his profits will not increase the more films he translates.
Productivity has a meaning from an industrial point of view but not for the translator.
Perhaps technology can help the translator. What can it do for him?
Well, not much. Technology is a means, a tool. Subtitling software for instance is an excellent tool, but it is like a car: you can have the most technologically advanced car in the world but if you don't know where you're going, you will just go nowhere more quickly. It is true that software allows translators to work in more comfortable conditions, but it cannot help them to produce better translations.
Let us assume that technology allows us to work faster. It could then be argued that it helps the translator to do a better job: they are paid the same and work faster. This means they can reinvest the time gained in reviewing their translation many times. But the point is, for audiovisual translators, technology has always meant a dramatic drop in rates and in the time allocated for each job. In France, the rates are a third of what they were 10 years ago. Has any employee in any other sector seen their salary cut by 70% in ten years? If we don't react, the same will happen in dubbing, with the rapid growth of virtual dubbing software.
In this conference, we have seen many amazing machines and softwares but I know of something even more amazing: the human brain. A machine transcodes, the brain of a translator takes a sentence in its context and transfers it to another language. Languages are not just words strung together, they are inextricably linked with a culture and are constantly evolving. They are the flesh of a civilization, and at the core of the very essence of humanity.
In a nutshell, standardisation, globalization, productivity and blind trust in the wonders of technology are the criteria of the industry, but they cannot be applied to the work of the mind, and therefore not to translation.
If we are here today questioning whether or not quality can still be achieved, it is because of global companies such as SDI, Softitler and others and the blindness of networks regarding what are ultimately their own interests. The question of “quality” (with a small q) is the elegant screen behind which these global companies make big profits. Here, the issue is not that translation costs too much, it is how to make the most money out of it, providing the biggest possible profit for their shareholders. This may seem obvious but I strongly believe that we should not see this situation from their point of view. These companies are the cancer that is eating this industry alive. Why use such a shocking term? Because the way they run their business puts the whole industry in danger.
Quality cannot be achieved without a system of values. What is valued here? Not the viewers and certainly not the translators. Recently, SDI Media Group placed an advert inviting young translators to move to the Philippines for a year. There, the company would provide them with a computer, an internet connection and lots of paid-per-minute programs. Scuba diving lessons and weekend trips were also on the agenda, but not at the company's expense. They considered the opportunity so exciting that they did not think that stating the rates paid was necessary. It is an insight into the way these companies envision the trade of the audiovisual translator. Do they think it is a hobby?
These companies create an environment where companies can only compete to pay the lowest rates, where the smaller companies eventually disappear. As a result, the subtitles are for the most part, appalling. How is it possible to blame the translators? They simply deliver a quality reflecting the rate they are paid. “If you want to pay peanuts, hire monkeys” says the proverb. This policy is hastening the end of the very business model they helped to create because consumers also want to reduce their costs, or even not pay at all. And why should they? Why buy a DVD with a translation no better than a fansubbed version? It is so much easier to download it from home, for free.
What is to be done?
It seems obvious that we have to escape this business model, this vicious circle. The role of the translator has to be re-evaluated and recognized. He is the one who conveys and gives meaning to the whole process of language transfer in the media. It is imperative that he should have the right tools to work with. To do a good job, a competent and dedicated translator simply needs two things:
- time
- money
Time. It is the only thing that can allow a translator to go through all the steps that guarantee a good translation. One of them is proofreading, for instance by a fellow translator: through this crucial step, subtitles or dubbing can be considerably enhanced.
Money. Translators should always be paid by the subtitle or word. They do not make socks. They should not be paid by the kilogram or, in this case, the minute. It is not a mechanical process repeated again and again as if on a production line. Each sentence, each subtitle is different, is a new adventure. Being paid per subtitle or word is a way to have their work properly recognized and appreciated.
This is all wishful thinking of course. It will not happen like this.
Translators must take action to gain the self respect that the industry does not give them.
The first step is to say no.
Case study: SDI office in France in 2003.
There were 30 translators working full time. Not only for that office, but in that office: we knew each other. When we learned that SDI was going to cut our rates for the third time, all the translators working there agreed to leave the company. Overnight 28 out of the 30 translators were gone.
SDI was, at the time, my only client. I did not work for 4 months afterwards, but what I gained was priceless. I gained self respect, respect for my trade and respect for the viewers/consumers. Those who have done something like this just once in their lives know how good it feels. You can look at yourself in the mirror with a big smile on your face.
Of course, if one person says no, it does not mean much to a company. But if a lot of people say no, then it starts to be a problem.
So the second step is: unite!
ATAA (French Audiovisual Translators Association) was founded two years ago, in June 2006. We were able to create an initially small network that continues to grow today. The so-called individualism of the translator has been proved to be fiction.
We now have 160 members and a mailing list of more than 500 translators.
The first achievement of the Ataa was to share information: a tremendous amount of information is exchanged through our forum and during our meetings. This simple service has made a huge difference. Now we all know what is going on in other companies, how much the other translators are paid and we can organize ourselves and act accordingly.
We also meet a lot: we take every opportunity to organise meetings, and simply get to know each other. Because what we discovered was: it is a small step from meeting in the flesh, to having the guts to say no.
Beyond this national association, we are trying to organize ourselves internationally. Thanks to the great initiative taken by our Scandinavian colleagues, we started an International League of Subtitlers that continues to grow. This international network has allowed us to meet and to compare working conditions. In the not too distant future, we hope to take positive action together.
estelle [at] traducteurs-av . org
Published - April 2009
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
estelle [at] traducteurs-av . org
Languages & the Media 2008 - 7th International Conference on Language Transfer in Audiovisual Media
As presented by Estelle Renard on behalf of the ATAA
Last year, the sensation at the French box office was not a Hollywood blockbuster, but a small comedy about language differences and the prejudices and bonds they produce. Bienvenue chez les Chtis was a huge success and over half the French population went to see it. This film, relying as it does on language and linguistic jokes, should have been lost in translation. It was not. Thanks to the competence of the English translator and the director’s attention to it, the subtitles were so good that a Guardian journalist suggested that this tour de force deserved the creation of a whole new Oscar’s category for subtitlers. It is because it was so well translated that this film has had the chance of an international career.
If this story proves something, it is not the refinement of the French people's tastes, but the value of the work of audiovisual translators.
And indeed,
- it it is not only that without translation, an audiovisual product will not cross the borders of the country where it was created,
- nor that without a good translation, the program will be aired, but not appreciated as it should be and sometimes, not even understood.
- Translation is even more than that, it gives an added value to what we call a “product”, if we want to use the language of business.
This story is also interesting, because the comedy of cultural differences and especially those embodied in language is the ultimate challenge for an audiovisual translator. It demonstrates that what we do is something that is, essentially, not quantifiable. This 'something' that cannot be quantified is also at the heart, the very core of the industry in which we work. Creativity and efficiency cannot be measured or quantified in industrial and business language.
So how can we evaluate something that is not quantifiable? This question seems relevant, but in our industry, it leads us down the wrong path. In this sector, all companies, whatever their size, boast about the high quality translations they provide. At the same time, they boast that they can achieve that quality for a price defying all the odds, shrinking year after year. My question is : what is behind that boast? I would like to demonstrate how quality, as defined by the industry, always results in a cut in the rate paid to the translator. Why is this the case?
The key words of global translation companies are:
- Standardization / globalization
- Productivity
- Technology
Let us see how each of them works in regard to audiovisual translation and if they are a means to achieve efficiency. Can they achieve quality?
Standardization
The issue here is not technical standardization such as in file or video formats, which obviously aid the circulation of audiovisual programs. I am talking about the standardization of intellectual work.
The use of templates provides an eloquent example of the confusion between quality and cost cutting. The main (and only) advantage of a template is that spotting has to be done only once, no matter how many languages the program is translated into. When using a template, translators have to fit their subtitles into spotting that was designed for another language.
- English template : Bad Girl (8 characters)
- Translation in polish : Niegrzeczna dziewczynka (22 char)
In the example above, the Polish words need a lot more time to read than the English. Using a template, this extra time is not available. The template cannot be changed. It is obviously a bad idea to provide the same template for languages that are so different. Quality spotting is adapted to each language, not the contrary. Templates are the exact opposite of what would ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience for the viewer.
Therefore, standardization is a way to save money but not to produce a good translation. The only thing it can deliver is productivity.
What does productivity mean for a translator?
The translator is an individual, not a company. For him, there is no economy of scale. Higher volume does not mean higher profits. Program for program, he will not make more profit if he translates 10 films than if he translates just one. He will earn the same for each film and his profits will not increase the more films he translates.
Productivity has a meaning from an industrial point of view but not for the translator.
Perhaps technology can help the translator. What can it do for him?
Well, not much. Technology is a means, a tool. Subtitling software for instance is an excellent tool, but it is like a car: you can have the most technologically advanced car in the world but if you don't know where you're going, you will just go nowhere more quickly. It is true that software allows translators to work in more comfortable conditions, but it cannot help them to produce better translations.
Let us assume that technology allows us to work faster. It could then be argued that it helps the translator to do a better job: they are paid the same and work faster. This means they can reinvest the time gained in reviewing their translation many times. But the point is, for audiovisual translators, technology has always meant a dramatic drop in rates and in the time allocated for each job. In France, the rates are a third of what they were 10 years ago. Has any employee in any other sector seen their salary cut by 70% in ten years? If we don't react, the same will happen in dubbing, with the rapid growth of virtual dubbing software.
In this conference, we have seen many amazing machines and softwares but I know of something even more amazing: the human brain. A machine transcodes, the brain of a translator takes a sentence in its context and transfers it to another language. Languages are not just words strung together, they are inextricably linked with a culture and are constantly evolving. They are the flesh of a civilization, and at the core of the very essence of humanity.
In a nutshell, standardisation, globalization, productivity and blind trust in the wonders of technology are the criteria of the industry, but they cannot be applied to the work of the mind, and therefore not to translation.
If we are here today questioning whether or not quality can still be achieved, it is because of global companies such as SDI, Softitler and others and the blindness of networks regarding what are ultimately their own interests. The question of “quality” (with a small q) is the elegant screen behind which these global companies make big profits. Here, the issue is not that translation costs too much, it is how to make the most money out of it, providing the biggest possible profit for their shareholders. This may seem obvious but I strongly believe that we should not see this situation from their point of view. These companies are the cancer that is eating this industry alive. Why use such a shocking term? Because the way they run their business puts the whole industry in danger.
Quality cannot be achieved without a system of values. What is valued here? Not the viewers and certainly not the translators. Recently, SDI Media Group placed an advert inviting young translators to move to the Philippines for a year. There, the company would provide them with a computer, an internet connection and lots of paid-per-minute programs. Scuba diving lessons and weekend trips were also on the agenda, but not at the company's expense. They considered the opportunity so exciting that they did not think that stating the rates paid was necessary. It is an insight into the way these companies envision the trade of the audiovisual translator. Do they think it is a hobby?
These companies create an environment where companies can only compete to pay the lowest rates, where the smaller companies eventually disappear. As a result, the subtitles are for the most part, appalling. How is it possible to blame the translators? They simply deliver a quality reflecting the rate they are paid. “If you want to pay peanuts, hire monkeys” says the proverb. This policy is hastening the end of the very business model they helped to create because consumers also want to reduce their costs, or even not pay at all. And why should they? Why buy a DVD with a translation no better than a fansubbed version? It is so much easier to download it from home, for free.
What is to be done?
It seems obvious that we have to escape this business model, this vicious circle. The role of the translator has to be re-evaluated and recognized. He is the one who conveys and gives meaning to the whole process of language transfer in the media. It is imperative that he should have the right tools to work with. To do a good job, a competent and dedicated translator simply needs two things:
- time
- money
Time. It is the only thing that can allow a translator to go through all the steps that guarantee a good translation. One of them is proofreading, for instance by a fellow translator: through this crucial step, subtitles or dubbing can be considerably enhanced.
Money. Translators should always be paid by the subtitle or word. They do not make socks. They should not be paid by the kilogram or, in this case, the minute. It is not a mechanical process repeated again and again as if on a production line. Each sentence, each subtitle is different, is a new adventure. Being paid per subtitle or word is a way to have their work properly recognized and appreciated.
This is all wishful thinking of course. It will not happen like this.
Translators must take action to gain the self respect that the industry does not give them.
The first step is to say no.
Case study: SDI office in France in 2003.
There were 30 translators working full time. Not only for that office, but in that office: we knew each other. When we learned that SDI was going to cut our rates for the third time, all the translators working there agreed to leave the company. Overnight 28 out of the 30 translators were gone.
SDI was, at the time, my only client. I did not work for 4 months afterwards, but what I gained was priceless. I gained self respect, respect for my trade and respect for the viewers/consumers. Those who have done something like this just once in their lives know how good it feels. You can look at yourself in the mirror with a big smile on your face.
Of course, if one person says no, it does not mean much to a company. But if a lot of people say no, then it starts to be a problem.
So the second step is: unite!
ATAA (French Audiovisual Translators Association) was founded two years ago, in June 2006. We were able to create an initially small network that continues to grow today. The so-called individualism of the translator has been proved to be fiction.
We now have 160 members and a mailing list of more than 500 translators.
The first achievement of the Ataa was to share information: a tremendous amount of information is exchanged through our forum and during our meetings. This simple service has made a huge difference. Now we all know what is going on in other companies, how much the other translators are paid and we can organize ourselves and act accordingly.
We also meet a lot: we take every opportunity to organise meetings, and simply get to know each other. Because what we discovered was: it is a small step from meeting in the flesh, to having the guts to say no.
Beyond this national association, we are trying to organize ourselves internationally. Thanks to the great initiative taken by our Scandinavian colleagues, we started an International League of Subtitlers that continues to grow. This international network has allowed us to meet and to compare working conditions. In the not too distant future, we hope to take positive action together.
estelle [at] traducteurs-av . org
Published - April 2009
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Where Do Translators Fit into Machine Translation?
By Alex Gross
http://language.home.sprynet.com/
alexilen@sprynet.com
Original and Supplementary Questions
Submitted to the MT Summit III Conference,
Washington, 1991
Here are the original questions for this panel as submitted to the speakers:
1. At the last MT Summit, Martin Kay stated that there should be "greater attention to empirical studies of translation so that computational linguists will have a better idea of what really goes on in translation and develop tools that will be more useful for the end user." Does this mean that there has been insufficient input into MT processes by translators interested in MT? Does it mean that MT developers have failed to study what translating actually entails and how translators go about their task? If either of these is true, then to what extent and why? New answers and insights for the MT profession could arise from hearing what human translators with an interest in the development of MT have to say about these matters. It may well turn out that translators are the very people best qualified to determine what form their tools should take, since they are the end users.
2. Is there a specifically "human" component in the translation process which MT experts have overlooked? Is it reasonable for theoreticians to envision setting up predictable and generic vocabularies of clearly defined terms, or could they be overlooking a deep-seated human tendency towards some degree of ambiguity—indeed, in those many cases where not all the facts are known, an inescapably human reliance on it? Are there any viable MT approaches to duplicate what human translators can provide in such cases, namely the ability to bridge this ambiguity gap and improvise personalized, customized case-specific subtleties of vocabulary, depending on client or purpose? Could this in fact be a major element of the entire translation process? Alternately, are there some more boring "machine-like" aspects of translation where the computer can help the translator, such as style and consistency checking?
3. How can the knowledge of practicing translators best be integrated into current MT research and working systems? Is it to be assumed that they are best employed as prospective end-users working out the bugs in the system, or is there also a place for them during the initial planning phases of such systems? Can they perhaps as users be the primary developers of the system?
4. Many human translators, when told of the quest to have machines take over all aspects of translation, immediately reply that this is impossible and start providing specific instances which they claim a machine system could never handle. Are such reactions merely the final nerve spasms of a doomed class of technicians awaiting superannuation, or are these translators in fact enunciating specific instances of a general law as yet not fully articulated?
Since we now hear claims suggesting that FAHQT is creeping in again through the back door, it seems important to ask whether there has in fact ever been sufficient basic mathematical research, much less algorithmic underpinnings, by the MT Community to determine whether FAHQT, or anything close to it, can be achieved by any combination of electronic stratagems (transfer, AI, neural nets, Markov models, etc.).
Must translators forever stand exposed on the firing line and present their minds and bodies to a broadside of claims that the next round of computer advances will annihilate them as a profession? Is this problem truly solvable in logical terms, or is it in fact an intractable, undecidable, or provably unsolvable question in terms of "Computable Numbers" as set out by Turing, based on the work of Hilbert and Goedel? A reasonable answer to this question could save boards of directors and/or government agencies a great deal of time and money.
SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONS:
It was also envisioned that a list of Supplemental Questions would be prepared and distributed not only to the speakers but everyone attending our panel, even though not all of these questions could be raised during the session, so as to deepen our discussion and provide a lasting record of these issues.
FAHQT: Pro and Con
Consider the following observation on FAHQT: "The ideal notion of fully automatic high quality translation (FAHQT) is still lurking behind the machine translation paradigm: it is something that MT projects want to reach." (1) Is this a true or a false observation?
Is FAHQT merely a matter of time and continued research, a direct and inevitable result of a perfectly asymptotic process?
Will FAHQT ever be available on a held-held calculator-sized computer? If not, then why not?
To what extent is the belief in the feasibility of FAHQT a form of religion or perhaps akin to a belief that a perpetual motion device can be invented?
Technical Linguistic Questions
Let us suppose a writer has chosen to use Word C in a source text because s/he did not wish to use Word A or Word B, even though all three are shown as "synonyms." It turns out that all three of these words overlap and semantically interrelate quite differently in the target language. How can MT handle such an instance, fairly frequently found in legal and diplomatic usage?
Virtually all research in both conventional and computational linguistics has proceeded from the premise that language can be represented and mapped as a linear entity and is therefore eminently computable. What if it turns out that language in fact occupies a virtual space as a multi-dimensional construct, including several fractal dimensions, involving all manner of non-linear turbulence, chaos, and Butterfly Effects?
Post-Editors and Puppeteers
Let's assume you saw an ad for an Automatic Electronic Puppeteer that guaranteed to create and produce endless puppet plays in your own living room. There would be no need for a puppeteer to run the puppets and no need for you even to script the plays, though you would have the freedom to intervene in the action and change the plot as you wished. Since the price was acceptable, you ordered this system, but when it arrived, you found that it required endless installation work and calls to the manufacturers to get it working. But even then, you discovered that the number of plays provided was in fact quite limited, your plot change options even more so, and that the movements of the puppets were jerky and unnatural. When you complained, you were referred to fine print in the docs telling you that to make the program work better, you would have to do one of two things: 1) master an extremely complex programming language or 2) hire a specially trained puppeteer to help you out with your special needs and to be on hand during your productions to make the puppets move more naturally. Does this description bear any resemblance to the way MT has functioned and been promoted in recent years?
A Practical Example
Despite many presentations on linguistic, electronic and philosophical aspects of MT at this conference, one side of translation has nonetheless gone unexplored. It has to do with how larger translation projects actually arise and are handled by the profession. The following story shows the world of human translation at close to its worst, and it might be imagined at first glance that MT could easily do a much better job and simply take over in such situations, which are far from atypical in the world of translation. But, as we shall see, such appearances may be deceptive. To our story:
A French electrical firm was recently involved in a hostile take-over bid and law suit with its American counterpart. Large numbers of boxes and drawers full of documents all had to be translated into English by an almost impossible deadline. Supervision of this work was entrusted to a paralegal assistant in the French company's New York law firm. This person had no previous knowledge of translation. The documents ran the gamut from highly technical electrical texts and patents, records of previous law suits, company correspondence, advertisements, product documentation, speeches by the Company's directors, etc.
Almost every French-to-English translator in the NYC area was asked to take part. All translators were required to work at the law firm's offices so as to preserve confidentiality. Mere translation students worked side by side with newly accredited professionals and journeymen with long years of experience. The more able quickly became aware that much of the material was far too difficult for their less experienced colleagues. No consistent attempt was made to create or distribute glossaries. Wildly differing wages were paid to translators, with little connection to their ability. Several translation agencies were caught up in a feverish battle to handle most of the work and desperately competed to find translators.
No one knows the quality of the final product, but it cannot have been routinely high. Some translators and agencies have still not been fully paid. As the deadline drew closer, more and more boxes of documents appeared. And as the final blow, the opposing company's law firm also came onto the scene with boxes of its own documents that needed translation. But these newcomers imposed one nearly impossible condition, also for reasons of confidentiality: no one who had translated for the first law firm would be permitted to translate for them.
Now let us consider this true-life tale, which occurred just three months ago, and see how—or whether—MT could have handled things better, as is sometimes claimed. Let's be generous and remove one enormous obstacle at the start by assuming that all these cases of documents were in fact in machine-readable form (which, of course, they weren't). Even if we accord MT this ample handicap, there are still a number of problems it would have had trouble coping with:
1. How could a sufficient number of competent post-editors be found or trained before the deadline?
2. How could a sufficiently large and accurate MT dictionary be compiled before the deadline? Doesn't creating such a dictionary require finishing the job first and then saving it for the next job, in the hope that it will be similar ?
3. The simpler Mom & Pop store & smaller agency structure of the human translation world was nonetheless able to field at least some response to this challenge because of its large slack capacity. Would an enormously powerful and expensive mainframe computer have the same slack capacity, i.e., could it be kept inactive for long periods of time until such emergencies occurred? If so, how would this be reflected in the prices charged for its services?
4. How would MT companies have dealt with the secrecy requirement, that translation must be done in the law firm's office?
5. How would an MT Company comply with the demand of the second law firm, that the same post-editors not be used, and still land the job?
6. Supposing the job proved so enormous that two MT firms had to be hired—assuming they used different systems, different glossaries, different post-editors, how could they have collaborated without creating even more work and confusion?
Larger Philosophical Questions
Is it in any final sense a reasonable assumption, as many believe, that progress in MT can be gradual and cumulative in scope until it finally comes to a complete mastery of the problem? In other words, is there a numerical process by which one first masters 3% of all knowledge and vocabulary building processes with 85% accuracy, then 5% with 90% accuracy, and so on until one reaches 99% with 99% accuracy? Is this the whole story of the relationship between knowledge and language, or are there possibly other factors involved, making it possible for reality to manifest itself from several unexpected angles at once. In other words, are we dealing with language as a linear entity when it is in fact a multi-dimensional one?
Einstein maintained that he didn't believe God was playing dice with the universe. Is it possible that by using AI rule-firing techniques with their built-in certainty and confidence values, computational linguists are playing dice with the meaning of the that universe?
It would be possible to design a set of "Turing Tests" to gauge the performance of various MT systems as compared with human translation skills. The point of such a process, as with all Turing Tests, would be to determine if human referees could tell the difference between human and machine output. All necessary safeguards, handicaps, alternate referees, and double blind procedures could be devised, provided the will to take part in such tests actually existed. True definitions for cost, speed, accuracy, and post-editing needs might all have at least a chance of being estimated as a result of such tests. What are the chances of their taking place some time in the near future?
"Computerization is the first stage of the industrial revolution that hasn't made work simpler." Does this statement, paraphrased from a book by a Harvard Business School professor, (2) have any relevance for MT? Is it correct to state that several current MT systems actually add one or more levels of difficulty to the translation process before making it any easier?
While translators may not be able to articulate precisely what kind of interface for translation they most desire, they can certainly state with great certainty what they do NOT want. What they do not want is an interface that is any of the following:
harder to learn and use than conventional translation;
more likely to make mistakes than the above;
lending less prestige than the above;
less well paid than the above.
Are these also concerns for MT developers?
What real work has been done in the AI field in terms of treating translation as a Knowledge Domain and translators as Domain Experts and pairing them off with Knowledge Engineers? What qualifications were sought in either the DE's or the KE's?
Are MT developers using the words "asymptote" and "asymptotic" in their correct mathematical sense, or are they rather using them as buzzwords to impart a false air of mathematical precision to their work? Is the curve their would-be asymptote steadily approaching a representation of FAHQT or something reasonably similar, or could it just turn out to be the edge of a semanto-linguistic Butterfly Effect drawing them inexorably into what Shannon and Weaver recognized as entropy, perhaps even into true Chaos?
Must not all translation, including MT, be recognized as a subset of two far larger sets, namely writing and human mediation? In the first case, does it not therefore become pointless to maintain that there are no accepted standards for what constitutes a "good translation," when of course there are also no accepted standards for what constitutes "good writing?" Or for that matter, no accepted standards for what constitutes "correct writing practices," since all major publications and publishing houses have their own in-house style manuals, with no two in total agreement, either here or in England. And is not translation also a specialized subset of a more generalized form of "mediation," merely employing two natural languages instead of one? In which case, may it belong to the same superset which includes "explaining company rules to new employees," public relations and advertising, or choosing exactly the right time to tell Uncle Louis you're marrying someone he disapproves of?
Are not the only real differences between foreign language translation and such upscale mediation that two languages are involved and the context is usually more limited? In either case (or in both together), what happens if all the complexities that can arise from superset activities descend into the subset and also become "translation problems?" at any time? How does MT deal with either of these cases?
Does the following reflection by Wittgenstein apply to MT: "A sentence is given me in code together with the key. Then of course in one way everything required for understanding the sentence has been given me. And yet I should answer the question `Do you understand this sentence?': No, not yet; I must first decode it. And only when e.g. I had translated it into English would I say `Now I understand it.'
"If now we raise the question `At what moment of translating do I understand the sentence? we shall get a glimpse into the nature of what is called `understanding.'" To take Wittgenstein's example one step further, if MT is used, at what moment of translation does what person or entity understand the sentence? When does the system understand it? How about the hasty post-editor? And what about the translation's target audience, the client? Can we be sure that understanding has taken place at any of these moments? And if understanding has not taken place, has translation?
Practical Suggestions for the Future
1. The process of consultation and cooperation between working translators and MT specialists which has begun here today should be extended into the future through the appointment of Translators in Residence in university and corporate settings, continued lectures and workshops dealing with these themes on a national and international basis, and greater consultation between them in all matters of mutual concern.
2. In the past, many legislative titles for training and coordinating workers have gone unused during each Congressional session in the Department of Labor, HEW, and Commerce. If there truly is a need for retraining translators to use MT and CAT products, it behooves system developers—and might even benefit them financially—to find out if such funding titles can be used to help train translators in the use of truly viable MT systems.
3. It should be the role of an organization such as MT Summit III to launch a campaign aimed at helping people everywhere to understand what human translation and machine translation can and cannot do so as to counter a growing trend towards fast-word language consumption and use.
4. Concomitantly, those present at this Conference should make their will known on an international scale that there is no place in the MT Community for those who falsify the facts about the capabilities of either MT or human translators. The fact that foreign language courses, both live and recorded, have been deceitfully marketed for decades should not be used as an excuse to do the same with MT. I have appended a brief Code of Ethics document for discussion of this matter.
5. Since AI and expert systems are on the lips of many as the next direction for MT, a useful first step in this direction might be the creation of a simple expert system which prospective clients might use to determine if their translation needs are best met by MT, human translation, or some combination of both. I would be pleased to take part in the design of such a program.
DRAFT CODE OF ETHICS:
1. No claims about existing or pending MT products should be made which indicate that MT can reduce the number of human translators or the total cost of translation work unless all costs for the MT project have been scrupulously revealed, including the total price for the system, fees or salaries for those running it, training costs for such workers, training costs for additional pre-editors or post-editors including those who fail at this task, and total costs of amortization over the full period of introducing such a system.
2. No claims should be made for any MT system in terms of "percentage of accuracy," unless this figure is also spelled out in terms of number of errors per page. Any unwillingness to recognize errors as errors shall be considered a violation of this condition, except in those cases where totally error-free work is not required or requested.
3. No claim should be made that any MT system produces "better-quality output" than human translators unless such a claim has been thoroughly quantified to the satisfaction of all parties. Any such claim should be regarded as merely anecdotal until proved otherwise.
4. Researchers and developers should devote serious study to the issue of whether their products might generate less sales resistance, public confusion, and resentment from translators if the name of the entire field were to be changed from "machine translation" or "computer translation" to "computer assisted language conversion."
5. The computer translation industry should bear the cost of setting up an equitably balanced committee of MT workers and translators to oversee the functioning of this Code of Ethics.
6. Since translation is an intrinsically international industry, this Code of Ethics must also be international in its scope, and any company violating its tenets on the premise that they are not valid in its country shall be considered in violation of this Code. Measures shall be taken to expose and punish habitual offenders.
Respectfully Submitted by
Alex Gross, Co-Director
Cross-Cultural Research Projects
alexilen@sprynet.com
NOTES:
(1) Kimmo Kettunen, in a letter to Computational Linguistics, vol. 12, No. 1, January-March, 1986
(2) (2) Shoshana Zuboff: In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power, Basic Books, 1991.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
http://language.home.sprynet.com/
alexilen@sprynet.com
Original and Supplementary Questions
Submitted to the MT Summit III Conference,
Washington, 1991
Here are the original questions for this panel as submitted to the speakers:
1. At the last MT Summit, Martin Kay stated that there should be "greater attention to empirical studies of translation so that computational linguists will have a better idea of what really goes on in translation and develop tools that will be more useful for the end user." Does this mean that there has been insufficient input into MT processes by translators interested in MT? Does it mean that MT developers have failed to study what translating actually entails and how translators go about their task? If either of these is true, then to what extent and why? New answers and insights for the MT profession could arise from hearing what human translators with an interest in the development of MT have to say about these matters. It may well turn out that translators are the very people best qualified to determine what form their tools should take, since they are the end users.
2. Is there a specifically "human" component in the translation process which MT experts have overlooked? Is it reasonable for theoreticians to envision setting up predictable and generic vocabularies of clearly defined terms, or could they be overlooking a deep-seated human tendency towards some degree of ambiguity—indeed, in those many cases where not all the facts are known, an inescapably human reliance on it? Are there any viable MT approaches to duplicate what human translators can provide in such cases, namely the ability to bridge this ambiguity gap and improvise personalized, customized case-specific subtleties of vocabulary, depending on client or purpose? Could this in fact be a major element of the entire translation process? Alternately, are there some more boring "machine-like" aspects of translation where the computer can help the translator, such as style and consistency checking?
3. How can the knowledge of practicing translators best be integrated into current MT research and working systems? Is it to be assumed that they are best employed as prospective end-users working out the bugs in the system, or is there also a place for them during the initial planning phases of such systems? Can they perhaps as users be the primary developers of the system?
4. Many human translators, when told of the quest to have machines take over all aspects of translation, immediately reply that this is impossible and start providing specific instances which they claim a machine system could never handle. Are such reactions merely the final nerve spasms of a doomed class of technicians awaiting superannuation, or are these translators in fact enunciating specific instances of a general law as yet not fully articulated?
Since we now hear claims suggesting that FAHQT is creeping in again through the back door, it seems important to ask whether there has in fact ever been sufficient basic mathematical research, much less algorithmic underpinnings, by the MT Community to determine whether FAHQT, or anything close to it, can be achieved by any combination of electronic stratagems (transfer, AI, neural nets, Markov models, etc.).
Must translators forever stand exposed on the firing line and present their minds and bodies to a broadside of claims that the next round of computer advances will annihilate them as a profession? Is this problem truly solvable in logical terms, or is it in fact an intractable, undecidable, or provably unsolvable question in terms of "Computable Numbers" as set out by Turing, based on the work of Hilbert and Goedel? A reasonable answer to this question could save boards of directors and/or government agencies a great deal of time and money.
SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONS:
It was also envisioned that a list of Supplemental Questions would be prepared and distributed not only to the speakers but everyone attending our panel, even though not all of these questions could be raised during the session, so as to deepen our discussion and provide a lasting record of these issues.
FAHQT: Pro and Con
Consider the following observation on FAHQT: "The ideal notion of fully automatic high quality translation (FAHQT) is still lurking behind the machine translation paradigm: it is something that MT projects want to reach." (1) Is this a true or a false observation?
Is FAHQT merely a matter of time and continued research, a direct and inevitable result of a perfectly asymptotic process?
Will FAHQT ever be available on a held-held calculator-sized computer? If not, then why not?
To what extent is the belief in the feasibility of FAHQT a form of religion or perhaps akin to a belief that a perpetual motion device can be invented?
Technical Linguistic Questions
Let us suppose a writer has chosen to use Word C in a source text because s/he did not wish to use Word A or Word B, even though all three are shown as "synonyms." It turns out that all three of these words overlap and semantically interrelate quite differently in the target language. How can MT handle such an instance, fairly frequently found in legal and diplomatic usage?
Virtually all research in both conventional and computational linguistics has proceeded from the premise that language can be represented and mapped as a linear entity and is therefore eminently computable. What if it turns out that language in fact occupies a virtual space as a multi-dimensional construct, including several fractal dimensions, involving all manner of non-linear turbulence, chaos, and Butterfly Effects?
Post-Editors and Puppeteers
Let's assume you saw an ad for an Automatic Electronic Puppeteer that guaranteed to create and produce endless puppet plays in your own living room. There would be no need for a puppeteer to run the puppets and no need for you even to script the plays, though you would have the freedom to intervene in the action and change the plot as you wished. Since the price was acceptable, you ordered this system, but when it arrived, you found that it required endless installation work and calls to the manufacturers to get it working. But even then, you discovered that the number of plays provided was in fact quite limited, your plot change options even more so, and that the movements of the puppets were jerky and unnatural. When you complained, you were referred to fine print in the docs telling you that to make the program work better, you would have to do one of two things: 1) master an extremely complex programming language or 2) hire a specially trained puppeteer to help you out with your special needs and to be on hand during your productions to make the puppets move more naturally. Does this description bear any resemblance to the way MT has functioned and been promoted in recent years?
A Practical Example
Despite many presentations on linguistic, electronic and philosophical aspects of MT at this conference, one side of translation has nonetheless gone unexplored. It has to do with how larger translation projects actually arise and are handled by the profession. The following story shows the world of human translation at close to its worst, and it might be imagined at first glance that MT could easily do a much better job and simply take over in such situations, which are far from atypical in the world of translation. But, as we shall see, such appearances may be deceptive. To our story:
A French electrical firm was recently involved in a hostile take-over bid and law suit with its American counterpart. Large numbers of boxes and drawers full of documents all had to be translated into English by an almost impossible deadline. Supervision of this work was entrusted to a paralegal assistant in the French company's New York law firm. This person had no previous knowledge of translation. The documents ran the gamut from highly technical electrical texts and patents, records of previous law suits, company correspondence, advertisements, product documentation, speeches by the Company's directors, etc.
Almost every French-to-English translator in the NYC area was asked to take part. All translators were required to work at the law firm's offices so as to preserve confidentiality. Mere translation students worked side by side with newly accredited professionals and journeymen with long years of experience. The more able quickly became aware that much of the material was far too difficult for their less experienced colleagues. No consistent attempt was made to create or distribute glossaries. Wildly differing wages were paid to translators, with little connection to their ability. Several translation agencies were caught up in a feverish battle to handle most of the work and desperately competed to find translators.
No one knows the quality of the final product, but it cannot have been routinely high. Some translators and agencies have still not been fully paid. As the deadline drew closer, more and more boxes of documents appeared. And as the final blow, the opposing company's law firm also came onto the scene with boxes of its own documents that needed translation. But these newcomers imposed one nearly impossible condition, also for reasons of confidentiality: no one who had translated for the first law firm would be permitted to translate for them.
Now let us consider this true-life tale, which occurred just three months ago, and see how—or whether—MT could have handled things better, as is sometimes claimed. Let's be generous and remove one enormous obstacle at the start by assuming that all these cases of documents were in fact in machine-readable form (which, of course, they weren't). Even if we accord MT this ample handicap, there are still a number of problems it would have had trouble coping with:
1. How could a sufficient number of competent post-editors be found or trained before the deadline?
2. How could a sufficiently large and accurate MT dictionary be compiled before the deadline? Doesn't creating such a dictionary require finishing the job first and then saving it for the next job, in the hope that it will be similar ?
3. The simpler Mom & Pop store & smaller agency structure of the human translation world was nonetheless able to field at least some response to this challenge because of its large slack capacity. Would an enormously powerful and expensive mainframe computer have the same slack capacity, i.e., could it be kept inactive for long periods of time until such emergencies occurred? If so, how would this be reflected in the prices charged for its services?
4. How would MT companies have dealt with the secrecy requirement, that translation must be done in the law firm's office?
5. How would an MT Company comply with the demand of the second law firm, that the same post-editors not be used, and still land the job?
6. Supposing the job proved so enormous that two MT firms had to be hired—assuming they used different systems, different glossaries, different post-editors, how could they have collaborated without creating even more work and confusion?
Larger Philosophical Questions
Is it in any final sense a reasonable assumption, as many believe, that progress in MT can be gradual and cumulative in scope until it finally comes to a complete mastery of the problem? In other words, is there a numerical process by which one first masters 3% of all knowledge and vocabulary building processes with 85% accuracy, then 5% with 90% accuracy, and so on until one reaches 99% with 99% accuracy? Is this the whole story of the relationship between knowledge and language, or are there possibly other factors involved, making it possible for reality to manifest itself from several unexpected angles at once. In other words, are we dealing with language as a linear entity when it is in fact a multi-dimensional one?
Einstein maintained that he didn't believe God was playing dice with the universe. Is it possible that by using AI rule-firing techniques with their built-in certainty and confidence values, computational linguists are playing dice with the meaning of the that universe?
It would be possible to design a set of "Turing Tests" to gauge the performance of various MT systems as compared with human translation skills. The point of such a process, as with all Turing Tests, would be to determine if human referees could tell the difference between human and machine output. All necessary safeguards, handicaps, alternate referees, and double blind procedures could be devised, provided the will to take part in such tests actually existed. True definitions for cost, speed, accuracy, and post-editing needs might all have at least a chance of being estimated as a result of such tests. What are the chances of their taking place some time in the near future?
"Computerization is the first stage of the industrial revolution that hasn't made work simpler." Does this statement, paraphrased from a book by a Harvard Business School professor, (2) have any relevance for MT? Is it correct to state that several current MT systems actually add one or more levels of difficulty to the translation process before making it any easier?
While translators may not be able to articulate precisely what kind of interface for translation they most desire, they can certainly state with great certainty what they do NOT want. What they do not want is an interface that is any of the following:
harder to learn and use than conventional translation;
more likely to make mistakes than the above;
lending less prestige than the above;
less well paid than the above.
Are these also concerns for MT developers?
What real work has been done in the AI field in terms of treating translation as a Knowledge Domain and translators as Domain Experts and pairing them off with Knowledge Engineers? What qualifications were sought in either the DE's or the KE's?
Are MT developers using the words "asymptote" and "asymptotic" in their correct mathematical sense, or are they rather using them as buzzwords to impart a false air of mathematical precision to their work? Is the curve their would-be asymptote steadily approaching a representation of FAHQT or something reasonably similar, or could it just turn out to be the edge of a semanto-linguistic Butterfly Effect drawing them inexorably into what Shannon and Weaver recognized as entropy, perhaps even into true Chaos?
Must not all translation, including MT, be recognized as a subset of two far larger sets, namely writing and human mediation? In the first case, does it not therefore become pointless to maintain that there are no accepted standards for what constitutes a "good translation," when of course there are also no accepted standards for what constitutes "good writing?" Or for that matter, no accepted standards for what constitutes "correct writing practices," since all major publications and publishing houses have their own in-house style manuals, with no two in total agreement, either here or in England. And is not translation also a specialized subset of a more generalized form of "mediation," merely employing two natural languages instead of one? In which case, may it belong to the same superset which includes "explaining company rules to new employees," public relations and advertising, or choosing exactly the right time to tell Uncle Louis you're marrying someone he disapproves of?
Are not the only real differences between foreign language translation and such upscale mediation that two languages are involved and the context is usually more limited? In either case (or in both together), what happens if all the complexities that can arise from superset activities descend into the subset and also become "translation problems?" at any time? How does MT deal with either of these cases?
Does the following reflection by Wittgenstein apply to MT: "A sentence is given me in code together with the key. Then of course in one way everything required for understanding the sentence has been given me. And yet I should answer the question `Do you understand this sentence?': No, not yet; I must first decode it. And only when e.g. I had translated it into English would I say `Now I understand it.'
"If now we raise the question `At what moment of translating do I understand the sentence? we shall get a glimpse into the nature of what is called `understanding.'" To take Wittgenstein's example one step further, if MT is used, at what moment of translation does what person or entity understand the sentence? When does the system understand it? How about the hasty post-editor? And what about the translation's target audience, the client? Can we be sure that understanding has taken place at any of these moments? And if understanding has not taken place, has translation?
Practical Suggestions for the Future
1. The process of consultation and cooperation between working translators and MT specialists which has begun here today should be extended into the future through the appointment of Translators in Residence in university and corporate settings, continued lectures and workshops dealing with these themes on a national and international basis, and greater consultation between them in all matters of mutual concern.
2. In the past, many legislative titles for training and coordinating workers have gone unused during each Congressional session in the Department of Labor, HEW, and Commerce. If there truly is a need for retraining translators to use MT and CAT products, it behooves system developers—and might even benefit them financially—to find out if such funding titles can be used to help train translators in the use of truly viable MT systems.
3. It should be the role of an organization such as MT Summit III to launch a campaign aimed at helping people everywhere to understand what human translation and machine translation can and cannot do so as to counter a growing trend towards fast-word language consumption and use.
4. Concomitantly, those present at this Conference should make their will known on an international scale that there is no place in the MT Community for those who falsify the facts about the capabilities of either MT or human translators. The fact that foreign language courses, both live and recorded, have been deceitfully marketed for decades should not be used as an excuse to do the same with MT. I have appended a brief Code of Ethics document for discussion of this matter.
5. Since AI and expert systems are on the lips of many as the next direction for MT, a useful first step in this direction might be the creation of a simple expert system which prospective clients might use to determine if their translation needs are best met by MT, human translation, or some combination of both. I would be pleased to take part in the design of such a program.
DRAFT CODE OF ETHICS:
1. No claims about existing or pending MT products should be made which indicate that MT can reduce the number of human translators or the total cost of translation work unless all costs for the MT project have been scrupulously revealed, including the total price for the system, fees or salaries for those running it, training costs for such workers, training costs for additional pre-editors or post-editors including those who fail at this task, and total costs of amortization over the full period of introducing such a system.
