TranslatorsTraining.com Allows Translators the Opportunity to Compare CAT Tools Side by Side

For years translators have struggled to understand the similarities and differences among the various translation environment tools, but the marketing hyperbole and the different platforms and processes have made it difficult to carry out a straightforward comparison. Savvy translators know about the comparison tools at TranslatorsTraining.com that provide a neutral platform for evaluating tools’ strengths and weaknesses. Now this powerful comparison tool is being provided free of charge for all translators.

In an effort to create a level playing field, TranslatorsTraining.com sent the 21 most prominent tool vendors a single document and asked them this question: “Using your tool, what’s the best way to translate this Word document?” The result: 21 video tutorials that show the step-by-step process of translating the same document with each of the leading tools.

“This is a unique platform that allow us to see each of these tools going through the same general procedures on an identical document,” said Jost Zetzsche, author of The Tool Kit newsletter and The Translators’ Tool Box e-book and one of TranslatorsTraining.com’s designers. “For example, we can compare how Trados pre- and post-processes the file, creates a translation memory and a terminology database, and reuses content from the TM and the terminology database with how it’s done by memoQ, Star Transit, or OmegaT.”

The video tutorials are available at TranslatorsTraining.com, a joint project between Jost Zetzsche of International Writers’ Group and Intrawelt, a leading language services and eLearning solutions company. The designers have no affiliation with any of the software vendors profiled; however, many of the leading software tool providers have provided significant discounts on their tools for TranslatorsTraining.com users, accessible only through the video tutorials on the site.

According to Alessandro Potalivo, Intrawelt’s CEO: “Jost’s expertise coupled with our eLearning know-how make this a one-of-a-kind project. We are extremely excited about being able to offer the translation community the ability to compare CAT tools easily, quickly, and objectively—and now free of charge.”

“You need your text translated by a professional? And you need it proof-read? Right, and before going to print you need a really thorough double and triple check and, what’s that?, you need it all formatted professionally? By next Thursday? Yeah….of course we can do that. Trust me!”

Think about what you’re doing.

You’ve created some text. Obviously it’s important because (1) otherwise you wouldn’t have written it, and (2) you need it translated.

So if it’s important, what are you doing entrusting your important work to someone you don’t know and, by extension, cannot trust?

When you need translation services for the first time, look for companies that have independent quality accreditation. This must be the only thing you should trust. Don’t believe all the marketing hype. From there, talk to the agencies about workflow, services, costs, and so on. A little investment and information gathering will reap rewards.

If you already use a translation agency, you’re probably disinclined to find another one but maybe you should think again. A back-up can only be a good thing. And sharing your business keeps both translation agencies competitive: improving their services to give you more.

If you’d like a free one-pager with hints and tips on how to choose your first – or your next – translation agency, just send an email to info@intrawelt.co.uk

Budgets are tighter than ever and it’s a natural response to try to look for cheaper options. But this could be a false economy. If you buy a really cheap t-shirt, you can guarantee that after half a dozen washes it will have lost its shape and will look like a really cheap t-shirt. So do you buy another cheap t-shirt or do you buy quality and wear a good-looking t-shirt for much longer?

Many translation agencies, to reduce costs but to maintain their profit, simply choose cheaper freelance translators or squeeze their translators to accept less money. Both are bad.

Cheaper freelance translators usually produce poorer quality work: they rush their work, don’t follow the client’s terminology, or, let’s be honest, just aren’t very good.

Squeezing good translators creates resentment and only forces these people to work quicker, under stress, and thereby produce more human errors. Making the proof-readers job bigger than it was, so, in effect, you’ve saved on the translator but lost on the proof-reader.

The option that we recommend is that you and your translation agency work together to optimise the process: how can things be changed to reduce cost? Could the source text be shortened? Rather than a “word-for-word” translation, would a “summarised” translation be acceptable (rendering 5,000 English words to 1,000 French)?

In addition, we have many partnerships with companies where, upon reaching a certain threshold, either a discount is applied, or certain credits are made available. If you’re someone who regularly needs short phrases translated, we have an extremely simple workflow with fast turnaround and very, very competitive prices. In short, we believe that the translation agency should start acting like your partner and should start providing free “consultancy” (for want of a better term) to help you get more for less.

You can choose an overweight, sloppy, lazy, unfit translation agency. Or you could choose an efficient, alert, finely-tuned one.

Nowadays, there seems to be just too much information and too many choices. How many different breakfast cereals do we really need, for instance? And how many different cups of coffee does Starbucks need to invent?

And so we come to the “crisis”. Whilst almost everyone agrees that 2009 is over, there is debate on the c-word because people tend to look at whatever statistic supports their belief. With GDP, unemployment rates, interest rates, consumer spending, and so on and so forth, everyone’s able to pick their statistic and cling to it.

Whether or not the crisis is over, what counts even more at this time is the quality to cost ratio. Every translation agency will tell you that they deliver quality (well, what else are they going to say?) but how does that explain some agencies charging twice what we charge?

The large translation agencies invest lots of resources in sales, marketing and IT. Many are public companies and, to protect their share price, they have to deliver strong quarter-on-quarter results. But did you know that in these companies, the actual cost of the translator could be as little as 20% of the price you pay?

Let’s compare four ways to get your translation done.

1) Go direct to freelance resources
On the face of it, this is the cheapest route. But don’t forget that you have to find the resources, verify their competence somehow, possibly prepare documents for them, project manage everything, then possibly take their translation and format it. Do you have the skills and personnel to do this?

2) Go to Intrawelt

3) Go to a large translation agency

4) Go to one of the (very large) top-30 global translation agencies

Nearly every translation agency uses freelance translators. So let’s assume that the translation, proof-reading and quality check costs are the same.

Because Intrawelt is a private company, we don’t answer to shareholders and we grow at a healthy, sustainable pace. Our sales, marketing, IT and other costs are kept to a minimum. We still like to make a profit, though!

Large companies and public companies have greater overheads and invest heavily in sales and marketing and IT and so on. Look at SDL, for example, in their Annual Report (http://www.sdl.com/en/company/investors/financialoverview.asp), their overall administrative expenses for 2008 were £61.3 million. Lionbridge’s annual report for the same year (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=111612&p=irol-irhome) shows that just their sales and marketing spend was US $33 million.

Now we all know that businesses need to make money. But when your receive the next invoice from your translation company, ask yourself what percentage of that cost was actually used to translate. And what percentage went to pay for overheads, sales and marketing.

In this graph, we show how the translation tasks are, more or less, the same, but the overhead expenses increase drastically. When you pay for a translation project, think about how much you’re paying for your translation and how much you’re contributing to their overheads.

freelance translators have only their own cost but by going direct to a freelancer, you have the overhead of project management and finding and assessing the translator. Do you have these skills in place?
Intrawelt keeps overheads to a minimum to save you money.
large translation agencies spend much more on sales and marketing – costs that they pass onto you.
very large translation agencies spend millions on marketing and have huge overheads. But the translator’s cost is, more or less, the same as ours.

That was the winter (spring, summer and autumn) of our discontent. Thank goodness 2009 is over.

Or so say many. At Intrawelt, our growth has been organic, sustainable and eco-friendly. Our business is not dependent on a few large clients, nor on one particular sector. We have built the company on the foundations of quality, service and professionalism. We don’t create “bubbles”. Through the good years and the bad, we stick to our principles and run our company in an orderly way. We set goals for ourselves each year and we manage things accordingly.

We prefer a sustained, managed growth rather than the peaks and troughs that others go through as they see good years and bad.

Whilst 2009 was not an easy year, we are rather proud of our results. More details as we complete our year closure procedures but here are, if you like, two key points of reference.

Words translated/proof-read : 30% up on 2008

Revenue: almost 15% up on 2008

Aston, City, Heriot Watt, Edinburgh, Imperial College, London Metropolitan, Middlesex, Roehampton, University College, Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, East Anglia, Essex, Exeter, Hull, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Portsmouth, Salford, Sheffield, Surrey, West of England, Wales, Warwick, Westminster.

Just some of the universities in the UK offering post-graduate (MA or MSc) degree courses in translation.

These universities offer translation PhD courses:
University of Edinburgh
Imperial College London
University College London
University of East Anglia
University of Manchester
University of Wales (Swansea)

Courses vary, obviously, but there is still quite a lot of overlap:

• Specialised translation with translation technology
• Principles and strategies of translation
• Translation project management
• Professional skills
• Business
• Business operations
• Researsh methodologies
• Approaches to translaiton
• Business translation
• Lexicography
• Terminology

Before we can start using a translator, we have to check their experience and background. Although the UNI EN 15038 translation standard requires this, we check a person’s CV for another reason – to avoid “churn”.