2. No claims should be made for any MT system in terms of "percentage of accuracy," unless this figure is also spelled out in terms of number of errors per page. Any unwillingness to recognize errors as errors shall be considered a violation of this condition, except in those cases where totally error-free work is not required or requested.
3. No claim should be made that any MT system produces "better-quality output" than human translators unless such a claim has been thoroughly quantified to the satisfaction of all parties. Any such claim should be regarded as merely anecdotal until proved otherwise.
4. Researchers and developers should devote serious study to the issue of whether their products might generate less sales resistance, public confusion, and resentment from translators if the name of the entire field were to be changed from "machine translation" or "computer translation" to "computer assisted language conversion."
5. The computer translation industry should bear the cost of setting up an equitably balanced committee of MT workers and translators to oversee the functioning of this Code of Ethics.
6. Since translation is an intrinsically international industry, this Code of Ethics must also be international in its scope, and any company violating its tenets on the premise that they are not valid in its country shall be considered in violation of this Code. Measures shall be taken to expose and punish habitual offenders.
Respectfully Submitted by
Alex Gross, Co-Director
Cross-Cultural Research Projects
alexilen@sprynet.com
NOTES:
(1) Kimmo Kettunen, in a letter to Computational Linguistics, vol. 12, No. 1, January-March, 1986
(2) (2) Shoshana Zuboff: In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power, Basic Books, 1991.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Friday, May 22, 2009
Machine Translation: Ingredients for Productive and Stable MT deployments - Part 3
By Mike Dillinger,
PhD & Laurie Gerber,
Translation Optimization Partners
This is the final part of the first in a new series of articles on how to achieve successful deployments of machine translation in various use cases. Different types of source documents and different uses for the translations lead to varying approaches to automation. In the first part of this article, we talked about why it is so important to automate translation of knowledge bases.
Pioneering companies have shown that automating translation is the best way to make product knowledge bases available to global markets. Customers consistently rate machine translated and English technical information as equally useful. A typical installation for automatic translation weaves together stored human translations that you already paid for and machine-translated new sentences to get the best of both approaches.
Steps to Success
Set your expectations. The documents in knowledge bases have distinctive characteristics when compared to other product support documentation, starting with the fact that they are written by engineers. These engineers may be experts in a technical domain, but they haven’t ever been trained in technical writing and are often not native speakers of English.
High-speed, high-volume translation simply cannot be perfect, no matter what mix of humans and machines we use. This is why emphasis in evaluation has shifted to measuring translation "usefulness", rather than absolute linguistic quality. The effective benchmark is no longer whether expert linguists detect the presence or absence of errors. The new, more practical criterion is whether non-expert customers find a translation to be valuable, in spite of its linguistic imperfections. We see time and time again that they most certainly do. You’ll confirm this with your own customers when you do beta testing of your installation.
Set realistic expectations for automatic translation: there will be many errors, but customers will find the translations useful anyway.
Start small. Start with only one language and focus on a single part of your content. Success is easier to achieve when you start with a single "beachhead" language. Starting small has little to do with machine translation and much more to do with simplifying change management: work out the details on a small scale before approaching a bigger project.
In our consulting practice, we’ve seen two main ways of deciding where to start: focusing on customer needs or on internal processes. For the customer-needs approach, your decision is guided by questions like: Which community of customers suffers most from the lack of local- language materials? Which community costs you the most in support calls? In translation expenses? Which has the least web content already translated? The decision is guided by the most important customer support issues.
For the internal-process approach, your decision is guided by questions like: Which languages are we most familiar with? Which do we have most translations for?
What languages are our staff strongest in? Which in-country groups collaborate best? The decision in this case is to build on your strengths.
Start small to build a robust, Scalable process.
Choose an MT vendor. The International Association for Machine Translation sponsors a Compendium of Translation Software that is updated regularly. In it, you can find companies large and small that have developed a range of products for translating many languages. You will see companies such as Language Weaver, Systran, ProMT, AppTek, SDL, and many others. How can you choose between them?
Linguistic quality of the translations is the first thing that many clients want to look at. Remember that you won’t offer to your customers what you see during initial testing. And even a careful linguistic analysis of translation output quality may not tell you much about whether the system can help you achieve your business goals. Evaluation of translation automation options is much more complex than having a translator check some sentences. You may want to hire a consultant to help with evaluation, while bringing your staff up to speed on the complexities of multilingual content.
For knowledge-base translation, scalability and performance are important issues to discuss with each vendor. Most vendors can meet your criteria for response time or throughput, but they may need very different hardware to do so.
You can narrow down or prioritize the list of vendors by using other criteria:
* Choose vendors who can translate the specific languages that you are interested in. If you want to translate into Turkish or Indonesian, you won’t have as many options as into Spanish or Chinese.
* Check that you have what the vendor needs. Some MT systems (from Language Weaver, for example) need a large collection of documents together with their translations. If you aren’t translating your documents by hand already, then you may not have enough data for this kind of system. Other MT systems (from Systran or ProMT, for example) can use this kind of data, but don’t require you to have it.
* Check how many other clients have used the product for knowledge base translation – to judge how much experience the vendor has with your specific use case. The best-known vendors have experience with dozens of different installations, so try to get information about the installations that are most similar to yours. Ask, too, for referrals to existing customers who can share their stories and help prepare you better for the road ahead. MT is changing rapidly, so you shouldn’t reject a product only because it’s new. But the way that these questions are addressed or dismissed will give some insight into how the vendor will respond to your issues.
* Think through how you will approach on-going improvements after your MT system is installed. If you want to actively engage in monitoring and improving translation quality, some MT vendors (Systran of ProMT, for example) offer a range of tools to help. Other MT vendors (Language Weaver, for example) will periodically gather your new human translations and use them to update the MT system for you, with some ability to correct errors on your own.
Of course, price and licensing terms will be important considerations. Be aware that each vendor calculates prices differently: they may take into account how many servers you need, how many language pairs (ex: English>Spanish and Spanish>English is one language pair), how many language directions (ex: English>Spanish and Spanish>English are two language directions), how many people will use the system, how many different use cases, additional tools you may need, the response times or throughput that you need, etc. Experience shows that the best approach is to make a detailed description of what you want to do and then ask for quotes.
Adapt the MT system to your specific needs before you go live. Whatever MT system you choose, you or the vendor (or both) will have to adapt it to your specific vocabulary and writing style. Just as human translators need extra training for new topics and new technical vocabulary, MT systems need to have the vocabulary in your documents to translate them well. Some vendors call this process of adapting the MT system to your specific needs training, others call it customization.
An MT system starts with a generic knowledge of generic English. Your knowledge base, on the other hand, has thousands of special words for your unique products as well as the jargon that your engineers and sales people have developed over many years. The goal is to bridge this linguistic gap between your organization’s writing and generic English.
Different vendors take different approaches to bridging this gap. Some MT systems ("statistical MT" – from Language Weaver, for example) take large amounts of your translated documents and feed them into tools that quickly build statistical models of your words and how they’re usually translated. If you don’t have a sizeable collection of translated documents, though, it’s difficult to build a good statistical MT system. All MT systems can make use of your existing terminology lists and glossaries with your special words and jargon. And many MT systems, from Systran or ProMT, for example can use your translated documents to extract dictionaries directly from translated documents. Hybrid MT systems, which are just emerging in the market, also build statistical models, to combine the best of both techniques. Hybrid MT systems are more practical when you don’t have a sizeable collection of translated documents to start from.
Go live. Do this in stages, starting with an internal test by the main stakeholders. Then move into "beta" testing with a password-protected site for a handful of real product users. Be sure to have a disclaimer that openly announces that the document is an automated translation and may contain errors. (At the same time, you will want to promote the availability of the content in the user’s language as a new benefit.) Actively seek out their feedback to identify specific problems, and address the ones that they cite most frequently. At this stage, your users may mention that there are errors in the translation; try to get them to identify specific words and/or sentences.
In knowledge-base deployments, a small proportion of the content (<10%) is widely read and the vast majority of the content is rarely read. The current best practice is to establish a threshold of popularity or minimum hit rate that will trigger human translation of the few most-popular articles for a better overall customer experience.
This is the time to do a reality check: offer a feedback box on each translated page. It is most helpful if you ask for the same feedback on your source-language pages for comparison. If the translated page is rated much lower than the original page, then the difference may signal a problem in translation.
Keep improving quality. Inevitably, products and jargon will change and you will identify recurring errors. Translation quality management is an on-going activity with two main parts: managing quality of the original documents and managing the parts of the MT system.
We’ll leave discussion of document quality management for a future article. When engineers respond to emergent problems with knowledge-base articles, it is not practical to impose stringent authoring guidelines. But you can encourage them to work from a standard terminology list (terms that the customers know, which may be different from terms that the engineers use). This will make the source-language documents easier to understand, and will improve the translations, as well.
For rule-based or hybrid MT systems, you will want to manage (or outsource management of) key components like the dictionary. As errors or changes arise, updating the dictionary will improve translation quality. For statistical MT systems, you will want to manage carefully any human translated content and "feed" it into the system. The more data you use, the better these systems get.
Repeat for another language. With the first language, you will work out the kinks in your process. Once you see how very appreciative the customers are for content in their own language, you can get to work on the next language. Now you know the drill, you know the tools, and you know what to look for. The next language will take you only 25% of the effort you put into deploying the first one.
Links
Will Burgett & Julie Chang (Intel). AMTA Waikiki, 2008. The Triple-Advantage Factor of MT: Cost, Time-to-Market, and FAUT.
Priscilla Knoble & Francis Tsang (Adobe). Hitting the Ground Running in New Markets: Do Your Global Business Processes Measure Up? LISA San Francisco, 2008.
Chris Wendt (Microsoft). AMTA Waikiki, 2008. Large-scale deployment of statistical machine translation: Example Microsoft.
Authors:
Mike Dillinger, PhD and Laurie Gerber are Translation Optimization Partners We are an independent consultancy specialized in translation processes and technologies. Both Principals are leaders in translation automation and past Presidents of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas, with 40 years’ experience in creating and managing technical content, developing translation technologies, and deploying translation processes. We develop solutions in government and commercial environments to meet the needs of translation clients and content users. Our offices are in Silicon Valley and San Diego. Contact us for further information:
Mike Dillinger mike [at] mikedillinger . com
Laurie Gerber gerbl [at] pacbell . net
Mike needs more places to grind this axe: Authors and authoring are often treated as an unimportant afterthought, in spite of the central role of high-quality content in brand management, marketing, sales, training, customer satisfaction, customer support, operational communications, and everything else.
Published - April 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
PhD & Laurie Gerber,
Translation Optimization Partners
This is the final part of the first in a new series of articles on how to achieve successful deployments of machine translation in various use cases. Different types of source documents and different uses for the translations lead to varying approaches to automation. In the first part of this article, we talked about why it is so important to automate translation of knowledge bases.
Pioneering companies have shown that automating translation is the best way to make product knowledge bases available to global markets. Customers consistently rate machine translated and English technical information as equally useful. A typical installation for automatic translation weaves together stored human translations that you already paid for and machine-translated new sentences to get the best of both approaches.
Steps to Success
Set your expectations. The documents in knowledge bases have distinctive characteristics when compared to other product support documentation, starting with the fact that they are written by engineers. These engineers may be experts in a technical domain, but they haven’t ever been trained in technical writing and are often not native speakers of English.
High-speed, high-volume translation simply cannot be perfect, no matter what mix of humans and machines we use. This is why emphasis in evaluation has shifted to measuring translation "usefulness", rather than absolute linguistic quality. The effective benchmark is no longer whether expert linguists detect the presence or absence of errors. The new, more practical criterion is whether non-expert customers find a translation to be valuable, in spite of its linguistic imperfections. We see time and time again that they most certainly do. You’ll confirm this with your own customers when you do beta testing of your installation.
Set realistic expectations for automatic translation: there will be many errors, but customers will find the translations useful anyway.
Start small. Start with only one language and focus on a single part of your content. Success is easier to achieve when you start with a single "beachhead" language. Starting small has little to do with machine translation and much more to do with simplifying change management: work out the details on a small scale before approaching a bigger project.
In our consulting practice, we’ve seen two main ways of deciding where to start: focusing on customer needs or on internal processes. For the customer-needs approach, your decision is guided by questions like: Which community of customers suffers most from the lack of local- language materials? Which community costs you the most in support calls? In translation expenses? Which has the least web content already translated? The decision is guided by the most important customer support issues.
For the internal-process approach, your decision is guided by questions like: Which languages are we most familiar with? Which do we have most translations for?
What languages are our staff strongest in? Which in-country groups collaborate best? The decision in this case is to build on your strengths.
Start small to build a robust, Scalable process.
Choose an MT vendor. The International Association for Machine Translation sponsors a Compendium of Translation Software that is updated regularly. In it, you can find companies large and small that have developed a range of products for translating many languages. You will see companies such as Language Weaver, Systran, ProMT, AppTek, SDL, and many others. How can you choose between them?
Linguistic quality of the translations is the first thing that many clients want to look at. Remember that you won’t offer to your customers what you see during initial testing. And even a careful linguistic analysis of translation output quality may not tell you much about whether the system can help you achieve your business goals. Evaluation of translation automation options is much more complex than having a translator check some sentences. You may want to hire a consultant to help with evaluation, while bringing your staff up to speed on the complexities of multilingual content.
For knowledge-base translation, scalability and performance are important issues to discuss with each vendor. Most vendors can meet your criteria for response time or throughput, but they may need very different hardware to do so.
You can narrow down or prioritize the list of vendors by using other criteria:
* Choose vendors who can translate the specific languages that you are interested in. If you want to translate into Turkish or Indonesian, you won’t have as many options as into Spanish or Chinese.
* Check that you have what the vendor needs. Some MT systems (from Language Weaver, for example) need a large collection of documents together with their translations. If you aren’t translating your documents by hand already, then you may not have enough data for this kind of system. Other MT systems (from Systran or ProMT, for example) can use this kind of data, but don’t require you to have it.
* Check how many other clients have used the product for knowledge base translation – to judge how much experience the vendor has with your specific use case. The best-known vendors have experience with dozens of different installations, so try to get information about the installations that are most similar to yours. Ask, too, for referrals to existing customers who can share their stories and help prepare you better for the road ahead. MT is changing rapidly, so you shouldn’t reject a product only because it’s new. But the way that these questions are addressed or dismissed will give some insight into how the vendor will respond to your issues.
* Think through how you will approach on-going improvements after your MT system is installed. If you want to actively engage in monitoring and improving translation quality, some MT vendors (Systran of ProMT, for example) offer a range of tools to help. Other MT vendors (Language Weaver, for example) will periodically gather your new human translations and use them to update the MT system for you, with some ability to correct errors on your own.
Of course, price and licensing terms will be important considerations. Be aware that each vendor calculates prices differently: they may take into account how many servers you need, how many language pairs (ex: English>Spanish and Spanish>English is one language pair), how many language directions (ex: English>Spanish and Spanish>English are two language directions), how many people will use the system, how many different use cases, additional tools you may need, the response times or throughput that you need, etc. Experience shows that the best approach is to make a detailed description of what you want to do and then ask for quotes.
Adapt the MT system to your specific needs before you go live. Whatever MT system you choose, you or the vendor (or both) will have to adapt it to your specific vocabulary and writing style. Just as human translators need extra training for new topics and new technical vocabulary, MT systems need to have the vocabulary in your documents to translate them well. Some vendors call this process of adapting the MT system to your specific needs training, others call it customization.
An MT system starts with a generic knowledge of generic English. Your knowledge base, on the other hand, has thousands of special words for your unique products as well as the jargon that your engineers and sales people have developed over many years. The goal is to bridge this linguistic gap between your organization’s writing and generic English.
Different vendors take different approaches to bridging this gap. Some MT systems ("statistical MT" – from Language Weaver, for example) take large amounts of your translated documents and feed them into tools that quickly build statistical models of your words and how they’re usually translated. If you don’t have a sizeable collection of translated documents, though, it’s difficult to build a good statistical MT system. All MT systems can make use of your existing terminology lists and glossaries with your special words and jargon. And many MT systems, from Systran or ProMT, for example can use your translated documents to extract dictionaries directly from translated documents. Hybrid MT systems, which are just emerging in the market, also build statistical models, to combine the best of both techniques. Hybrid MT systems are more practical when you don’t have a sizeable collection of translated documents to start from.
Go live. Do this in stages, starting with an internal test by the main stakeholders. Then move into "beta" testing with a password-protected site for a handful of real product users. Be sure to have a disclaimer that openly announces that the document is an automated translation and may contain errors. (At the same time, you will want to promote the availability of the content in the user’s language as a new benefit.) Actively seek out their feedback to identify specific problems, and address the ones that they cite most frequently. At this stage, your users may mention that there are errors in the translation; try to get them to identify specific words and/or sentences.
In knowledge-base deployments, a small proportion of the content (<10%) is widely read and the vast majority of the content is rarely read. The current best practice is to establish a threshold of popularity or minimum hit rate that will trigger human translation of the few most-popular articles for a better overall customer experience.
This is the time to do a reality check: offer a feedback box on each translated page. It is most helpful if you ask for the same feedback on your source-language pages for comparison. If the translated page is rated much lower than the original page, then the difference may signal a problem in translation.
Keep improving quality. Inevitably, products and jargon will change and you will identify recurring errors. Translation quality management is an on-going activity with two main parts: managing quality of the original documents and managing the parts of the MT system.
We’ll leave discussion of document quality management for a future article. When engineers respond to emergent problems with knowledge-base articles, it is not practical to impose stringent authoring guidelines. But you can encourage them to work from a standard terminology list (terms that the customers know, which may be different from terms that the engineers use). This will make the source-language documents easier to understand, and will improve the translations, as well.
For rule-based or hybrid MT systems, you will want to manage (or outsource management of) key components like the dictionary. As errors or changes arise, updating the dictionary will improve translation quality. For statistical MT systems, you will want to manage carefully any human translated content and "feed" it into the system. The more data you use, the better these systems get.
Repeat for another language. With the first language, you will work out the kinks in your process. Once you see how very appreciative the customers are for content in their own language, you can get to work on the next language. Now you know the drill, you know the tools, and you know what to look for. The next language will take you only 25% of the effort you put into deploying the first one.
Links
Will Burgett & Julie Chang (Intel). AMTA Waikiki, 2008. The Triple-Advantage Factor of MT: Cost, Time-to-Market, and FAUT.
Priscilla Knoble & Francis Tsang (Adobe). Hitting the Ground Running in New Markets: Do Your Global Business Processes Measure Up? LISA San Francisco, 2008.
Chris Wendt (Microsoft). AMTA Waikiki, 2008. Large-scale deployment of statistical machine translation: Example Microsoft.
Authors:
Mike Dillinger, PhD and Laurie Gerber are Translation Optimization Partners We are an independent consultancy specialized in translation processes and technologies. Both Principals are leaders in translation automation and past Presidents of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas, with 40 years’ experience in creating and managing technical content, developing translation technologies, and deploying translation processes. We develop solutions in government and commercial environments to meet the needs of translation clients and content users. Our offices are in Silicon Valley and San Diego. Contact us for further information:
Mike Dillinger mike [at] mikedillinger . com
Laurie Gerber gerbl [at] pacbell . net
Mike needs more places to grind this axe: Authors and authoring are often treated as an unimportant afterthought, in spite of the central role of high-quality content in brand management, marketing, sales, training, customer satisfaction, customer support, operational communications, and everything else.
Published - April 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Machine Translation Vs Human Translation
By Abdelhak Jebbar,
Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University,
Faculty of Arts and Letters,
Sais-Fes
jebbarmaster[at]hotmail.com
Much have been said about translation as being one of the most effective, if not the only, means of communication especially among cultures of different languages. Translation as a concept has existed hundred years ago, but it is only during the second half of the twentieth century that it emerged as an independent academic discipline called Translation Studies and taught at universities. A dire need for translation, as an academic discipline, has prompted specialised and theorists in the field to seek for more sophisticated methods and techniques for quick, cheap and effective translation. Thus, a new type of translation has emerged to compete with Human Translation; it is called Machine translation or the automatic translation.
This paper, in its theoritical part, will try to shed ligth on the concept of translation and how translators have gained their importance through history. The focus is to be also on the emergence of Machine Translation and how it evolved. For the sake of distinguishing between Human Translation and Machine Translation, a comparison is drawn between the two concepts. The practical background of the paper will provide an example of a text translated by both Human Translation and Machine Translation, trying to pinpoint some of the major practical features determining the quality of the translation.
The Concept of Translation
Translation is usually defined as the act of transmitting the language of the source text (S.T) into the language of the target text (T.T) taking into consideration cultural and linguistic differences. Translation in the Arab world, for instance, is known as "an act of understanding before explaining"; " عملية فهم قبل الافهام الترجمة هي". In this regard, it is necessary that before starting the translation of any text, the translator should have a clear understanding, linguistically, semantically and culturally speaking, of that source text so that he or she would be able to convey the real intended meaning of the target language.
In his book Introducing Translation Theory: Theories and Applications[1], Jeremy Munday describes translation as a process saying that: "The process of translation between two different languages involves the translator changing an original written text ( the source text or ST) in the original verbal language ( the source language or SL) into a written text ( the target text or TT) in a different verbal language ( the target language or TL)"[2]. In fact, what Jeremy defines in this statement is the type of translation called "interlingual translation" as has been categorised by Jakobson[3] along with the two other types known as "Intralingual translation" and "intersemiotic translation". The type of translation defined by Jeremy is the most common one in that it is concerned with translation of written texts of different languages as opposed, for instance, to intralingual translation which is concerned with translating within the same language ( using, for example, paraphrasing), or as in the case of intersemiotic translation that has to do with translating written texts into non-written works such as: films, pictures or music.
Translators: from darkness to light
Mistakes, misconceptions, or even translating texts that have been already translated were usually some of the causes for punishing and torturing translators in history. A case in point, is one of the examples discussed in Alex Gross's article " Some Major Dates and Events in the History of Translation"[4]. The example is that of the English translator, "William Tyndale, who made the mistake of trying to translate the Bible when King Henry VIII of England had decided there could be only one correct translation"[5]. As a result, the translator was strangled and then burned. The choice behind providing such an example is only to depict the difference between the status of translators in ancient times and that of contemporary translators.
The importance of translation, nowadays, has been acknowledged more than any time in history, and it is not a surprise if one meets a translator who becomes a millionaire only from his job as a translator. However, after having a look at the dramatic history of translation, it becomes obvious that translators were not to reach such a paramount position unless some of them were executed, others were killed in public, and the most luckiest translators were imprisoned.
The good repute that translation, as an Academic discipline, and translators are gaining everyday is, first and foremost, due to the significant role they had led starting from the 1940's especially during the Second World War. At this particular era, translators were highly needed to translate spying documents mainly between the U.S.A. and its first enemy at that time the Soviet Union. Even after this era of conflict, the importance of translation was increasing in that it was needed in the field of Economy; incorporations all over the world made use of translation so that they could enlarge their business making it reach every continent.
The Emergence of Machine Translation and its evolution.
The competition towards establishing more business with different parts of the world incited advanced countries in technology to look for easy and quick ways for communication. Hence, there emerged a type of translation known as Machine Translation for the process of translation was carried out by machines. The specific date when this type of translation did emerge as stated in Olivia Craciunescu's article " Machine Transltion and Computer-Assisted Translation: a New Way of Translating"[6] is believed to be "the beginnings of the Cold War… in the 1950s competition between the United States and the Soviet Union"[7].
Machine Translation as a new emerging discipline in the field of translation studies has come to fill the void existing due to the small number of good and acknowledged translators. It was an advantageous way of translation in that it saves both time and money; a large quantity of articles and documents were easily translated in a short time with a low amount of money.
So far as the defining features of machine translation are concerned, in an article entitled "Computer Translation: the staus today"[8], it was stated that the main task assigned to machine translation is "to analyse the structure of each term or phrase within the text to be translated (source text). It then breaks this structure down into elements that can be easily translated, and recomposes a term of the same structure in the target language."[9]. The process done by machine translation, then, can be summarized in the act of breaking the structural components of the source text and then synthesizing the same components in the language target texts. The whole action of translation is done automatically.
In the same article, a clear distinction has been drawn between Machine Translation and an other type of translation called Cmputer-Assisted Transation. The latter one is, in fact, a new form of automatic translation that came to replace Machine Translation in that it provided more advantageous services. Since its first appearance, machine translation has known a sort of evulotion in terms of the emergence of a number of sophisticated programs established by companies competing in the field of information technology. Thus, Computer-Assisted Translation has witnessed its birth and it was of course on account of Machine Translation that lost much of its importance in favour of the more developed hard and soft materials the new emerging program has brought. Computer-Assited Translation, as the name may reveal, is an automatic translation where the human translator is aided by the machine and vice versa. This type of automatic translation differs from Machine Translation, and it was mainly favoured, for it first provides "a number of tools"[10] including "terminology databases and translation memories"[11], and second for it allows much space for the human translator to intervene in the process of translation "to make changes at any time while the work is in progress"[12].
Therefore, the fact that machine translation is carried out by machines does not mean that humans are totally abscent from the process of translation; nevertheless, there is human intervention, as in the case of Computer-Assisted Translation and in other cases of some translating machine programs that are limited in terms of the vocabulary provided by their programmed dictionaries. In this regard, the role of human translators is manifasted in what is known as the process of pre-editing of the intended source text to be translated, and post-editing of the translated version provided by the machine translation.
The importance of Human Translation
Any attempt to replace Human Translation totally by machine translation would certainly face failure for, due to a simple reason, there is no machine translation that is capable of interpretation. For instance, it is only the human translator who is able of interpreting certain cultural components that may exist in the source text and that can not be translated in terms of equivalent terms, just like what automatic translation does, into the language of the target text. In addition, it is widely agreed upon that one of the most difficult tasks in the act of translation is how to keep the same effect left by the source text in the target text. The automatic translation, in this regard, has proved its weakness, most of the time, when compared with a human translation. The human translator is the only subject in a position to understand the different cultural, linguistic and semantic factors contributing to leaving the same effect, that is left in the source text, in the target text.
It is an undeniable fact that automatic translation is regarded as a tool for producing quick and great number of translated texts; nevertheless, the quality of the translation is still much debatable. The automatic translation, for instance, can not usually provide a definite translation for words that bear different vowelized forms such as the Arabic term /kotob/ which means in English "books". The term in many translation programs, when translating from Arabic into English, is confused with the other Arabic term /kataba/ which means in English the verb "to write".
On the other hand, no human translator would make the same mistake for their ability to read words with different diacritic marks or vowels. In some cases, the automatic translation can not even provide equivalent terms in the target language leaving them as they are in the source text. Actually, this part in the paper has been dedicated mainly to demonstrate some of the general differences between automatic translation and human translation which make the latter much favourable than the former.
Comparing a machine and a human translated text
In an attempt to spot light on the major practical differences between machine translation and human translation, the paper provides the following text to be translated by the two types of translation. The text is an extract written in English, taken from Hanif Kureishi's short fiction "My Son The Fanatic"[13]. The focus is to be on depicting, semantic and pragmatic differences manifested in the translated version. The translation is to be from English into Arabic.
The source text
"Surreptitiously the father began going into his son's bedroom. He would sit there for hours, rousing himself only to seek clues. What bewildered him was that Ali was getting tidier. Instead of the usual tangle of clothes, books, cricket bats, video games, the room was becoming neat and ordered; spaces began appearing where before there had been only mess. Initially Parvez had been pleased: his son was outgrowing his teenage attitudes. But one day, beside the dustbin, Parvez found a torn bag which contained not only old toys, but computer discs, video tapes, new books and fashionable clothes the boy had bought just a few months before. Also without explanation, Ali had parted from the English girlfriend who used to come often to the house. His old friends had stopped ringing."
Human Translation
"بدأ الأب يدخل غرفة نوم ابنه خلسة، ويمضي فيها ساعات طويلة، محاولاً أن يعثر على دليل أو أثر ما. وما أثار حيرته أن غرفة علي أضحت نظيفة ومرتبة. فبدلاً من أكوام الثياب، وأكداس الكتب ومضارب الكريكت وألعاب الفيديو، بدأت الغرفة تبدو أكثر نظافة وتنظيماً؛ وبدأت تبرز الأماكن التي كانت عبارة عن فوضى مستحكمة.في البدء، انتاب بارفيز شعور بالسعادة: إذ بدأ ابنه يتجاوز سن المراهقة. إلا أنه وجد ذات يوم، بجانب سلة القمامة، حقيبة مهترئة لا تضم ألعابه القديمة فقط، بل كذلك أقراص الكمبيوتر، وأشرطة فيديو وكتباً جديدة وملابس عصرية لم يمض على شرائها سوى بضعة أشهر. وبدون تفسير أيضاً، هجر علي صديقته الإنكليزية التي كانت تزوره في معظم الأحيان في البيت. ولم يعد أصدقاؤه القدامى يتصلون به بالهاتف.[14]
Machine Translation
سرًّا الأب بدأ في الدّخول في غرفة نوم ابنه . سيجلس هناك لساعات، يوقظ نفسه فقط للبحث عن الأدلّة. ما حيّره كان أنّ علي كان يصبح منظّمًا. بدلاً من الكتلة المعتادة للملابس، الكتب، مضارب الكريكيت، لعب الفيديو، الحجرة كالكون منظّمًا و منظّم، أماكن بدأت في الظّهور أين قبل أن قد كان هناك فقط فوضى. في البداية بارفيز قد سُرَّ : كان ابنه يكبر على مواقفه المراهقة. لكنّ يوم واحد، بجانب صندوق القمامة، بارفيز وجد حقيبةً ممزّقة احتوت على ليس فقط اللّعب القديمة، لكنّ أقراص الكمبيوتر، شرائط الفيديو، الكتب الجديدة و الملابس الأنيقة الولد قد اشترى قبل أشهر قليلة مباشرة. أيضًا بدون التّفسير، قد تفرّق علي عن الصّديقة الإنجليزيّة الّتي اعتادت المجيء في كثير من الأحيان إلى البيت . قد توقّف أصدقاءه القدماء عن الرّنين.
It is quite obvious, from the first reading of each translation, that machine translation is not that perfect rendering of the source text into the target text. The point is that the translated text, still, bears much of the traits characterizing the language of the source text; therefore, much should be said about how the use of language is violated as well as the meaning. Simultaneously, some focus is to be on to what extent the human translation has succeeded in transforming the source text into the target text depicting whether the translated text has the same effect as the source text.
-1- The use of language
Violating the use of language is one of the main deficiencies that Machine Translation suffers from.
The source text: spaces began appearing where before there had been only mess
Human translation: وبدأت تبرز الأماكن التي كانت عبارة عن فوضى مستحكمة
Machine translation: أماكن بدأت في الظّهور أين قبل أن قد كان هناك فقط فوضى
The misuse of language, which is much manifested in machine translation, is mainly due to the literal nature of the translation. In the above example, the machine translation is a literal translation or instead a word-for-word translation; the reader can easily notice that there is no flexibility in the machine translation in that each word in the source text has been substituted orderly by an other in the machine translation (spaces / أماكن, where / أين, only / فقط, mess / فوضى). Thus, it becomes clear that machine translation, is a translation, the focus of which is the source text rather than the target text. The word order is respected only in the source text; however, as far as the target text is concerned, no importance is given to the word order and the way words are linked resembles the way how words are linked in the source text.
Although the meaning can be comprehensible; nevertheless, the structure of languages are different and, hence, they should be respected for the sake of producing a well-formed translation in the target language. The inability of the machine translation to produce a well-structured text is due to its focus, as stated by Olivia Craciunescu, on the "comprehension" and not "the production of a perfect target text".
So far as the human translation is concerned, the above example can reveal, clearly how the human translator is capable of avoiding what have been criticised in the machine translation. The human version is a structure respecting and its focus has been in both the source text, in an act of comprehension, and the target text, in an act of producing a perfect translation. The human translator's flexibility allows them to move from language into an other bearing in their minds the difference of structures between languages.
-2- Violation of meaning
No one can deny that the main rationale behind any translation is to transfer as much as possible the meaning intended by the source text's writer into the target text. Yet, in machine translation, this is not always the case in that sometimes the achieved meaning is ambiguous, distorted, and it becomes difficult to grasp it just like in the following example:
The source text: His old friends had stopped ringing
Machine translation: قد توقّف أصدقاءه القدماء عن الرّنين
ولم يعد أصدقاؤه القدامى يتصلون به بالهاتفHuman translation:
In this example, the machine translated sentence produces certain associations with no sense. The word "أصدقاؤه", meaning "his friends", is associated with the word "الرّنين", meaning "ringing"; this association is quite unfit for it is known that the act of ringing in Arabic language should be related to the phone and not to human being though it is done by human. This is mainly, as stated before, due to the fact that machine translation focuses on the source text's language which is in this case English, as being different from Arabic.
As for the human translation in the same example, the ability of the translator to substitute the word "ringing" for the phrase "يتصلون به بالهاتف" renders the translation easy to be understood. Because the word "phone" was not mentioned in the source text, the machine translation could not add it, it is only through human translation that the translator can add or delete certain words or even phrases, sometimes, for the sake of clarity.
-3- Human translation's effect
Actually, before any translation, there should be a full understanding of the source text from the part of the human translator. In the human translation of the text above, the translator seems to be familiar with the whole short story and the writer Hanif Kurieshi in that he is describing the father of Ali in the same way he was described by the writer himself. The translator is aware of the fact that the father is worried about the changes in his son's attitudes; therefore, readers who can have access to the short story will notice that the effect created in the two languages is almost the same.
The human translator, as in the translated example, makes use of different tools so as to create that same effect as in the source text. In the target text, for instance, the translator adds the word "طويلة " in order to demonstrate the long period the father sits in his son's room. The long period in the source text is described as "hours" and it is understood that it is long; however, it is only through the addition of the word "طويلة " that the meaning in the target text has been loaded with the same effect of the source text. The addition of such a word can, simultineously, be criticised in that it might be considered as an act of treason for the writer might not intend to mean long hours. When the father entered his son's room, in the abscent of the latter, he can not stay there for long hours for his son might come suddenly, and the word "Surreptitiously" is an evidence of the father's inability to enter the room when his son is there. Thus, the relevance of the adjective "long" is so debatable. From this last example, it becomes obvious that the act of leaving the same effect is not as easy as it can be thought of; the very act of adding or deleteing a word or phrase may affect the intensity of the effect that the source text has and which the target text can not.
Generally speaking, since it was first acknowledged as an academic discipline, translation studies have known the emergence of new methods of translation including the so-called Machine Translation. However, its emergence was not at the expense of Human Translation for the latter proved to be the only subject capable of translating not only by means of substituting words for words, like Machine Translation, but also in terms of respecting linguistic, semantic, and more importantly cultural differences between languages.
This paper has been an attempt to draw a distinction between Machine Translation and Human Translation shedding light on the different characteristics of each one. The focus has been on depicting some the factors that render Human Translation more effective and flexible in comparison with Machine Translation. Thus, for the sake of illustrating, a practical text has been provided and it was translated by both Machine Translation and Human Translation.
REFERENCE
Kureishi, Hanif (1997). Love in a Blue Time, London, Faber and Faber.
Munday, Jeremy (2001). "Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications", New York, Routledge.
http://accurapid.com/journal/31history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Jakobson
http://www.accurapid.com/journal/29computers.htm
http://www.fxm.ch/En/Langues-Traduction/TraductionOrdinateur.en.htm
http://www.jidar.net/jed/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=552
[1] The book was first published in 2001. It intruduces the phenomenon of translation as a new academic discipline called translation studies.
[2] Ibid.
[3] In The Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia Jakobson is defined as " Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art.
[4] http://accurapid.com/journal/31history.htm
[5] Ibid.
[6] http://www.accurapid.com/journal/29computers.htm
[7] Ibid.
[8] http://www.fxm.ch/En/Langues-Traduction/TraductionOrdinateur.en.htm
[9] Ibid.
[10] http://www.accurapid.com/journal/29computers.htm
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] "My Son The Fanatic" is a short story from Hanif Kurieshi's colletion Love In A Blue Time.
[14] http://www.jidar.net/jed/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=552
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University,
Faculty of Arts and Letters,
Sais-Fes
jebbarmaster[at]hotmail.com
Much have been said about translation as being one of the most effective, if not the only, means of communication especially among cultures of different languages. Translation as a concept has existed hundred years ago, but it is only during the second half of the twentieth century that it emerged as an independent academic discipline called Translation Studies and taught at universities. A dire need for translation, as an academic discipline, has prompted specialised and theorists in the field to seek for more sophisticated methods and techniques for quick, cheap and effective translation. Thus, a new type of translation has emerged to compete with Human Translation; it is called Machine translation or the automatic translation.
This paper, in its theoritical part, will try to shed ligth on the concept of translation and how translators have gained their importance through history. The focus is to be also on the emergence of Machine Translation and how it evolved. For the sake of distinguishing between Human Translation and Machine Translation, a comparison is drawn between the two concepts. The practical background of the paper will provide an example of a text translated by both Human Translation and Machine Translation, trying to pinpoint some of the major practical features determining the quality of the translation.
The Concept of Translation
Translation is usually defined as the act of transmitting the language of the source text (S.T) into the language of the target text (T.T) taking into consideration cultural and linguistic differences. Translation in the Arab world, for instance, is known as "an act of understanding before explaining"; " عملية فهم قبل الافهام الترجمة هي". In this regard, it is necessary that before starting the translation of any text, the translator should have a clear understanding, linguistically, semantically and culturally speaking, of that source text so that he or she would be able to convey the real intended meaning of the target language.
In his book Introducing Translation Theory: Theories and Applications[1], Jeremy Munday describes translation as a process saying that: "The process of translation between two different languages involves the translator changing an original written text ( the source text or ST) in the original verbal language ( the source language or SL) into a written text ( the target text or TT) in a different verbal language ( the target language or TL)"[2]. In fact, what Jeremy defines in this statement is the type of translation called "interlingual translation" as has been categorised by Jakobson[3] along with the two other types known as "Intralingual translation" and "intersemiotic translation". The type of translation defined by Jeremy is the most common one in that it is concerned with translation of written texts of different languages as opposed, for instance, to intralingual translation which is concerned with translating within the same language ( using, for example, paraphrasing), or as in the case of intersemiotic translation that has to do with translating written texts into non-written works such as: films, pictures or music.
Translators: from darkness to light
Mistakes, misconceptions, or even translating texts that have been already translated were usually some of the causes for punishing and torturing translators in history. A case in point, is one of the examples discussed in Alex Gross's article " Some Major Dates and Events in the History of Translation"[4]. The example is that of the English translator, "William Tyndale, who made the mistake of trying to translate the Bible when King Henry VIII of England had decided there could be only one correct translation"[5]. As a result, the translator was strangled and then burned. The choice behind providing such an example is only to depict the difference between the status of translators in ancient times and that of contemporary translators.
The importance of translation, nowadays, has been acknowledged more than any time in history, and it is not a surprise if one meets a translator who becomes a millionaire only from his job as a translator. However, after having a look at the dramatic history of translation, it becomes obvious that translators were not to reach such a paramount position unless some of them were executed, others were killed in public, and the most luckiest translators were imprisoned.
The good repute that translation, as an Academic discipline, and translators are gaining everyday is, first and foremost, due to the significant role they had led starting from the 1940's especially during the Second World War. At this particular era, translators were highly needed to translate spying documents mainly between the U.S.A. and its first enemy at that time the Soviet Union. Even after this era of conflict, the importance of translation was increasing in that it was needed in the field of Economy; incorporations all over the world made use of translation so that they could enlarge their business making it reach every continent.
The Emergence of Machine Translation and its evolution.
The competition towards establishing more business with different parts of the world incited advanced countries in technology to look for easy and quick ways for communication. Hence, there emerged a type of translation known as Machine Translation for the process of translation was carried out by machines. The specific date when this type of translation did emerge as stated in Olivia Craciunescu's article " Machine Transltion and Computer-Assisted Translation: a New Way of Translating"[6] is believed to be "the beginnings of the Cold War… in the 1950s competition between the United States and the Soviet Union"[7].
Machine Translation as a new emerging discipline in the field of translation studies has come to fill the void existing due to the small number of good and acknowledged translators. It was an advantageous way of translation in that it saves both time and money; a large quantity of articles and documents were easily translated in a short time with a low amount of money.
So far as the defining features of machine translation are concerned, in an article entitled "Computer Translation: the staus today"[8], it was stated that the main task assigned to machine translation is "to analyse the structure of each term or phrase within the text to be translated (source text). It then breaks this structure down into elements that can be easily translated, and recomposes a term of the same structure in the target language."[9]. The process done by machine translation, then, can be summarized in the act of breaking the structural components of the source text and then synthesizing the same components in the language target texts. The whole action of translation is done automatically.
In the same article, a clear distinction has been drawn between Machine Translation and an other type of translation called Cmputer-Assisted Transation. The latter one is, in fact, a new form of automatic translation that came to replace Machine Translation in that it provided more advantageous services. Since its first appearance, machine translation has known a sort of evulotion in terms of the emergence of a number of sophisticated programs established by companies competing in the field of information technology. Thus, Computer-Assisted Translation has witnessed its birth and it was of course on account of Machine Translation that lost much of its importance in favour of the more developed hard and soft materials the new emerging program has brought. Computer-Assited Translation, as the name may reveal, is an automatic translation where the human translator is aided by the machine and vice versa. This type of automatic translation differs from Machine Translation, and it was mainly favoured, for it first provides "a number of tools"[10] including "terminology databases and translation memories"[11], and second for it allows much space for the human translator to intervene in the process of translation "to make changes at any time while the work is in progress"[12].
Therefore, the fact that machine translation is carried out by machines does not mean that humans are totally abscent from the process of translation; nevertheless, there is human intervention, as in the case of Computer-Assisted Translation and in other cases of some translating machine programs that are limited in terms of the vocabulary provided by their programmed dictionaries. In this regard, the role of human translators is manifasted in what is known as the process of pre-editing of the intended source text to be translated, and post-editing of the translated version provided by the machine translation.
The importance of Human Translation
Any attempt to replace Human Translation totally by machine translation would certainly face failure for, due to a simple reason, there is no machine translation that is capable of interpretation. For instance, it is only the human translator who is able of interpreting certain cultural components that may exist in the source text and that can not be translated in terms of equivalent terms, just like what automatic translation does, into the language of the target text. In addition, it is widely agreed upon that one of the most difficult tasks in the act of translation is how to keep the same effect left by the source text in the target text. The automatic translation, in this regard, has proved its weakness, most of the time, when compared with a human translation. The human translator is the only subject in a position to understand the different cultural, linguistic and semantic factors contributing to leaving the same effect, that is left in the source text, in the target text.
It is an undeniable fact that automatic translation is regarded as a tool for producing quick and great number of translated texts; nevertheless, the quality of the translation is still much debatable. The automatic translation, for instance, can not usually provide a definite translation for words that bear different vowelized forms such as the Arabic term /kotob/ which means in English "books". The term in many translation programs, when translating from Arabic into English, is confused with the other Arabic term /kataba/ which means in English the verb "to write".
On the other hand, no human translator would make the same mistake for their ability to read words with different diacritic marks or vowels. In some cases, the automatic translation can not even provide equivalent terms in the target language leaving them as they are in the source text. Actually, this part in the paper has been dedicated mainly to demonstrate some of the general differences between automatic translation and human translation which make the latter much favourable than the former.
Comparing a machine and a human translated text
In an attempt to spot light on the major practical differences between machine translation and human translation, the paper provides the following text to be translated by the two types of translation. The text is an extract written in English, taken from Hanif Kureishi's short fiction "My Son The Fanatic"[13]. The focus is to be on depicting, semantic and pragmatic differences manifested in the translated version. The translation is to be from English into Arabic.
The source text
"Surreptitiously the father began going into his son's bedroom. He would sit there for hours, rousing himself only to seek clues. What bewildered him was that Ali was getting tidier. Instead of the usual tangle of clothes, books, cricket bats, video games, the room was becoming neat and ordered; spaces began appearing where before there had been only mess. Initially Parvez had been pleased: his son was outgrowing his teenage attitudes. But one day, beside the dustbin, Parvez found a torn bag which contained not only old toys, but computer discs, video tapes, new books and fashionable clothes the boy had bought just a few months before. Also without explanation, Ali had parted from the English girlfriend who used to come often to the house. His old friends had stopped ringing."
Human Translation
"بدأ الأب يدخل غرفة نوم ابنه خلسة، ويمضي فيها ساعات طويلة، محاولاً أن يعثر على دليل أو أثر ما. وما أثار حيرته أن غرفة علي أضحت نظيفة ومرتبة. فبدلاً من أكوام الثياب، وأكداس الكتب ومضارب الكريكت وألعاب الفيديو، بدأت الغرفة تبدو أكثر نظافة وتنظيماً؛ وبدأت تبرز الأماكن التي كانت عبارة عن فوضى مستحكمة.في البدء، انتاب بارفيز شعور بالسعادة: إذ بدأ ابنه يتجاوز سن المراهقة. إلا أنه وجد ذات يوم، بجانب سلة القمامة، حقيبة مهترئة لا تضم ألعابه القديمة فقط، بل كذلك أقراص الكمبيوتر، وأشرطة فيديو وكتباً جديدة وملابس عصرية لم يمض على شرائها سوى بضعة أشهر. وبدون تفسير أيضاً، هجر علي صديقته الإنكليزية التي كانت تزوره في معظم الأحيان في البيت. ولم يعد أصدقاؤه القدامى يتصلون به بالهاتف.[14]
Machine Translation
سرًّا الأب بدأ في الدّخول في غرفة نوم ابنه . سيجلس هناك لساعات، يوقظ نفسه فقط للبحث عن الأدلّة. ما حيّره كان أنّ علي كان يصبح منظّمًا. بدلاً من الكتلة المعتادة للملابس، الكتب، مضارب الكريكيت، لعب الفيديو، الحجرة كالكون منظّمًا و منظّم، أماكن بدأت في الظّهور أين قبل أن قد كان هناك فقط فوضى. في البداية بارفيز قد سُرَّ : كان ابنه يكبر على مواقفه المراهقة. لكنّ يوم واحد، بجانب صندوق القمامة، بارفيز وجد حقيبةً ممزّقة احتوت على ليس فقط اللّعب القديمة، لكنّ أقراص الكمبيوتر، شرائط الفيديو، الكتب الجديدة و الملابس الأنيقة الولد قد اشترى قبل أشهر قليلة مباشرة. أيضًا بدون التّفسير، قد تفرّق علي عن الصّديقة الإنجليزيّة الّتي اعتادت المجيء في كثير من الأحيان إلى البيت . قد توقّف أصدقاءه القدماء عن الرّنين.
It is quite obvious, from the first reading of each translation, that machine translation is not that perfect rendering of the source text into the target text. The point is that the translated text, still, bears much of the traits characterizing the language of the source text; therefore, much should be said about how the use of language is violated as well as the meaning. Simultaneously, some focus is to be on to what extent the human translation has succeeded in transforming the source text into the target text depicting whether the translated text has the same effect as the source text.
-1- The use of language
Violating the use of language is one of the main deficiencies that Machine Translation suffers from.
The source text: spaces began appearing where before there had been only mess
Human translation: وبدأت تبرز الأماكن التي كانت عبارة عن فوضى مستحكمة
Machine translation: أماكن بدأت في الظّهور أين قبل أن قد كان هناك فقط فوضى
The misuse of language, which is much manifested in machine translation, is mainly due to the literal nature of the translation. In the above example, the machine translation is a literal translation or instead a word-for-word translation; the reader can easily notice that there is no flexibility in the machine translation in that each word in the source text has been substituted orderly by an other in the machine translation (spaces / أماكن, where / أين, only / فقط, mess / فوضى). Thus, it becomes clear that machine translation, is a translation, the focus of which is the source text rather than the target text. The word order is respected only in the source text; however, as far as the target text is concerned, no importance is given to the word order and the way words are linked resembles the way how words are linked in the source text.
Although the meaning can be comprehensible; nevertheless, the structure of languages are different and, hence, they should be respected for the sake of producing a well-formed translation in the target language. The inability of the machine translation to produce a well-structured text is due to its focus, as stated by Olivia Craciunescu, on the "comprehension" and not "the production of a perfect target text".
So far as the human translation is concerned, the above example can reveal, clearly how the human translator is capable of avoiding what have been criticised in the machine translation. The human version is a structure respecting and its focus has been in both the source text, in an act of comprehension, and the target text, in an act of producing a perfect translation. The human translator's flexibility allows them to move from language into an other bearing in their minds the difference of structures between languages.
-2- Violation of meaning
No one can deny that the main rationale behind any translation is to transfer as much as possible the meaning intended by the source text's writer into the target text. Yet, in machine translation, this is not always the case in that sometimes the achieved meaning is ambiguous, distorted, and it becomes difficult to grasp it just like in the following example:
The source text: His old friends had stopped ringing
Machine translation: قد توقّف أصدقاءه القدماء عن الرّنين
ولم يعد أصدقاؤه القدامى يتصلون به بالهاتفHuman translation:
In this example, the machine translated sentence produces certain associations with no sense. The word "أصدقاؤه", meaning "his friends", is associated with the word "الرّنين", meaning "ringing"; this association is quite unfit for it is known that the act of ringing in Arabic language should be related to the phone and not to human being though it is done by human. This is mainly, as stated before, due to the fact that machine translation focuses on the source text's language which is in this case English, as being different from Arabic.
As for the human translation in the same example, the ability of the translator to substitute the word "ringing" for the phrase "يتصلون به بالهاتف" renders the translation easy to be understood. Because the word "phone" was not mentioned in the source text, the machine translation could not add it, it is only through human translation that the translator can add or delete certain words or even phrases, sometimes, for the sake of clarity.
-3- Human translation's effect
Actually, before any translation, there should be a full understanding of the source text from the part of the human translator. In the human translation of the text above, the translator seems to be familiar with the whole short story and the writer Hanif Kurieshi in that he is describing the father of Ali in the same way he was described by the writer himself. The translator is aware of the fact that the father is worried about the changes in his son's attitudes; therefore, readers who can have access to the short story will notice that the effect created in the two languages is almost the same.
The human translator, as in the translated example, makes use of different tools so as to create that same effect as in the source text. In the target text, for instance, the translator adds the word "طويلة " in order to demonstrate the long period the father sits in his son's room. The long period in the source text is described as "hours" and it is understood that it is long; however, it is only through the addition of the word "طويلة " that the meaning in the target text has been loaded with the same effect of the source text. The addition of such a word can, simultineously, be criticised in that it might be considered as an act of treason for the writer might not intend to mean long hours. When the father entered his son's room, in the abscent of the latter, he can not stay there for long hours for his son might come suddenly, and the word "Surreptitiously" is an evidence of the father's inability to enter the room when his son is there. Thus, the relevance of the adjective "long" is so debatable. From this last example, it becomes obvious that the act of leaving the same effect is not as easy as it can be thought of; the very act of adding or deleteing a word or phrase may affect the intensity of the effect that the source text has and which the target text can not.
Generally speaking, since it was first acknowledged as an academic discipline, translation studies have known the emergence of new methods of translation including the so-called Machine Translation. However, its emergence was not at the expense of Human Translation for the latter proved to be the only subject capable of translating not only by means of substituting words for words, like Machine Translation, but also in terms of respecting linguistic, semantic, and more importantly cultural differences between languages.
This paper has been an attempt to draw a distinction between Machine Translation and Human Translation shedding light on the different characteristics of each one. The focus has been on depicting some the factors that render Human Translation more effective and flexible in comparison with Machine Translation. Thus, for the sake of illustrating, a practical text has been provided and it was translated by both Machine Translation and Human Translation.
REFERENCE
Kureishi, Hanif (1997). Love in a Blue Time, London, Faber and Faber.
Munday, Jeremy (2001). "Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications", New York, Routledge.
http://accurapid.com/journal/31history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Jakobson
http://www.accurapid.com/journal/29computers.htm
http://www.fxm.ch/En/Langues-Traduction/TraductionOrdinateur.en.htm
http://www.jidar.net/jed/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=552
[1] The book was first published in 2001. It intruduces the phenomenon of translation as a new academic discipline called translation studies.
[2] Ibid.
[3] In The Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia Jakobson is defined as " Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art.
[4] http://accurapid.com/journal/31history.htm
[5] Ibid.
[6] http://www.accurapid.com/journal/29computers.htm
[7] Ibid.
[8] http://www.fxm.ch/En/Langues-Traduction/TraductionOrdinateur.en.htm
[9] Ibid.
[10] http://www.accurapid.com/journal/29computers.htm
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] "My Son The Fanatic" is a short story from Hanif Kurieshi's colletion Love In A Blue Time.
[14] http://www.jidar.net/jed/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=552
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Machine Translation: Ingredients for Productive and Stable MT deployments - Part 2
By Laurie Gerber,
treasurer, Association for Machine Translation in the Americas president,
International Association for Machine Translation
This is the second of three planned articles reporting on Machine Translation (MT) industry developments that emerged at the AMTA (Association for Machine Translation in the Americas) conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii, October 21-25, 2008. AMTA conferences are held in even-numbered years. In 2009, AMTA will also host the IAMT Summit conference summitxii.amtaweb.org. AMTA's founding goal is to bring together users, developers and researchers of MT. This format provides a unique opportunity for interaction between those communities, and to catch up on everything MT - from long term research developments to current deployments and products. This time, I draw on some additional sources as well as the conference to give some historical context, cover the current state of machine translation research, and see what researchers themselves are predicting for the next one to five years.
What is machine translation?
treasurer, Association for Machine Translation in the Americas president,
International Association for Machine Translation
This is the second of three planned articles reporting on Machine Translation (MT) industry developments that emerged at the AMTA (Association for Machine Translation in the Americas) conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii, October 21-25, 2008. AMTA conferences are held in even-numbered years. In 2009, AMTA will also host the IAMT Summit conference summitxii.amtaweb.org. AMTA's founding goal is to bring together users, developers and researchers of MT. This format provides a unique opportunity for interaction between those communities, and to catch up on everything MT - from long term research developments to current deployments and products. This time, I draw on some additional sources as well as the conference to give some historical context, cover the current state of machine translation research, and see what researchers themselves are predicting for the next one to five years.
What is machine translation?
Before we dive into current trends in Machine Translation research, I'd like to clarify the part of the translation problem that is usually addressed by MT research - the fully-automated translation of digitized text sentences from one language to another. Processes or "software solutions" that incorporate MT may involve other research-worthy steps just to get the input into digitized text form. For example speech translation systems entail speech recognition to get the audio signal into digitized text form, and possibly conversion of the translated text back into an audio signal via text to speech software. Similarly, translating printed or handwritten paper documents entails an OCR or handwriting recognition step. For the present, we will set those problems aside, to look at research progress, current and predicted, in machine translation proper: translation of electronic text from one language into another.
Model for MT progress in the rule-based era
The Vauquois[1] triangle was used in the linguistic rule-based era of machine translation to describe the complexity/ sophistication of approaches to machine translation, and also the evolution of those approaches. The first approach used was a direct lexical conversion between languages. Later efforts moved up the pyramid and introduced more complex processing, and also a modularization of the process into steps, beginning with analysis of the source language, transfer of information between the languages, and then generation of target language output. According to the model, each step up the triangle required greater effort in source language analysis and target language generation, but reduced the effort involved in conversion between languages. The pinnacle and ideal of the field (especially if you asked people in Artificial Intelligence) was a complete analysis of each sentence into an "interlingua" - a schema capable of representing all meaning expressable in any language in language-independent form.
When statistical MT emerged, the Vauquois triangle did not seem relevant, and became largely a museum piece. But with the recent growth of syntactic statistical methods, I had a sense of déjà vu, followed by the vision of a new model that resembles a series of staircases.
The differences between statistical and rule-based machine translation have been covered extensively elsewhere, so I will not describe them here. See, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_machine_translation or promotional whitepapers by statistical MT developers.
There are still many established groups internationally doing research on linguistic rule-based machine translation, in the frameworks (steps) that have white arrows. There are also other data driven approaches, such as example-based machine translation, that emerged around the time of statistical MT, which are not represented in this model. But the growth in the MT research community since 1999 is largely in statistical methods. And that growth has been so fast since the early 2000s, that it now represents the overwhelming majority of researchers of MT.
As in the rule-based era, the statistical paradigm got started with word-based translation. The statistical MT community actually had exhausted and moved on from word-based statistical models before any such systems were commercialized, though there are open-source toolkits for word-based statistical machine translation that are used in teaching. Current primary research activity is in phrase-based statistical MT and syntax-based statistical MT. Phrase-based models of translation produced better output with less bilingual training data than the word-based models. Phrase-based statistical MT is now the dominant approach in research, and is well supported with academic courses, open-source toolkits, and an online community with the website www.statmt.com. Syntax based statistical MT is the growth area right now, and seeks to address weaknesses of the phrase-based approach in handling complex grammatical structure, and translation between languages with very different basic word order.
The world of MT made some great strides forward in moving to statistical methods. The convenient availability of large quantities of data for the major languages, and the ability to train translation systems automatically has led to rapid system development, and cost effective vocabulary and style adaptation that were expensive and slow with rule-based MT. Statistical models further manage to produce output that is much more fluent sounding than rule-based MT. But don't sell your shares of Systran just yet - rule-based MT, especially as a commercial product, has some advantages that are not eclipsed by statistical MT, particularly for translating into morphologically complex languages, in providing extensive dictionary-based customization capabilities, and providing translation capability for language pairs or text types where no bilingual training data exists. And the rule-based MT developers are not sitting idle during the statistical revolution. Their efforts to hybridize are yielding very interesting results, and have ensured that the " horse race" between the generations of MT is not over yet.
The next paradigm shift
In a second marriage, the early years are spent in happy relief from the problems of the prior marriage. And this is where the research community is with statistical machine translation, happy to be free of the drudgery of manual rule development. And the community of users is also finding that the current advances bring machine translation closer to its potential as a mainstream business tool. But statistical approaches don't solve every problem from the rule-based era, and even introduce some new ones. The hypothesis of another paradigm shift, and new "era" of machine translation 5 or 15 years in the future is my speculation that eventually a researcher, perhaps from another field entirely, will have an "aha" moment that shows the way to the next era of machine translation. And that generation can tackle the problems that still remain on the prior generations' "someday/maybe" project list.
Current focus, next step
Researchers looking for the next increment of improvement in translation accuracy are currently exploring ways to incorporate syntactic information into translation models and language models. This exploration began in about 2003 with some unsuccessful efforts, gradually had some success and has now gained popularity as a research pursuit. In the research tracks at the AMTA and EMNLP (empirical methods in natural language processing) conferences in October 2008, there were 14 papers reporting advances in the phrase-based framework and 10 in various syntax-based frameworks. A recent survey by Dr. Daniel Marcu of USC/ISI and Language Weaver polled his colleagues in the research community about the best and worst ideas in the history of natural language processing[2]. The responses, which also include predictions on what will work well in the future, suggeste that syntax-based methods for statistical MT will continue to be an area of significant focus through about 2013. The same survey suggested that semantics, robust handling of different topics and topic shift, and handling of discourse structure, will begin to see results around 2018.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conducted a series of workshops in 2006 with the prominent researchers in machine translation and natural language processing. They were asked to identify the biggest challenges for the field, and the technological advances necessary to achieve the field's significant long term research goals[3]. One of the long term goals for machine translation was to be able to translate text with roughly the skill of a human. Some researchers believed that in order to do this, computers must be able to "understand" language. That group might put "interlingua", or something like it, again on the top stair step for the statistical era. But many researchers don't buy into the notion that successful translation has to resemble the human translation process, and are wary of a return to the old days of AI, in which pursuit of human-like function was pursued without attention to system performance or scaling up to real world problems.
In the opening paragraph of this article, I emphasized that machine translation translates sentences. A challenge identified by the NIST survey, which has sometimes been brought up by customers, is the inability of current MT systems to consider information from outside the sentence being translated. This emerged as a problem in the rule-based MT era, did not get much attention then, and has not been a topic of much research in the statistical era either. The need to draw on information from outside the sentence was identified in the NIST study as a key enabler for the long term goals of machine translation research. The ability to draw on a larger information resource, whether from the surrounding context, or perhaps world knowledge, could be the innovation that defines the next era of MT research.
When statistical machine translation emerged as an idea, it came from researchers working on speech recognition and signal processing. At the time, this seemed like an absurd leap to the linguistic rule-based MT community. It is conceivable that the next paradigm shift will similarly take the statistical MT research community by surprise.
Meanwhile back in the commercial world
Note that statistical machine translation has reached the deployable stage in two commercially licensable software products (Language Weaver and IBM), one free online service (Google), and one in-house system (Microsoft). A new company, Asia Online appears to be on the point of having statistical MT offerings, and there are probably others that haven't come to my attention yet. But the majority of commercially available MT software that is doing real work out in the world is still linguistic rule-based. Examples include Systran, SDL, LEC, ProMT, Linguatec, WordMagic, Apptek, Sakhr, and many Japanese, Chinese and Korean MT systems that are mostly available in those regions. As I hinted earlier, the rule-based MT developers are starting to get comfortable with statistical thinking, and are finding ways to combine the strengths of the new approaches with the systems and resources they have built up over many decades. And this work in industry is another component of the MT research landscape.
Hybridization
Many observers of the MT community believe that the best results will come from hybridization - the combination of resources and techniques from the rule-based and statistics-based approaches. At least two genuine hybrid approaches have emerged:
1. Sequential hybrid: Joint research between the Language Technologies Research Centre in Canada and Systran software used phrase-based statistical methods to create a statistical postediting module for rule-based MT. Working from French to English, the statistical posteditor was trained to "translate" between Systran's rule-based English output and a polished human English translation. The sequential hybrid outperformed a purely statistical translation system trained on the same data set going from the French source to English. This approach has the important impact of eliminating the "BLEU score gap" between rule-based and statistical machine translation systems, giving fluency to rule-based MT output. One paper reports that a postediting module can be trained with far less data than is required to build a full bilingual SMT system. One of the papers reporting on these results is available here: http://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/.../NRC-49352.pdf
2. All-Resources Hybrid: Apptek, pursuing the vision of CTO Hassan Sawaf, has embarked on a hybrid that is primarily a search process, as in statistical MT, but which makes many of the resources from Apptek's a rule-based systems also available in that search. This means that dictionaries and linguistic rules are available alongside translation model and language model parameters in the translation process. This approach has the handy feature of being able to draw on whatever resources are available - where no corpora are available, it can utilize just rules and dictionaries, and where no rules or dictionaries are available, it can utilize just corpora[4].
Both of these approaches appear to be poised for commercial release.
Who's winning?
The adoption of the BLEU metric by researchers and their funders, together the regular public MT evaluations conducted by NIST[5] (the U.S. National Institute of Technology and Standards) have given MT evaluations the flavor of a horserace. Prospective customers of MT may feel they are best served by reviewing these evaluations and see "who won". But the real story is not that simple. The NIST evaluations, and the BLEU-score metric, have been very powerful drivers of progress in the research community, and perhaps even explain some of the growth of the cohort of researchers in this area. But BLEU scores and NIST evaluation results are not necessarily helpful in selecting an MT system. There are several reasons for this.
DARPA's Agenda
First, the vast majority of the evaluations conducted by NIST and DARPA over the past 8 years have been on translation of Arabic and Chinese newswire texts into English. This choice mirrors the military/intelligence challenge that is being targeted with research dollars - the overwhelming volume of foreign language materials that must be scanned - but more on that next month when I talk about U.S. Government use of MT!
Research vs. commercial systems
The MT systems used in the NIST evaluations are not commercially available for sale or for use online. The goal in the competitive evaluations is to achieve the highest evaluation score, and for this, many research groups take rather extreme measures. The test involves translating 1,000 sentences which are issued to the participants and must be returned translated. In 2005, Google's Franz Och reported that for the unrestricted data track, they dedicated one computer to each sentence, and allowed the translation search process to run for a week on each one.
Translation systems that are available commercially or free online, have been heavily optimized for speed and efficiency to produce translations in real time. The path from research advances made in an environment of unrestricted resources, to deployable software, can be as little as 6 months or a year.
BLEU favors phrase-based SMT systems
The BLEU metric, first proposed in 2001 by the IBM statistical MT research group, is an automated measure of similarity between two texts. In this case, it measures the similarity between a machine translated text and a human translated "reference". The similarities it captures are words and word-sequences that appear in both texts. Because human translations often differ from each other in word choice, it is common to use the BLEU score to compare an MT output to 4 reference translations from different human translators. In the early 2000s, BLEU was a blessing. It enabled researchers and their funders to instantly evaluate system performance and progress. And in that early phase of statistical MT research, BLEU scores appeared to correlate strongly with human judgments on translation accuracy.
But as statistical machine translation systems got better, and as BLEU was applied to rule-based systems for comparison, some limitations appeared. As Joe Olive, Program Manager of the DARPA GALE program acknowledged at the AMTA conference in 2006[6], the BLEU score is "not sensitive to comprehensibility or accuracy" and "favors SMT". This growing awareness motivated the DARPA program to move to a different evaluation metric using human editors. The new metric, called HTER (Human Translation Error Rate) has monolingual editors compare a human reference translation with a machine translated sentence. The editor then makes the smallest number of modifications to get the machine translated sentence to mean the same thing as the human translated sentence without attention to style. Those modifications are counted, and the error rate is the average number of words per hundred that were corrected.
Other vagaries of BLEU
A BLEU score is not a generalized measure of system goodness, but a measure of how well a translation system translated a particular text. This is useful in comparing different MT systems only if, as in the case of NIST, all the translation systems have translated exactly the same text. Performance on other texts may vary significantly.
One to five year outlook
Are we there yet?
This is a very exciting time in machine translation. There is an unprecedented number of energetic, highly qualified and competitive research groups who are also producing deployable machine translation software. Developments in the research arena move pretty quickly into real usable translation systems. And the fact that there are several comparably talented groups means that the competition is intense. This is very good for users and prospective users of machine translation, but it will be worth your while to help the research community to focus on your problems.
Earlier I mentioned some abstract programmatic goals of machine translation research, such as adding semantic processing, and raising BLEU scores on Arabic news translations. But real world applications often require effort on problems that are not salient to the research community. Commercial translation services companies and translation clients might be happy if machine translation could deliver 10% productivity increases every 2-5 years in their operations. The U.S. Marine Corps wants the "Star Trek Universal Translator" for every soldier in the field. It's not clear that semantics or BLEU scores are the pptlimiting factors for either of those applications. User goal needs to be explored with developers and researchers, to make sure that R&D efforts will yield progress in practice. The research world needs input, and funding, to energize them, and attract talent and resources to those areas.
In the U.S., the majority of research funding over the last 8 years has come from DARPA in two 5-year research programs, first TIDES (2000-2005), and then GALE (2006-2010), which is now in its third year. These programs have funded a number of research groups to pursue the intelligence agenda for MT: bring machine translation for key languages - Arabic and Chinese into English - to the level where English speaking analysts can scan and gather information from foreign language news (this is a gross oversimplification of the goals, but it is a reasonable summary of what has been achieved). For Arabic-to-English they have certainly succeeded, and the performance of research MT systems lags only slightly behind human first-draft translations. Chinese has proven much more difficult, and the fact that the research campaigns on Arabic and Chinese have been waged with the same algorithms and the comparable amounts of training data, has demonstrated more powerfully that some language pair directions are much harder than others.
Efforts to deploy machine translation often expose areas where companion technologies or combinations need some research effort. But there is not much funding for technology transition or solutions involving MT, and these areas are weak links in putting machine translation to work.
What can you do affect the process?
Show up
Participate in the conference events of the IAMT (International Association for Machine Translation) regional associations: AMTA (www.amtaweb.org), AAMT (www.aamt.info) and EAMT (www.eamt.org). The associations' founding goal was to bring together users, developers and researchers. This provides a forum where you really can get the attention of researchers and developers to hear about their plans and tell them your needs (without just inviting a barrage of sales information.)
Think through and articulate requirements
The research community can pursue general theoretical goals and advancements, or they can pursue real performance targets and capabilities. Some people (including me) complain that research is overly concerned with abstract performance targets given by DARPA, which may not move the technology toward solving real-world translation problems. But DARPA is one of the few places that have articulated clear goals and problems that the research community can tackle. Prospective users of machine translation often aren't clear about the problem they are trying to solve with automation. And so the market has never sent very clear signals to the research community (or to developers).
Be an objective shopper
If you are intrigued by the details of technology, you may find that some approaches more intellectually appealing. But long term happiness with MT will depend on the technology's ability to perform, and the vendor's commitment to support you. Do a thorough evaluation asking questions like, "How does this system perform on my text now?" and "Can it be brought to the level that I need it?", and "How happy are other customers?"
Put MT to work and give feedback
Become a demanding customer. Machine Translation needs real work in order to continue its progress toward becoming a valuable, trusted, mainstream business tool. When software users get frustrated, they most often complain to colleagues. It is so important to tell software developers what you like and don't like. But be persistent, they may not get it the first time. Your comments to MT developers, research funders, and the groups who do evaluation really can impact the priorities and direction of research.
Closing Thought
This article ended up being difficult to write because there is so much activity, and so many intertwining forces at work on MT research today. I have probably failed to mention your biggest concern, favorite research topic or group, or address the question you consider most obvious and pressing. Please email me gerbl@pacbell.net.
Errata
The URL was omitted from last month's article linking to presentations from the Recipes for Success workshop: http://www.amtaweb.org/AMTA2008.html Scroll down just below the sponsor logos.
Author Bio
Laurie Gerber has worked in the field of machine translation for over 20 years, including system development, research, and business development. Throughout this time, users and usability have been a defining interest. Laurie became an independent consultant in April 2008 in order to help user organizations create successes with machine translation and other language technology.
Laurie has been active in the machine translation professional community since 1992 and is currently treasurer of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas, and President of the International Association for Machine Translation. http://www.amtaweb.org
Notes
1. ^Bernard Vauquois was an influential leader in MT research in the 1970s at Grenoble University, one of the most important research centers in the rule-based MT era.
2. ^The summary of findings is accessible in a 1 hour presentation with MS Internet Explorer (not Firefox) at: http://webcasterms2.isi.edu/mediasite/...29c
3. ^This report is available online at http://www-nlipr.nist.gov/.../MT.web.pdf
4. ^See Hybrid Machine Translation Applied to Media Monitoring at: http://www.amtaweb.org/papers/4.29_Sawafetal2008.pdf
5. ^ http://www.nist.gov/.../mt08_official_results_v0.html
6. ^ http://www.amtaweb.org/AMTA2006/MT06.ppt
Published - January 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Show up
Participate in the conference events of the IAMT (International Association for Machine Translation) regional associations: AMTA (www.amtaweb.org), AAMT (www.aamt.info) and EAMT (www.eamt.org). The associations' founding goal was to bring together users, developers and researchers. This provides a forum where you really can get the attention of researchers and developers to hear about their plans and tell them your needs (without just inviting a barrage of sales information.)
Think through and articulate requirements
The research community can pursue general theoretical goals and advancements, or they can pursue real performance targets and capabilities. Some people (including me) complain that research is overly concerned with abstract performance targets given by DARPA, which may not move the technology toward solving real-world translation problems. But DARPA is one of the few places that have articulated clear goals and problems that the research community can tackle. Prospective users of machine translation often aren't clear about the problem they are trying to solve with automation. And so the market has never sent very clear signals to the research community (or to developers).
Be an objective shopper
If you are intrigued by the details of technology, you may find that some approaches more intellectually appealing. But long term happiness with MT will depend on the technology's ability to perform, and the vendor's commitment to support you. Do a thorough evaluation asking questions like, "How does this system perform on my text now?" and "Can it be brought to the level that I need it?", and "How happy are other customers?"
Put MT to work and give feedback
Become a demanding customer. Machine Translation needs real work in order to continue its progress toward becoming a valuable, trusted, mainstream business tool. When software users get frustrated, they most often complain to colleagues. It is so important to tell software developers what you like and don't like. But be persistent, they may not get it the first time. Your comments to MT developers, research funders, and the groups who do evaluation really can impact the priorities and direction of research.
Closing Thought
This article ended up being difficult to write because there is so much activity, and so many intertwining forces at work on MT research today. I have probably failed to mention your biggest concern, favorite research topic or group, or address the question you consider most obvious and pressing. Please email me gerbl@pacbell.net.
Errata
The URL was omitted from last month's article linking to presentations from the Recipes for Success workshop: http://www.amtaweb.org/AMTA2008.html Scroll down just below the sponsor logos.
Author Bio
Laurie Gerber has worked in the field of machine translation for over 20 years, including system development, research, and business development. Throughout this time, users and usability have been a defining interest. Laurie became an independent consultant in April 2008 in order to help user organizations create successes with machine translation and other language technology.
Laurie has been active in the machine translation professional community since 1992 and is currently treasurer of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas, and President of the International Association for Machine Translation. http://www.amtaweb.org
Notes
1. ^Bernard Vauquois was an influential leader in MT research in the 1970s at Grenoble University, one of the most important research centers in the rule-based MT era.
2. ^The summary of findings is accessible in a 1 hour presentation with MS Internet Explorer (not Firefox) at: http://webcasterms2.isi.edu/mediasite/...29c
3. ^This report is available online at http://www-nlipr.nist.gov/.../MT.web.pdf
4. ^See Hybrid Machine Translation Applied to Media Monitoring at: http://www.amtaweb.org/papers/4.29_Sawafetal2008.pdf
5. ^ http://www.nist.gov/.../mt08_official_results_v0.html
6. ^ http://www.amtaweb.org/AMTA2006/MT06.ppt
Published - January 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Machine Translation: Ingredients for Productive and Stable MT deployments - Part 1
By Laurie Gerber,
treasurer, Association for Machine Translation in the Americas president,
International Association for Machine Translation
This is the first of three planned articles reporting on Machine Translation industry developments that emerged at the AMTA (Association for Machine Translation in the Americas) conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii, October 21-25, 2008. AMTA conferences are held every other year, and have the goal of bringing together users, developers and researchers on MT. This format provides a unique opportunity to catch up on everything MT - from long term research developments to current deployments and products.
This first article reports on a workshop in which current users of MT shared and discussed the components of successful MT deployments. Future articles will address what is happening in MT research, and applications of machine translation in the US Government which may be less familiar to readers of Client Side News.
Before I dive in, I want to introduce a couple of terms I'll use in all three articles to summarize the two main types of MT use and their common characteristics. Translation for information assimilation and translation for dissemination.
Translation for dissemination will be the most familiar type to this audience: Organizations that use MT to disseminate information typically value translation quality over speed. They usually control the source text and may have authored it with a view to eventual translation. The text they need to translate will focus on a single topic, or perhaps on the general product lines and operations of a single company or organization (as narrow as HP all-in-one printers, or as broad as European parliamentary proceedings.) Information is being disseminated from one language into the many languages of the clients for that information. Dissemination users often have the resources (both financial and legacy of text and dictionaries) for customizing MT. The most typical example is product documentation.
Organizations that use MT for assimilation typically value speed and volume over polished quality. They are also typically translating many foreign languages into their own language, and they do not have any control over the source text. Operations trying to assimilate information may use MT together with other analytic tools to identify proper names, or other important nuggets of information. They may use translation as a way to identify whole texts, or just passages, for an authoritative human translation. The automatically translated text may or may not be used as the basis for such human translations. Users of translation for assimilation may specialize in particular topic areas, but often they need general purpose translation capability that can handle any topic. Such users rarely have the resources to do extensive subject area customization of MT engines.
Recipes for success: Ingredients of stable and productive MT deployments
A group of 35 current and prospective users of machine translation gathered for a full-day workshop on October 21, the day before the main AMTA conference. 12 presenters shared accounts of their work with machine translation in applications that included information assimilation operations for U.S. military intelligence and health incident detection, to information dissemination operations on health and agriculture at the Pan American Health Organization, and self-serve technical support information at Intel Corporation. In addition to the 12 presenters, many of the audience members also had relevant experience that they shared during discussion periods. I will mention a few of the insights. But a more complete report on all of the presentations and workshop outcomes will appear early in 2009 on the AMTA website (www.amtaweb.org). The presentations were divided into several topic areas. I will touch on two: Project Justification and Evaluation.
Project justification
Four presenters explicitly addressed this topic - two from the U.S. Government, one from an NGO (non-governmental organization), and one from industry. These focused presentations emphasized project justification for new projects. But many of the presentations touched on how their organization views the ongoing ROI (return on investment) for their project.
Careful planning versus crisis response: When launching technology projects, two of the presenters (one in the U.S. Government and one in industry - Intel Corporation) described project justification and startup processes that involve systematically building a case for introducing the new technology, demonstrating likely benefit, conducting research into technology options, and gathering requirements and support within the organization. A recent project at Intel has yielded a stable, well-supported, small-scale deployment that is demonstrating its usefulness on a well-focused problem, and is in a good position to be extended in a transparent way to additional languages and text types. The commercial project at Intel Corporation involves fully automated translation of technical knowledgebase articles into Spanish to provide self-serve support. The technical articles now being automatically translated were historically available only in English. The Intel team had to demonstrate strong ROI for a 2-5 year time horizon in both cost savings and reduction in the number of support calls. The actual results are quite impressive - adoption of English->Spanish MT for certain technical support articles has succeeded in deflecting support calls, and the quality is high enough that some human translation efforts have discontinued. The group that conducted this pilot project is now preparing to expand the project to additional languages and text types.
The other two presenters on this topic (one in the US Government and the other in an NGO) described highly innovative projects where the project definition emerged from visionary thinking, rather than from requirements gathering. In each case, the proposed system had a modest but promising prototype when a crisis occurred for which the system offered a unique and powerful solution, and support flowed from resources allocated to address the crisis. The NGO project (the GHPHIN system at Public Health Canada) sought to identify early indicators of public health problems in online news sources in 7 languages. The crisis that accelerated the project was the outbreak of SARS in late 2002, which the system correctly detected months before the World Health Organization identified it by conventional methods. The U.S. Government project provided intelligence analysts a system for transcribing and translating foreign news broadcasts. The system helps intelligence analysts locate valuable information in foreign language news broadcasts without having to watch every minute. The system offers the further value of supplying pictures and video clips that add value to analysts' reports. The crisis that speeded the way for deployment of the video monitoring system was the post 9/11 need to monitor Arabic language television broadcasts. In both cases, the usual justification process was cut short when the prototype was able to solve the emergent problem.
Other presenters touched on their ongoing justification to management. PAHO (the Pan American Health Organization) which translates health and agricultural documents between English, Spanish and Portuguese utilizes cost savings and productivity justification which they monitor with an automated workflow and project management system that tracks translator productivity and costs. PAHO's story was unique among the presenters because the MT systems they use were all developed in-house beginning in the 1970s. A small development and maintenance team has been continually active since its inception. ROI at PAHO demonstrates the value of the system costs which include that development and maintenance effort.
Evaluation
A participant working on another part of the Intel project reported on the pre-deployment evaluation of translation quality. Typically, organizations bring in their translators to evaluate MT quality - who else understands translation as well? But translators also tend to judge MT very harshly. This is often seen as self-preservation, and there is certainly an element of that. But professional translators are trained to adhere to a very high standard of accuracy. And professional ethics prevent them from accepting any translation job that they cannot deliver at the highest levels of quality. Is it any wonder that they find MT offensive?
At the same time, sometimes the end user's standard isn't "the highest level of quality". In the case in point, Intel's standard was the ability to deflect support calls for a language that had very little technical support content before the project began. When the company was evaluating machine translation output to assess feasibility of an MT solution, human linguists rated the MT generally inadequate. But the company's representatives in central and south America evaluated the MT output as quite adequate for the purpose at hand - to provide better support to a Spanish-speaking audience, and reduce the number of support calls that resulted from the lack of Spanish language self-help content.
When the system was deployed, user responses to the question, "did this information help answer your question" actually exceeded the satisfaction levels projected even by the regional representatives. English->Spanish automatically translated content was somewhat behind the satisfaction rates for English speaking users working with the English authored content (about 43% satisfaction for the Spanish machine-translated articles vs 53% satisfaction for English originals) But user satisfaction on the Spanish machine-translated articles was well ahead of the human translated content for French, German, Italian and Turkish, with user satisfaction rates between 34%-40%.
Next Time
The group that gathered for the first Recipes for Success workshop expressed their interest in future workshops, to continue to explore the ingredients of productive MT use. If you would like to receive updates on future workshops, please send an email to: gerbl@pacbell.net
Author Bio
Laurie Gerber has worked in the field of machine translation for over 20 years, including system development, research, and business development. Throughout this time, users and usability have been a defining interest. Laurie became an independent consultant in April 2008 in order to help user organizations create successes with machine translation and other language technology.
Laurie has been active in the machine translation professional community since 1992 and is currently treasurer of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas, and President of the International Association for Machine Translation. http://www.amtaweb.org
Published - January 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
treasurer, Association for Machine Translation in the Americas president,
International Association for Machine Translation
This is the first of three planned articles reporting on Machine Translation industry developments that emerged at the AMTA (Association for Machine Translation in the Americas) conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii, October 21-25, 2008. AMTA conferences are held every other year, and have the goal of bringing together users, developers and researchers on MT. This format provides a unique opportunity to catch up on everything MT - from long term research developments to current deployments and products.
This first article reports on a workshop in which current users of MT shared and discussed the components of successful MT deployments. Future articles will address what is happening in MT research, and applications of machine translation in the US Government which may be less familiar to readers of Client Side News.
Before I dive in, I want to introduce a couple of terms I'll use in all three articles to summarize the two main types of MT use and their common characteristics. Translation for information assimilation and translation for dissemination.
Translation for dissemination will be the most familiar type to this audience: Organizations that use MT to disseminate information typically value translation quality over speed. They usually control the source text and may have authored it with a view to eventual translation. The text they need to translate will focus on a single topic, or perhaps on the general product lines and operations of a single company or organization (as narrow as HP all-in-one printers, or as broad as European parliamentary proceedings.) Information is being disseminated from one language into the many languages of the clients for that information. Dissemination users often have the resources (both financial and legacy of text and dictionaries) for customizing MT. The most typical example is product documentation.
Organizations that use MT for assimilation typically value speed and volume over polished quality. They are also typically translating many foreign languages into their own language, and they do not have any control over the source text. Operations trying to assimilate information may use MT together with other analytic tools to identify proper names, or other important nuggets of information. They may use translation as a way to identify whole texts, or just passages, for an authoritative human translation. The automatically translated text may or may not be used as the basis for such human translations. Users of translation for assimilation may specialize in particular topic areas, but often they need general purpose translation capability that can handle any topic. Such users rarely have the resources to do extensive subject area customization of MT engines.
Recipes for success: Ingredients of stable and productive MT deployments
A group of 35 current and prospective users of machine translation gathered for a full-day workshop on October 21, the day before the main AMTA conference. 12 presenters shared accounts of their work with machine translation in applications that included information assimilation operations for U.S. military intelligence and health incident detection, to information dissemination operations on health and agriculture at the Pan American Health Organization, and self-serve technical support information at Intel Corporation. In addition to the 12 presenters, many of the audience members also had relevant experience that they shared during discussion periods. I will mention a few of the insights. But a more complete report on all of the presentations and workshop outcomes will appear early in 2009 on the AMTA website (www.amtaweb.org). The presentations were divided into several topic areas. I will touch on two: Project Justification and Evaluation.
Project justification
Four presenters explicitly addressed this topic - two from the U.S. Government, one from an NGO (non-governmental organization), and one from industry. These focused presentations emphasized project justification for new projects. But many of the presentations touched on how their organization views the ongoing ROI (return on investment) for their project.
Careful planning versus crisis response: When launching technology projects, two of the presenters (one in the U.S. Government and one in industry - Intel Corporation) described project justification and startup processes that involve systematically building a case for introducing the new technology, demonstrating likely benefit, conducting research into technology options, and gathering requirements and support within the organization. A recent project at Intel has yielded a stable, well-supported, small-scale deployment that is demonstrating its usefulness on a well-focused problem, and is in a good position to be extended in a transparent way to additional languages and text types. The commercial project at Intel Corporation involves fully automated translation of technical knowledgebase articles into Spanish to provide self-serve support. The technical articles now being automatically translated were historically available only in English. The Intel team had to demonstrate strong ROI for a 2-5 year time horizon in both cost savings and reduction in the number of support calls. The actual results are quite impressive - adoption of English->Spanish MT for certain technical support articles has succeeded in deflecting support calls, and the quality is high enough that some human translation efforts have discontinued. The group that conducted this pilot project is now preparing to expand the project to additional languages and text types.
The other two presenters on this topic (one in the US Government and the other in an NGO) described highly innovative projects where the project definition emerged from visionary thinking, rather than from requirements gathering. In each case, the proposed system had a modest but promising prototype when a crisis occurred for which the system offered a unique and powerful solution, and support flowed from resources allocated to address the crisis. The NGO project (the GHPHIN system at Public Health Canada) sought to identify early indicators of public health problems in online news sources in 7 languages. The crisis that accelerated the project was the outbreak of SARS in late 2002, which the system correctly detected months before the World Health Organization identified it by conventional methods. The U.S. Government project provided intelligence analysts a system for transcribing and translating foreign news broadcasts. The system helps intelligence analysts locate valuable information in foreign language news broadcasts without having to watch every minute. The system offers the further value of supplying pictures and video clips that add value to analysts' reports. The crisis that speeded the way for deployment of the video monitoring system was the post 9/11 need to monitor Arabic language television broadcasts. In both cases, the usual justification process was cut short when the prototype was able to solve the emergent problem.
Other presenters touched on their ongoing justification to management. PAHO (the Pan American Health Organization) which translates health and agricultural documents between English, Spanish and Portuguese utilizes cost savings and productivity justification which they monitor with an automated workflow and project management system that tracks translator productivity and costs. PAHO's story was unique among the presenters because the MT systems they use were all developed in-house beginning in the 1970s. A small development and maintenance team has been continually active since its inception. ROI at PAHO demonstrates the value of the system costs which include that development and maintenance effort.
Evaluation
A participant working on another part of the Intel project reported on the pre-deployment evaluation of translation quality. Typically, organizations bring in their translators to evaluate MT quality - who else understands translation as well? But translators also tend to judge MT very harshly. This is often seen as self-preservation, and there is certainly an element of that. But professional translators are trained to adhere to a very high standard of accuracy. And professional ethics prevent them from accepting any translation job that they cannot deliver at the highest levels of quality. Is it any wonder that they find MT offensive?
At the same time, sometimes the end user's standard isn't "the highest level of quality". In the case in point, Intel's standard was the ability to deflect support calls for a language that had very little technical support content before the project began. When the company was evaluating machine translation output to assess feasibility of an MT solution, human linguists rated the MT generally inadequate. But the company's representatives in central and south America evaluated the MT output as quite adequate for the purpose at hand - to provide better support to a Spanish-speaking audience, and reduce the number of support calls that resulted from the lack of Spanish language self-help content.
When the system was deployed, user responses to the question, "did this information help answer your question" actually exceeded the satisfaction levels projected even by the regional representatives. English->Spanish automatically translated content was somewhat behind the satisfaction rates for English speaking users working with the English authored content (about 43% satisfaction for the Spanish machine-translated articles vs 53% satisfaction for English originals) But user satisfaction on the Spanish machine-translated articles was well ahead of the human translated content for French, German, Italian and Turkish, with user satisfaction rates between 34%-40%.
Next Time
The group that gathered for the first Recipes for Success workshop expressed their interest in future workshops, to continue to explore the ingredients of productive MT use. If you would like to receive updates on future workshops, please send an email to: gerbl@pacbell.net
Author Bio
Laurie Gerber has worked in the field of machine translation for over 20 years, including system development, research, and business development. Throughout this time, users and usability have been a defining interest. Laurie became an independent consultant in April 2008 in order to help user organizations create successes with machine translation and other language technology.
Laurie has been active in the machine translation professional community since 1992 and is currently treasurer of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas, and President of the International Association for Machine Translation. http://www.amtaweb.org
Published - January 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Monday, May 18, 2009
Machine Translation Used by the US Government
By Mike Dillinger, PhD
& Laurie Gerber,
By Translation Optimization Partners
This time, we look at the "parallel universe" of government translation work and how machine translation and some variants are employed there. Many of the new developments reported in this series came from the AMTA (Association for Machine Translation in the Americas) conference held October 21-25, 2008 in Hawaii. That event was noteworthy among AMTA conferences for the excellent Government MT Users program track. Nick Bemish of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, organized the government program track, and has agreed to do so again for the MT Summit conference, to be held this coming August 26-30 in Ottawa, Canada (summitxii.amtaweb.org). If you are interested in government uses of machine translation and you missed the conference in Hawaii, it will be worthwhile to put the Ottawa MT Summit on your calendar now!
In the first article in this series, I described the differing characteristics of translation for assimilation and dissemination. Whereas commercial translation is overwhelmingly for dissemination, government translation is overwhelmingly for assimilation – information gathering purposes. There is also significant translation for communication. Certainly many government agencies do dissemination, translating public service information aimed at non-English speakers in the U.S. and abroad, but it is the need to assimilate information and communicate on the ground that has put government-focused L-3 Communications on Common Sense Advisory’s "top 20" translation company list. These areas also drive the use of machine translation in the U.S. Government.
Parallel Universe
If you were a fan of the original Star Trek series, you may remember an episode in which viewers were introduced to a parallel universe in which the familiar characters’ personalities were the opposite of what we knew. In the government translation world has a similar relationship to the commercial translation world: the focus is on languages of the developing world, and languages of conflict rather than languages of commerce – so there are regular requirements for African, middle-eastern, and pacific region languages. Because the majority of translation is into English from languages that few Americans have learned (Pashto, Tigrinya), human translation is often done by source native linguists, rather than target native translators.
While the commercial world embraced translation memory first and is only now getting comfortable with machine translation, the opposite is true in government translation. The characteristics of disseminating product documentation into multiple languages that made translation memory so effective in the commercial world are absent in an information assimilation task. The texts to be translated rarely contain sentence-level repetitions. Formatting, which is a significant part of the value of many texts being translated commercially, does not get the same attention, since it is often discarded so that translations can be searched and digested automatically. In addition, because of the volume of materials to be scanned, and the need to find "nuggets" of information within them, few government agencies have used their human translators to do full text translations. A government linguist’s job is often to analyze a foreign language text and provide an abstract or commentary, or perhaps to select just a few passages to translate verbatim. For this reason, and because of legal/security issues surrounding many of the texts translated, the government has not accumulated large bilingual corpora, in spite of the volume of "translation" work going on.
Machine translation has found its primary market in the government historically because of the characteristics of assimilation work. It is often necessary for analysts to evaluate materials of uncertain value. Only when the analyst can scan a rough translation do they know if any part of the information merits an authoritative human translation. In addition, analysts frequently come across documents or snippets of information in foreign languages of unknown urgency. Again, machine translation can help to clarify this and guide subsequent actions. In law enforcement and intelligence, the value of a text, and justification for a polished translation is often in the presence of information about people, places and organizations of interest. So machine translation may be combined in sequence with other text analytic tools. Information extraction software may identify and extract names and numbers from a text. Once extracted into a database, data mining software may be used to detect connections among the entities. In fully automated text analytics pipelines like this, sometimes no human ever looks at a full text translation.
When software vendors try to approach the US Government, there are mysterious security hurdles, and few clear sales targets. Aside from the highly specialized language technology components, translation and text processing workflow and collaborative systems used in the government are often developed and maintained by the familiar and trusted government contractors. If you consider yourself familiar with language tools and vendors but have only been to commercial conferences, you might indeed feel you have landed in a parallel universe at a government language tools and technology conference when you find a well-populated tradeshow with few or no familiar vendors or tools!
Software Solutions in Government Environments
This section introduces the most common and widespread applications that incorporate machine translation for U.S. Government use. Note that the developers of applications mentioned below typically do not develop their own machine translation software, but incorporate commercial translation software, most often from Apptek, Language Weaver, Sakhr and Systran.
Ad Hoc Translation
Many government agencies have internally developed and hosted enterprise machine translation services available for ad-hoc translation of individual documents or cut-and-paste texts. Typically these services aggregate MT engines from multiple vendors and government sources, making them accessible via a standard dashboard.
DOCEX
Shorthand for DOCument EXploitation, DOCEX systems enable users to translate hardcopy documents. Generally speaking, the documents must be machine printed (not handwritten). DOCEX systems include a scanner, and a computer with OCR and machine translation software. Other text processing software, workflow management and archiving capabilities are often part of such systems. DOCEX systems may be designed for large scale "document conversion" at a permanent installation, but there are also portable versions that enable soldiers or law enforcement to quickly assess papers encountered in the field. The primary developers of DOCEX systems are CACI and Northrop Grumman.
Broadcast Monitoring
Broadcast monitoring systems enable digital exploration of television and radio broadcasts. Broadcast monitoring systems typically include receivers for satellite signals, video decoding processors, speech recognition, machine translation, information extraction (identification of names) and multilingual search software. In a relatively well-publicized example, the U.S. military’s CENTCOM Open Source Intelligence unit uses the broadcast monitoring system developed by BBN to create twice-daily reports on events and public opinion that emerge in television and web-based news sources in Arabic. Once the speech signal is isolated in the broadcast, it is automatically transcribed with speech recognition software to produce digitized Arabic text. The information extraction software identifies mentions of personal, place and organization names in the Arabic transcript. The entire text is then translated automatically into English in near real time. At CENTCOM and other places where such systems are used, broadcast monitoring provides a complete searchable archive of broadcasts being monitored. Rather than dedicating an Arabic-speaking analyst to watch every minute of all broadcasts that might be of interest in order to capture the one or two minutes per day that constitute important new information, English-speaking analysts can search and skim the transcripts, and then enlist the help of a linguist to assess the segments that may be of interest. Virage, now a division of Autonomy, offered the first broadcast monitoring systems and still has excellent products. Apptek recently developed some innovative and varied offerings along these lines.
Communication
The U.S. military has had to confront the well-known language challenges of operating in foreign countries, plus new cross-language communication challenges with the extensive international military coalition at work together in the Middle East.
Chat
Real-time Chat/Instant Messaging incorporating machine translation has been employed by the U.S. military coalition for several years to enable communication among coalition forces. Chat is used for operational communication, as well as informal fraternizing. The main systems have been built by Mitre Corporation from commercial IM and MT components under various names (Trans-Lingual Instant Messaging or "TrIM", Warfighter Chat, etc. )
Computer Assisted Interpretation
I credit Commonsense Advisory with coining the term Computer Assisted Interpretation, and it is an apt analogy. Computer Assisted Interpretation is typically embodied in a handheld device, and enables one-way translation. Like translation memory, computer assisted translation enables reuse of previously created authoritative translations. The Voxtec Phraselator is the most widely used system. Versions of the Phraselator are available preprogrammed with the phrases needed in a variety of situations from military checkpoints to medical intake. Phrases are designed to elicit an action or gesture (rather than spoken) response, so that the one-way translation is quite useful and interactive. In a face-to-face communication, the user utters a phrase or combination of phrases that they know to be among the material in the interpretation system. The device retrieves the translation and plays it aloud. This is especially important in communications where reading and writing are not practical, such as medical intake, when communicating in the dark, and when dealing with illiterate people. Another system is the Voice Response Translator by Integrated Wave Technologies, which allows users to say the name of a common "announcement" (for example, the "Miranda rights"). The entire announcement will be played in the desired language. Both are used by law enforcement as well as military.
Speech to Speech translation
The current generation of speech-to-speech translation systems are enabled by impressive leaps in speech recognition and machine translation technology, as well as user interface design. They are being used in the field primarily by the military. Such systems allow free flowing conversation between any two speakers of the source and target languages. Reportedly they are being used for communication between the U.S. military and Iraqi security forces in Iraq. The most advanced systems that have been deployed were developed and evaluated in the context of the DARPA TRANSTAC program which aimed at unrestricted communication between a native speaker of American English and a native speaker of Iraqi Arabic. BBN, IBM and SRI are noted developers of such systems.
Beyond Government Use
While production translation is extremely important in the current global business environment, you can see that there are a host of tools and technologies that enable translation in many more environments. I hope that this account of the alternate universe of government translation technologies will inspire some of you to explore commercial uses of some of these tools!
Author Bio
Laurie Gerber has worked in the field of machine translation for over 20 years, including system development, research, and business development. Laurie is also one half of Translation Optimization Partners, an independent consultancy that specializes in translation processes and technologies together with Mike Dillinger, a frequent collaborator and co-author of industry-related articles. Contact: gerbl [at] pacbell . net
Published - April 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
& Laurie Gerber,
By Translation Optimization Partners
This time, we look at the "parallel universe" of government translation work and how machine translation and some variants are employed there. Many of the new developments reported in this series came from the AMTA (Association for Machine Translation in the Americas) conference held October 21-25, 2008 in Hawaii. That event was noteworthy among AMTA conferences for the excellent Government MT Users program track. Nick Bemish of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, organized the government program track, and has agreed to do so again for the MT Summit conference, to be held this coming August 26-30 in Ottawa, Canada (summitxii.amtaweb.org). If you are interested in government uses of machine translation and you missed the conference in Hawaii, it will be worthwhile to put the Ottawa MT Summit on your calendar now!
In the first article in this series, I described the differing characteristics of translation for assimilation and dissemination. Whereas commercial translation is overwhelmingly for dissemination, government translation is overwhelmingly for assimilation – information gathering purposes. There is also significant translation for communication. Certainly many government agencies do dissemination, translating public service information aimed at non-English speakers in the U.S. and abroad, but it is the need to assimilate information and communicate on the ground that has put government-focused L-3 Communications on Common Sense Advisory’s "top 20" translation company list. These areas also drive the use of machine translation in the U.S. Government.
Parallel Universe
If you were a fan of the original Star Trek series, you may remember an episode in which viewers were introduced to a parallel universe in which the familiar characters’ personalities were the opposite of what we knew. In the government translation world has a similar relationship to the commercial translation world: the focus is on languages of the developing world, and languages of conflict rather than languages of commerce – so there are regular requirements for African, middle-eastern, and pacific region languages. Because the majority of translation is into English from languages that few Americans have learned (Pashto, Tigrinya), human translation is often done by source native linguists, rather than target native translators.
While the commercial world embraced translation memory first and is only now getting comfortable with machine translation, the opposite is true in government translation. The characteristics of disseminating product documentation into multiple languages that made translation memory so effective in the commercial world are absent in an information assimilation task. The texts to be translated rarely contain sentence-level repetitions. Formatting, which is a significant part of the value of many texts being translated commercially, does not get the same attention, since it is often discarded so that translations can be searched and digested automatically. In addition, because of the volume of materials to be scanned, and the need to find "nuggets" of information within them, few government agencies have used their human translators to do full text translations. A government linguist’s job is often to analyze a foreign language text and provide an abstract or commentary, or perhaps to select just a few passages to translate verbatim. For this reason, and because of legal/security issues surrounding many of the texts translated, the government has not accumulated large bilingual corpora, in spite of the volume of "translation" work going on.
Machine translation has found its primary market in the government historically because of the characteristics of assimilation work. It is often necessary for analysts to evaluate materials of uncertain value. Only when the analyst can scan a rough translation do they know if any part of the information merits an authoritative human translation. In addition, analysts frequently come across documents or snippets of information in foreign languages of unknown urgency. Again, machine translation can help to clarify this and guide subsequent actions. In law enforcement and intelligence, the value of a text, and justification for a polished translation is often in the presence of information about people, places and organizations of interest. So machine translation may be combined in sequence with other text analytic tools. Information extraction software may identify and extract names and numbers from a text. Once extracted into a database, data mining software may be used to detect connections among the entities. In fully automated text analytics pipelines like this, sometimes no human ever looks at a full text translation.
When software vendors try to approach the US Government, there are mysterious security hurdles, and few clear sales targets. Aside from the highly specialized language technology components, translation and text processing workflow and collaborative systems used in the government are often developed and maintained by the familiar and trusted government contractors. If you consider yourself familiar with language tools and vendors but have only been to commercial conferences, you might indeed feel you have landed in a parallel universe at a government language tools and technology conference when you find a well-populated tradeshow with few or no familiar vendors or tools!
Software Solutions in Government Environments
This section introduces the most common and widespread applications that incorporate machine translation for U.S. Government use. Note that the developers of applications mentioned below typically do not develop their own machine translation software, but incorporate commercial translation software, most often from Apptek, Language Weaver, Sakhr and Systran.
Ad Hoc Translation
Many government agencies have internally developed and hosted enterprise machine translation services available for ad-hoc translation of individual documents or cut-and-paste texts. Typically these services aggregate MT engines from multiple vendors and government sources, making them accessible via a standard dashboard.
DOCEX
Shorthand for DOCument EXploitation, DOCEX systems enable users to translate hardcopy documents. Generally speaking, the documents must be machine printed (not handwritten). DOCEX systems include a scanner, and a computer with OCR and machine translation software. Other text processing software, workflow management and archiving capabilities are often part of such systems. DOCEX systems may be designed for large scale "document conversion" at a permanent installation, but there are also portable versions that enable soldiers or law enforcement to quickly assess papers encountered in the field. The primary developers of DOCEX systems are CACI and Northrop Grumman.
Broadcast Monitoring
Broadcast monitoring systems enable digital exploration of television and radio broadcasts. Broadcast monitoring systems typically include receivers for satellite signals, video decoding processors, speech recognition, machine translation, information extraction (identification of names) and multilingual search software. In a relatively well-publicized example, the U.S. military’s CENTCOM Open Source Intelligence unit uses the broadcast monitoring system developed by BBN to create twice-daily reports on events and public opinion that emerge in television and web-based news sources in Arabic. Once the speech signal is isolated in the broadcast, it is automatically transcribed with speech recognition software to produce digitized Arabic text. The information extraction software identifies mentions of personal, place and organization names in the Arabic transcript. The entire text is then translated automatically into English in near real time. At CENTCOM and other places where such systems are used, broadcast monitoring provides a complete searchable archive of broadcasts being monitored. Rather than dedicating an Arabic-speaking analyst to watch every minute of all broadcasts that might be of interest in order to capture the one or two minutes per day that constitute important new information, English-speaking analysts can search and skim the transcripts, and then enlist the help of a linguist to assess the segments that may be of interest. Virage, now a division of Autonomy, offered the first broadcast monitoring systems and still has excellent products. Apptek recently developed some innovative and varied offerings along these lines.
Communication
The U.S. military has had to confront the well-known language challenges of operating in foreign countries, plus new cross-language communication challenges with the extensive international military coalition at work together in the Middle East.
Chat
Real-time Chat/Instant Messaging incorporating machine translation has been employed by the U.S. military coalition for several years to enable communication among coalition forces. Chat is used for operational communication, as well as informal fraternizing. The main systems have been built by Mitre Corporation from commercial IM and MT components under various names (Trans-Lingual Instant Messaging or "TrIM", Warfighter Chat, etc. )
Computer Assisted Interpretation
I credit Commonsense Advisory with coining the term Computer Assisted Interpretation, and it is an apt analogy. Computer Assisted Interpretation is typically embodied in a handheld device, and enables one-way translation. Like translation memory, computer assisted translation enables reuse of previously created authoritative translations. The Voxtec Phraselator is the most widely used system. Versions of the Phraselator are available preprogrammed with the phrases needed in a variety of situations from military checkpoints to medical intake. Phrases are designed to elicit an action or gesture (rather than spoken) response, so that the one-way translation is quite useful and interactive. In a face-to-face communication, the user utters a phrase or combination of phrases that they know to be among the material in the interpretation system. The device retrieves the translation and plays it aloud. This is especially important in communications where reading and writing are not practical, such as medical intake, when communicating in the dark, and when dealing with illiterate people. Another system is the Voice Response Translator by Integrated Wave Technologies, which allows users to say the name of a common "announcement" (for example, the "Miranda rights"). The entire announcement will be played in the desired language. Both are used by law enforcement as well as military.
Speech to Speech translation
The current generation of speech-to-speech translation systems are enabled by impressive leaps in speech recognition and machine translation technology, as well as user interface design. They are being used in the field primarily by the military. Such systems allow free flowing conversation between any two speakers of the source and target languages. Reportedly they are being used for communication between the U.S. military and Iraqi security forces in Iraq. The most advanced systems that have been deployed were developed and evaluated in the context of the DARPA TRANSTAC program which aimed at unrestricted communication between a native speaker of American English and a native speaker of Iraqi Arabic. BBN, IBM and SRI are noted developers of such systems.
Beyond Government Use
While production translation is extremely important in the current global business environment, you can see that there are a host of tools and technologies that enable translation in many more environments. I hope that this account of the alternate universe of government translation technologies will inspire some of you to explore commercial uses of some of these tools!
Author Bio
Laurie Gerber has worked in the field of machine translation for over 20 years, including system development, research, and business development. Laurie is also one half of Translation Optimization Partners, an independent consultancy that specializes in translation processes and technologies together with Mike Dillinger, a frequent collaborator and co-author of industry-related articles. Contact: gerbl [at] pacbell . net
Published - April 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Translation Project Management
By Andrey Vasyankin,
Language Interface, Inc.
(A provider of translation and data processing solutions
in the English-Russian linguistic environment)
alpha@langint.com
www.langint.com
Any translation company, whether it consists of a single person or has a large translators' staff on the payroll, needs a strict and clear project management procedure to determine the exact work flow for all stages of a job, from the moment the source document is received to the moment the translated file is sent back to the client. The larger a company is, the greater detail is required for each phase description in order to make certain that all team members have a complete and similar understanding of the work scope and purposes.
Unlike a freelancer, a translation company acts bidirectionally: it receives documents from clients and distributes them between freelance subcontractors with the project management and quality control tasks performed in-house. A freelancer, even if he or she is very successful and has an immense number of clients, does not normally receive more work than he or she can handle and therefore does not need to subcontract regularly.
The fluctuations in the translation market make it unreasonable for a company to staff translators on a full-time basis, since no company will have a constant amount of translation work to keep the personnel, which was hired when the company was at its busiest, occupied. Low-workload periods may corrupt personnel who become accustomed to getting paid for just being in the office. Subcontracting freelancers adds flexibility to a translation company, allowing it to survive during slack periods and increase its capacity tremendously to deal with a large translation project. Moreover, having few or no staff translators allows the company to cut down on office expenses (no additional office room, work stations, etc.) and, eventually, reduce the cost of translation.
A translation company needs a strict project management procedure to track jobs received from the clients and performed in-house or subcontracted, control storage of source documents, translated files, and company's data bases, eliminate technical mistakes, support translation work, and educate translators. All these issues solved and managed properly will promote translation quality and reduce the cost of translation.
Tracking jobs
Job tracking is very important both for a freelancer and a translation company when they receive work from more than one client, especially if they need to subcontract. When a company translates, say, 300 pages a week, which were received from 5 clients and subcontracted to 15 translators, job tracking becomes vital. Each job should be registered in the project management spreadsheet. If you fail to do it regularly, you'll face severe problems at the end of the month when you need to invoice your clients and pay your translators. Use your project management spreadsheet as a basis for invoicing the clients, tracking job status and paying your translators.
When a job is received, the following information should be normally entered in the spreadsheet: project or client's name, file name, date received, number of words or pages (whichever is applicable), estimated translator/editor man-hours, and deadline. This data put down in an orderly manner will facilitate future invoicing and help to plan the workflow.
At a later stage, when the job has been analyzed and distributed between translators, the spreadsheet should be supplemented with the following: translator names, number of words or pages sent to each translator, estimated man-hours for each translator, and date and time when the translated material should be submitted to the company.
When the company receives translated material, the actual work performed by the translator should be recorded in the spreadsheet for future payments.
Document storage
Document storage is a critical issue for a translation company. Document storage should be safe to protect documents from being inadvertently erased or damaged, while still be accessible to all in-house personnel. Document storage should also be structurized and logical so that anyone can easily find any document at any moment regardless of who translated it and when.
This kind of storage may be provided on one of the company's workstations or on a separate file server. A workstation used as the company's file depository is the cheapest but least efficient option. A workstation may sometimes be turned off for restart purposes, may be busy or crash due to software problems. This impedes file storage access for those in-house personnel whose computers still work when the file depository workstation crashes. Also, a virus caught in e-mail may destroy the work station operation system together with the file depository.
Having a file server for file storage purposes is a more expensive but safer and far more reliable solution. A file server is a normal desk-top computer with very simple software used specifically for file storage purposes. It is less prone to software mistakes or crashes than a workstation, almost never turned off and provides continuous access to the file system for all in-house personnel.
Database storage
A translation company database includes accounting documents, project management files, translator data, the company in-house vocabulary, translation memory files and clients' glossaries. All these are stored in special folders in the file depository.
The company's in-house dictionary is the most variable part of the stored database. It is used, changed and updated continuously. To provide continuous access and allow new entries to be seen by all users, my company uploaded its vocabulary to a web site. This way all in-house personnel and freelance translators hired by the company can use the most recent version of the dictionary. Only authorized in-house employees can add new entries or correct existing ones. Moreover, my company has made its online dictionary available to the public recently, so that any person, regardless of whether he or she is employed by us, can have free access to the term database created by our in-house personnel in the course of the company's 10 year history. Clients' glossaries are also added to this online dictionary, however they are kept private for copyright considerations.
Technical mistakes
Without a well-developed project management procedure, a translation company is prone to technical mistakes. Some of these might have no serious consequences, while others may cost you a client. Possible technical mistakes include sending the same job to different translators and sending the client the wrong file version or the wrong document.
Apart from the project manager's attentive and accurate approach, orderly job distribution and document naming and storage procedures will help to eliminate such mistakes.
It is a good idea to create root folders pertaining to each client/client's project in the file depository. Then each time you receive a new job from your client, you may create a job sub-folder to save the files in. The files received from the client and saved in this sub-folder (source files) should never be changed. Making files 'read-only' is a way to protect them from unauthorized changes. Then replica files, or target files will be created by adding something to their names to show that these are working files and are being modified by a translator or an editor.
Another good idea is to elaborate a file marking system to show the translation status so that file name or properties show whether the document is just translated, translated and edited or is proofread and ready to be sent to the client.
Translation support and translator education
Free-lance translators should be strongly encouraged to work in close communication with the editors and other in-house personnel. Though term search is normally the translator's task, in-house personnel can facilitate this task by using additional information obtained from other documents associated with the same project. Moreover, some teamwork techniques unavailable to individual free-lancers can be effectively used in house (brainstorm, for example).
However, translator-to-editor communication and use of teamwork problem solving techniques in-house should be regulated to eliminate time wasted through excessive and fruitless discussions and correspondence.
At later job stages, when the editor checks and edits the translations, he should make notes and comments to be fed back to the translators. The company's translation project management procedure should stipulate that editor's feedback is always sent to translators whenever applicable.
Continuous translator-editor communication and feedbacks are important because if this is done regularly, a good translator will eventually start to provide work quality that will satisfy the editor. In the long run, this reduces time spent for editing and increases the editor and company's capacity. If editor's translation support and translator education are not stipulated by the company's procedures, the quality of translation submitted to the company will never grow or might even decrease.
Summary
As has been discussed, thorough job tracking facilitates invoicing, accounting and job status control. Well organized storage of documents and data makes them easily accessible, while keeping them safe. Good project controls will eliminate technical mistakes. Proper translation support and translator education provide better results and productivity. All this united in a well developed translation project management procedure improves the translation company's mobility, cost efficiency, quality, capacity and, eventually, survivability.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Language Interface, Inc.
(A provider of translation and data processing solutions
in the English-Russian linguistic environment)
alpha@langint.com
www.langint.com
Any translation company, whether it consists of a single person or has a large translators' staff on the payroll, needs a strict and clear project management procedure to determine the exact work flow for all stages of a job, from the moment the source document is received to the moment the translated file is sent back to the client. The larger a company is, the greater detail is required for each phase description in order to make certain that all team members have a complete and similar understanding of the work scope and purposes.
Unlike a freelancer, a translation company acts bidirectionally: it receives documents from clients and distributes them between freelance subcontractors with the project management and quality control tasks performed in-house. A freelancer, even if he or she is very successful and has an immense number of clients, does not normally receive more work than he or she can handle and therefore does not need to subcontract regularly.
The fluctuations in the translation market make it unreasonable for a company to staff translators on a full-time basis, since no company will have a constant amount of translation work to keep the personnel, which was hired when the company was at its busiest, occupied. Low-workload periods may corrupt personnel who become accustomed to getting paid for just being in the office. Subcontracting freelancers adds flexibility to a translation company, allowing it to survive during slack periods and increase its capacity tremendously to deal with a large translation project. Moreover, having few or no staff translators allows the company to cut down on office expenses (no additional office room, work stations, etc.) and, eventually, reduce the cost of translation.
A translation company needs a strict project management procedure to track jobs received from the clients and performed in-house or subcontracted, control storage of source documents, translated files, and company's data bases, eliminate technical mistakes, support translation work, and educate translators. All these issues solved and managed properly will promote translation quality and reduce the cost of translation.
Tracking jobs
Job tracking is very important both for a freelancer and a translation company when they receive work from more than one client, especially if they need to subcontract. When a company translates, say, 300 pages a week, which were received from 5 clients and subcontracted to 15 translators, job tracking becomes vital. Each job should be registered in the project management spreadsheet. If you fail to do it regularly, you'll face severe problems at the end of the month when you need to invoice your clients and pay your translators. Use your project management spreadsheet as a basis for invoicing the clients, tracking job status and paying your translators.
When a job is received, the following information should be normally entered in the spreadsheet: project or client's name, file name, date received, number of words or pages (whichever is applicable), estimated translator/editor man-hours, and deadline. This data put down in an orderly manner will facilitate future invoicing and help to plan the workflow.
At a later stage, when the job has been analyzed and distributed between translators, the spreadsheet should be supplemented with the following: translator names, number of words or pages sent to each translator, estimated man-hours for each translator, and date and time when the translated material should be submitted to the company.
When the company receives translated material, the actual work performed by the translator should be recorded in the spreadsheet for future payments.
Document storage
Document storage is a critical issue for a translation company. Document storage should be safe to protect documents from being inadvertently erased or damaged, while still be accessible to all in-house personnel. Document storage should also be structurized and logical so that anyone can easily find any document at any moment regardless of who translated it and when.
This kind of storage may be provided on one of the company's workstations or on a separate file server. A workstation used as the company's file depository is the cheapest but least efficient option. A workstation may sometimes be turned off for restart purposes, may be busy or crash due to software problems. This impedes file storage access for those in-house personnel whose computers still work when the file depository workstation crashes. Also, a virus caught in e-mail may destroy the work station operation system together with the file depository.
Having a file server for file storage purposes is a more expensive but safer and far more reliable solution. A file server is a normal desk-top computer with very simple software used specifically for file storage purposes. It is less prone to software mistakes or crashes than a workstation, almost never turned off and provides continuous access to the file system for all in-house personnel.
Database storage
A translation company database includes accounting documents, project management files, translator data, the company in-house vocabulary, translation memory files and clients' glossaries. All these are stored in special folders in the file depository.
The company's in-house dictionary is the most variable part of the stored database. It is used, changed and updated continuously. To provide continuous access and allow new entries to be seen by all users, my company uploaded its vocabulary to a web site. This way all in-house personnel and freelance translators hired by the company can use the most recent version of the dictionary. Only authorized in-house employees can add new entries or correct existing ones. Moreover, my company has made its online dictionary available to the public recently, so that any person, regardless of whether he or she is employed by us, can have free access to the term database created by our in-house personnel in the course of the company's 10 year history. Clients' glossaries are also added to this online dictionary, however they are kept private for copyright considerations.
Technical mistakes
Without a well-developed project management procedure, a translation company is prone to technical mistakes. Some of these might have no serious consequences, while others may cost you a client. Possible technical mistakes include sending the same job to different translators and sending the client the wrong file version or the wrong document.
Apart from the project manager's attentive and accurate approach, orderly job distribution and document naming and storage procedures will help to eliminate such mistakes.
It is a good idea to create root folders pertaining to each client/client's project in the file depository. Then each time you receive a new job from your client, you may create a job sub-folder to save the files in. The files received from the client and saved in this sub-folder (source files) should never be changed. Making files 'read-only' is a way to protect them from unauthorized changes. Then replica files, or target files will be created by adding something to their names to show that these are working files and are being modified by a translator or an editor.
Another good idea is to elaborate a file marking system to show the translation status so that file name or properties show whether the document is just translated, translated and edited or is proofread and ready to be sent to the client.
Translation support and translator education
Free-lance translators should be strongly encouraged to work in close communication with the editors and other in-house personnel. Though term search is normally the translator's task, in-house personnel can facilitate this task by using additional information obtained from other documents associated with the same project. Moreover, some teamwork techniques unavailable to individual free-lancers can be effectively used in house (brainstorm, for example).
However, translator-to-editor communication and use of teamwork problem solving techniques in-house should be regulated to eliminate time wasted through excessive and fruitless discussions and correspondence.
At later job stages, when the editor checks and edits the translations, he should make notes and comments to be fed back to the translators. The company's translation project management procedure should stipulate that editor's feedback is always sent to translators whenever applicable.
Continuous translator-editor communication and feedbacks are important because if this is done regularly, a good translator will eventually start to provide work quality that will satisfy the editor. In the long run, this reduces time spent for editing and increases the editor and company's capacity. If editor's translation support and translator education are not stipulated by the company's procedures, the quality of translation submitted to the company will never grow or might even decrease.
Summary
As has been discussed, thorough job tracking facilitates invoicing, accounting and job status control. Well organized storage of documents and data makes them easily accessible, while keeping them safe. Good project controls will eliminate technical mistakes. Proper translation support and translator education provide better results and productivity. All this united in a well developed translation project management procedure improves the translation company's mobility, cost efficiency, quality, capacity and, eventually, survivability.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Saturday, May 16, 2009
10 irresistible potholes writers find on the road to globalization, part 1
By Mike Dillinger, PhD,
Translation Optimization Partners
Optimizing the translation process has two basic components: improving the writers’ source texts and improving the translators’ process. For the moment, we’ll focus on the writer’s job.
Dear Translator: Please remember that most writers never had any training at all about translation and usually know one lonely language. Many of them can only rely on the limited writing advice that they got in school. They’re never aware of how they can make life hellish for translators and for international readers. So, don’t blame them; help them out. Pass this list on to them and discuss it until they understand.
Dear Writer: Become a hero among your company’s translators. Every improvement you make is multiplied by the number of grateful translators you help. This list is for you.
What follows is the first half of the list. The second half – in the next issue – pinpoints more and more detailed problems.
PothHole #1. Thinking that your original source text is the final product.
Translation takes a long time, so it is very important to budget enough time for converting files, translation itself, desktop publishing, re-doing screenshots, interface localization, etc. “Express” translations are done with shorter-than-usual deadlines and cost two or three times more than regularly scheduled translation jobs. We’ve come across translation vendors who very happily report that the majority of their work is from writers who couldn’t get their schedules organized. Writers who are pressed for time also hit many more of the potholes listed below and that makes translation even bumpier than usual.
Similar problems show up when we use MT to speed up translation. Shorter deadlines mean that there’s less time available to tweak the MT engine for a given job. So, in this case MT makes more mistakes and requires more time for editing.
Remember that your final product is the full set of documents, in the source language and in all of the target languages.
PothHole #2. Assuming that your files will work everywhere.
Translators are generally well organized folks and focus on optimizing their efforts. So, the first thing they do is take your original files and run them through translation memory (TM) software to see if any of your sentences were translated before. That’s easier said than done. If your files are in some FrameMaker, Word, or other proprietary format (i.e., not an open standard like HTML or XML) then translators will have to convert them. According to Murphy’s Law, your specific version of the authoring software will not be completely compatible with the specific version of the translators’ TM software. So, translators have to check and fix your converted files by hand, one by one. Remember those extra line breaks that you added to improve the formatting? Well, they really interfere with converting your files. The translators will charge you for all that unpleasant work by the hour, often for each language – on top of the price for translation itself.
Using the wrong file formats will make translation slower, more expensive, and more error-prone. And this is work that the translators will have to do all over, again and again, for the next versions of your documents.
PothHole #3. Using screenshots for eye candy.
Many translators specialize in translating manuals for software products, which often contain lots of screenshots. And the screenshots look really nice. But screenshots are very difficult to translate! For one thing, it’s hard for translators to figure out exactly how to see the same exact screen so they can take a new screenshot in the target language. This is doubly true for error messages, which are hard to produce on demand in any language. Often, localization of the software itself hasn’t even been finished yet (usually, a different team is working on that) so the translators working on the manuals don’t have the target-language product in front of them. Sometimes they have to edit the image by hand to cut and paste and draw in the translated words – even if the words have nothing to do with what the screenshot is supposed to illustrate. So, the translators have to painstakingly re-create your screenshots by hand, one by one. They’ll charge you for that by the hour, for each language – on top of the price for translation itself.
Think again: do you really need all those screenshots? Using too many screenshots will make translation slower, more expensive, and more error-prone.
PothHole #4. Thinking that your page layout will look the same in every language.
Translations in many European languages take up about 20% more space on the page and some Asian languages take up less space than English. If writers don’t leave a lot of white space in the original, then the translators have problems. If translated content spills over to another page, then either the layout has to be re-done by hand for each language, or the pages have to be re-numbered (everywhere!), or both. Once again, translators will charge you for that by the hour, for each language – on top of the price for translation itself. And this is work that they’ll have to do all over, again and again, for the next versions of your documents.
PothHole #5. Trying to make your writing “interesting”.
In high school, our English teachers wanted us to produce more “interesting” writing. They wanted us to use different kinds of sentences, phrase things in different ways, and even play with words. And this is how we’ve seen writing taught in other languages, too. This is a fine approach for producing literature that native speakers will read.
However, this approach makes life very difficult for translators, in two different ways. On the one hand, translators usually read English as a second language, so they don’t know as many of the nuances as a professional writer does. That means that the translators sometimes think that different phrasing has different meaning and they often have to sweat to render the (probably unimportant) difference in the target language. On the other hand, phrasing the same information in different ways means that you also have to pay for it several times. Remember the TM software we mentioned above? If you stick to the same phrasing for the same information, the software will see that and you’ll get the second and later translations of that information (almost) for free.
Similar things happen with machine translation. MT can translate many kinds of sentences very well. However, Murphy’s Law strikes when writers use varied phrasing: it’s much more likely that they’ll produce sentence types that machine translation simply can’t handle. That in turn means more editing effort and longer delays in translation.
Translating technical information about an unfamiliar product is a big challenge and an even bigger responsibility. There are several easy things that writers can do to simplify things, and the writers who do them will bask in the glory of translators’ undying gratitude. More potholes are ahead in part 2.
* Thanks to my consulting partner, Laurie Gerber, for the great title and for many suggestions.
Published - May 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Translation Optimization Partners
Optimizing the translation process has two basic components: improving the writers’ source texts and improving the translators’ process. For the moment, we’ll focus on the writer’s job.
Dear Translator: Please remember that most writers never had any training at all about translation and usually know one lonely language. Many of them can only rely on the limited writing advice that they got in school. They’re never aware of how they can make life hellish for translators and for international readers. So, don’t blame them; help them out. Pass this list on to them and discuss it until they understand.
Dear Writer: Become a hero among your company’s translators. Every improvement you make is multiplied by the number of grateful translators you help. This list is for you.
What follows is the first half of the list. The second half – in the next issue – pinpoints more and more detailed problems.
PothHole #1. Thinking that your original source text is the final product.
Translation takes a long time, so it is very important to budget enough time for converting files, translation itself, desktop publishing, re-doing screenshots, interface localization, etc. “Express” translations are done with shorter-than-usual deadlines and cost two or three times more than regularly scheduled translation jobs. We’ve come across translation vendors who very happily report that the majority of their work is from writers who couldn’t get their schedules organized. Writers who are pressed for time also hit many more of the potholes listed below and that makes translation even bumpier than usual.
Similar problems show up when we use MT to speed up translation. Shorter deadlines mean that there’s less time available to tweak the MT engine for a given job. So, in this case MT makes more mistakes and requires more time for editing.
Remember that your final product is the full set of documents, in the source language and in all of the target languages.
PothHole #2. Assuming that your files will work everywhere.
Translators are generally well organized folks and focus on optimizing their efforts. So, the first thing they do is take your original files and run them through translation memory (TM) software to see if any of your sentences were translated before. That’s easier said than done. If your files are in some FrameMaker, Word, or other proprietary format (i.e., not an open standard like HTML or XML) then translators will have to convert them. According to Murphy’s Law, your specific version of the authoring software will not be completely compatible with the specific version of the translators’ TM software. So, translators have to check and fix your converted files by hand, one by one. Remember those extra line breaks that you added to improve the formatting? Well, they really interfere with converting your files. The translators will charge you for all that unpleasant work by the hour, often for each language – on top of the price for translation itself.
Using the wrong file formats will make translation slower, more expensive, and more error-prone. And this is work that the translators will have to do all over, again and again, for the next versions of your documents.
PothHole #3. Using screenshots for eye candy.
Many translators specialize in translating manuals for software products, which often contain lots of screenshots. And the screenshots look really nice. But screenshots are very difficult to translate! For one thing, it’s hard for translators to figure out exactly how to see the same exact screen so they can take a new screenshot in the target language. This is doubly true for error messages, which are hard to produce on demand in any language. Often, localization of the software itself hasn’t even been finished yet (usually, a different team is working on that) so the translators working on the manuals don’t have the target-language product in front of them. Sometimes they have to edit the image by hand to cut and paste and draw in the translated words – even if the words have nothing to do with what the screenshot is supposed to illustrate. So, the translators have to painstakingly re-create your screenshots by hand, one by one. They’ll charge you for that by the hour, for each language – on top of the price for translation itself.
Think again: do you really need all those screenshots? Using too many screenshots will make translation slower, more expensive, and more error-prone.
PothHole #4. Thinking that your page layout will look the same in every language.
Translations in many European languages take up about 20% more space on the page and some Asian languages take up less space than English. If writers don’t leave a lot of white space in the original, then the translators have problems. If translated content spills over to another page, then either the layout has to be re-done by hand for each language, or the pages have to be re-numbered (everywhere!), or both. Once again, translators will charge you for that by the hour, for each language – on top of the price for translation itself. And this is work that they’ll have to do all over, again and again, for the next versions of your documents.
PothHole #5. Trying to make your writing “interesting”.
In high school, our English teachers wanted us to produce more “interesting” writing. They wanted us to use different kinds of sentences, phrase things in different ways, and even play with words. And this is how we’ve seen writing taught in other languages, too. This is a fine approach for producing literature that native speakers will read.
However, this approach makes life very difficult for translators, in two different ways. On the one hand, translators usually read English as a second language, so they don’t know as many of the nuances as a professional writer does. That means that the translators sometimes think that different phrasing has different meaning and they often have to sweat to render the (probably unimportant) difference in the target language. On the other hand, phrasing the same information in different ways means that you also have to pay for it several times. Remember the TM software we mentioned above? If you stick to the same phrasing for the same information, the software will see that and you’ll get the second and later translations of that information (almost) for free.
Similar things happen with machine translation. MT can translate many kinds of sentences very well. However, Murphy’s Law strikes when writers use varied phrasing: it’s much more likely that they’ll produce sentence types that machine translation simply can’t handle. That in turn means more editing effort and longer delays in translation.
Translating technical information about an unfamiliar product is a big challenge and an even bigger responsibility. There are several easy things that writers can do to simplify things, and the writers who do them will bask in the glory of translators’ undying gratitude. More potholes are ahead in part 2.
* Thanks to my consulting partner, Laurie Gerber, for the great title and for many suggestions.
Published - May 2009
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Friday, May 15, 2009
One project/many languages: A step-by-step guide to a stress free job
By Olga Pechnenko Kopp,
McElroy Translation Company,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA
quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/
Does this sound familiar?
Your company has just developed a new idea for a new product. The product has passed the research phase, which required a considerable investment of time, people and money. Your company has calculated the developmental cost and developed a promotion plan. You, the product manager, know that all of your carefully crafted marketing copy, originally written in English, will require translation into all of the languages spoken in your company’s international target markets. Even though you fully understand the importance of this, the process of new product development has consumed all of your time. You’ve started the countdown for the release date of the new product and then you suddenly remember, “ooops, I forgot to translate the marketing and product information!”
How many languages were there again...? 10? 12? 21?
You are confident that your translation vendor will be able to complete all of the necessary translations in time—after all, there are only a few documents that need to be translated. So, you call your translation vendor’s account representative, and she tells you that it will take at least two weeks to complete the entire translation. “Why!?” you ask.
She tells you that those few documents you sent her contain approximately 20K words, and your project will require extensive rewrites due to its heavy use of marketing jargon. You don’t understand—how is it possible? You decide to call a few other translation vendors, and they give you the same answer. You start to panic because it looks like the product will not be released on time, and you are going to be responsible for the delay.
Shall we rewind?
Let’s rewind this potential nightmare and see if you could have a less stressful time dealing with THOSE translations. Below you will find a step by step guide to a stress free translation project into multiple languages.
Let’s say you have a 20K word marketing project. A translator can translate, on average, 1500 words/day. This will require 13 working days for the translation itself. Add an additional 2-3 days for editing. Include at least one business day for project management and QA. For a translation project of this size and type, allow for at least 17 business days. Of course, each project is unique and requires an individual analysis.
* Start thinking ahead. Translation is performed by humans and they will need some real time to work on your project. Note the formula at the right to see how the size of the projects affects the delivery.
* Write your copy with an international audience in mind. Have your technical and marketing writers create copy that has consistent terminology and avoids complicated sentence structure. Translators will be able to finish your project in an accurate, timely fashion if the meaning you are trying to convey is clear.
* Involve your translation vendor at the first stages of the project. Contact your translation vendor as soon as you know some translation will be involved in your project and give her the approximate date of the release, the target locales, the anticipated volume of words, etc. The more detailed information you can provide about the project, the better she can help you.
Further ways to lower your stress level at translation time include:
* Maintain all of the editable files in easily accessible, logical directory trees, and keep track of who authored and revised the content. Web help content, for instance, cannot be optimally translated if your translation vendor only has a website URL to retrieve it from. Likewise, PDFs cannot be optimally edited or translated without the original source files from which they were created. Do you want to find yourself at the end of a project on the phone with your web and technical documentation team trying to track down HTML and Quark files?
* Keep track of all of the artwork and its editable versions in a similar fashion, especially the ones that contain text. The same rule applies here. If your translation vendor has to re-create graphics from scratch because you can’t find the original Illustrator files, this will add considerable time and money to your project.
* For reference purposes and ensuring terminology consistency in the translation, maintain a glossary of specific terms that your company internally uses. While your translation vendor should have specific subject matter experts available for your project, who thoroughly know your industry’s terminology, if you have acronyms and terms specific to your product offerings, these may require translation and explanation to your international audiences.
* If you plan on requesting an in country review (i.e., an independent review by one of your regional offices, for instance) post-translation, begin planning for it at the start of the project, as it will affect the time needed for the project to be completed. Of course, let your translation vendor know you intend to have the content independently reviewed.
* Don’t send the draft of your documents—wait until the final version is available. This saves you money and time!
* Remember that it is possible to assemble a team of multiple translators for big projects to shave days off of the turnaround time—but the consistency of the translation increasingly deteriorates with each additional translator put on a project.
* For large projects we recommend you develop a translation glossary—before submitting the final version of your content for translation, create a list of key words and phrases to be translated first, and then ask your regional offices to review the glossary. This procedure alone could save you a lot of time in the long run, and allows the regional offices to have input into the process at the beginning.
Obviously, this is a general list that can be applied to a variety of projects where multilingual content is a necessity. Each individual project, especially a larger, time-consuming one, will have its unique problems, goals and criteria that will allow for modification and customization of this list to meet those specific needs.
I hope that this list will help you make your next project less stressful, and help you plan for a successful international product launch. If the best of plans go awry and circumstances beyond your control create a scenario that is less than ideal, at least you have good information to understand the challenges that you and your vendor will face. I am here to answer any further questions you may have and ensure your success with projects of all shapes and sizes. (Send all of your queries to Olga, your “stress free translation project expert”)
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
McElroy Translation Company,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA
quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/
Does this sound familiar?
Your company has just developed a new idea for a new product. The product has passed the research phase, which required a considerable investment of time, people and money. Your company has calculated the developmental cost and developed a promotion plan. You, the product manager, know that all of your carefully crafted marketing copy, originally written in English, will require translation into all of the languages spoken in your company’s international target markets. Even though you fully understand the importance of this, the process of new product development has consumed all of your time. You’ve started the countdown for the release date of the new product and then you suddenly remember, “ooops, I forgot to translate the marketing and product information!”
How many languages were there again...? 10? 12? 21?
You are confident that your translation vendor will be able to complete all of the necessary translations in time—after all, there are only a few documents that need to be translated. So, you call your translation vendor’s account representative, and she tells you that it will take at least two weeks to complete the entire translation. “Why!?” you ask.
She tells you that those few documents you sent her contain approximately 20K words, and your project will require extensive rewrites due to its heavy use of marketing jargon. You don’t understand—how is it possible? You decide to call a few other translation vendors, and they give you the same answer. You start to panic because it looks like the product will not be released on time, and you are going to be responsible for the delay.
Shall we rewind?
Let’s rewind this potential nightmare and see if you could have a less stressful time dealing with THOSE translations. Below you will find a step by step guide to a stress free translation project into multiple languages.
Let’s say you have a 20K word marketing project. A translator can translate, on average, 1500 words/day. This will require 13 working days for the translation itself. Add an additional 2-3 days for editing. Include at least one business day for project management and QA. For a translation project of this size and type, allow for at least 17 business days. Of course, each project is unique and requires an individual analysis.
* Start thinking ahead. Translation is performed by humans and they will need some real time to work on your project. Note the formula at the right to see how the size of the projects affects the delivery.
* Write your copy with an international audience in mind. Have your technical and marketing writers create copy that has consistent terminology and avoids complicated sentence structure. Translators will be able to finish your project in an accurate, timely fashion if the meaning you are trying to convey is clear.
* Involve your translation vendor at the first stages of the project. Contact your translation vendor as soon as you know some translation will be involved in your project and give her the approximate date of the release, the target locales, the anticipated volume of words, etc. The more detailed information you can provide about the project, the better she can help you.
Further ways to lower your stress level at translation time include:
* Maintain all of the editable files in easily accessible, logical directory trees, and keep track of who authored and revised the content. Web help content, for instance, cannot be optimally translated if your translation vendor only has a website URL to retrieve it from. Likewise, PDFs cannot be optimally edited or translated without the original source files from which they were created. Do you want to find yourself at the end of a project on the phone with your web and technical documentation team trying to track down HTML and Quark files?
* Keep track of all of the artwork and its editable versions in a similar fashion, especially the ones that contain text. The same rule applies here. If your translation vendor has to re-create graphics from scratch because you can’t find the original Illustrator files, this will add considerable time and money to your project.
* For reference purposes and ensuring terminology consistency in the translation, maintain a glossary of specific terms that your company internally uses. While your translation vendor should have specific subject matter experts available for your project, who thoroughly know your industry’s terminology, if you have acronyms and terms specific to your product offerings, these may require translation and explanation to your international audiences.
* If you plan on requesting an in country review (i.e., an independent review by one of your regional offices, for instance) post-translation, begin planning for it at the start of the project, as it will affect the time needed for the project to be completed. Of course, let your translation vendor know you intend to have the content independently reviewed.
* Don’t send the draft of your documents—wait until the final version is available. This saves you money and time!
* Remember that it is possible to assemble a team of multiple translators for big projects to shave days off of the turnaround time—but the consistency of the translation increasingly deteriorates with each additional translator put on a project.
* For large projects we recommend you develop a translation glossary—before submitting the final version of your content for translation, create a list of key words and phrases to be translated first, and then ask your regional offices to review the glossary. This procedure alone could save you a lot of time in the long run, and allows the regional offices to have input into the process at the beginning.
Obviously, this is a general list that can be applied to a variety of projects where multilingual content is a necessity. Each individual project, especially a larger, time-consuming one, will have its unique problems, goals and criteria that will allow for modification and customization of this list to meet those specific needs.
I hope that this list will help you make your next project less stressful, and help you plan for a successful international product launch. If the best of plans go awry and circumstances beyond your control create a scenario that is less than ideal, at least you have good information to understand the challenges that you and your vendor will face. I am here to answer any further questions you may have and ensure your success with projects of all shapes and sizes. (Send all of your queries to Olga, your “stress free translation project expert”)
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Just how literal do you want that translation?
By Dr. Mark Ritter,
McElroy Translation Company,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA
quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/
McElroy Translation is often immersed in the language translation that is generated by patent prosecution and patent litigation. In this article McElroy Chief Editor Dr. Mark Ritter applies his dry wit to the questions of when to provide a “literal” translation.
From time to time translation agencies receive requests for a “literal” translation. This seemingly inoffensive adjective is much like the term “obscene.” No one is quite sure how to define it, but we all know it when we see it. When a literal translation is explicitly specified, an agency specializing in intellectual property translation reacts somewhat like a minister who is asked to preach a religious sermon: “that’s the only kind I know.”
Clearly one thing that “literal” means is “don’t embellish, don’t summarize,” a fundamental principle for IP translators. Sometimes, however, a totally straightforward translation fails to convey the meaning. Consider, for instance, a common disclaimer on the title pages of many German patents: “Die folgenden Angaben sind den vom Anmelder eingereichten Unterlagen entnommen.” [The following information is taken from the documents submitted by the applicant.] When I first encountered this sentence my reaction was: “Where else could it come from—the patent fairy?”
It seemed like just one more piece of meaningless bureaucratese and I went on to the real job. I later observed that this notice appears only on published unexamined applications that have been typeset in the standard eye-destroying minuscule font of the German Patent Office, rather than being published as a photomechanical reproduction of the original typescript submission. Then it made sense—it is a reminder that, although this may look like a granted patent typographically, it has not been edited. A less literal translation such as “The following information is published in the version submitted by the applicant” is equally accurate and more informative.
Sometimes a “literal” translation provides too much information. A conscientious translator may feel bound to translate every word, no matter how peripheral to the basic subject matter. Did the requester really want the phone numbers and addresses of all 14 branch offices of that foreign patent office? On a somewhat higher level, differences in the structure of source and target language may interfere with comprehension if the translator takes a slavishly literal approach. In translations of Japanese patents, for instance, one often encounters phrases such as “the fluid passes through between retaining walls 3 and 4.” Even if there are two prepositions in the original, one will do quite nicely in English. The art of translation is to convey the meaning as precisely as possible without distortion by the grammatical peculiarities of the source language.
Similar problems occur in languages that allow the formation of new compound words almost at will. In an attempt at extra precision, the Japanese or German patent attorney writes, literally, “a windshield wiper motor used to operate a windshield wiper arm supporting a windshield wiper blade for wiping the windshields of motor vehicles.” If “wiper motor” and “wiper arm” are the accepted terms of art in English, there is absolutely no loss of information from adopting these less literal alternatives. A good technical translator will not ignore how the translation reads, but will reluctantly accept something less than beautiful prose if the job requires. This is what I believe customers mean when they ask for a “literal” translation.
With translations as with prayers, it’s always a good thing to think twice about what you wish for. You just might get it.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
McElroy Translation Company,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA
quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/
McElroy Translation is often immersed in the language translation that is generated by patent prosecution and patent litigation. In this article McElroy Chief Editor Dr. Mark Ritter applies his dry wit to the questions of when to provide a “literal” translation.
From time to time translation agencies receive requests for a “literal” translation. This seemingly inoffensive adjective is much like the term “obscene.” No one is quite sure how to define it, but we all know it when we see it. When a literal translation is explicitly specified, an agency specializing in intellectual property translation reacts somewhat like a minister who is asked to preach a religious sermon: “that’s the only kind I know.”
Clearly one thing that “literal” means is “don’t embellish, don’t summarize,” a fundamental principle for IP translators. Sometimes, however, a totally straightforward translation fails to convey the meaning. Consider, for instance, a common disclaimer on the title pages of many German patents: “Die folgenden Angaben sind den vom Anmelder eingereichten Unterlagen entnommen.” [The following information is taken from the documents submitted by the applicant.] When I first encountered this sentence my reaction was: “Where else could it come from—the patent fairy?”
It seemed like just one more piece of meaningless bureaucratese and I went on to the real job. I later observed that this notice appears only on published unexamined applications that have been typeset in the standard eye-destroying minuscule font of the German Patent Office, rather than being published as a photomechanical reproduction of the original typescript submission. Then it made sense—it is a reminder that, although this may look like a granted patent typographically, it has not been edited. A less literal translation such as “The following information is published in the version submitted by the applicant” is equally accurate and more informative.
Sometimes a “literal” translation provides too much information. A conscientious translator may feel bound to translate every word, no matter how peripheral to the basic subject matter. Did the requester really want the phone numbers and addresses of all 14 branch offices of that foreign patent office? On a somewhat higher level, differences in the structure of source and target language may interfere with comprehension if the translator takes a slavishly literal approach. In translations of Japanese patents, for instance, one often encounters phrases such as “the fluid passes through between retaining walls 3 and 4.” Even if there are two prepositions in the original, one will do quite nicely in English. The art of translation is to convey the meaning as precisely as possible without distortion by the grammatical peculiarities of the source language.
Similar problems occur in languages that allow the formation of new compound words almost at will. In an attempt at extra precision, the Japanese or German patent attorney writes, literally, “a windshield wiper motor used to operate a windshield wiper arm supporting a windshield wiper blade for wiping the windshields of motor vehicles.” If “wiper motor” and “wiper arm” are the accepted terms of art in English, there is absolutely no loss of information from adopting these less literal alternatives. A good technical translator will not ignore how the translation reads, but will reluctantly accept something less than beautiful prose if the job requires. This is what I believe customers mean when they ask for a “literal” translation.
With translations as with prayers, it’s always a good thing to think twice about what you wish for. You just might get it.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Does Sending Source Files Make That Much Difference?
By Susan Andrus,
Production Department,
and
Lisa Siciliani,
Localization and Marketing Manager,
McElroy Translation,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA
quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/
The Short Answer
It just may. You should consider certain factors when deciding how much effort to spend finding source files that aren’t readily available. You may save translation turn time and/or money by providing electronic source files if you have:
1. Complex document formats, such as forms, brochures, indexed manuals
2. Web site or other online files
3. Editable text-containing graphics files
4. Duplication benefiting from use of a translation memory tool
A little background will help you understand how the situation has changed significantly for most translation and localization vendors. Just five years ago, most client document files that were to be translated into English were sent to agencies in hardcopy or PDF only. With the limited ability of scanning software at the time, these files were either provided to the translators in the original format or a considerable amount of time was spent to create accurate electronic source files.
Complex Document Formats
If your project consists of 1) just a few documents that are 2) primarily straight text with little formatting and 3) few graphics and 4) you don’t care about the format of the translated file, skip to the next section. If, on the other hand, any of the above apply to your project, stick around.
1. Saving even one hour of formatting time per document multiplied times dozens of documents can save hundreds or thousands of dollars.
2. Although our Production Department loves desktop publishing (they really do), recreating forms, complex manuals or marketing material from scratch does take time. When a PDF is converted to an editable file all of the formatting is lost.
3. See the section on editable graphics.
4. Sometimes a document needs to be formatted like the original because it will be published or because the content requires formatting in order to be used—imagine an unformatted form.
Web Site or Other Online Files
To start with, sending organized source files can make a huge difference in how accurate the estimates are that you receive from various vendors. Unless your web site is small and very simple, there is information affecting the localization turn time and cost that can not be ascertained just from viewing the source code available online to the public. If you send extraneous or disorganized files, or don’t send source files, the estimates you receive from vendors may vary. You won’t be able to compare apples to apples, because each vendor will have to guess at what you want and what work will be involved.
Once assigned to a vendor, the original web developer who is familiar with the details of the site can organize the files to be sent for localization much more quickly than those new to it. When you have the option to involve your developer the following can be minimized or eliminated:
1. Incomplete set of files sent to vendor
2. Multiple versions of files
3. Extraneous files sent causing it to be unclear what you want translated
4. Proprietary file formats that can not be readily accessed by a vendor
5. Unclear instructions regarding which content is to be localized
Files Containing Graphics with Editable Text
An editable graphic contains text that can be modified within the program that created it or another graphics program, or within a graphics feature of a document program. There are many different types of graphics programs, such as PhotoShop, Corel Draw, Ulead and Illustrator. You can save a file in one of those file formats, but usually graphics are exported to one of a few common graphics file types, such as JPG, GIF, TIF or BMP. These are not readily editable.
Using this example, let’s say your graphics were created in Illustrator, exported to JPG format, then inserted into a formatted document. For your translation vendor to quickly recreate translated graphics, they will need the original EPS or AI (Illustrator) files. Even if you outsourced the development of this document, your developer will probably send you the original graphics files if they still have them.
We can recreate text-containing graphics without editable graphics files, although there could be a multifold difference in the amount of time it takes. This is another one of those things that our desktop publishers love to do, but time is money so if there is a chance that someone can find and send those original files, it might be worth it to try.
Adapting To “Translation Memory”
Projects with significant content duplication are excellent candidates for the use of translation memory tools, reducing the cost of translation. Use of translation memory requires electronic source files. Some of the possible cost savings are lost when your vendor has to create editable electronic source files. The translation memory tool we use, TRADOS™, is able to create translated files retaining the format of the original in most major file formats.
Some evolution of our own common receivables and deliverables
5 years ago:
* We received few editable source files
* Most document custom format was done in MS Word
* Many clients requested hardcopy only as deliverable
* Graphics were often physically pasted into the hardcopy
* Production staff were needed to prepare many files for translation
Today:
* Most custom format deliverables arrive in editable source files
* We receive more files in formats such as FrameMaker, Quark and HTML
* Most clients receive electronic files only, complete with translated graphics
* Graphics can now be rapidly extracted from PDFs and cleaned of source text
* Fewer staff are required to produce more complex document and online files
Summary: How Sending Your Vendor Source Files Benefits You
* Get faster, more accurate estimates
* Take advantage of translation memory
* Receive desktop published deliverables
* Reduce project turn time
* SAVE MONEY
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Production Department,
and
Lisa Siciliani,
Localization and Marketing Manager,
McElroy Translation,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA
quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/
The Short Answer
It just may. You should consider certain factors when deciding how much effort to spend finding source files that aren’t readily available. You may save translation turn time and/or money by providing electronic source files if you have:
1. Complex document formats, such as forms, brochures, indexed manuals
2. Web site or other online files
3. Editable text-containing graphics files
4. Duplication benefiting from use of a translation memory tool
A little background will help you understand how the situation has changed significantly for most translation and localization vendors. Just five years ago, most client document files that were to be translated into English were sent to agencies in hardcopy or PDF only. With the limited ability of scanning software at the time, these files were either provided to the translators in the original format or a considerable amount of time was spent to create accurate electronic source files.
Complex Document Formats
If your project consists of 1) just a few documents that are 2) primarily straight text with little formatting and 3) few graphics and 4) you don’t care about the format of the translated file, skip to the next section. If, on the other hand, any of the above apply to your project, stick around.
1. Saving even one hour of formatting time per document multiplied times dozens of documents can save hundreds or thousands of dollars.
2. Although our Production Department loves desktop publishing (they really do), recreating forms, complex manuals or marketing material from scratch does take time. When a PDF is converted to an editable file all of the formatting is lost.
3. See the section on editable graphics.
4. Sometimes a document needs to be formatted like the original because it will be published or because the content requires formatting in order to be used—imagine an unformatted form.
Web Site or Other Online Files
To start with, sending organized source files can make a huge difference in how accurate the estimates are that you receive from various vendors. Unless your web site is small and very simple, there is information affecting the localization turn time and cost that can not be ascertained just from viewing the source code available online to the public. If you send extraneous or disorganized files, or don’t send source files, the estimates you receive from vendors may vary. You won’t be able to compare apples to apples, because each vendor will have to guess at what you want and what work will be involved.
Once assigned to a vendor, the original web developer who is familiar with the details of the site can organize the files to be sent for localization much more quickly than those new to it. When you have the option to involve your developer the following can be minimized or eliminated:
1. Incomplete set of files sent to vendor
2. Multiple versions of files
3. Extraneous files sent causing it to be unclear what you want translated
4. Proprietary file formats that can not be readily accessed by a vendor
5. Unclear instructions regarding which content is to be localized
Files Containing Graphics with Editable Text
An editable graphic contains text that can be modified within the program that created it or another graphics program, or within a graphics feature of a document program. There are many different types of graphics programs, such as PhotoShop, Corel Draw, Ulead and Illustrator. You can save a file in one of those file formats, but usually graphics are exported to one of a few common graphics file types, such as JPG, GIF, TIF or BMP. These are not readily editable.
Using this example, let’s say your graphics were created in Illustrator, exported to JPG format, then inserted into a formatted document. For your translation vendor to quickly recreate translated graphics, they will need the original EPS or AI (Illustrator) files. Even if you outsourced the development of this document, your developer will probably send you the original graphics files if they still have them.
We can recreate text-containing graphics without editable graphics files, although there could be a multifold difference in the amount of time it takes. This is another one of those things that our desktop publishers love to do, but time is money so if there is a chance that someone can find and send those original files, it might be worth it to try.
Adapting To “Translation Memory”
Projects with significant content duplication are excellent candidates for the use of translation memory tools, reducing the cost of translation. Use of translation memory requires electronic source files. Some of the possible cost savings are lost when your vendor has to create editable electronic source files. The translation memory tool we use, TRADOS™, is able to create translated files retaining the format of the original in most major file formats.
Some evolution of our own common receivables and deliverables
5 years ago:
* We received few editable source files
* Most document custom format was done in MS Word
* Many clients requested hardcopy only as deliverable
* Graphics were often physically pasted into the hardcopy
* Production staff were needed to prepare many files for translation
Today:
* Most custom format deliverables arrive in editable source files
* We receive more files in formats such as FrameMaker, Quark and HTML
* Most clients receive electronic files only, complete with translated graphics
* Graphics can now be rapidly extracted from PDFs and cleaned of source text
* Fewer staff are required to produce more complex document and online files
Summary: How Sending Your Vendor Source Files Benefits You
* Get faster, more accurate estimates
* Take advantage of translation memory
* Receive desktop published deliverables
* Reduce project turn time
* SAVE MONEY
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Preparing Projects for Localized Desktop Publishing
By John Watkins,
President and COO,
ENLASO Corporation
marketing [at] translate . com
www.translate.com
Introduction
If you search the Web for guidelines for preparing projects for localization, you will find that most of the results focus on issues related to language content. For technical documentation and marketing materials, preparation and guidelines for the document publishing portion of your multilingual projects are equally important.
Some customers new to translation and localization often assume that translated documents simply open up in the same format as the source files, requiring little or no manual adjustments. This is not always the case. Ways to handle text expansion, special language-specific fonts and manipulations of the final output are just a few of the decisions the customer must make. Some planning, including the development of styles and formatting guidelines, can greatly streamline the publishing process of localized files.
ENLASO has assembled an impressive list of guidelines to help you meet multilingual publishing challenges. This white paper includes a thorough checklist, with some examples, that covers the decisions you should make and the information you should provide before starting a publishing oriented localization project. These guidelines are aimed at projects with paper or PDF output as a final deliverable; software or Web site localization require somewhat different guidelines.
General Questions to Keep in Mind
• Is the project a new translation (from scratch) or an update to a legacy project? If it is an update, is it minor or major? Do you have the legacy source and target language files for any updates?
• What are the source and target language(s)? Specify the country or locale as well (e.g., fr-CA for Canada vs. fr-FR for France).
• Are style guides available for the source documents? What about for style guides for the localized documents? If not, can they be created? Do you need your localization vendor to prepare these for you?
• What turn-around time do you require for the localization effort, including the layout of localized files?
• Does the project include a customer review step of the translated content and/or formatting before final delivery? If so, has the internal review staff been identified? Have internal review turnaround times been established?
• Are changes to content or format expected during the project? This will influence the probability of change orders and the likelihood of project cost increases. Expected changes often have an impact on cost and delivery time.
• Do you have an existing Translation memory (TM) from previous projects?
• Are there localizable graphics (graphics that contain text that needs to be localized)? If so, can you provide the source graphic files for editing?
• Are there screenshots from software that appear in the document? Is the software localized (requiring the placement of localized screenshots in the target language documents)? Can you provide the screenshots or should the vendor capture the screens for you from the software?
• Are there specific fonts for the vendor to use, or should the vendor select appropriate fonts for the target languages?
• Will a single sourced document provide multiple outputs? (e.g., FrameMaker outputting PDF, HTML and Help via WebWorks or RoboHelp?).
When Sending Files to the Vendor
• Clean folder structures: Provide an organized and clean folder structure with all source files needed to build the documentation (including any artwork). If possible, only include files that are used in the documentation for localization. It is always preferable if the files are “collected for output” including fonts, when they are in Quark or InDesign.
• Final source files: Provide source files as close to “final” as possible. Most accurate estimates are done on final files. If non-final files are provided, a vendor must re-analyze files prior to project start.
• Final output of source: Provide final deliverable output of the source language (typically a final PDF). This is referred to as the 'Go by', and is used to assure consistent and high quality output for the localized documents. If final deliverable output specifications cannot be provided by the client, the vendor will create them and request the client's approval prior to their use.
• Platform/Applications/Versions of source documents: Provide information on all platforms (e.g., PC, Mac, UNIX, Linux) and applications (e.g., FrameMaker, InDesign, QuarkXPress, Illustrator, PageMaker, WebWorks, Word, Excel, PowerPoint), and versions (E.g. FrameMaker 7.0 or 8.0, InDesign CS2) used in creating the source documents.
Publishing Phase
• Pages: During documentation layout of the localized content, the vendor needs to know if the page flow has to match the source documents (e.g., whether page breaks must match, whether documents must end on an even or odd number of pages, and the maximum allowable page count.
• Text expansion: As a general rule, expect content to expand 20-30% for European languages. Asian languages tend to come closer to English in page length, but they typically require larger font sizes. Consider the preferred format overrides the vendor should use (e.g., kerning adjustments before adjustment of line spacing before adjustments to smaller font sizes).
• Fonts: Some languages require different fonts to render the characters correctly. If you have strict preferences for appropriate fonts, provide this information to your vendor early in the localization process. Note: if you have established a custom designed “corporate font,” there may not be equivalent style fonts for eastern European and Asian languages.
• Units/address/phone/currency: During the localization process, measurement units may be left in English units or need to be converted for the appropriate market. It is best if you provide the converted units, if they are necessary, to ensure compliance with your products. In a similar vein, you may need to provide alternative contact information (address and telephone numbers) and currency rates to be used in the localized documentation.
• Graphics: Preparing graphics for localization can save money during the localization process. Ensure that the graphics have “text layers” so that the text can be easily accessed and modified by your localization vendor. If these text layers are “flattened”, the vendor must budget for re-creation of text layers.
• Screenshots: Software documentation often contains screenshots from the software for reference. If the software is localized as well, then localized screenshots should be placed in the localized documentation.
o If they will remain in English, how should the localization vendor handle User Interface references within the body text that directly refer to a screen shot?
o If screenshots are localized, will the localization vendor recreate screenshots after the User Interface is localized or will you provide them?
• Part/artwork numbers for the localized documents: Make sure to provide project specific language codes, part numbers, and artwork numbers that replace related numbers from the source files.
• Style Guides: These publishing phase guidelines are often combined into style guides for each target market. Style guides provide a living document of these requirements, helping to ensure consistent quality over multiple projects for each target market. Working with a localization vendor experienced in the development of target market style guides improves your localization efficiency. Deliverables
• File naming and folder specifications: You may have specific requirements for the delivery of localized documentation files (including file naming conventions, directory folders naming and structure. Communicate to the localization vendor about your specific needs.
• Change in application for deliverables: Clients may need to transfer their source content from an old application to publishing software more suited for your target language(s) (e.g., PageMaker to FrameMaker conversion) to better accommodate features like tables and cross references. Conversion to another application may also be necessary if the source application does not support your target language(s). For example: FrameMaker 8 doesn’t support Arabic or other bi-directional languages. In this case, InDesign would be a better choice.
o If document conversion is necessary, re-creation of the source template in the deliverable application is required prior to localization. Make sure to approve the final source template prior to starting translation.
• Translation memory: Using a translation memory can improve quality (by supporting consistency in the translation) while helping to reduce costs through the leveraging of previously translated text. Do you have specific translation memory format requirements? There are a number of tools available, though the largest market share belongs to Trados and the TMX translation memory format.
• PDF specifications: Documentation is often output to PDF format. Should PDF be Web or print ready or do you need both? If PDF must be print ready, make sure to provide resolution requirements, dpi and final page size specifications. If PDF is for print, should a registration mark be added? Are bookmarks required or other special features? When either party (customer or vendor) “guesses” what the best output specification would be, there is the risk of additional billable time required for recreating correct PDF output.
Summary
Finding the answers to these questions eliminate many of the surprises that can occur in multilingual documentation production. Internal fact-finding to provide full specifications to your localization vendor is well worth the effort, saving time and money during the localization process. The tips in this white paper can help you avoid unwanted project delays or costly change orders.
For more information or to request a quote, please contact us by phone at 303 516 0857 or by e-mail at marketing [at] translate . com.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
President and COO,
ENLASO Corporation
marketing [at] translate . com
www.translate.com
Introduction
If you search the Web for guidelines for preparing projects for localization, you will find that most of the results focus on issues related to language content. For technical documentation and marketing materials, preparation and guidelines for the document publishing portion of your multilingual projects are equally important.
Some customers new to translation and localization often assume that translated documents simply open up in the same format as the source files, requiring little or no manual adjustments. This is not always the case. Ways to handle text expansion, special language-specific fonts and manipulations of the final output are just a few of the decisions the customer must make. Some planning, including the development of styles and formatting guidelines, can greatly streamline the publishing process of localized files.
ENLASO has assembled an impressive list of guidelines to help you meet multilingual publishing challenges. This white paper includes a thorough checklist, with some examples, that covers the decisions you should make and the information you should provide before starting a publishing oriented localization project. These guidelines are aimed at projects with paper or PDF output as a final deliverable; software or Web site localization require somewhat different guidelines.
General Questions to Keep in Mind
• Is the project a new translation (from scratch) or an update to a legacy project? If it is an update, is it minor or major? Do you have the legacy source and target language files for any updates?
• What are the source and target language(s)? Specify the country or locale as well (e.g., fr-CA for Canada vs. fr-FR for France).
• Are style guides available for the source documents? What about for style guides for the localized documents? If not, can they be created? Do you need your localization vendor to prepare these for you?
• What turn-around time do you require for the localization effort, including the layout of localized files?
• Does the project include a customer review step of the translated content and/or formatting before final delivery? If so, has the internal review staff been identified? Have internal review turnaround times been established?
• Are changes to content or format expected during the project? This will influence the probability of change orders and the likelihood of project cost increases. Expected changes often have an impact on cost and delivery time.
• Do you have an existing Translation memory (TM) from previous projects?
• Are there localizable graphics (graphics that contain text that needs to be localized)? If so, can you provide the source graphic files for editing?
• Are there screenshots from software that appear in the document? Is the software localized (requiring the placement of localized screenshots in the target language documents)? Can you provide the screenshots or should the vendor capture the screens for you from the software?
• Are there specific fonts for the vendor to use, or should the vendor select appropriate fonts for the target languages?
• Will a single sourced document provide multiple outputs? (e.g., FrameMaker outputting PDF, HTML and Help via WebWorks or RoboHelp?).
When Sending Files to the Vendor
• Clean folder structures: Provide an organized and clean folder structure with all source files needed to build the documentation (including any artwork). If possible, only include files that are used in the documentation for localization. It is always preferable if the files are “collected for output” including fonts, when they are in Quark or InDesign.
• Final source files: Provide source files as close to “final” as possible. Most accurate estimates are done on final files. If non-final files are provided, a vendor must re-analyze files prior to project start.
• Final output of source: Provide final deliverable output of the source language (typically a final PDF). This is referred to as the 'Go by', and is used to assure consistent and high quality output for the localized documents. If final deliverable output specifications cannot be provided by the client, the vendor will create them and request the client's approval prior to their use.
• Platform/Applications/Versions of source documents: Provide information on all platforms (e.g., PC, Mac, UNIX, Linux) and applications (e.g., FrameMaker, InDesign, QuarkXPress, Illustrator, PageMaker, WebWorks, Word, Excel, PowerPoint), and versions (E.g. FrameMaker 7.0 or 8.0, InDesign CS2) used in creating the source documents.
Publishing Phase
• Pages: During documentation layout of the localized content, the vendor needs to know if the page flow has to match the source documents (e.g., whether page breaks must match, whether documents must end on an even or odd number of pages, and the maximum allowable page count.
• Text expansion: As a general rule, expect content to expand 20-30% for European languages. Asian languages tend to come closer to English in page length, but they typically require larger font sizes. Consider the preferred format overrides the vendor should use (e.g., kerning adjustments before adjustment of line spacing before adjustments to smaller font sizes).
• Fonts: Some languages require different fonts to render the characters correctly. If you have strict preferences for appropriate fonts, provide this information to your vendor early in the localization process. Note: if you have established a custom designed “corporate font,” there may not be equivalent style fonts for eastern European and Asian languages.
• Units/address/phone/currency: During the localization process, measurement units may be left in English units or need to be converted for the appropriate market. It is best if you provide the converted units, if they are necessary, to ensure compliance with your products. In a similar vein, you may need to provide alternative contact information (address and telephone numbers) and currency rates to be used in the localized documentation.
• Graphics: Preparing graphics for localization can save money during the localization process. Ensure that the graphics have “text layers” so that the text can be easily accessed and modified by your localization vendor. If these text layers are “flattened”, the vendor must budget for re-creation of text layers.
• Screenshots: Software documentation often contains screenshots from the software for reference. If the software is localized as well, then localized screenshots should be placed in the localized documentation.
o If they will remain in English, how should the localization vendor handle User Interface references within the body text that directly refer to a screen shot?
o If screenshots are localized, will the localization vendor recreate screenshots after the User Interface is localized or will you provide them?
• Part/artwork numbers for the localized documents: Make sure to provide project specific language codes, part numbers, and artwork numbers that replace related numbers from the source files.
• Style Guides: These publishing phase guidelines are often combined into style guides for each target market. Style guides provide a living document of these requirements, helping to ensure consistent quality over multiple projects for each target market. Working with a localization vendor experienced in the development of target market style guides improves your localization efficiency. Deliverables
• File naming and folder specifications: You may have specific requirements for the delivery of localized documentation files (including file naming conventions, directory folders naming and structure. Communicate to the localization vendor about your specific needs.
• Change in application for deliverables: Clients may need to transfer their source content from an old application to publishing software more suited for your target language(s) (e.g., PageMaker to FrameMaker conversion) to better accommodate features like tables and cross references. Conversion to another application may also be necessary if the source application does not support your target language(s). For example: FrameMaker 8 doesn’t support Arabic or other bi-directional languages. In this case, InDesign would be a better choice.
o If document conversion is necessary, re-creation of the source template in the deliverable application is required prior to localization. Make sure to approve the final source template prior to starting translation.
• Translation memory: Using a translation memory can improve quality (by supporting consistency in the translation) while helping to reduce costs through the leveraging of previously translated text. Do you have specific translation memory format requirements? There are a number of tools available, though the largest market share belongs to Trados and the TMX translation memory format.
• PDF specifications: Documentation is often output to PDF format. Should PDF be Web or print ready or do you need both? If PDF must be print ready, make sure to provide resolution requirements, dpi and final page size specifications. If PDF is for print, should a registration mark be added? Are bookmarks required or other special features? When either party (customer or vendor) “guesses” what the best output specification would be, there is the risk of additional billable time required for recreating correct PDF output.
Summary
Finding the answers to these questions eliminate many of the surprises that can occur in multilingual documentation production. Internal fact-finding to provide full specifications to your localization vendor is well worth the effort, saving time and money during the localization process. The tips in this white paper can help you avoid unwanted project delays or costly change orders.
For more information or to request a quote, please contact us by phone at 303 516 0857 or by e-mail at marketing [at] translate . com.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Monday, May 11, 2009
Outlining a Translation Requirements Specification
By Luigi Muzii,
Italian association for terminology,
Gruppo L10N
The success of a translation project depends on its preparation, and this includes the identification of service needs, and then a requirements specification. A specification is defined by ASTM as an explicit set of requirements to be satisfied by a material, product, or service.
In a project, a (requirements) specification is a document providing an adequate and unambiguous description of the task load, together with a description of the desired results, the essential conditions to which the service must conform and the characteristics or features of each deliverable.
Its purpose is to present vendors with a clear, accurate and full description of the customer’s needs, and so enable them to propose a solution to meet those needs, which subsequently become incorporated in the contract.
The specific goal of a good translation requirements specification (TRS) is to establish the basis for agreement between the customers and the vendors, to determine if the translation specified meets their needs, and help the vendor select the most appropriate resources and prepare a realistic schedule.
There is a lot of great stuff on the Web about writing good specifications. The problem is not lack of knowledge about how to create a correctly formatted specification. The problem is what should go into the specification, especially a TRS.
If the request for proposal is the genesis of the client translation process, the TRS is the client tool to draw up the boundaries of the translation project, and establish a sound base for a positive working relationship to provide smooth operations allowing for cost effectiveness and respect of schedule.
TRS and Quality
The ISO 9000 series of standards introduced the notion that quality is a relative concept, which makes sense only when compared to a set of specifications. Today, quality broadly corresponds to product suitability meaning that the product meets the user’s requirements. To appraise quality in the sense of qualification to meet requirements, general criteria are necessary.
QA
To this end, a TRS should also include information for the vendor about the project assessment such as metrics and scorecards for quality assessment. The scorecard in particular is critical to track and justify the requirements, and should provide for
* Criteria (key performance indicators)
* Weights (the mean used to resolve any differences in assessment)
* Measures (the scale unit for scoring, e.g. low/ medium/high, 0-5)
* Scoring (ranking with respect to benchmarks)
* Comments
Criteria could cover the following:
* Specification adherence (e.g. none to full, 0-5)
* Meaning correspondence (rewriting required, e.g. none to full, 0-5)
* Naming conventions
* Terminology consistency
* Timing.
Quality expectations/thresholds should be specified together with the size and type of samples for inspections.
Elicitation
Requirements are necessary also to determine what buyers and vendors find most important in the procurement process, and tailor requests and proposals respectively.
Gathering requirements is not always a straightforward task. On the other hand, if you can’t collect requirements you don’t know your client, and if you don’t know your client you can hardly please him.
Gathering requirements involves interaction with the so-called information sources, individuals, organizations or documents, in most cases in the form of eliciting. Eliciting is active questioning to negotiate priorities, and define expectations. The focus should be on defining the customer’s goals, and agreeing on ways to test whether the project meets those goals.
The LSP is the translation expert and should guide the buyer through the process by asking questions that are part of a checklist.
Project requirements
The TRS should be part of a translation kit and serve as a basis for the statement of work detailing “what is to be done.”
Project requirements must be concise and straightforward to be read and followed. It is not bizarre that an experienced translator, typically willing to follow the instructions as close as possible, is annoyed by pages and pages of guidelines requiring a long time to read and possibly many readings during the job.
Be sure that the translators read and sign the TRS in the translation kit for approval, and fill all relevant items in the query sheet carefully after translation with the commonly used or fixed vocabularies/expressions. Have the query sheet sent back. This will help to refine the TRS for future use.
Refer to style guide for conventions in handling place names, person names and proper nouns, capitalization, and punctuation. Ask for translation to be spell-checked before delivery.
Translation parameters
Translation parameters come with the answers to the questions that should be asked, and form the actual set of specifications.
The basic issues that shall be addressed are the following:
* Languages and regional variations of the source text
* Languages and regional variations of the target text
* Subject matter
* Type of source text
* Purpose of the source text
* Purpose of the target text
* Intended audience of the source text
* Intended audience of the target text
* Culture-binding
* Adherence to target-language conventions
* Spatial and temporal correspondence
* Terminology and terminology management
* Use of controlled language
* Style and editorial guides
* Rewriting
* Format
* Encoding
* Reference materials
* Number of graphics
* Amount of text in graphics
* Translation technology
* Naming conventions
Further (support) information
When available, further information should be passed over to the translators to allow them better fulfill their job:
* Origin of source text
* Author(s) of source text, with contact information
* Creation date of source text
Specified apart in contract
If necessary, the following information can be detailed separately in contract:
* Importance (priority for the customer, e.g. low, medium and high)
* Data control and confidentiality
* Volume
* Method of computing volume
* Deliverables and deadlines
* Communication methods and procedures
* Medium and method of delivery
* Change management procedures
* Billing procedures
* Legal, ethical, and financial considerations
* General dispute-resolution procedures (e.g. storage, handling, and ownership of TM’s, delays, quality of deliverables, etc.)
Conclusion
Just like the translation kit it belongs to, a TRS is never really done: it is an iterative document that reflects the plans and intentions of an organization as to translation. As those change, so must the TRS change. A (possibly Webbased) form could be arranged to store all details in a database for job tickets and facilitate periodic reviews to help shape the TRS.
Thanks to Fiorenza Mileto for her invaluable comments.
Suggested readings
Muzii L., Building a Localization Kit, ClientSide News Special Supplement, December 2005
About the Author
Luigi Muzii has been working in the language industry for 25 years as a translator, localizer, technical writer and consultant. He is visiting professor of localization at the Libera Università degli Studi “S. Pio V” in Rome, Italy, the author of a book on technical writing, and of many papers and articles on translation, and localization. He has been one of the founders of the Italian association for terminology and of Gruppo L10N.
Published - May 2008
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Sunday, May 10, 2009
"Mind your language… or pay the price in Rubels!"
By Karen Elwis
21st October, 2004
Translation Company in London: Lingo24
In the past few years, there have been moves afoot in Russia to encourage citizens - young and old - to clean up their language. No mean task considering that Russian, in its daily spoken form, is estimated to contain 50% more swearing than English...
In 2003 proponents of the cause attempted to start at the top by introducing a bill to prevent Russian Senators from resorting to foreign words and swearing to "spice" up their speeches. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Senators - including President Putin - threw the bill out.
However, this summer supporters of the "clean up Russian" cause secured a more modest victory at regional level. For in July 2004 officials in Belgorod (700 km from Moscow), a region in western Russia on the border with the Ukraine, introduced a law banning swearing in public. Under the new law, using foul language in public is classified as hooliganism. Part of a "cleaner-living" programme for the region's young people, the ban has been rigorously enforced, with officials imposing on-the-spot fines of up to 1,500 rubles ($50/£28) for expletive-uttering offenders. Fines vary according to the severity of the offence and are higher if the swearing occurs in the company of older people or children.
Valentina Trunova, deputy head of Belgorod's department of youth affairs, told a BBC reporter that money collected from fines is being ploughed back into the campaign. Almost 2,500 people - mainly in the under 30 age-group - have been fined, creating revenue of around $50,000 (£27,500), though so far no one has been jailed...
Authorities claim that the ban has been well received by the region's young people, and that a campaign featuring anti-swearing posters (e.g. "Swearing is not our style"), TV ads and comics, will encourage native speakers to return to the pure Russian of the great classics. However, one young man commented to Russia's Gazeta newspaper that the police were going over the top and that he and his friends constantly had to bite their lips for fear of prosecution.
Even if spoken English allegedly doesn't have such a high swearing content, it would be interesting to see how a similar ban in GB would impact on everyday situations - Friday night in the pub would certainly sound very different!
© Lingo24 Ltd
Translation services - Lingo24 is a leading provider of translation services between all major world languages. Based in the UK, the company also has full-time operations in China, Romania and New Zealand.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
21st October, 2004
Translation Company in London: Lingo24
In the past few years, there have been moves afoot in Russia to encourage citizens - young and old - to clean up their language. No mean task considering that Russian, in its daily spoken form, is estimated to contain 50% more swearing than English...
In 2003 proponents of the cause attempted to start at the top by introducing a bill to prevent Russian Senators from resorting to foreign words and swearing to "spice" up their speeches. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Senators - including President Putin - threw the bill out.
However, this summer supporters of the "clean up Russian" cause secured a more modest victory at regional level. For in July 2004 officials in Belgorod (700 km from Moscow), a region in western Russia on the border with the Ukraine, introduced a law banning swearing in public. Under the new law, using foul language in public is classified as hooliganism. Part of a "cleaner-living" programme for the region's young people, the ban has been rigorously enforced, with officials imposing on-the-spot fines of up to 1,500 rubles ($50/£28) for expletive-uttering offenders. Fines vary according to the severity of the offence and are higher if the swearing occurs in the company of older people or children.
Valentina Trunova, deputy head of Belgorod's department of youth affairs, told a BBC reporter that money collected from fines is being ploughed back into the campaign. Almost 2,500 people - mainly in the under 30 age-group - have been fined, creating revenue of around $50,000 (£27,500), though so far no one has been jailed...
Authorities claim that the ban has been well received by the region's young people, and that a campaign featuring anti-swearing posters (e.g. "Swearing is not our style"), TV ads and comics, will encourage native speakers to return to the pure Russian of the great classics. However, one young man commented to Russia's Gazeta newspaper that the police were going over the top and that he and his friends constantly had to bite their lips for fear of prosecution.
Even if spoken English allegedly doesn't have such a high swearing content, it would be interesting to see how a similar ban in GB would impact on everyday situations - Friday night in the pub would certainly sound very different!
© Lingo24 Ltd
Translation services - Lingo24 is a leading provider of translation services between all major world languages. Based in the UK, the company also has full-time operations in China, Romania and New Zealand.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Translation Of Personal Documents – A Window Into Our Strange World
By Steve Vitek,
Technical Translator,
Virginia, U.S.A.
stevevitek[at]patenttranslators.com
www.PatentTranslators.com
"Think of your fellow man
Lend him a helping hand
Put a little love in your heart!
I know, when you decide
Kindness will be your guide
Put a little love in your heart!"
[From a nearly forgotten song from the sixties by Jackie De Shannon]
(This article was originally published in Translorial, a quarterly journal published by the Northern California Translators Association (http://www.ncta.org), a chapter of the American Translators Association (http://atanet.org/).
This article is about translation of personal documents. Birth certificates, college transcripts, marriage certificates, divorce certificates, death certificates. They are called personal documents because they often have all kinds of personal things in them. Your birth certificate, for instance, has your (original) gender in it, it tells the whole world your age, the name, address, status and occupation of your parents, and depending on your country of birth even what kind of child you were and whether you had an identifying mark. Czech birth certificates also have an entry that says "remark", which is always empty. I keep waiting for some interesting descriptive remark, such as "has two heads", or "born in the form of three Siamese twins". No luck so far. But I often find a lot interesting things in boring old certificates. For instance, the old Czech term for an "out of wedlock" child would translate as "not [produced] in the spousal bed". Pretty graphic, you could say, but perhaps more accurate than "illegitimate". How can a child be illegitimate? Aren't all children legitimate, possibly unlike some of the actions of their parents?
Personal documents of people that I never met from Czech and Slovak Republic, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Japan, Russia, Algeria and other countries have been chasing me on a mad chase around the world for the last twenty five years. They always seem to find me everywhere I go. Some are already translated, for instance birth certificates from Ukraine used to be and maybe still are in Ukrainian and Russian, and from Algeria in Arabic and French. A translation agency in Tokyo called me once about a Czech birth certificate when I was traveling in Hokkaido, checking out the hot springs and fish markets of this exotic island for a couple of weeks. I'm sorry I missed that one, and I wonder who translated it.
Every now and then, my fax machine, e-mail or snail mail spits out a birth, marriage, divorce, or death certificate from a town in Bohemia that I will suddenly recall from some long forgotten episode in my carefree childhood or careless youth. It often ruins my concentration and I have to go for a cup of coffee to Cafe Aroma on Railroad Square or for a long walk through downtown Santa Rosa. (But I usually take my cell phone with me in case some other personal documents require my personal attention).
The death certificates are often more memorable than the other ones. Don't be shy to ask for more money for death certificates, even simple ones, because people usually need a translation when money is involved. I remember how once I asked for a hundred dollars for a very simple German death certificate, just a few words, really. I was very busy, translating a stack of Japanese patents and kind of hoping that the lady who called would go somewhere else. They often do when you ask for more than $90, which is what I ask for when I need some walk around money, which is to say most of the time. But she said O.K., so I did it. I will do just about anything for a hundred dollars. The young lady in question, who in fact seemed to be at least 30 years younger than her recently deceased German husband, forgot her checkbook in my office after she paid me with a check, possibly because she was still in shock. So naturally, I had to take a look at the checkbook to find her phone number, not that I am a nosy person, not in the least. But I could not help noticing that the balance in her checking account was fifty thousand dollars. That would pay the rent on my office and a lot of groceries too. Next time I must ask for a hundred and fifty, I thought. That is not all I thought, but let's leave it at that.
Often, the people who need a translation are recent immigrants as I was a quarter century ago. Some of them speak broken English, some are rude, and some are very pleasant, polite and obviously intelligent. Sometime I end up talking to them and we share our insights on life in America and other countries. There was a young German woman in the Bay Area who was thinking of immigrating to Australia because neither she nor her husband could obtain a green card in this country. I was trying to talk her out of it. I was thinking of emigrating to Australia at one point, and I am glad I went to California instead. It's just too far and too different over there. A young German furniture maker who lives in a small town not far from Santa Rosa was audited by the Internal Revenue Service because he showed no profit on his tax return during his first year in this country (his father gave him nine thousand dollars to live on until he establishes himself). He has a new accountant now. An Austrian woman died recently (of mitral valve failure) in a little town in Southern Bohemia where my sister used to live. This Austrian woman had a Croatian first name and a Hungarian last name, and she was visiting Bohemia when she died. She was cremated in the town of Budejovice, (called Budweis in German, unbeknownst to most Americans, home of the original Budweiser beer). She was one year younger than me when she died. The town where she died is on a pretty lake where I used to go swimming in summer, taking in the sun rays and trying to memorize a couple of thousand Japanese characters that I used to scribble on pieces of paper and stuff in the pocket of my jeans. Those were the good times. I wonder in what kind of place will my last failure find me and which valve will it be.
The people who call usually want to know whether my translations are legally valid. They often don't know how to say it in English and ask me whether I can "legalize" their marriage or divorce and other hilarious things. Usually, the thicker their accent, the more worried they are about my capability to make their documents official enough to be acceptable to U.S. government agencies, mortgage lenders, etc. If I don't like the way they sound, I just tell them that unfortunately, no official power has been vested in me (which is true) and wait for them to hang up. But in fact, they need not worry. I can make my translations look very official. They are printed on my stationary, which has some Japanese characters on it. Japanese or Chinese characters always make every document look very official, especially if you cannot read them. And I provide my expert translations with a short certifying statement in which I slyly promise accuracy (but only to the best of my ability, which is admittedly limited), and stamp them with a round embossing stamp which says OFFICIAL TRANSLATION on it in large letters. Office Depot will make a stamp like that for you for $25. If you staple several pages together, put an embossing, official sounding stamp on every page and add a solemn statement at the end, the result is usually more official looking than the original document (except for German affidavits, of course, because nothing is more official looking than German affidavits). Since I never got a single call from the Immigration and Naturalization Service or other institutions that devour personal documents on a daily basis in the twenty some years that I have been providing my expert services to the general public, this leads me to believe that the mistakes that I make when I "legalize" other people's marriages, divorces, diplomas, births and deaths are relatively infrequent and/or minor, unlike the mistakes that these people do on their own.
Sometime these personal documents come through a law firm or an agency, usually as a part of a legal case or an insurance investigation. Once I translated a handwritten report of a Japanese private investigator about a young American man who went to Tokyo to study Japanese, took out a very high life insurance policy on his life, and then suddenly died in his early thirties - of AIDS. The report included photographs of his apartment and interviews with his neighbors. Or there was a series of reports, handwritten again, from a Japanese headhunter who was evaluating (from an interestingly Japanese viewpoint) Russian researchers at an institute in Moscow where a Japanese company was hiring top research talent for rock bottom prices. Or a few gay love letters which a jealous American man just had to have translated because he could not read them. Or a series of letters and cards covering several decades from a Czech couple that emigrated to America about 170 years ago to their relatives in Austria-Hungary. The language was not very different from modern Czech, but the writing of these handwritten letters was very hard to read because back then they were using a special German writing style similar to Schwabach (also known as Blackletter, a script used in Western Europe approximately from 1150 to 1500, but well into the twentieth century in German speaking countries).
But usually, personal documents come through my small add in the Yellow Pages, and most of the time they are very short. Unless I have nothing else to do, I usually ask for a hundred dollars, not matter how short the document, One customer paid a hundred dollars for something scribbled in French on the back of a postcard that was given to her by a Buddhist monk. He died and she wanted to know what was it that he was trying to say to her. So I delivered a message from the deceased monk. Another customer paid a hundred dollars for a translation of three sentences into French. It was for her son who was trying to make sure that the French girl who he wanted to propose to in French would say oui to him. I wonder if he was kneeling when he was giving her his ring. I bet he was. He was so comme il faut (which is called chanto in Japanese there is really no proper translation for this kind of thing in American English, possibly because so few people bother to speak American English properly). I wondered if she married him and they are still together.
Most people think that they don't really need translators. And they don't. Except when somebody is born, or gets married, goes to school, dies .... and then, all of a sudden they do need us, just like they need doctors or midwives, caterers, teachers, and undertakers. I am glad I picked this particular profession of mine of all the other ones that I probably could have chosen when I was young. Where else would they pay me for sticking my nose into other people's business? As my trainer in the gym where I go on my lunch hour told me, "Where else would I get paid for torturing people?" (Which prompted me to suggest to her that she could be a dominatrix). Maybe she could be a dominatrix, but what else could I do for a living and make enough to keep the wolves away, I wonder. Let's face it, I don't really know anything about anything, except for a few languages which I can fake well enough to get paid for it. So, by default, I became a translator. It's better than being a toll taker on Golden Gate Bridge, the only other profession that I can think of as being fully qualified for.
My translations may not always be perfect. Few things in life, if any, are perfect. But just like the trainers in my gym, I am a fanatic about my work, and I believe in my job's importance every bit as much as they believe in the importance of their job. Because if you are not a fanatic about what you do for a living, you are probably not doing a very good job, and you should probably do something else. The job of the trainers in my gym is to save the lives of their clients - by reversing the aging process. And thanks to their somewhat foolish American optimism, so obviously visible to the eyes of a foreigner such as myself, they just might be able to do that. For a while, anyway. But just in case they fail, and ultimately, they can hardly win, it is my job to make sure that the name of the town in Germany, France, Japan, Poland, Russia or Bohemia where their client was born is spelled correctly in his obituary. If that is not an important job, I don't know what is.
You would not want to have the name of your hometown spelled incorrectly in your obituary either, would you?
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Technical Translator,
Virginia, U.S.A.
stevevitek[at]patenttranslators.com
www.PatentTranslators.com
"Think of your fellow man
Lend him a helping hand
Put a little love in your heart!
I know, when you decide
Kindness will be your guide
Put a little love in your heart!"
[From a nearly forgotten song from the sixties by Jackie De Shannon]
(This article was originally published in Translorial, a quarterly journal published by the Northern California Translators Association (http://www.ncta.org), a chapter of the American Translators Association (http://atanet.org/).
This article is about translation of personal documents. Birth certificates, college transcripts, marriage certificates, divorce certificates, death certificates. They are called personal documents because they often have all kinds of personal things in them. Your birth certificate, for instance, has your (original) gender in it, it tells the whole world your age, the name, address, status and occupation of your parents, and depending on your country of birth even what kind of child you were and whether you had an identifying mark. Czech birth certificates also have an entry that says "remark", which is always empty. I keep waiting for some interesting descriptive remark, such as "has two heads", or "born in the form of three Siamese twins". No luck so far. But I often find a lot interesting things in boring old certificates. For instance, the old Czech term for an "out of wedlock" child would translate as "not [produced] in the spousal bed". Pretty graphic, you could say, but perhaps more accurate than "illegitimate". How can a child be illegitimate? Aren't all children legitimate, possibly unlike some of the actions of their parents?
Personal documents of people that I never met from Czech and Slovak Republic, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Japan, Russia, Algeria and other countries have been chasing me on a mad chase around the world for the last twenty five years. They always seem to find me everywhere I go. Some are already translated, for instance birth certificates from Ukraine used to be and maybe still are in Ukrainian and Russian, and from Algeria in Arabic and French. A translation agency in Tokyo called me once about a Czech birth certificate when I was traveling in Hokkaido, checking out the hot springs and fish markets of this exotic island for a couple of weeks. I'm sorry I missed that one, and I wonder who translated it.
Every now and then, my fax machine, e-mail or snail mail spits out a birth, marriage, divorce, or death certificate from a town in Bohemia that I will suddenly recall from some long forgotten episode in my carefree childhood or careless youth. It often ruins my concentration and I have to go for a cup of coffee to Cafe Aroma on Railroad Square or for a long walk through downtown Santa Rosa. (But I usually take my cell phone with me in case some other personal documents require my personal attention).
The death certificates are often more memorable than the other ones. Don't be shy to ask for more money for death certificates, even simple ones, because people usually need a translation when money is involved. I remember how once I asked for a hundred dollars for a very simple German death certificate, just a few words, really. I was very busy, translating a stack of Japanese patents and kind of hoping that the lady who called would go somewhere else. They often do when you ask for more than $90, which is what I ask for when I need some walk around money, which is to say most of the time. But she said O.K., so I did it. I will do just about anything for a hundred dollars. The young lady in question, who in fact seemed to be at least 30 years younger than her recently deceased German husband, forgot her checkbook in my office after she paid me with a check, possibly because she was still in shock. So naturally, I had to take a look at the checkbook to find her phone number, not that I am a nosy person, not in the least. But I could not help noticing that the balance in her checking account was fifty thousand dollars. That would pay the rent on my office and a lot of groceries too. Next time I must ask for a hundred and fifty, I thought. That is not all I thought, but let's leave it at that.
Often, the people who need a translation are recent immigrants as I was a quarter century ago. Some of them speak broken English, some are rude, and some are very pleasant, polite and obviously intelligent. Sometime I end up talking to them and we share our insights on life in America and other countries. There was a young German woman in the Bay Area who was thinking of immigrating to Australia because neither she nor her husband could obtain a green card in this country. I was trying to talk her out of it. I was thinking of emigrating to Australia at one point, and I am glad I went to California instead. It's just too far and too different over there. A young German furniture maker who lives in a small town not far from Santa Rosa was audited by the Internal Revenue Service because he showed no profit on his tax return during his first year in this country (his father gave him nine thousand dollars to live on until he establishes himself). He has a new accountant now. An Austrian woman died recently (of mitral valve failure) in a little town in Southern Bohemia where my sister used to live. This Austrian woman had a Croatian first name and a Hungarian last name, and she was visiting Bohemia when she died. She was cremated in the town of Budejovice, (called Budweis in German, unbeknownst to most Americans, home of the original Budweiser beer). She was one year younger than me when she died. The town where she died is on a pretty lake where I used to go swimming in summer, taking in the sun rays and trying to memorize a couple of thousand Japanese characters that I used to scribble on pieces of paper and stuff in the pocket of my jeans. Those were the good times. I wonder in what kind of place will my last failure find me and which valve will it be.
The people who call usually want to know whether my translations are legally valid. They often don't know how to say it in English and ask me whether I can "legalize" their marriage or divorce and other hilarious things. Usually, the thicker their accent, the more worried they are about my capability to make their documents official enough to be acceptable to U.S. government agencies, mortgage lenders, etc. If I don't like the way they sound, I just tell them that unfortunately, no official power has been vested in me (which is true) and wait for them to hang up. But in fact, they need not worry. I can make my translations look very official. They are printed on my stationary, which has some Japanese characters on it. Japanese or Chinese characters always make every document look very official, especially if you cannot read them. And I provide my expert translations with a short certifying statement in which I slyly promise accuracy (but only to the best of my ability, which is admittedly limited), and stamp them with a round embossing stamp which says OFFICIAL TRANSLATION on it in large letters. Office Depot will make a stamp like that for you for $25. If you staple several pages together, put an embossing, official sounding stamp on every page and add a solemn statement at the end, the result is usually more official looking than the original document (except for German affidavits, of course, because nothing is more official looking than German affidavits). Since I never got a single call from the Immigration and Naturalization Service or other institutions that devour personal documents on a daily basis in the twenty some years that I have been providing my expert services to the general public, this leads me to believe that the mistakes that I make when I "legalize" other people's marriages, divorces, diplomas, births and deaths are relatively infrequent and/or minor, unlike the mistakes that these people do on their own.
Sometime these personal documents come through a law firm or an agency, usually as a part of a legal case or an insurance investigation. Once I translated a handwritten report of a Japanese private investigator about a young American man who went to Tokyo to study Japanese, took out a very high life insurance policy on his life, and then suddenly died in his early thirties - of AIDS. The report included photographs of his apartment and interviews with his neighbors. Or there was a series of reports, handwritten again, from a Japanese headhunter who was evaluating (from an interestingly Japanese viewpoint) Russian researchers at an institute in Moscow where a Japanese company was hiring top research talent for rock bottom prices. Or a few gay love letters which a jealous American man just had to have translated because he could not read them. Or a series of letters and cards covering several decades from a Czech couple that emigrated to America about 170 years ago to their relatives in Austria-Hungary. The language was not very different from modern Czech, but the writing of these handwritten letters was very hard to read because back then they were using a special German writing style similar to Schwabach (also known as Blackletter, a script used in Western Europe approximately from 1150 to 1500, but well into the twentieth century in German speaking countries).
But usually, personal documents come through my small add in the Yellow Pages, and most of the time they are very short. Unless I have nothing else to do, I usually ask for a hundred dollars, not matter how short the document, One customer paid a hundred dollars for something scribbled in French on the back of a postcard that was given to her by a Buddhist monk. He died and she wanted to know what was it that he was trying to say to her. So I delivered a message from the deceased monk. Another customer paid a hundred dollars for a translation of three sentences into French. It was for her son who was trying to make sure that the French girl who he wanted to propose to in French would say oui to him. I wonder if he was kneeling when he was giving her his ring. I bet he was. He was so comme il faut (which is called chanto in Japanese there is really no proper translation for this kind of thing in American English, possibly because so few people bother to speak American English properly). I wondered if she married him and they are still together.
Most people think that they don't really need translators. And they don't. Except when somebody is born, or gets married, goes to school, dies .... and then, all of a sudden they do need us, just like they need doctors or midwives, caterers, teachers, and undertakers. I am glad I picked this particular profession of mine of all the other ones that I probably could have chosen when I was young. Where else would they pay me for sticking my nose into other people's business? As my trainer in the gym where I go on my lunch hour told me, "Where else would I get paid for torturing people?" (Which prompted me to suggest to her that she could be a dominatrix). Maybe she could be a dominatrix, but what else could I do for a living and make enough to keep the wolves away, I wonder. Let's face it, I don't really know anything about anything, except for a few languages which I can fake well enough to get paid for it. So, by default, I became a translator. It's better than being a toll taker on Golden Gate Bridge, the only other profession that I can think of as being fully qualified for.
My translations may not always be perfect. Few things in life, if any, are perfect. But just like the trainers in my gym, I am a fanatic about my work, and I believe in my job's importance every bit as much as they believe in the importance of their job. Because if you are not a fanatic about what you do for a living, you are probably not doing a very good job, and you should probably do something else. The job of the trainers in my gym is to save the lives of their clients - by reversing the aging process. And thanks to their somewhat foolish American optimism, so obviously visible to the eyes of a foreigner such as myself, they just might be able to do that. For a while, anyway. But just in case they fail, and ultimately, they can hardly win, it is my job to make sure that the name of the town in Germany, France, Japan, Poland, Russia or Bohemia where their client was born is spelled correctly in his obituary. If that is not an important job, I don't know what is.
You would not want to have the name of your hometown spelled incorrectly in your obituary either, would you?
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Friday, May 8, 2009
Walk The Dog, Round The World, Or Sleep?
By Steve Vitek,
Technical Translator,
Virginia, U.S.A.
stevevitek[at]patenttranslators.com
www.PatentTranslators.com
"What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk? I believe that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain to take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes we doubt, we find it difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our mind."
Henry David Thoreau, "Walking" (1817-1862).
(This article was originally published in Translorial, a quarterly journal published by the Northern California Translators Association (http://www.ncta.org), a chapter of the American Translators Association (http://atanet.org/).
Some people think that your run-of-the-mill business gurus provide a great insight on how to and how not to run a business. I will listen with interest to what these management prophets have to say. But I think that I can learn at least as much, if not more, about the Zen of running a translation business from watching my two kids, a second grader and a fourth grader, playing with a cool yo-yo or throwing a neat, bouncy slinky.
There are three basic techniques for playing with a yo-yo. If you have forgotten or never really mastered the ancient art of throwing a cool yo-yo, they make up the title of my article. The trick is to make the yo-yo come back to you in defiance of the force of gravity. You kind of have to make it do something that it does not really want to do, just like you have to make your customers come back to you with their next translation, although they really hate spending good money on something as basic and overpriced as translation. Let's face it, they all hate spending their money on us, no matter how much or how little we ask for.
WALK THE DOG
The walk-the-dog technique is your basic yo-yo throwing gig. As far as I can tell, you throw the yo-yo slowly and carefully and when it is all the way down a few inches above the ground, you apply your invisible pulling powers so that the yo-yo will obediently slowly make its way back into the waiting palm of your hand, just like a dog that comes back to its master. No sudden, flashy moves, no obvious drama. This is your basic translation job in a field that you have been doing for years, at moderate rates to ensure repeat business. All you have to do is concentrate on the subject, make sure that you don't skip a line, don't change a number (watch out for those subscripts!) and don't use too many Gallicisms, Germanism, Czechisms, Nipponisms, or whatever -ism is applicable to your language. And for best results, always proofread even the simplest job the next morning after a good night's sleep unless it is a super-rush. If you do it right, the customer will come obediently back to you, which is the main purpose of the exercise, just like a yo-yo comes back right into the waiting hand of a youthful yo-yo master.
ROUND THE WORLD
The round-the-world technique is more demanding and quite a bit more dramatic. The yo-yo seems to start flying, all of a sudden and without warning, pulled by sheer will power and absolute concentration so apparent on the faces of children when they switch from the boring pedestrian-canine routine to enjoy the finer points of this exquisite game. In the game that freelance translators play, the round-the-world technique is usually announced by an unexpected call from a customer or an agency, often just before 5 PM or after normal business hours. The person on the other end of the phone line sounds excited and a little bit nervous and perhaps even desperate. They have a sizeable job which must be done in a couple of days, probably because some lawyer was sitting on it for two months, reluctant to waste money on a simple translation which, unlike legal advice, should be really free or no more expensive then making a Xerox copy. How do these translators dare to charge so much for "retyping" something in another language? That sort of thing should be made illegal! At this point, however, the company will be facing a serious problem unless the translation is finished by such and such deadline. Whenever I receive a call like this from an agency that is calling "round the world" (they can be in US, Europe or Japan) trying to find an available translator, or a set of PDF files in my e-mail or a thick envelope by Federal Express from a law firm with an urgent request to quote a price and turnaround time, I take a deep breath and try to concentrate on the job at hand at least as much as my children are concentrated on that little wooden or plastic yo-yo in the palm of their hand. One should not forget that the characters that are used for one of the words that mean crisis in Japanese are the same characters that are used for the word opportunity. Actually, the characters in the word "kiki", one of the words for crisis in Japanese, can be literally translated as "dangerous opportunity". Opportunity usually brings along also a danger. This is our opportunity to take on a relatively large chunk of a job at a higher rate to finally pay off that credit card bill, tax bill, or save some money for a new computer or vacation. You have to be careful not to ask for a rate that is too low or too high. Your will make your customer happy if you do the work at your usual rate, but why should you work overtime without getting paid a little more? Often, you can take on as much work as you like for a few days, but make sure that you don't bite off more than you can chew. If you do that, your opportunity will turn into a crisis not only for your customer, but also for you. A crisis is an opportunity, but an opportunity that is fraught with danger. The kids in agencies who are parceling out the job to translators "round the world" don't really know what is in the original because they usually don't speak the language, so don't take their word for the subject of the job, or the estimated word count, or just about anything. They may be nice kids, but they don't really know what they're doing. They just work there. It is a good idea not to accept (except tentatively) any job and any deadline until they send you the document.
SLEEP
The third technique, "sleep", comes in handy when business slows down and the phone all of a sudden stops ringing. This should be a restful period for translators, who now have some free time after all those impossible deadlines and illegible faxes. But the thing is, the bills still keep coming in when there is no work and one look at meager receivables will put quite a damper on what could be a peaceful day in your office. How can you "sleep" if you don't know where is the money going to come from? You have to make the checks stretch from one week to the next until the end of the month, just like my kids have to make the slinky slink itself from one step to the next until it reaches the bottom of the stairs. Ah, the victorious feeling I can clearly see radiating from their faces when the slinky makes it all the way down the stairs! Ah, the satisfaction of having another job lined up and another check deposited before the balance in the bank shrinks to zero!
How much sleep I get during the "sleep" period depends on how much money is still coming in from old jobs and how long the hibernation period lasts. If it is just a few days, I can still enjoy myself. I go to bookstores, sit in a café and look at those cute girls who always hang around downtown cafés (I only look, OK?), read another mystery novel, or go for a walk, trying to think deep thoughts as Henry David Thoreau did 150 years ago. But even with the lofty thoughts on my mind, now that the cute downtown girls are all but forgotten, I am always mindful of the fact that somebody has to mind the shop, nine to five at least, rain or shine, work or no work. That is why I almost always transfer my voice number to my cell phone when I go for a walk or to a café or bookstore during business hours. I have to be ready to spring into action at the first ring of my cell phone, my trusty digital friend. It is also the only way how I can make those girls in cafés notice me anyway, when the cell phone rings and I answer, especially if I start speaking Japanese. I try to find a quite corner or step outside of the shop not to disturb the customers too much, off course. After twenty years in the freelance business, the sleep period usually lasts only a few days before it is replaced by another onslaught of work and deadlines that come rushing in with a vengeance. I try to take it easy if the "sleep" takes only a week or so, even when other translators start calling me, complaining about lack of work and bills that pile up, with a familiar tinge of anxiety in their voice. I do my best to calm them down because as Bob, my tax accountant, says: "When you don't make any money, you don't owe any money to Uncle Sam." There is a good side to everything. I used to mail out packages of information that I call "propaganda" to prospective customers during slow times, but I have not done so recently since it never really got slow for a long time for me recently. But it will happen again, I am sure, one of these days. And when it does, I know what to do to wake up my sleeping customers - or at least keep myself busy with marketing so that I don't have time to worry too much.
MESS UP
There is also a fourth yo-yo technique, called "mess-up", I am told. Mess-up is when you try one technique, but since you do it the wrong way it ends up being a different thing altogether than what you meant it to be. As Thoreau would put it, the problem is that the idea of what you wanted to do did not exist distinctly in your mind before you started doing it. What you have to do when you mess up, of course, is start over and do it right the next time without losing too much sleep over it. We all mess up sometime. Well, maybe you never mess up anything, especially things having to do with your business and livelihood, but I sometime do. On the other hand, given that this publication has only a limited amount of space for contributors, perhaps I should not launch into a detailed description of my mess-ups. Maybe some other time.
***
I never told my children that the games they play are a constant source of inspiration for the games that I play when I try to run a business in this dog-eat-dog world. If I did, they would probably laugh anyway. You know, kids these days. They take nothing seriously. Like the other day when I tried to impress them with my military career in the old country and Casey, my older son, stopped playing with his yo-yo and said to me with a mischievous glint in his eye: "Hey, tata, (tata is Czech for "dad"), you had to "surf" in the Czech army for two years? That's great! That must be one cool army, tata!"
I get no respect in my own house. All they do is make fun of my accent. Oh, and by the way, Casey, it was a cool army. You have no idea.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Technical Translator,
Virginia, U.S.A.
stevevitek[at]patenttranslators.com
www.PatentTranslators.com
"What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk? I believe that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain to take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes we doubt, we find it difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our mind."
Henry David Thoreau, "Walking" (1817-1862).
(This article was originally published in Translorial, a quarterly journal published by the Northern California Translators Association (http://www.ncta.org), a chapter of the American Translators Association (http://atanet.org/).
Some people think that your run-of-the-mill business gurus provide a great insight on how to and how not to run a business. I will listen with interest to what these management prophets have to say. But I think that I can learn at least as much, if not more, about the Zen of running a translation business from watching my two kids, a second grader and a fourth grader, playing with a cool yo-yo or throwing a neat, bouncy slinky.
There are three basic techniques for playing with a yo-yo. If you have forgotten or never really mastered the ancient art of throwing a cool yo-yo, they make up the title of my article. The trick is to make the yo-yo come back to you in defiance of the force of gravity. You kind of have to make it do something that it does not really want to do, just like you have to make your customers come back to you with their next translation, although they really hate spending good money on something as basic and overpriced as translation. Let's face it, they all hate spending their money on us, no matter how much or how little we ask for.
WALK THE DOG
The walk-the-dog technique is your basic yo-yo throwing gig. As far as I can tell, you throw the yo-yo slowly and carefully and when it is all the way down a few inches above the ground, you apply your invisible pulling powers so that the yo-yo will obediently slowly make its way back into the waiting palm of your hand, just like a dog that comes back to its master. No sudden, flashy moves, no obvious drama. This is your basic translation job in a field that you have been doing for years, at moderate rates to ensure repeat business. All you have to do is concentrate on the subject, make sure that you don't skip a line, don't change a number (watch out for those subscripts!) and don't use too many Gallicisms, Germanism, Czechisms, Nipponisms, or whatever -ism is applicable to your language. And for best results, always proofread even the simplest job the next morning after a good night's sleep unless it is a super-rush. If you do it right, the customer will come obediently back to you, which is the main purpose of the exercise, just like a yo-yo comes back right into the waiting hand of a youthful yo-yo master.
ROUND THE WORLD
The round-the-world technique is more demanding and quite a bit more dramatic. The yo-yo seems to start flying, all of a sudden and without warning, pulled by sheer will power and absolute concentration so apparent on the faces of children when they switch from the boring pedestrian-canine routine to enjoy the finer points of this exquisite game. In the game that freelance translators play, the round-the-world technique is usually announced by an unexpected call from a customer or an agency, often just before 5 PM or after normal business hours. The person on the other end of the phone line sounds excited and a little bit nervous and perhaps even desperate. They have a sizeable job which must be done in a couple of days, probably because some lawyer was sitting on it for two months, reluctant to waste money on a simple translation which, unlike legal advice, should be really free or no more expensive then making a Xerox copy. How do these translators dare to charge so much for "retyping" something in another language? That sort of thing should be made illegal! At this point, however, the company will be facing a serious problem unless the translation is finished by such and such deadline. Whenever I receive a call like this from an agency that is calling "round the world" (they can be in US, Europe or Japan) trying to find an available translator, or a set of PDF files in my e-mail or a thick envelope by Federal Express from a law firm with an urgent request to quote a price and turnaround time, I take a deep breath and try to concentrate on the job at hand at least as much as my children are concentrated on that little wooden or plastic yo-yo in the palm of their hand. One should not forget that the characters that are used for one of the words that mean crisis in Japanese are the same characters that are used for the word opportunity. Actually, the characters in the word "kiki", one of the words for crisis in Japanese, can be literally translated as "dangerous opportunity". Opportunity usually brings along also a danger. This is our opportunity to take on a relatively large chunk of a job at a higher rate to finally pay off that credit card bill, tax bill, or save some money for a new computer or vacation. You have to be careful not to ask for a rate that is too low or too high. Your will make your customer happy if you do the work at your usual rate, but why should you work overtime without getting paid a little more? Often, you can take on as much work as you like for a few days, but make sure that you don't bite off more than you can chew. If you do that, your opportunity will turn into a crisis not only for your customer, but also for you. A crisis is an opportunity, but an opportunity that is fraught with danger. The kids in agencies who are parceling out the job to translators "round the world" don't really know what is in the original because they usually don't speak the language, so don't take their word for the subject of the job, or the estimated word count, or just about anything. They may be nice kids, but they don't really know what they're doing. They just work there. It is a good idea not to accept (except tentatively) any job and any deadline until they send you the document.
SLEEP
The third technique, "sleep", comes in handy when business slows down and the phone all of a sudden stops ringing. This should be a restful period for translators, who now have some free time after all those impossible deadlines and illegible faxes. But the thing is, the bills still keep coming in when there is no work and one look at meager receivables will put quite a damper on what could be a peaceful day in your office. How can you "sleep" if you don't know where is the money going to come from? You have to make the checks stretch from one week to the next until the end of the month, just like my kids have to make the slinky slink itself from one step to the next until it reaches the bottom of the stairs. Ah, the victorious feeling I can clearly see radiating from their faces when the slinky makes it all the way down the stairs! Ah, the satisfaction of having another job lined up and another check deposited before the balance in the bank shrinks to zero!
How much sleep I get during the "sleep" period depends on how much money is still coming in from old jobs and how long the hibernation period lasts. If it is just a few days, I can still enjoy myself. I go to bookstores, sit in a café and look at those cute girls who always hang around downtown cafés (I only look, OK?), read another mystery novel, or go for a walk, trying to think deep thoughts as Henry David Thoreau did 150 years ago. But even with the lofty thoughts on my mind, now that the cute downtown girls are all but forgotten, I am always mindful of the fact that somebody has to mind the shop, nine to five at least, rain or shine, work or no work. That is why I almost always transfer my voice number to my cell phone when I go for a walk or to a café or bookstore during business hours. I have to be ready to spring into action at the first ring of my cell phone, my trusty digital friend. It is also the only way how I can make those girls in cafés notice me anyway, when the cell phone rings and I answer, especially if I start speaking Japanese. I try to find a quite corner or step outside of the shop not to disturb the customers too much, off course. After twenty years in the freelance business, the sleep period usually lasts only a few days before it is replaced by another onslaught of work and deadlines that come rushing in with a vengeance. I try to take it easy if the "sleep" takes only a week or so, even when other translators start calling me, complaining about lack of work and bills that pile up, with a familiar tinge of anxiety in their voice. I do my best to calm them down because as Bob, my tax accountant, says: "When you don't make any money, you don't owe any money to Uncle Sam." There is a good side to everything. I used to mail out packages of information that I call "propaganda" to prospective customers during slow times, but I have not done so recently since it never really got slow for a long time for me recently. But it will happen again, I am sure, one of these days. And when it does, I know what to do to wake up my sleeping customers - or at least keep myself busy with marketing so that I don't have time to worry too much.
MESS UP
There is also a fourth yo-yo technique, called "mess-up", I am told. Mess-up is when you try one technique, but since you do it the wrong way it ends up being a different thing altogether than what you meant it to be. As Thoreau would put it, the problem is that the idea of what you wanted to do did not exist distinctly in your mind before you started doing it. What you have to do when you mess up, of course, is start over and do it right the next time without losing too much sleep over it. We all mess up sometime. Well, maybe you never mess up anything, especially things having to do with your business and livelihood, but I sometime do. On the other hand, given that this publication has only a limited amount of space for contributors, perhaps I should not launch into a detailed description of my mess-ups. Maybe some other time.
***
I never told my children that the games they play are a constant source of inspiration for the games that I play when I try to run a business in this dog-eat-dog world. If I did, they would probably laugh anyway. You know, kids these days. They take nothing seriously. Like the other day when I tried to impress them with my military career in the old country and Casey, my older son, stopped playing with his yo-yo and said to me with a mischievous glint in his eye: "Hey, tata, (tata is Czech for "dad"), you had to "surf" in the Czech army for two years? That's great! That must be one cool army, tata!"
I get no respect in my own house. All they do is make fun of my accent. Oh, and by the way, Casey, it was a cool army. You have no idea.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Globalizing Communication
By Sarah Hyde
shyde@ccaps.net
With so many career options out there, why is it that some of us decide on translation? Is it a love for language or writing? A desire to help the world communicate? Sheer madness?
Recently my career took a step in the right direction when I was hired by Ccaps Translation and Localization. With a degree in Mass Communication, and a specialization in International and Cross-Cultural Communication, it really was a fitting move. And I can honestly say that I love what I do. The transformation of written text from one language to another is a delightful, challenging puzzle. And what is more, there is a crucial purpose to our work as translators. In the process, we fulfill a fundamental role by breaking down language barriers in a world that is increasingly interlinked, at a time when “globalized” communication is fundamental for both international business and social relations. Here at Ccaps, we have translated everything from business proposals to children’s games, and each new project is a chance to eliminate yet another barrier.
But why do we endure those grueling “all-nighters,” those messy legal contracts and those hours of pain-staking research? Most definitely because of a love for our profession. During my life, I have worked as everything from a waitress to a journalist, and I have never seen professionals more dedicated to their work than translators. A colleague of mine once said it was like a healthy addiction: it makes you feel great, you can’t get enough and the side effect is a pay check. Furthermore, if you think of all of the professions of the world, which is more exciting than this one? In this line of work, we have the opportunity to open doors, bringing people, cultures and countries together.
September 30 is recognized internationally as Translator’s Day. Remember to give yourself a pat on the back, go out and celebrate. You deserve it!
In commemoration of this day, I decided to ask some experienced translators what drove them to choose this profession. Here are their stories:
Translation found me as part of a group of engineers trying to deal with extremely complicated agreements and manuals and searching for the best way to transform those rocky English sentences into smooth Portuguese. Only then was I convinced that translation was a trade for professionals! I decided to complete a Translation and Interpretation course at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. After the course, which was taught by Astrid de Figueiredo (who later became a friend), I never stopped studying. Changing from the exact sciences to the human sciences was such a positive experience that I managed to keep both: translating both technical and not so technical texts is equally pleasant. I find it delightful to learn something new with every new job, rewarding to help the less experienced and thrilling to know that every day I will have to go that extra mile. I love being part of a community that gathers such smart and interesting people.
Vagner Fracassi
President of the Brazilian
Translator’s Association (ABRATES)
I am proud of belong to a trade of professionals that is inherently pacifist and concerns itself with promoting good international understanding. Even as we watch translation programs getting better and better, I think good translators, like good artisans, will always be needed and appreciated.
Isa Mara Lando
Translator and Author of Vocabulando,
A Practical English-Portuguese Vocabulary
I translate to transport ideas and events through time and space. I translate to make something understood, to accomplish, to prove. I translate to communicate, transform, and revert. I translate to touch. Through translation, we gather what human beings think, feel and do. By translating, we make ourselves understood and come closer to together.
Tamara Barile
Public Translator
I happen to be fascinated by human interaction. My role as a bridge for human communication gives me a natural “high” whenever I interpret or translate. Every time I look at the faces around me in offices, auditoriums, courtrooms or any other one of my thousand workplaces, I feel powerful. As I struggle to find the right word or idiomatic expression, I witness human beings otherwise unable to understand each other suddenly able, because of me, to reach an agreement, resolve a conflict, render a fair verdict, sign a contract that will give jobs to thousands, understand a diagnosis and plan a course of treatment, applaud a great speech or broadcast an inspiring message. There is no better job in the world.
Tereza d’Ávila Braga
Translator and Administrator
of the ATA Portuguese Language Division
To see what we have prepared for you translator, click here. Don’t forget to turn the speakers on!
This article was originally published in Сcaps Newsletter (http://www.ccaps.net)
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
shyde@ccaps.net
With so many career options out there, why is it that some of us decide on translation? Is it a love for language or writing? A desire to help the world communicate? Sheer madness?
Recently my career took a step in the right direction when I was hired by Ccaps Translation and Localization. With a degree in Mass Communication, and a specialization in International and Cross-Cultural Communication, it really was a fitting move. And I can honestly say that I love what I do. The transformation of written text from one language to another is a delightful, challenging puzzle. And what is more, there is a crucial purpose to our work as translators. In the process, we fulfill a fundamental role by breaking down language barriers in a world that is increasingly interlinked, at a time when “globalized” communication is fundamental for both international business and social relations. Here at Ccaps, we have translated everything from business proposals to children’s games, and each new project is a chance to eliminate yet another barrier.
But why do we endure those grueling “all-nighters,” those messy legal contracts and those hours of pain-staking research? Most definitely because of a love for our profession. During my life, I have worked as everything from a waitress to a journalist, and I have never seen professionals more dedicated to their work than translators. A colleague of mine once said it was like a healthy addiction: it makes you feel great, you can’t get enough and the side effect is a pay check. Furthermore, if you think of all of the professions of the world, which is more exciting than this one? In this line of work, we have the opportunity to open doors, bringing people, cultures and countries together.
September 30 is recognized internationally as Translator’s Day. Remember to give yourself a pat on the back, go out and celebrate. You deserve it!
In commemoration of this day, I decided to ask some experienced translators what drove them to choose this profession. Here are their stories:
Translation found me as part of a group of engineers trying to deal with extremely complicated agreements and manuals and searching for the best way to transform those rocky English sentences into smooth Portuguese. Only then was I convinced that translation was a trade for professionals! I decided to complete a Translation and Interpretation course at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. After the course, which was taught by Astrid de Figueiredo (who later became a friend), I never stopped studying. Changing from the exact sciences to the human sciences was such a positive experience that I managed to keep both: translating both technical and not so technical texts is equally pleasant. I find it delightful to learn something new with every new job, rewarding to help the less experienced and thrilling to know that every day I will have to go that extra mile. I love being part of a community that gathers such smart and interesting people.
Vagner Fracassi
President of the Brazilian
Translator’s Association (ABRATES)
I am proud of belong to a trade of professionals that is inherently pacifist and concerns itself with promoting good international understanding. Even as we watch translation programs getting better and better, I think good translators, like good artisans, will always be needed and appreciated.
Isa Mara Lando
Translator and Author of Vocabulando,
A Practical English-Portuguese Vocabulary
I translate to transport ideas and events through time and space. I translate to make something understood, to accomplish, to prove. I translate to communicate, transform, and revert. I translate to touch. Through translation, we gather what human beings think, feel and do. By translating, we make ourselves understood and come closer to together.
Tamara Barile
Public Translator
I happen to be fascinated by human interaction. My role as a bridge for human communication gives me a natural “high” whenever I interpret or translate. Every time I look at the faces around me in offices, auditoriums, courtrooms or any other one of my thousand workplaces, I feel powerful. As I struggle to find the right word or idiomatic expression, I witness human beings otherwise unable to understand each other suddenly able, because of me, to reach an agreement, resolve a conflict, render a fair verdict, sign a contract that will give jobs to thousands, understand a diagnosis and plan a course of treatment, applaud a great speech or broadcast an inspiring message. There is no better job in the world.
Tereza d’Ávila Braga
Translator and Administrator
of the ATA Portuguese Language Division
To see what we have prepared for you translator, click here. Don’t forget to turn the speakers on!
This article was originally published in Сcaps Newsletter (http://www.ccaps.net)
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Buzzword or Bonanza?
A Translator Reflects on Best Practice
By Ann C. Sherwin,
Translator and Editor,
Raleigh, NC, U.S.A.
translate@asherwin.com
www.asherwin.com
There's no doubt that "best practice" is a hot topic today. The exact phrase brings nearly 40 million hits with Google, including 16 sponsored links related to sales and marketing, education, research, manufacturing, information science, health care, and more. Amazon.com lists over 2300 books with "best practice" as a keyword. To me it was pretty much just a buzzword. It sounded good, and I assumed it was an apt description of the way I ran my business.
According to the Wikipedia, the term "best practice" was popularized in professional and business management books starting in the late 1980s and generally refers to the best possible way of doing something. While the term is relatively new, the concept is as old as the human race. Enterprising people have always looked for better ways to perform tasks and reach goals. If vast numbers of people in similar circumstances have the same goal and can agree on the best way to achieve it, the procedure could be labeled a "best practice."
With the advent of the Internet, it became easier than ever to share experience and learn what practices others considered best. Translators, who once worked in relative isolation, quickly embraced this medium, and now we can pick the brains of colleagues worldwide through online forums, newsgroups, mailing lists, blogs, and virtual communities. If we aren't careful, these can distract us from our daily work, but they are a handy and seemingly inexhaustible source of fact, opinion, and advice about best practice.
My husband worked for a company that was taken over by Dow Chemical just before he retired. Suddenly his work routines were subject to new dictates from above. Dow had a prescribed procedure for every piece of equipment and every step of every corporate activity, it seemed, which its experts had determined to be "best practice." I mention this only to illustrate the complexity of the concept and its application in industry and commerce.
By whose standards is "best practice" determined in the language service industry? Surely most of us would agree that what's best for the buyer is best for the provider in the long run. Organizations like the Better Business Bureau are founded on this principle, and discussions in various ATA forums and elsewhere testify that we, too, know on which side our bread is buttered, at least in theory.
When I invited input for this article from the ATA Business Practices e-group, ATA President Marian Greenfield put hers in a nutshell: "Don't accept any job you can't do in an excellent fashion and on time." Jutta Diel-Dominique put it even more succinctly: "Dare to say No." Viewed as best practice, rather than as the only permissible practice, this is good advice. My qualifier merely acknowledges what all of us have faced or can at least envision: those desperate situations where we are the only help available and less-than-excellent is quite acceptable.
The Dow model would have us define the concrete steps by which we determine whether a job we are considering meets Greenfield's criteria. What does "on time" mean? (Don't laugh! Any project manager will tell you that many translators don't know. Or they count on a grace period.) Just how good is "excellent," and in whose eyes? How do I calculate the time it will take to achieve excellence, with the entire source text, the client's specifications, and my calendar of other commitments before me? Surely it is "best practice" to have a plan, so that when the phone rings or the request for a bid lands in your inbox you're ready.
A widely accepted "best practice" in our industry is for translators and interpreters to work only into their native or dominant language. Unsavvy clients often assume that if you can translate from a language, you can also translate into it. Bolstered by unwarranted client confidence, some translators make the same assumption without ever putting it to the test. But most of us know that we are more efficient and produce higher quality when working into our A-language; and that if we must work into our B- or C-language, the best practice is to have a qualified native speaker edit our work.
In the ATA brochure "Translation: Getting it Right,"1 author Chris Durban makes this point to translation buyers as well. "OK, there are exceptions," she adds. "But not many." After advising buyers how to recognize the exceptions, Chris puts their doubts to rest with this observation: "Do translators living outside their home country lose touch with their native tongue? At the bottom end of the market, perhaps. But expert linguists make a point of keeping their language skills up to par wherever they are."
The Translation Journal blog (http://translationjournal.blogspot.com/) contains an interesting discussion of this surprisingly controversial issue under the heading "Native Language." There an anonymous translator who goes by "Yamishogun" says, "Sadly, many Japanese feel that a foreigner can't fully grasp their language." He cites an agency in Japan that refuses to hire native speakers of English because they make too many errors and another agency in which two-thirds of the translators are Japanese who translate into English. But he adds that most of their translations are edited by native speakers of English.
Russian linguist Carol Flath, speaking on her experience interpreting for the US Department of State at the arms-reduction talks in Geneva in the early 1990s, said that interpreters in these settings normally worked from their A-language into their B-language because of the sensitive nature of negotiation. The assumption was that the original speech could be better understood and conveyed in all its nuances by a native speaker of the source language. Do deviations from the usual view of best practice invalidate the latter?
Editing
A second pair of eyes can invariably find ways to improve even the most brilliantly written prose, whether original or translated. Freelancers working for an intermediary or direct client with its own editors may feel they are covered, but even these buyers prefer translators who self-edit and proofread carefully. When asked to provide the end product for a direct client, do you routinely factor the cost of an editor into your quote? I rarely do unless the client requests it. Far be it from me to claim that this is best practice. I'm comfortable with it only because of the nature of my clientele and market niche. But even self-editors need a set procedure or checklist. Tomorrow I will write my self-editing checklist in a sticky note on my computer desktop. There! I'm the first person to be inspired by my article :-).
What is your self-editing routine? Surely it includes a spell-check. But when do you run it—as the first, last, or dare I say only step? Do you edit and proofread on screen or print out drafts? How many passes do you make through your work? Do you look for all types of errors at once or concentrate on one at a time, such as omissions, numbers, consistency?
Deadlines
It seems odd to call honoring deadlines "best practice," as if any other practice in this regard were also acceptable to a degree. Jutta wrote of a client who had recently expressed gratitude that she always met deadlines. "I was surprised that this could even be an issue," she said. "In my opinion, any deadline should be written in stone for the translator until the client gives the green light to hold the file." Of course it is best to get all terms of an agreement in writing, but oral contracts are also binding, including any deadline agreed upon. And do clarify the expected hour of delivery, not just the day. If a client asks for something by noon, you cannot assume that end of the business day is soon enough. You have no idea what a domino effect in the production process a late delivery might trigger. Best practice is to negotiate an ample lead time, but when a deadline is tight there is usually a reason. When the unexpected occurs, next-best practices may come into play, but they must always be linked with one best practice: communication with the client. Ignoring or unilaterally extending a deadline is not an option.
Virginia Pérez Santalla brings up another area of best practice:
In my opinion, keeping up to date in current events and current slang, in our field and beyond, is something we must do. Often, we find new expressions in the texts we translate that have just crept into the language from everyday occurrences and, if we don't pay attention to what's happening around us, they catch us by surprise. Whether it's 'bling' or something else, new terms have a way of showing up where we least expect them.
How do you keep up with your fields of specialization and with the language in general? This becomes more difficult, but all the more critical, if you live outside the country where your target language is spoken. How many unbillable hours a week do you spend keeping current that you would not have spent, were it not for your business? Do you take them into account when setting rates for your billable time? As Diel-Dominique reminds us: "Do not sell yourself cheaply. Stick to your guns regarding rates and payment expectations. If you don't, you are hurting yourself, your colleagues and our profession as a whole."
Dorothee Racette reminds us that running an effective business is part of 'best practice' for translators. "This includes keeping track of orders, maintaining an accounting system and assessing clients before entering into a business relationship," she says. "Good business habits can't be established overnight but are frequently overlooked, even by very accomplished translators."
The systems we use depend to some extent on the size and nature of our business. Do you maintain a client database? How do you track quotes and pending jobs? Do you put expiration dates on your offers? I have quoted on jobs and had the client accept it up to six months later, but some never reply. How long should quotes be kept on file? If you bill by the word or line, how do you define "word" or "line" and do you base it on the source or target language? What types of work do you bill by the hour? When do you quote a flat fee? Do you know what your normal hourly or daily output is for a given document type? How do you organize receipts? My biggest headache is keeping track of acquisitions and removals of office equipment, reference books, etc., for business property tax purposes. If anyone has a simple system for that or knows how to do it with Quicken, I'd like to hear from you.
You probably began reading this article expecting to find answers, but instead I kept piling on questions. That's because I discovered, in fulfilling this assignment, that I have much to learn about best practice even in the autumn of my career. But I can at least say that "best practice" is no longer just a buzzword to me. I'd now venture to say that it could even become what Webster defines as a "source of great wealth or profits"—a bonanza.2 But then you probably knew that all along.
1 "Translation: Getting it Right," a guide to buying translations, originally developed for the Institute of Translating and Interpreting (UK) and now published by the American Translators Association in slightly modified form for use in the US.
2 as defined in Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Ed.
This article first appeared in the CATI Quarterly, newsletter of the Carolina Association of Translators and Interpreters; the present version was originally published in the Translation Journal (http://accurapid.com/journal).
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
By Ann C. Sherwin,
Translator and Editor,
Raleigh, NC, U.S.A.
translate@asherwin.com
www.asherwin.com
There's no doubt that "best practice" is a hot topic today. The exact phrase brings nearly 40 million hits with Google, including 16 sponsored links related to sales and marketing, education, research, manufacturing, information science, health care, and more. Amazon.com lists over 2300 books with "best practice" as a keyword. To me it was pretty much just a buzzword. It sounded good, and I assumed it was an apt description of the way I ran my business.
According to the Wikipedia, the term "best practice" was popularized in professional and business management books starting in the late 1980s and generally refers to the best possible way of doing something. While the term is relatively new, the concept is as old as the human race. Enterprising people have always looked for better ways to perform tasks and reach goals. If vast numbers of people in similar circumstances have the same goal and can agree on the best way to achieve it, the procedure could be labeled a "best practice."
With the advent of the Internet, it became easier than ever to share experience and learn what practices others considered best. Translators, who once worked in relative isolation, quickly embraced this medium, and now we can pick the brains of colleagues worldwide through online forums, newsgroups, mailing lists, blogs, and virtual communities. If we aren't careful, these can distract us from our daily work, but they are a handy and seemingly inexhaustible source of fact, opinion, and advice about best practice.
My husband worked for a company that was taken over by Dow Chemical just before he retired. Suddenly his work routines were subject to new dictates from above. Dow had a prescribed procedure for every piece of equipment and every step of every corporate activity, it seemed, which its experts had determined to be "best practice." I mention this only to illustrate the complexity of the concept and its application in industry and commerce.
By whose standards is "best practice" determined in the language service industry? Surely most of us would agree that what's best for the buyer is best for the provider in the long run. Organizations like the Better Business Bureau are founded on this principle, and discussions in various ATA forums and elsewhere testify that we, too, know on which side our bread is buttered, at least in theory.
When I invited input for this article from the ATA Business Practices e-group, ATA President Marian Greenfield put hers in a nutshell: "Don't accept any job you can't do in an excellent fashion and on time." Jutta Diel-Dominique put it even more succinctly: "Dare to say No." Viewed as best practice, rather than as the only permissible practice, this is good advice. My qualifier merely acknowledges what all of us have faced or can at least envision: those desperate situations where we are the only help available and less-than-excellent is quite acceptable.
The Dow model would have us define the concrete steps by which we determine whether a job we are considering meets Greenfield's criteria. What does "on time" mean? (Don't laugh! Any project manager will tell you that many translators don't know. Or they count on a grace period.) Just how good is "excellent," and in whose eyes? How do I calculate the time it will take to achieve excellence, with the entire source text, the client's specifications, and my calendar of other commitments before me? Surely it is "best practice" to have a plan, so that when the phone rings or the request for a bid lands in your inbox you're ready.
A widely accepted "best practice" in our industry is for translators and interpreters to work only into their native or dominant language. Unsavvy clients often assume that if you can translate from a language, you can also translate into it. Bolstered by unwarranted client confidence, some translators make the same assumption without ever putting it to the test. But most of us know that we are more efficient and produce higher quality when working into our A-language; and that if we must work into our B- or C-language, the best practice is to have a qualified native speaker edit our work.
In the ATA brochure "Translation: Getting it Right,"1 author Chris Durban makes this point to translation buyers as well. "OK, there are exceptions," she adds. "But not many." After advising buyers how to recognize the exceptions, Chris puts their doubts to rest with this observation: "Do translators living outside their home country lose touch with their native tongue? At the bottom end of the market, perhaps. But expert linguists make a point of keeping their language skills up to par wherever they are."
The Translation Journal blog (http://translationjournal.blogspot.com/) contains an interesting discussion of this surprisingly controversial issue under the heading "Native Language." There an anonymous translator who goes by "Yamishogun" says, "Sadly, many Japanese feel that a foreigner can't fully grasp their language." He cites an agency in Japan that refuses to hire native speakers of English because they make too many errors and another agency in which two-thirds of the translators are Japanese who translate into English. But he adds that most of their translations are edited by native speakers of English.
Russian linguist Carol Flath, speaking on her experience interpreting for the US Department of State at the arms-reduction talks in Geneva in the early 1990s, said that interpreters in these settings normally worked from their A-language into their B-language because of the sensitive nature of negotiation. The assumption was that the original speech could be better understood and conveyed in all its nuances by a native speaker of the source language. Do deviations from the usual view of best practice invalidate the latter?
Editing
A second pair of eyes can invariably find ways to improve even the most brilliantly written prose, whether original or translated. Freelancers working for an intermediary or direct client with its own editors may feel they are covered, but even these buyers prefer translators who self-edit and proofread carefully. When asked to provide the end product for a direct client, do you routinely factor the cost of an editor into your quote? I rarely do unless the client requests it. Far be it from me to claim that this is best practice. I'm comfortable with it only because of the nature of my clientele and market niche. But even self-editors need a set procedure or checklist. Tomorrow I will write my self-editing checklist in a sticky note on my computer desktop. There! I'm the first person to be inspired by my article :-).
What is your self-editing routine? Surely it includes a spell-check. But when do you run it—as the first, last, or dare I say only step? Do you edit and proofread on screen or print out drafts? How many passes do you make through your work? Do you look for all types of errors at once or concentrate on one at a time, such as omissions, numbers, consistency?
Deadlines
It seems odd to call honoring deadlines "best practice," as if any other practice in this regard were also acceptable to a degree. Jutta wrote of a client who had recently expressed gratitude that she always met deadlines. "I was surprised that this could even be an issue," she said. "In my opinion, any deadline should be written in stone for the translator until the client gives the green light to hold the file." Of course it is best to get all terms of an agreement in writing, but oral contracts are also binding, including any deadline agreed upon. And do clarify the expected hour of delivery, not just the day. If a client asks for something by noon, you cannot assume that end of the business day is soon enough. You have no idea what a domino effect in the production process a late delivery might trigger. Best practice is to negotiate an ample lead time, but when a deadline is tight there is usually a reason. When the unexpected occurs, next-best practices may come into play, but they must always be linked with one best practice: communication with the client. Ignoring or unilaterally extending a deadline is not an option.
Virginia Pérez Santalla brings up another area of best practice:
In my opinion, keeping up to date in current events and current slang, in our field and beyond, is something we must do. Often, we find new expressions in the texts we translate that have just crept into the language from everyday occurrences and, if we don't pay attention to what's happening around us, they catch us by surprise. Whether it's 'bling' or something else, new terms have a way of showing up where we least expect them.
How do you keep up with your fields of specialization and with the language in general? This becomes more difficult, but all the more critical, if you live outside the country where your target language is spoken. How many unbillable hours a week do you spend keeping current that you would not have spent, were it not for your business? Do you take them into account when setting rates for your billable time? As Diel-Dominique reminds us: "Do not sell yourself cheaply. Stick to your guns regarding rates and payment expectations. If you don't, you are hurting yourself, your colleagues and our profession as a whole."
Dorothee Racette reminds us that running an effective business is part of 'best practice' for translators. "This includes keeping track of orders, maintaining an accounting system and assessing clients before entering into a business relationship," she says. "Good business habits can't be established overnight but are frequently overlooked, even by very accomplished translators."
The systems we use depend to some extent on the size and nature of our business. Do you maintain a client database? How do you track quotes and pending jobs? Do you put expiration dates on your offers? I have quoted on jobs and had the client accept it up to six months later, but some never reply. How long should quotes be kept on file? If you bill by the word or line, how do you define "word" or "line" and do you base it on the source or target language? What types of work do you bill by the hour? When do you quote a flat fee? Do you know what your normal hourly or daily output is for a given document type? How do you organize receipts? My biggest headache is keeping track of acquisitions and removals of office equipment, reference books, etc., for business property tax purposes. If anyone has a simple system for that or knows how to do it with Quicken, I'd like to hear from you.
You probably began reading this article expecting to find answers, but instead I kept piling on questions. That's because I discovered, in fulfilling this assignment, that I have much to learn about best practice even in the autumn of my career. But I can at least say that "best practice" is no longer just a buzzword to me. I'd now venture to say that it could even become what Webster defines as a "source of great wealth or profits"—a bonanza.2 But then you probably knew that all along.
1 "Translation: Getting it Right," a guide to buying translations, originally developed for the Institute of Translating and Interpreting (UK) and now published by the American Translators Association in slightly modified form for use in the US.
2 as defined in Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Ed.
This article first appeared in the CATI Quarterly, newsletter of the Carolina Association of Translators and Interpreters; the present version was originally published in the Translation Journal (http://accurapid.com/journal).
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
The pros and cons of personnel in the translation business
By Fester Leenstra,
Metamorfose Vertalingen,
Catharijnesingel 85,
3511 GP UTRECHT,
THE NETHERLANDS
metamorfose.vertalingen@gmail.com
www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
To be or not to be: operate as a freelancer or as an employer?
Are you planning to set up a translation business? Then there are two or three fundamental questions you will need to consider if you want your business to be a success. One of these, and in fact the most obvious one, is how to attract clients. However, the marketing effort and insight needed to tackle the issue of client acquisition is the subject of another article. In this specific issue I would like to concentrate on a fundamental dilemma that many self-employed translators will face: to work as a freelancer or to take staff on board.
The answer to this question depends in part on you ambitions as a translator. If translation is a job on the side for you, if you are able to combine your translation work with a host of related business concerns, from technical to administrative, and if you don’t mind working in solitary confinement, then it is probably a good idea for you to set up shop as a freelancer. From that position you will be able to work for translation agencies and specific clients alike, decide for yourself how much work to take on and when to take days off. One drawback is that you will not always be able to satisfy your clients, especially in terms of volume, forcing them to also engage the services of other translators who may be more specialised or have more capacity. Another drawback is that you will generally be working on your own, without the company of colleagues to chat with or consult. Most of the people you do get in contact with will probably never be known to you other than as a person at the other end of the telephone line. In addition, you will always be responsible for all the aspects of your business, without having the possibility to delegate tasks to people who may be more suitable for them than yourself. This means, for example, that you will have to generate your own business and find ways of attracting clients. On the upside, however, if your translation work is of good quality and you acquire a reputation as a reliable partner, even among a few clients, then you may soon find that business generates itself.
If a freelance existence does not appeal to you, one alternative is to hire people – translators or other specialists – and to become an employer, rather than principally a translator. This strategy offers a number of obvious and significant benefits. The most important advantage is that by setting up a team you will be able to generate far more turnover than as a freelancer – provided that you generate sufficient business to keep the team running. By multiplying your translation capacity you will be in a much better position to land large-scale orders. If you also manage to find high-quality marketing & sales specialists, moreover, you will be able to convince bigger, high-profile companies of your professional approach and ensure them of the continuity of your business, even when you are not there yourself.
There is an adage that says that big companies prefer to do business with big partners, and even if there are many exceptions to that rule, there is no denying that highly reputed global businesses will obviously tend to select high-profile suppliers for whatever it is they might want to purchase. Even so, you don’t need to be a mega-employer to provide translation services to major industry names. In the commercial translation business, individual agencies with five employees already count and those with twenty or more are the major players.
Of course, employees are a mixed blessing. They will need to be seen to. Employees need attention, encouragement, and guidance. Even if no problems occur, you may find that you are spending more time sorting out employee-related administrative matters than working as a translator – unless of course you hire other employees who can look after employee issues. As long as business is booming – which it may well be if your agency is run effectively, because demand for translation services is immense – there is a risk of ending up in an employment spiral. The dialectics of progress rule that the more you grow, the less benefit your growth will bring, so clearly this is a situation you want to avoid. Carefully controlled expansion is crucial.
In summary, a freelance business offers a great deal of personal freedom but imposes clear and inevitable limits to the scope of your work. Another downside is that it condemns you to a solitary and essentially domestic career. If you prefer a more dynamic business environment and do not fear employee issues or serious competition, you might consider setting up an agency and taking on people to work for you. The size and success of your business will ultimately depend on your professional and commercial ambitions.
About the author
Fester Leenstra is co-owner of Metamorfose Vertalingen, a translation agency in Utrecht (The Netherlands). After having worked for several translation firms in paid employment, he took the plunge in 2004 and incorporated his own company.
For further details about Metamorfose Vertalingen, visit:
http://www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
http://www.beedigd-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.vertaalbureau-engels.nl
http://www.vertaalsite.eu
http://www.oost-europavertalingen.nl
http://www.scandinavie-vertalingen.nl
http://www.medisch-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.technisch-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.juridisch-vertaalbureau.nl
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Metamorfose Vertalingen,
Catharijnesingel 85,
3511 GP UTRECHT,
THE NETHERLANDS
metamorfose.vertalingen@gmail.com
www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
To be or not to be: operate as a freelancer or as an employer?
Are you planning to set up a translation business? Then there are two or three fundamental questions you will need to consider if you want your business to be a success. One of these, and in fact the most obvious one, is how to attract clients. However, the marketing effort and insight needed to tackle the issue of client acquisition is the subject of another article. In this specific issue I would like to concentrate on a fundamental dilemma that many self-employed translators will face: to work as a freelancer or to take staff on board.
The answer to this question depends in part on you ambitions as a translator. If translation is a job on the side for you, if you are able to combine your translation work with a host of related business concerns, from technical to administrative, and if you don’t mind working in solitary confinement, then it is probably a good idea for you to set up shop as a freelancer. From that position you will be able to work for translation agencies and specific clients alike, decide for yourself how much work to take on and when to take days off. One drawback is that you will not always be able to satisfy your clients, especially in terms of volume, forcing them to also engage the services of other translators who may be more specialised or have more capacity. Another drawback is that you will generally be working on your own, without the company of colleagues to chat with or consult. Most of the people you do get in contact with will probably never be known to you other than as a person at the other end of the telephone line. In addition, you will always be responsible for all the aspects of your business, without having the possibility to delegate tasks to people who may be more suitable for them than yourself. This means, for example, that you will have to generate your own business and find ways of attracting clients. On the upside, however, if your translation work is of good quality and you acquire a reputation as a reliable partner, even among a few clients, then you may soon find that business generates itself.
If a freelance existence does not appeal to you, one alternative is to hire people – translators or other specialists – and to become an employer, rather than principally a translator. This strategy offers a number of obvious and significant benefits. The most important advantage is that by setting up a team you will be able to generate far more turnover than as a freelancer – provided that you generate sufficient business to keep the team running. By multiplying your translation capacity you will be in a much better position to land large-scale orders. If you also manage to find high-quality marketing & sales specialists, moreover, you will be able to convince bigger, high-profile companies of your professional approach and ensure them of the continuity of your business, even when you are not there yourself.
There is an adage that says that big companies prefer to do business with big partners, and even if there are many exceptions to that rule, there is no denying that highly reputed global businesses will obviously tend to select high-profile suppliers for whatever it is they might want to purchase. Even so, you don’t need to be a mega-employer to provide translation services to major industry names. In the commercial translation business, individual agencies with five employees already count and those with twenty or more are the major players.
Of course, employees are a mixed blessing. They will need to be seen to. Employees need attention, encouragement, and guidance. Even if no problems occur, you may find that you are spending more time sorting out employee-related administrative matters than working as a translator – unless of course you hire other employees who can look after employee issues. As long as business is booming – which it may well be if your agency is run effectively, because demand for translation services is immense – there is a risk of ending up in an employment spiral. The dialectics of progress rule that the more you grow, the less benefit your growth will bring, so clearly this is a situation you want to avoid. Carefully controlled expansion is crucial.
In summary, a freelance business offers a great deal of personal freedom but imposes clear and inevitable limits to the scope of your work. Another downside is that it condemns you to a solitary and essentially domestic career. If you prefer a more dynamic business environment and do not fear employee issues or serious competition, you might consider setting up an agency and taking on people to work for you. The size and success of your business will ultimately depend on your professional and commercial ambitions.
About the author
Fester Leenstra is co-owner of Metamorfose Vertalingen, a translation agency in Utrecht (The Netherlands). After having worked for several translation firms in paid employment, he took the plunge in 2004 and incorporated his own company.
For further details about Metamorfose Vertalingen, visit:
http://www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
http://www.beedigd-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.vertaalbureau-engels.nl
http://www.vertaalsite.eu
http://www.oost-europavertalingen.nl
http://www.scandinavie-vertalingen.nl
http://www.medisch-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.technisch-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.juridisch-vertaalbureau.nl
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Monday, May 4, 2009
Ethical Implications of Translation Technologies
By Érika Nogueira de Andrade Stupiello,
São Paulo State University, Brazil
www.traducao-interpretacao.com.br
Introduction
Technology has been reshaping the concept and practice of translation in many aspects. Until some time ago, translators were expected to be able to work solely on definite source texts with the exclusive aid of dictionaries. Specialists were called upon where research references failed or left holes, but, even in such cases, translators had the chance to develop familiarity with their source texts, becoming, in many cases, experts themselves in some fields. Textual material to be translated was basically conceptualized as having a beginning and an end, thus making contextualization of meaning easier.
The process of globalization and the technological revolution that came along with it have dramatically changed the way information is conceived and produced. According to Craciunescu et al. (2004), advances in communication have brought about a "screen culture" that increasingly tends to replace the use of printed materials, since digital information can be easily accessed and relayed through computers and allows greater flexibility for processing.
In addition to the growing tendency to adopt the digital format for textual production, a large part of the material translators deal with in their daily routines consists of large translation projects, whether web-based or not. Such work is usually carried out with the use of computerized tools, such as automatic translation systems and translation memory databases. These applications require the development of a new range of technical competences, from learning how to manipulate different software programs to being able to manage the translated content, whether to achieve terminological consistence (machine translation databases) or to reuse solutions to translation problems in subsequent projects (translation memory databases). As Biau Gil and Pym (2006:6) explain, in today's world,
Our translations might thus be expected to move away from the ideal of equivalence between fixed texts, becoming more like one set of revisions among many. In the fields of electronic technologies, translators are less commonly employed to translate whole texts, as one did for the books with concordances. Translation, like general text production, becomes more like work with databases, glossaries, and a set of electronic tools, rather than on complete definitive source texts.
Translation memory tools are being employed also by translators working with definitive texts, that is, materials that might be translated just once, mainly as a way to increase their database. There are many translators who work basically with web-based materials, so most part of their work might involve updating and adaptation of previously translated texts to other contexts (a common practice in localization). Whatever the situation technology might be employed, there is no denial that translators have been able to reap great benefits by achieving greater work speed and efficiency.
Nonetheless, the same tools designed to assist translators are also affecting many aspects of how their work is regarded. This is mainly due to the fact that the design of these applications seems to be based on some of the traditionally-held concepts of translation as a transfer operation of pre-established contents stored in the source text and of the translator as the one in charge of retrieving the contents the machine has failed to recover.
While seeking to investigate the basis of machine translation and translation memory programs, this work aims to analyze both the contributions and transformations arising from the contemporary concept of the translation profession through the use of those tools. The ideas presented are divided into two sections. In section one I shall examine the concept of the original text and the translation in the domain of machine translation. My attention will then turn towards the extension of the translator's responsibility in producing the final text, by examining the translator's role in the translation post-editing process. Section two looks into the application of translation memories, with focus on the extension of the translator's responsibility in creating translation databases and re-using identical or similar segments from previous translations stored in memory programs. Ultimately, I shall conclude by attempting to draw attention to the scenario posed by these technologies which, in my view, seems to raise urgent ethical questions regarding the translator's image as re-creator or editor of the final translated material.
Machine translation: the illusion of access to the source
The pace of the contemporary world calls for translators to deliver their work in shorter and shorter turnaround cycles. This fact, coupled with the search for cost reduction, seems to be one of the strongest reasons supporting the use of machines in translation. Through the perspective of the current demand for readily-done translations, the applications of machine translation programs are not seen as a break with the tradition, but as an inevitable further step in the development of the practice.
However, the growing demand for application of machine translation programs as a means to speed up translation and reduce its costs is changing the way texts are read and conceived. As Cronin (2003:22) aptly observes, "if the pressure in an informational and global economy is to get information as rapidly as possible, then the 'gisting' function becomes paramount in translation, a tendency which can be encouraged by the 'weightlessness' of the words on the screen with their evanescent existence." The generally low threshold of translation acceptability shown by many users is often justified by the argument that getting access to the informational content of a text is all that matters and that some translation, however poor, is better than no translation at all.
The prevailing idea among users is that meaning may be transported from one language to another and that machine translation programs never fail to convey a general and stable content, even though such operation may result in a roughly intelligible text. The current urgency to communicate seems endorse the notion that the content of a textual material is solidified in the source and that machine translation may provide access to the origin. As Hutchins (1999:4) claims, machine translation represents an "ideal solution" for the translation of texts for assimilation of information, that is, direct and quick access to the source, since
human translators are not prepared (and resent being asked) to produce 'rough' translations of scientific and technical documents that may be read by only one person who wants to merely find out the general content and information and is unconcerned whether everything is intelligible or not, and who is certainly not deterred by stylistic awkwardness or grammatical errors (Hutchins, 1999, p. 4).
According to this view, if the machine is in charge of recovering the content, although "awkward" and imperfect, the translator's role would be restricted to editing and stylistically adapting the translated material. As often quoted by machine translation scholars, automation should not be seen as a replacement for human translators, but as way to magnify human productivity (Kay, 1997), to supplement human translation (Melby, 1997) or even create more work for human translators (Biau Gil & Pym, 2006).
The issues regarding machine translation seem always to revolve around the descriptive views of its possible uses and the constant reminder that its applications can never supersede the abilities of human translators. However, nothing seems to be said about the extent of the translator's function in the construction of the final text that was initially translated by machine. Since original meaning recovery by the machine is often taken for granted by users, the translator's work is limited to filling out some gaps left out by the machine and stylistically adapting the translated text to the target language.
Even if the message seems to be incoherent in the "draft version" automatically prepared, there is a strong belief that the source has been recovered and adjustments are all that are left for the human translator to do.
The source-target correspondence has been a debatable issue for many years and the realization that it is at the very basis of machine translation concept brings into question the role the translator is supposed to play. If we accept the notion that the source is thus recoverable by the machine, we might have to be willing to accept that, in the post-editing job usually entrusted to human translators, the task to be carried out will be less of interpreting and reconstructing meaning in the target language, and more of allowing the automatically recovered meaning to be comprehensible through revision and adaptation.
Through this view, there is always the risk that the translator's work may remain concealed behind that of the machine, at least in most clients' eyes. Through the postmodern perspective, as the work of Brazilian Translation Studies scholar Arrojo (1997) has emphatically pointed out, "no reading can ever aspire to repeat or protect someone else's text"; therefore,
The visible translator who is conscious of his or her role and who makes the motivations, allegiances, and compromises of his or her interpretation as explicit as possible is also the translator who must take responsibility for the text he or she produces, as it is impossible to hide behind the anonymity of the ideal 'invisibility' which has allegedly been given up. (Arrojo, 1997:18)
Embracing visibility, as well as the sense of responsibility for the construction of the translated text, may be one of the most powerful ways for translators to value their work. As translators avail themselves of machine translation capabilities, whether by choice or by their client's imposition, they should likewise consider whether the speed and terminological consistence provided by the machine are worth the price of having their work downgraded as being merely of a copy editor and not as the one responsible for bringing meaning forth.
Translation memory programs: transferring translators' past solutions to present contexts
Just as machine translation, translation memories have also been imposing changes in the way translators work, many of which with further ethical implications than they might appear to have at first sight.
The basis of translation memory programs lies in accumulating and storing translation solutions that are recycled as needed through the automated use of this terminology. In addition to the investment required in the acquisition of these programs and the training needed to use them properly, time is also another factor that directly influences their performance. Far from being immediate time-savers, translation memory programs are built up as they are used; therefore, the more frequently the translator employs them, the larger the database and, consequently the more useful it will be.
Although the literature on translation memories, which basically comprises descriptive and comparative analysis of the efficiency of the programs available in the market, highlights the remarkable gains in productivity translators have been able to achieve, especially in the realm of localization (e.g. Microsoft Windows-based software localization project), little consideration has been given to the controversial ethical issues arising once a terminological database is created (Zetzsche, 2000).
Once a translator has compiled terminological options into a database as a result of previous work commissioned directly by clients or through translation agencies, it is usually expected that such database be provided along with the final translation, a usual procedure as these programs become widespread. When that database is incorporated into a larger one held by clients or translation agencies, this data will often be used as input to be provided to the same translator or other professionals working in future projects. As Biau Gil and Pym (2006) explain, whenever a translator is provided with a memory database, clients expect compliance with the terminology and phraseology of the segment pairs included in that database. Moreover, always concerned with reducing costs, companies encourage translators to seek as many matches as possible and feel disappointed when the level of text re-use reported by translators is much lower than expected (Murphy, 2000).
Just as in translation machine applications, the way translation memory programs are being designed by the industry, in a effort to achieve cost and time reductions to produce a translation, calls into mind the concept of translation as "a word-replacement activity" as Biau Gil and Pym argue, since most of the time, translators "are invited to forget about the other elements configuring the text" and concentrate on segments that might be recovered from translation databases or added to the latter. (2006:12).
The translator's interpretation of the source material and personal choices made in the formulation of the translated text might interfere with content management and consistency, even though the translator's option may at times be more appropriate for some specific context than the pre-selected options offered by the database. By reusing stored translation segments, translators might be giving the first step to relinquish the outcome of their research work as well, since clients may also require that the memory generated through a translation be provided along with the translated material.
The second step towards giving up the authorship of translation takes place whenever translators accept being paid only for what clients deem as translation per se, that is, segments that have not been translated yet. This is the result of the idea that 100% matches will keep the same meaning they had in previous texts and, for that, revision and adaptation of these words or segments are not worth being remunerated for. This situation has been met with criticism by some translators who defend that consistency does not guarantee comprehension since a text may have perfect terminological coherence, but it altogether may not make any sense to the target audience.
On the other hand, clients may not readily accept the idea that 100% matches cannot be used in a new context or even that segments that may be used inevitably gain new meaning and may still require careful revision and adjustments into the new context. For that reason, it is uncommon to remunerate the translator for corrections or adjustments in the terminological database, since it would mean accepting that previous translation work was faulty, and so unduly charged.
From that commonly adopted practice in the work with translation memories, we find an approach rather similar to that applied to machine translation. Just as there seems to be a consensus that a text translated by machine will require not much more than review and post-editing by a human translator, in the work with translation memories, reviewing also frequently includes maintaining previously translated segments. Despite the fact that segments stored in the memory may have inadequacies, they may just as well lull the translator into a false sense of belief that meaning is fixed and will not change or lead to new associations in the new contexts they have become part of.
As I hope the discussion on commonly used approaches to machine translation and translation memories have led us to consider, for the translator's role to become more, rather than less, important in the informational age, it is paramount that these professionals do not be regarded as mere content transporters or text reviewers, but as communicators fully responsible for the meanings they confer to translated texts.
Final considerations: Co-existence but on what terms?
If there is no denial translation practice has to evolve and conform to new modes of communication and work (Cronin, 2003), translators should ponder how they wish to be regarded by those who hire their services.
By conferring priority to discussions about time and cost reductions through the application of technological tools in the practice of translation, translators might be oblivious to what such tools really represent to the public in general and what consequences such representations might have in the way the profession is conceived.
The general idea, as I have argued, is that, when applying technological tools such as machine translation programs, all that is left for the translator to do is give the text the final touches to make it coherent in the translated language. The impression is that the machine is the one that does the translation work and the translator is in charge of editing the final text. As for translation memories, the widespread reuse of already translated segments, in a way, also contributes to the idea that the translator is not solely responsible for the translated text.
The illusion that the machine is able to translate may affect the way translators will be seen in the future, an impression that should be given careful consideration, mainly when we remind ourselves of the multiplicity of texts, languages and cultures that are inevitably intertwined in translation.
References
ARROJO, Rosemary. Asymmetrical relations of power and the ethics of translation. TextconText, v. 11, p. 5-24, 1997.
BIAU GIL, José Ramón; PYM, Anthony. Technology and Translation: a pedagogical overview. In: PYM, A., PEREKRESTENKO, A., STARINK, B. (Org.) (2006). Translation technology and its teaching. Tarragona, Spain. Available at. Access on June 22, 2006.
CRACIUNESCU, Olivia; GERDING-SALAS, Constanza; STRINGER-O'KEEFFE, Susan. Machine translation and computer-assisted translation: a new way of translating? Translation Journal. v. 8, n. 3, jul. 2004. Available at:. Access on: May 15, 2006.
CRONIN, Michael. Translation and globalization. London: Routledge, 2003.
HUTCHINS, John. Translation Technology and the Translator. Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, London, May. 1997. Available at:. Access on May 10, 2006.
______. The development and use of machine translation systems and computer-based translation tools. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Computer Language Information Processing. Xangai, June, 1999. Available at:. Access on May 10, 2006.
KAY, Martin. The proper place of men and machines in language translation. In: Machine Translation. n. 12, p. 3-23, 1997.
MELBY, Alan. Some notes on 'The Proper Place of Men and Machines in Language Translation'. In: Machine Translation. n. 12, p. 3-23, 1997.
MURPHY, Dawn. Keeping Translation Technology under Control. Machine Translation Review, n. 11, Dec. 2000, p. 7-10. Available at http://www.bcs-mt.org.uk/mtreview/11/mtr-11-7.htm. Access on Jan. 11, 2007.
ZETZSCHE, Jost. Translation memories: the discovery of assets. Multilingual Computing and Technology. v. 16 (4), n. 72, p. 43-45, 2005.
This article was originally published at Translation Journal (http://accurapid.com/journal).
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
São Paulo State University, Brazil
www.traducao-interpretacao.com.br
Introduction
Technology has been reshaping the concept and practice of translation in many aspects. Until some time ago, translators were expected to be able to work solely on definite source texts with the exclusive aid of dictionaries. Specialists were called upon where research references failed or left holes, but, even in such cases, translators had the chance to develop familiarity with their source texts, becoming, in many cases, experts themselves in some fields. Textual material to be translated was basically conceptualized as having a beginning and an end, thus making contextualization of meaning easier.
The process of globalization and the technological revolution that came along with it have dramatically changed the way information is conceived and produced. According to Craciunescu et al. (2004), advances in communication have brought about a "screen culture" that increasingly tends to replace the use of printed materials, since digital information can be easily accessed and relayed through computers and allows greater flexibility for processing.
In addition to the growing tendency to adopt the digital format for textual production, a large part of the material translators deal with in their daily routines consists of large translation projects, whether web-based or not. Such work is usually carried out with the use of computerized tools, such as automatic translation systems and translation memory databases. These applications require the development of a new range of technical competences, from learning how to manipulate different software programs to being able to manage the translated content, whether to achieve terminological consistence (machine translation databases) or to reuse solutions to translation problems in subsequent projects (translation memory databases). As Biau Gil and Pym (2006:6) explain, in today's world,
Our translations might thus be expected to move away from the ideal of equivalence between fixed texts, becoming more like one set of revisions among many. In the fields of electronic technologies, translators are less commonly employed to translate whole texts, as one did for the books with concordances. Translation, like general text production, becomes more like work with databases, glossaries, and a set of electronic tools, rather than on complete definitive source texts.
Translation memory tools are being employed also by translators working with definitive texts, that is, materials that might be translated just once, mainly as a way to increase their database. There are many translators who work basically with web-based materials, so most part of their work might involve updating and adaptation of previously translated texts to other contexts (a common practice in localization). Whatever the situation technology might be employed, there is no denial that translators have been able to reap great benefits by achieving greater work speed and efficiency.
Nonetheless, the same tools designed to assist translators are also affecting many aspects of how their work is regarded. This is mainly due to the fact that the design of these applications seems to be based on some of the traditionally-held concepts of translation as a transfer operation of pre-established contents stored in the source text and of the translator as the one in charge of retrieving the contents the machine has failed to recover.
While seeking to investigate the basis of machine translation and translation memory programs, this work aims to analyze both the contributions and transformations arising from the contemporary concept of the translation profession through the use of those tools. The ideas presented are divided into two sections. In section one I shall examine the concept of the original text and the translation in the domain of machine translation. My attention will then turn towards the extension of the translator's responsibility in producing the final text, by examining the translator's role in the translation post-editing process. Section two looks into the application of translation memories, with focus on the extension of the translator's responsibility in creating translation databases and re-using identical or similar segments from previous translations stored in memory programs. Ultimately, I shall conclude by attempting to draw attention to the scenario posed by these technologies which, in my view, seems to raise urgent ethical questions regarding the translator's image as re-creator or editor of the final translated material.
Machine translation: the illusion of access to the source
The pace of the contemporary world calls for translators to deliver their work in shorter and shorter turnaround cycles. This fact, coupled with the search for cost reduction, seems to be one of the strongest reasons supporting the use of machines in translation. Through the perspective of the current demand for readily-done translations, the applications of machine translation programs are not seen as a break with the tradition, but as an inevitable further step in the development of the practice.
However, the growing demand for application of machine translation programs as a means to speed up translation and reduce its costs is changing the way texts are read and conceived. As Cronin (2003:22) aptly observes, "if the pressure in an informational and global economy is to get information as rapidly as possible, then the 'gisting' function becomes paramount in translation, a tendency which can be encouraged by the 'weightlessness' of the words on the screen with their evanescent existence." The generally low threshold of translation acceptability shown by many users is often justified by the argument that getting access to the informational content of a text is all that matters and that some translation, however poor, is better than no translation at all.
The prevailing idea among users is that meaning may be transported from one language to another and that machine translation programs never fail to convey a general and stable content, even though such operation may result in a roughly intelligible text. The current urgency to communicate seems endorse the notion that the content of a textual material is solidified in the source and that machine translation may provide access to the origin. As Hutchins (1999:4) claims, machine translation represents an "ideal solution" for the translation of texts for assimilation of information, that is, direct and quick access to the source, since
human translators are not prepared (and resent being asked) to produce 'rough' translations of scientific and technical documents that may be read by only one person who wants to merely find out the general content and information and is unconcerned whether everything is intelligible or not, and who is certainly not deterred by stylistic awkwardness or grammatical errors (Hutchins, 1999, p. 4).
According to this view, if the machine is in charge of recovering the content, although "awkward" and imperfect, the translator's role would be restricted to editing and stylistically adapting the translated material. As often quoted by machine translation scholars, automation should not be seen as a replacement for human translators, but as way to magnify human productivity (Kay, 1997), to supplement human translation (Melby, 1997) or even create more work for human translators (Biau Gil & Pym, 2006).
The issues regarding machine translation seem always to revolve around the descriptive views of its possible uses and the constant reminder that its applications can never supersede the abilities of human translators. However, nothing seems to be said about the extent of the translator's function in the construction of the final text that was initially translated by machine. Since original meaning recovery by the machine is often taken for granted by users, the translator's work is limited to filling out some gaps left out by the machine and stylistically adapting the translated text to the target language.
Even if the message seems to be incoherent in the "draft version" automatically prepared, there is a strong belief that the source has been recovered and adjustments are all that are left for the human translator to do.
The source-target correspondence has been a debatable issue for many years and the realization that it is at the very basis of machine translation concept brings into question the role the translator is supposed to play. If we accept the notion that the source is thus recoverable by the machine, we might have to be willing to accept that, in the post-editing job usually entrusted to human translators, the task to be carried out will be less of interpreting and reconstructing meaning in the target language, and more of allowing the automatically recovered meaning to be comprehensible through revision and adaptation.
Through this view, there is always the risk that the translator's work may remain concealed behind that of the machine, at least in most clients' eyes. Through the postmodern perspective, as the work of Brazilian Translation Studies scholar Arrojo (1997) has emphatically pointed out, "no reading can ever aspire to repeat or protect someone else's text"; therefore,
The visible translator who is conscious of his or her role and who makes the motivations, allegiances, and compromises of his or her interpretation as explicit as possible is also the translator who must take responsibility for the text he or she produces, as it is impossible to hide behind the anonymity of the ideal 'invisibility' which has allegedly been given up. (Arrojo, 1997:18)
Embracing visibility, as well as the sense of responsibility for the construction of the translated text, may be one of the most powerful ways for translators to value their work. As translators avail themselves of machine translation capabilities, whether by choice or by their client's imposition, they should likewise consider whether the speed and terminological consistence provided by the machine are worth the price of having their work downgraded as being merely of a copy editor and not as the one responsible for bringing meaning forth.
Translation memory programs: transferring translators' past solutions to present contexts
Just as machine translation, translation memories have also been imposing changes in the way translators work, many of which with further ethical implications than they might appear to have at first sight.
The basis of translation memory programs lies in accumulating and storing translation solutions that are recycled as needed through the automated use of this terminology. In addition to the investment required in the acquisition of these programs and the training needed to use them properly, time is also another factor that directly influences their performance. Far from being immediate time-savers, translation memory programs are built up as they are used; therefore, the more frequently the translator employs them, the larger the database and, consequently the more useful it will be.
Although the literature on translation memories, which basically comprises descriptive and comparative analysis of the efficiency of the programs available in the market, highlights the remarkable gains in productivity translators have been able to achieve, especially in the realm of localization (e.g. Microsoft Windows-based software localization project), little consideration has been given to the controversial ethical issues arising once a terminological database is created (Zetzsche, 2000).
Once a translator has compiled terminological options into a database as a result of previous work commissioned directly by clients or through translation agencies, it is usually expected that such database be provided along with the final translation, a usual procedure as these programs become widespread. When that database is incorporated into a larger one held by clients or translation agencies, this data will often be used as input to be provided to the same translator or other professionals working in future projects. As Biau Gil and Pym (2006) explain, whenever a translator is provided with a memory database, clients expect compliance with the terminology and phraseology of the segment pairs included in that database. Moreover, always concerned with reducing costs, companies encourage translators to seek as many matches as possible and feel disappointed when the level of text re-use reported by translators is much lower than expected (Murphy, 2000).
Just as in translation machine applications, the way translation memory programs are being designed by the industry, in a effort to achieve cost and time reductions to produce a translation, calls into mind the concept of translation as "a word-replacement activity" as Biau Gil and Pym argue, since most of the time, translators "are invited to forget about the other elements configuring the text" and concentrate on segments that might be recovered from translation databases or added to the latter. (2006:12).
The translator's interpretation of the source material and personal choices made in the formulation of the translated text might interfere with content management and consistency, even though the translator's option may at times be more appropriate for some specific context than the pre-selected options offered by the database. By reusing stored translation segments, translators might be giving the first step to relinquish the outcome of their research work as well, since clients may also require that the memory generated through a translation be provided along with the translated material.
The second step towards giving up the authorship of translation takes place whenever translators accept being paid only for what clients deem as translation per se, that is, segments that have not been translated yet. This is the result of the idea that 100% matches will keep the same meaning they had in previous texts and, for that, revision and adaptation of these words or segments are not worth being remunerated for. This situation has been met with criticism by some translators who defend that consistency does not guarantee comprehension since a text may have perfect terminological coherence, but it altogether may not make any sense to the target audience.
On the other hand, clients may not readily accept the idea that 100% matches cannot be used in a new context or even that segments that may be used inevitably gain new meaning and may still require careful revision and adjustments into the new context. For that reason, it is uncommon to remunerate the translator for corrections or adjustments in the terminological database, since it would mean accepting that previous translation work was faulty, and so unduly charged.
From that commonly adopted practice in the work with translation memories, we find an approach rather similar to that applied to machine translation. Just as there seems to be a consensus that a text translated by machine will require not much more than review and post-editing by a human translator, in the work with translation memories, reviewing also frequently includes maintaining previously translated segments. Despite the fact that segments stored in the memory may have inadequacies, they may just as well lull the translator into a false sense of belief that meaning is fixed and will not change or lead to new associations in the new contexts they have become part of.
As I hope the discussion on commonly used approaches to machine translation and translation memories have led us to consider, for the translator's role to become more, rather than less, important in the informational age, it is paramount that these professionals do not be regarded as mere content transporters or text reviewers, but as communicators fully responsible for the meanings they confer to translated texts.
Final considerations: Co-existence but on what terms?
If there is no denial translation practice has to evolve and conform to new modes of communication and work (Cronin, 2003), translators should ponder how they wish to be regarded by those who hire their services.
By conferring priority to discussions about time and cost reductions through the application of technological tools in the practice of translation, translators might be oblivious to what such tools really represent to the public in general and what consequences such representations might have in the way the profession is conceived.
The general idea, as I have argued, is that, when applying technological tools such as machine translation programs, all that is left for the translator to do is give the text the final touches to make it coherent in the translated language. The impression is that the machine is the one that does the translation work and the translator is in charge of editing the final text. As for translation memories, the widespread reuse of already translated segments, in a way, also contributes to the idea that the translator is not solely responsible for the translated text.
The illusion that the machine is able to translate may affect the way translators will be seen in the future, an impression that should be given careful consideration, mainly when we remind ourselves of the multiplicity of texts, languages and cultures that are inevitably intertwined in translation.
References
ARROJO, Rosemary. Asymmetrical relations of power and the ethics of translation. TextconText, v. 11, p. 5-24, 1997.
BIAU GIL, José Ramón; PYM, Anthony. Technology and Translation: a pedagogical overview. In: PYM, A., PEREKRESTENKO, A., STARINK, B. (Org.) (2006). Translation technology and its teaching. Tarragona, Spain. Available at
CRACIUNESCU, Olivia; GERDING-SALAS, Constanza; STRINGER-O'KEEFFE, Susan. Machine translation and computer-assisted translation: a new way of translating? Translation Journal. v. 8, n. 3, jul. 2004. Available at:
CRONIN, Michael. Translation and globalization. London: Routledge, 2003.
HUTCHINS, John. Translation Technology and the Translator. Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, London, May. 1997. Available at:
______. The development and use of machine translation systems and computer-based translation tools. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Computer Language Information Processing. Xangai, June, 1999. Available at:
KAY, Martin. The proper place of men and machines in language translation. In: Machine Translation. n. 12, p. 3-23, 1997.
MELBY, Alan. Some notes on 'The Proper Place of Men and Machines in Language Translation'. In: Machine Translation. n. 12, p. 3-23, 1997.
MURPHY, Dawn. Keeping Translation Technology under Control. Machine Translation Review, n. 11, Dec. 2000, p. 7-10. Available at http://www.bcs-mt.org.uk/mtreview/11/mtr-11-7.htm. Access on Jan. 11, 2007.
ZETZSCHE, Jost. Translation memories: the discovery of assets. Multilingual Computing and Technology. v. 16 (4), n. 72, p. 43-45, 2005.
This article was originally published at Translation Journal (http://accurapid.com/journal).
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Sunday, May 3, 2009
A Day in the Life of a GPM (Global Project Management)
By Cassius Figueiredo,
a Senior Project Manager,
Brazil
The latest addition to the Ccaps team, Cassius Figueiredo shares his industry experience in this interview-style article.
CCAPS: How would you define Global Project Management (GPM)? How does it differ from Local Project Management?
CASSIUS: The GPM’s work in project management involves production centers in different countries. One of the main differences between the work of a GPM and that of an LPM is that the GPM is in direct contact with the end client. Therefore, it is his or her responsibility to define all procedures, ensuring that the client’s needs and expectations are fully met upon project finalization. He or she is also responsible for sharing project information with all the parties involved, serving as the focal point for communication and guaranteeing the consistency of the information used for all languages.
CCAPS: What is involved in a classic GPM process and what are the pitfalls that one should avoid?
CASSIUS: Participating in global project management means having knowledge of several areas of project management. From the assessment of client needs to project completion, the process involves time, cost and risk planning, understanding of quality requirements, procurement and communication. This is true for each of the projects managed – and don’t forget the manager is frequently managing several projects at the same time!
I believe that the main pitfalls are related to communication and direct contact with the client. In a project like this, there is daily contact with people of cultures far different from your own, and this requires a certain degree of adaptability on the manager’s behalf. When it comes to contacting the client, besides the culturally motivated adaptation, one must take extra care because the manager is responsible for representing the company -- and he or she must represent it well! What also makes communication and organization extremely important is that any mistake made by the GPM quickly contaminates the work of the LPMs in charge of production, and this may lead to serious time and money losses.
CCAPS: We understand that you started working with localization back in 1994. Tell us a bit about your background as an engineer and how it influenced your management skills.
CASSIUS: I began working with localization in 1994 as a “Software Engineer,” which was what this position was called at the time. Today, it is known as “Localization Engineer.” Between 1994 and 1998, I worked on several highly interesting projects, including two versions of Microsoft Office — for the MS Office 95 and 97 versions, I was always the engineer in charge of MS Word —, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Encarta [that’s right, the Microsoft encyclopedia], to mention just a few. At that time, we did not have access to any of the translation tools that exist today, and the entire localization process was essentially manual. After working for some time in the Engineering Department, I left Bowne Global Solutions (BGS) to work for the US Library of Congress Office at the American Consulate in Rio de Janeiro, where I was responsible for the whole IT department. I worked there for two years. In 2000, I returned to BGS as a Project Manager until 2006. Then Lionbridge acquired BGS and the office in Rio de Janeiro was closed. I was invited to come and work for Ccaps and here I am now.
All the experience I gained as an engineer has helped me immensely in the daily management of projects because it facilitates the identification of risks inherent to the process and makes communication with clients more effective.
CCAPS: How was your first experience as a GPM?
CASSIUS: It was with small-scale projects at BGS. Basically, minor Microsoft projects for languages such as German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
CCAPS: In this edition of the Ccaps Newsletter, we are publishing an article by Andre Barcaui. He believes that project management is both art and discipline. Would you agree with him and if so, how do you apply this concept to your daily work?
CASSIUS: I most certainly agree. Perhaps the most difficult thing is identifying the proper balance between art and discipline that should be applied to each project. Project managers work with people and that makes my activity one of the most challenging in terms of personal and professional growth. Besides, a project is a unique effort that demands maximum creativity and the use of techniques suited for the different project phases. This leads me to the conclusion that, among other things, a project manager must combine his or her interpersonal abilities (the ART) with knowledge of project management techniques (the DISCIPLINE).
CCAPS: As a GPM, you interact with people from all over the world and from a range of different cultures. Can you recall a humorous or challenging experience that resulted from cultural or language barriers?
CASSIUS: I can remember mainly the complicated ones. Working with Easterners, for example, is always challenging for us in the West, requiring a high level of adaptation. The cultural differences are enormous, and Easterners’ way of handling problems is very different from ours. I always avoid sending feedback on a particular job when there are people in the Cc field of a message. This is because Easterners are very sensitive to criticism being shared with people who they consider “strangers.”
CCAPS: Between you and me, are localization-savvy clients more demanding than those who have less knowledge of how the industry works?
CASSIUS: Well now... Clients are always demanding, whether or not they know what they are buying. It is our job to define the limits as to what is possible and what is not in order to reach an agreement that meets their expectations. Perhaps the big difference between localization-savvy clients and those who are not is the fact that the former often have projects that are more realistic. Those clients who are not knowledgeable about our processes create virtually impossible challenges, so it is up to us to mold or “educate” them so that they accept something more realistic, using our experience in the area.
CCAPS: Any special tips to share with our readers, a group that includes project managers like you and those interested in starting a career?
CASSIUS: Learn to deal with people because they are the most valuable asset of a project. Study hard and keep up with existing techniques because, as familiar as it may seem, you never know how messy the next project can be. As I said earlier, projects are UNIQUE by definition. I always like to use a metaphor to explain that even though project management is not a box of chocolates, “you never know what you’re gonna get.”
CCAPS: Finally, in a few words, how is a day in the life of a GPM like?
CASSIUS: Good question! The day starts with massive e-mails, and almost all of them contain issues to solve. When you get close to lunchtime, you’ve probably solved half of the issues, yet accumulated another bunch that arrived that very same morning. Closer to the end of the day, you will have solved many issues, but some remain pending. These will be transferred to the following day, when the process starts all over again.
Whether this is a joke or the truth, I leave it for the reader’s imagination – or to an experienced project manager to discover. A day in the life of a GPM (or project manager of any kind) is an immense challenge, one that turns your career into an object of hate or passion. I always say that, like many other colleagues, I became a project manager by chance, but now I love my profession and what I learn from it on a daily basis is simply priceless.
Cassius Figueiredo is a Senior Project Manager and has been working in the localization industry for 11 years. He also worked at the US Library of Congress for two years as head of the IT department. Currently, he manages localization projects at Ccaps. Juggling with the daily work and the studies for the PMI exam, Cassius sometimes has to play with his kids until late for them to fall asleep.
This article was also published in Сcaps Newsletter (http://www.ccaps.net)
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
a Senior Project Manager,
Brazil
The latest addition to the Ccaps team, Cassius Figueiredo shares his industry experience in this interview-style article.
CCAPS: How would you define Global Project Management (GPM)? How does it differ from Local Project Management?
CASSIUS: The GPM’s work in project management involves production centers in different countries. One of the main differences between the work of a GPM and that of an LPM is that the GPM is in direct contact with the end client. Therefore, it is his or her responsibility to define all procedures, ensuring that the client’s needs and expectations are fully met upon project finalization. He or she is also responsible for sharing project information with all the parties involved, serving as the focal point for communication and guaranteeing the consistency of the information used for all languages.
CCAPS: What is involved in a classic GPM process and what are the pitfalls that one should avoid?
CASSIUS: Participating in global project management means having knowledge of several areas of project management. From the assessment of client needs to project completion, the process involves time, cost and risk planning, understanding of quality requirements, procurement and communication. This is true for each of the projects managed – and don’t forget the manager is frequently managing several projects at the same time!
I believe that the main pitfalls are related to communication and direct contact with the client. In a project like this, there is daily contact with people of cultures far different from your own, and this requires a certain degree of adaptability on the manager’s behalf. When it comes to contacting the client, besides the culturally motivated adaptation, one must take extra care because the manager is responsible for representing the company -- and he or she must represent it well! What also makes communication and organization extremely important is that any mistake made by the GPM quickly contaminates the work of the LPMs in charge of production, and this may lead to serious time and money losses.
CCAPS: We understand that you started working with localization back in 1994. Tell us a bit about your background as an engineer and how it influenced your management skills.
CASSIUS: I began working with localization in 1994 as a “Software Engineer,” which was what this position was called at the time. Today, it is known as “Localization Engineer.” Between 1994 and 1998, I worked on several highly interesting projects, including two versions of Microsoft Office — for the MS Office 95 and 97 versions, I was always the engineer in charge of MS Word —, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Encarta [that’s right, the Microsoft encyclopedia], to mention just a few. At that time, we did not have access to any of the translation tools that exist today, and the entire localization process was essentially manual. After working for some time in the Engineering Department, I left Bowne Global Solutions (BGS) to work for the US Library of Congress Office at the American Consulate in Rio de Janeiro, where I was responsible for the whole IT department. I worked there for two years. In 2000, I returned to BGS as a Project Manager until 2006. Then Lionbridge acquired BGS and the office in Rio de Janeiro was closed. I was invited to come and work for Ccaps and here I am now.
All the experience I gained as an engineer has helped me immensely in the daily management of projects because it facilitates the identification of risks inherent to the process and makes communication with clients more effective.
CCAPS: How was your first experience as a GPM?
CASSIUS: It was with small-scale projects at BGS. Basically, minor Microsoft projects for languages such as German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
CCAPS: In this edition of the Ccaps Newsletter, we are publishing an article by Andre Barcaui. He believes that project management is both art and discipline. Would you agree with him and if so, how do you apply this concept to your daily work?
CASSIUS: I most certainly agree. Perhaps the most difficult thing is identifying the proper balance between art and discipline that should be applied to each project. Project managers work with people and that makes my activity one of the most challenging in terms of personal and professional growth. Besides, a project is a unique effort that demands maximum creativity and the use of techniques suited for the different project phases. This leads me to the conclusion that, among other things, a project manager must combine his or her interpersonal abilities (the ART) with knowledge of project management techniques (the DISCIPLINE).
CCAPS: As a GPM, you interact with people from all over the world and from a range of different cultures. Can you recall a humorous or challenging experience that resulted from cultural or language barriers?
CASSIUS: I can remember mainly the complicated ones. Working with Easterners, for example, is always challenging for us in the West, requiring a high level of adaptation. The cultural differences are enormous, and Easterners’ way of handling problems is very different from ours. I always avoid sending feedback on a particular job when there are people in the Cc field of a message. This is because Easterners are very sensitive to criticism being shared with people who they consider “strangers.”
CCAPS: Between you and me, are localization-savvy clients more demanding than those who have less knowledge of how the industry works?
CASSIUS: Well now... Clients are always demanding, whether or not they know what they are buying. It is our job to define the limits as to what is possible and what is not in order to reach an agreement that meets their expectations. Perhaps the big difference between localization-savvy clients and those who are not is the fact that the former often have projects that are more realistic. Those clients who are not knowledgeable about our processes create virtually impossible challenges, so it is up to us to mold or “educate” them so that they accept something more realistic, using our experience in the area.
CCAPS: Any special tips to share with our readers, a group that includes project managers like you and those interested in starting a career?
CASSIUS: Learn to deal with people because they are the most valuable asset of a project. Study hard and keep up with existing techniques because, as familiar as it may seem, you never know how messy the next project can be. As I said earlier, projects are UNIQUE by definition. I always like to use a metaphor to explain that even though project management is not a box of chocolates, “you never know what you’re gonna get.”
CCAPS: Finally, in a few words, how is a day in the life of a GPM like?
CASSIUS: Good question! The day starts with massive e-mails, and almost all of them contain issues to solve. When you get close to lunchtime, you’ve probably solved half of the issues, yet accumulated another bunch that arrived that very same morning. Closer to the end of the day, you will have solved many issues, but some remain pending. These will be transferred to the following day, when the process starts all over again.
Whether this is a joke or the truth, I leave it for the reader’s imagination – or to an experienced project manager to discover. A day in the life of a GPM (or project manager of any kind) is an immense challenge, one that turns your career into an object of hate or passion. I always say that, like many other colleagues, I became a project manager by chance, but now I love my profession and what I learn from it on a daily basis is simply priceless.
Cassius Figueiredo is a Senior Project Manager and has been working in the localization industry for 11 years. He also worked at the US Library of Congress for two years as head of the IT department. Currently, he manages localization projects at Ccaps. Juggling with the daily work and the studies for the PMI exam, Cassius sometimes has to play with his kids until late for them to fall asleep.
This article was also published in Сcaps Newsletter (http://www.ccaps.net)
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Offshoring considerations
By Willem Stoeller,
PMP and VP for Globalization at WeLocalize
willem.stoeller@Welocalize.com
There is an ongoing debate about the benefits of offshoring services to lower-cost countries. Myself, I believe that offshoring of localization can produce cost benefits, but more importantly, it can provide scalability of localization services.
However, before you start sending your localization to a vendor in India, Russia, or China, it is important to recognize that this will have little impact on one of the largest cost components of your project: translation.
Virtually all of the localization industry uses freelance or in-house professionally trained translators. And typically, a localization vendor will only find local translators for the languages of the vendor’s own region. For all other languages, vendors look for professional translators in their respective countries. Indeed, one of the axioms of professional translation is that you always translate into your mother tongue.
Thus, do not expect lower translation costs from your India vendor for any languages other than the Indic ones. The same goes for a China vendor: do not expect lower translation costs for any languages other than Chinese (all dialects), and maybe Korean.
Sure, Indian and Chinese companies might offer attractive pricing
for translation into, say, French, but in such cases, you are now comparing apples with oranges. Indian or Chinese non-native speakers who have learned French as a second language are used for such low-cost translation.
IMPACTS TO OTHER LOCALIZATION COMPONENTS
How are the other major cost components of localization impacted in these particular offshore scenarios?
* Project Management – There is quite a shortage of project management talent in India and China. The profession is growing rapidly in those countries, but mainly in IT and software development.
* Localization engineering – Staff with only a basic understanding of the target languages can do this well. Native speakers are not essential.
* DTP and multimedia – Staff with a basic under standing of the target languages can do this well. Native speakers are not essential.
* Internationalization and functional testing – Staff with a basic understanding of the target languages can do this well. Native speakers are not essential.
* Localization testing – This requires native speakers for each target language.
From this list, we see that potential cost benefits can be had for localization engineering, DTP, and internationalization and functional testing. I use the term “potential” here because such benefits can be offset from other costs that are inherent in such offshore scenarios: there is a frequent need to audit these services, plus there is still a need for a just-in-time localization solution. This refers to a quick turnaround of last-minute changes and defects. For example, a US company might need last minutes changes turned around quicker than it can be done by a vendor in a time zone 14 hours away.
OFFSHORE MODELS
Cost benefits to offshoring might seem less apparent, but with the right model, the use of offshore resources in a reduced-cost localization effort can still be accomplished. Consider the dynamics among the following types of vendors:
* Global localization vendors – These are typically US or Western European vendors with substantial production offices in China or India or both.
* Regional vendors – These are companies in China or India that focus only on their respective regional languages.
* Local multi-language vendors (MLVs): These are localization companies in China or India that offer localization into languages other than their own.
Global localization vendors
Several large Western localization providers, such as SDL, Moravia, Lionbridge, Welocalize, etc., have obtained sizable production facilities in India or China. These offshore facilities can be used for the bulk of localization engineering, DTP, multimedia engineering, or functional and internationalization testing. However, small local teams are still needed to audit (sample) the in-country work or to provide quick, last-minute turnaround for US and European clients.
When you combine the costs for these needed local teams with the overhead of distributed project management, you do realize an increase in total cost for offshore localization engineering and other offshore services, but there is still potential for savings, depending on the type and size of the project and the number of hours required for offshore services.
“When you combine the costs for these needed local teams with the overhead of distributed project management, you do realize an increase in total cost...”
Localization testing requires the use of native speakers for the linguistic aspects of localization testing. It is possible to use a distributed team approach for localization testing, where the production facilities in China or India handle the technical aspects of localization testing, and remote native speakers handle the linguistic aspects. For example, capturing screenshots can be done in China or India, but the actual screenshot reviews are done by the remote native speakers.
Localization vendors in India and China
These are also known as regional single language vendors (SLVs). In India, SLVs are a good source for localization into the Indic languages and Urdu. SLVs in China are a good source for localization into Chinese for PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
A drawback of using regional vendors directly is that you, as a buyer, need to interface with a number of different regional vendors; this implies different contacts, different work processes, and different technologies. This is typically only feasible for large localization buyers with their own in-house staff of localization specialists and project managers.
Multi-language localization vendors
India and, to a lesser degree, China have a number of MLVs that offer localization into many non-local languages. These companies typically do not have the experience of the larger Western MLVs, however. And there are no substantial cost benefits to using these regional MLVs as long as they use in-country, native-speaking, professionally trained translators.
SUMMARY
For your larger projects, you can obtain cost savings on localization line items, services such as localization engineering, testing, and DTP, if you use one of the larger Western MLVs that have substantial production facilities in lower-cost areas such as Russia, China, or India. But for smaller localization projects, the overhead of distributed project management outweighs the potential gains.
There is no possibility to offshore professional translation with the goal of reducing translation costs. This can only be done in country (or possibly in North America, where there is a regular influx of immigrants).
Regional SLVs in China and India are a feasible solution for mature buyers with seasoned in-house localization staff. But I hesitate to recommend the MLVs in those regions.
To get the best quality translation, Welocalize works only with professional translators in country. One exception to this rule is Spanish, which is spoken in Spain and most of South and Central America. It is possible to get lower cost translations in the Americas by native speaking, professional translators, as long as pure European (Castilian) Spanish is not a requirement.
About the author
A frequent contributor to CSN Magazine, Willem Stoeller is a former professor of localization principles. Currently a VP at Welocalize, Willem still teaches localization topics at industry conferences. CSN recommends Willem’s previous articles regarding the “path of localization.” See the September 2005, January 2006, and May 2006 issues of CSN Magazine.
ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Friday, May 1, 2009
Tips to help you start your own all-round translation business
By Fester Leenstra,
Metamorfose Vertalingen,
Catharijnesingel 85,
3511 GP UTRECHT,
THE NETHERLANDS
metamorfose.vertalingen@gmail.com
www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
There is no shortage of translators who take the plunge and set up shop as self-employed freelancers, but few have the ambition or the spirit to start up their own all-round translation agency. This is not surprising, of course, as the establishment of a full- scale translation agency is a quantum leap compared with what it takes to launch a viable freelance practice. Nevertheless, the intellectual and financial rewards of business ownership can be substantial. Below I will discuss various aspects you will have to take into account should you consider beginning your own professional and all-round translation business.
All-round translations
First of all, what is meant, in this particular context, by the term ‘all-round’? Basically, it refers to the scope of your product. As a freelancer your output would be confined to your own language combination and degree of specialisation; as an agency owner you will be able to supply your clients with translations across a whole range of source and target languages and disciplines, including commercial, technical, medical and legal documents. In theory, your range would be limited only by the number of staff you would be prepare to contract.
Internal organisation
If you want to establish your own translation company, you would be well advised to find a competent partner first – unless you are willing to hire staff right from the start (which, in most cases, is not a recommendable procedure). Ideally, your business partner should be a person whose qualities are complementary to your own, if only because in such cases the division of tasks is usually quite obvious (and a potential source of conflict is removed). There are good reasons to separate responsibility for product quality (i.e., the quality of the translations) from organisational responsibilities (order processing, account management, etc.). These two roles do not go together very well in practice, and the associated skills are not usually combined within one and the same person anyway.
Find suitable office accommodation that includes at least two rooms: one library-style room where you can work in peace, and one nerve centre where the business is done. Make sure you have at least three computer workstations (one spare station is no luxury) and an office printer, a telephone switchboard with at least two external lines and a fax. Get yourself a straightforward high-quality accounting programme with a CRM module and document your working methods in detailed systematic procedures.
Don’t forget to lay down and formalise a number of essential agreements on tasks and responsibilities with your business partner, so as to prevent any misunderstandings.
Business Plan
Once you have gathered all the information you need, you should draw up a Business Plan. Examples of such plans are available at your local Chamber of Commerce, or can be downloaded (for a fee) from the Internet. These specimen copies are structured in such a way that they will assist you in each step of your own Business Plan. One of the main advantages of having a reliable Business Plan is that it will present you with a realistic estimate of the money you will need to get your agency off the ground. If your capital requirements exceed your private budget (and it is quite likely that they will), you will have to present a thorough Business Plan to the bank in order to persuade them that your plans will pay off.
High-quality freelance translator network
The main asset of any translation agency is obviously its network of reliable translators. Incidentally, you need not be a networking freak to build up such a freelance network. Many freelancers will present themselves to you spontaneously as soon as they get wind of your existence; alternatively, you can actively recruit them and check out CVs on a variety of collective freelance websites, such as Translators Café or GoTranslators. The snag is that you will be hard put to appraise a freelancer’s skills if you do not master the language concerned. CV assessment is important, but by no means sufficient: you will need to be able to judge the quality of a freelancer’s actual output before entrusting him or her to your clients!
To obviate this problem, check your own network of colleagues or friends for highly-educated native speakers of the language concerned, ask several freelancers to submit (free) trial translations, have them assessed and select the two or three most promising freelancers for each language combination you intend to offer. Carefully document the strengths and weaknesses of each selected freelancer and list the specialisations. Note that you won’t get a truly reliable picture of a freelancer’s capacity and skills until he/she has had the opportunity to do several translation jobs for you.
Once you have a pool of reliable freelance translators for each language combination, you can obviously also ask them to check and assess trial translations submitted by other candidates.
Another point to bear in mind is that the freelancers you decide to work with should comply with all the requirements imposed by your country’s Tax & Customs Administration. Each freelancer should be able to produce a formal statement, issued by the tax authorities, attesting to his/her status as an independent translator.
Reliable network of suppliers
Your freelance translators are obviously your most important suppliers, but the supply network comprises other parties as well that will need to be carefully selected as you will need to use their services on an ongoing basis. These include the bank, the accountant, the printer and the graphic designer.
Marketing
Once the internal set-up of your agency is in place, your first priority should be to recruit clients in a systematic manner. For many start-ups in the translation business, this is the most difficult hurdle. Obviously there is a multitude of strategies that can help you attract clients in the business-to-business segment (which accounts for most of the turnover of any self-sufficient translation agency). One very helpful tool, if used correctly, is Direct Marketing. In principle, two different Direct Marketing strategies are available:
1. Internet marketing
One effective and relatively cheap method of generating business in the short term is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), a term that refers to a variety of techniques to help you strengthen your presence on the Internet, and to help prospective clients find you there. A strong position in Internet search engines will increase the number of times you are invited to submit a quote for a translation job, for the simple reason that you will be more likely to be selected if you are easy to find on the Internet.
Some Internet facility agencies have specialised in Search Engine Optimisation and will be able to improve your search engine rating within a couple of months. Most of these companies charge annual subscription fees. If you want immediate results, ask for an AdWords campaign.
2. Database marketing
This is a rather more expensive client acquisition technique. Call large international corporations and government agencies likely to produce texts for translation on a regular basis, and ask for the name of the person who is responsible for translation services (usually an official at the Director’s Office, Communications or the Marketing Department). Gather the information in a database and mail the contact persons four or five times a year. The mailing could comprise your company brochure, a letter of recommendation, flyers, a magazine for business relations or any other item that will help remind the reader of your name and the level of quality that you offer.
An effective database contains at least 1,000 companies or other organisations, and should also contain the names of the contact persons. It goes without saying that you will also have to invest in continually updating your database.
About the author
Fester Leenstra is co-owner of Metamorfose Vertalingen, a translation agency in Utrecht (The Netherlands). After having worked for several translation firms in paid employment, he took the plunge in 2004 and incorporated his own company.
For further details about Metamorfose Vertalingen, visit:
http://www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
http://www.beedigd-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.vertaalbureau-engels.nl
http://www.vertaalsite.eu
http://www.oost-europavertalingen.nl
http://www.scandinavie-vertalingen.nl
http://www.medisch-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.technisch-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.juridisch-vertaalbureau.nl
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Metamorfose Vertalingen,
Catharijnesingel 85,
3511 GP UTRECHT,
THE NETHERLANDS
metamorfose.vertalingen@gmail.com
www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
There is no shortage of translators who take the plunge and set up shop as self-employed freelancers, but few have the ambition or the spirit to start up their own all-round translation agency. This is not surprising, of course, as the establishment of a full- scale translation agency is a quantum leap compared with what it takes to launch a viable freelance practice. Nevertheless, the intellectual and financial rewards of business ownership can be substantial. Below I will discuss various aspects you will have to take into account should you consider beginning your own professional and all-round translation business.
All-round translations
First of all, what is meant, in this particular context, by the term ‘all-round’? Basically, it refers to the scope of your product. As a freelancer your output would be confined to your own language combination and degree of specialisation; as an agency owner you will be able to supply your clients with translations across a whole range of source and target languages and disciplines, including commercial, technical, medical and legal documents. In theory, your range would be limited only by the number of staff you would be prepare to contract.
Internal organisation
If you want to establish your own translation company, you would be well advised to find a competent partner first – unless you are willing to hire staff right from the start (which, in most cases, is not a recommendable procedure). Ideally, your business partner should be a person whose qualities are complementary to your own, if only because in such cases the division of tasks is usually quite obvious (and a potential source of conflict is removed). There are good reasons to separate responsibility for product quality (i.e., the quality of the translations) from organisational responsibilities (order processing, account management, etc.). These two roles do not go together very well in practice, and the associated skills are not usually combined within one and the same person anyway.
Find suitable office accommodation that includes at least two rooms: one library-style room where you can work in peace, and one nerve centre where the business is done. Make sure you have at least three computer workstations (one spare station is no luxury) and an office printer, a telephone switchboard with at least two external lines and a fax. Get yourself a straightforward high-quality accounting programme with a CRM module and document your working methods in detailed systematic procedures.
Don’t forget to lay down and formalise a number of essential agreements on tasks and responsibilities with your business partner, so as to prevent any misunderstandings.
Business Plan
Once you have gathered all the information you need, you should draw up a Business Plan. Examples of such plans are available at your local Chamber of Commerce, or can be downloaded (for a fee) from the Internet. These specimen copies are structured in such a way that they will assist you in each step of your own Business Plan. One of the main advantages of having a reliable Business Plan is that it will present you with a realistic estimate of the money you will need to get your agency off the ground. If your capital requirements exceed your private budget (and it is quite likely that they will), you will have to present a thorough Business Plan to the bank in order to persuade them that your plans will pay off.
High-quality freelance translator network
The main asset of any translation agency is obviously its network of reliable translators. Incidentally, you need not be a networking freak to build up such a freelance network. Many freelancers will present themselves to you spontaneously as soon as they get wind of your existence; alternatively, you can actively recruit them and check out CVs on a variety of collective freelance websites, such as Translators Café or GoTranslators. The snag is that you will be hard put to appraise a freelancer’s skills if you do not master the language concerned. CV assessment is important, but by no means sufficient: you will need to be able to judge the quality of a freelancer’s actual output before entrusting him or her to your clients!
To obviate this problem, check your own network of colleagues or friends for highly-educated native speakers of the language concerned, ask several freelancers to submit (free) trial translations, have them assessed and select the two or three most promising freelancers for each language combination you intend to offer. Carefully document the strengths and weaknesses of each selected freelancer and list the specialisations. Note that you won’t get a truly reliable picture of a freelancer’s capacity and skills until he/she has had the opportunity to do several translation jobs for you.
Once you have a pool of reliable freelance translators for each language combination, you can obviously also ask them to check and assess trial translations submitted by other candidates.
Another point to bear in mind is that the freelancers you decide to work with should comply with all the requirements imposed by your country’s Tax & Customs Administration. Each freelancer should be able to produce a formal statement, issued by the tax authorities, attesting to his/her status as an independent translator.
Reliable network of suppliers
Your freelance translators are obviously your most important suppliers, but the supply network comprises other parties as well that will need to be carefully selected as you will need to use their services on an ongoing basis. These include the bank, the accountant, the printer and the graphic designer.
Marketing
Once the internal set-up of your agency is in place, your first priority should be to recruit clients in a systematic manner. For many start-ups in the translation business, this is the most difficult hurdle. Obviously there is a multitude of strategies that can help you attract clients in the business-to-business segment (which accounts for most of the turnover of any self-sufficient translation agency). One very helpful tool, if used correctly, is Direct Marketing. In principle, two different Direct Marketing strategies are available:
1. Internet marketing
One effective and relatively cheap method of generating business in the short term is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), a term that refers to a variety of techniques to help you strengthen your presence on the Internet, and to help prospective clients find you there. A strong position in Internet search engines will increase the number of times you are invited to submit a quote for a translation job, for the simple reason that you will be more likely to be selected if you are easy to find on the Internet.
Some Internet facility agencies have specialised in Search Engine Optimisation and will be able to improve your search engine rating within a couple of months. Most of these companies charge annual subscription fees. If you want immediate results, ask for an AdWords campaign.
2. Database marketing
This is a rather more expensive client acquisition technique. Call large international corporations and government agencies likely to produce texts for translation on a regular basis, and ask for the name of the person who is responsible for translation services (usually an official at the Director’s Office, Communications or the Marketing Department). Gather the information in a database and mail the contact persons four or five times a year. The mailing could comprise your company brochure, a letter of recommendation, flyers, a magazine for business relations or any other item that will help remind the reader of your name and the level of quality that you offer.
An effective database contains at least 1,000 companies or other organisations, and should also contain the names of the contact persons. It goes without saying that you will also have to invest in continually updating your database.
About the author
Fester Leenstra is co-owner of Metamorfose Vertalingen, a translation agency in Utrecht (The Netherlands). After having worked for several translation firms in paid employment, he took the plunge in 2004 and incorporated his own company.
For further details about Metamorfose Vertalingen, visit:
http://www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
http://www.beedigd-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.vertaalbureau-engels.nl
http://www.vertaalsite.eu
http://www.oost-europavertalingen.nl
http://www.scandinavie-vertalingen.nl
http://www.medisch-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.technisch-vertaalbureau.nl
http://www.juridisch-vertaalbureau.nl
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
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