It’s a marvellous word isn’t it, “churn”.

Imagine this:

1. You ask a company to translate your text.


2. The translation comes back.


3. You send it to your offices in Japan to review.


4. They return the text with lots of corrections.


5. You send the text to the translation company.


6. They update it, send it back.


7. You send it back to Japan.


8. They send back more corrections.


9. And so on and so on.

This is churn. It’s wasting effort and time and money.

Before we start using a translator, we look at their education, we look at their experience and we ask them to do some test translations. We do this because we don’t like churn.

We prefer to work like this:

1. You ask a company to translate your text.


2. The translation comes back.


3. You send it to your offices in Japan to review.


4. They thank you.

That’s how we prefer to work. What about you?

source: http://www.lexicool.com/courses_uk.asp

We recently conducted a mini-survey of some clients. Here are two results which I thought were very interesting.

Many large companies consolidate their translation needs in a centralised department. Through this consolidation and rationalisation, the company seeks to reduce costs. Every translation request goes through this single department which also manages the external relationships with Language Service Providers.

These centralised departments essentially become an internal supplier of translation services to their internal customers (overseas offices and departments).

We asked them which factor was most important to them.

46% rated the cost of the translation as the most important factor. If you add “On-time delivery”, then 60% of their focus is on project management: cost and time.

Centralised translation service: internal supplier

Then we asked their internal customers – those overseas offices which actually make use of the translation – what they consider the most important factor.

Translation consumer

The project management aspects are not nearly so important (totalling only 31%). Far more important was that the translation was accurate and well written (69%).

When creating a centralised department, therefore, a company explicity announces the tension between money and quality. Implicitly, it is pitting the internal supplier against the internal consumer who have demands which appear to be in conflict.

The demands of the consumer meet the constraints of the supplier

This tension is important and it would be naive to think that it didn’t exist. But it can only benefit the company if the system is truly in tension. That is, if both “money” and “quality” are exerting pressure.

If the centralised department succeeds in reducing costs to the point where the translations are poor quality, has anyone really won? Remember that a centralised department is also a monopoly and if this were to exist in the free market, there would be a regulator. So the company needs to provide the internal consumer with a method to send feedback to the internal supplier. And this feedback needs to form a real and important part of the overall system. It can’t be simply a “nice to have”.

A feedback mechanism, where data is collated, organised and reported, can highlight problems, opportunities and successes. A centralised department can use this data to reduce costs, improve quality, increase consistency and shorten project duration.

Only through a robust quality feedback loop can you keep the entire system under tension and only then will you see both lower translation costs and better quality. You can have your cake and eat it: you can improve project management whilst improving quality.

We know it can be done because we’ve provided consulting to companies on exactly how to do it: how to install a translation quality feedback mechanism that works for both your internal translation consumers and your centralised department.

If you’d like to know how to organise a centralised translation department with effective quality feedback, email us at info@intrawelt.co.uk and ask for our free white paper.

1. It takes a long time to train
   No one really wakes up, has breakfast then, running for the bus, decides simply to carry on running to the office a mere twenty-six-odd miles down the road. It takes training. And for a first-timer, it could take 18 weeks to train. That’s over 4 months. A third of a year. And so it is with translation. Whilst it is true that any person with a computer, internet access and a knowledge of another language could – and does – set him/herself up as a translator, these are not professional, trained, qualified personnel. It may look cute to see a runner dressed up as Tigger (link: zimbio) but we all know we’re really there to see Paula (link: Wikipedia), aren’t we? It’s the difference between the 20-metre dash at your 6-year-old’s sports day and the Olympic men’s 100m final.
2. It if were easy, everyone would be doing it.
   My first marathon was the Big Sur Interational Marathon (link: BSIM) from Big Sur to Carmel in California. It’s pretty but tough. Vancouver’s nice and easy. Paris is great. And Venice is, well, it’s Venice. And I’ve done London too. Not everyone can offer professional, quality translations. We look for translators with graduate degrees in translation. We look for sector expertise; continous work and development. It’s not easy but we feel that by building quality, we build for the future.
3. It feels great when you finish
   Yeah!
4. Many people don’t understand why you do it
   We could find so-called bilingual people to translate your text. People whose only qualification is being able to speak two languages. But this doesn’t mean that they can translate. I can count money but I couldn’t be the Governor of the Bank of England. I can kick a football with my son but I’m no David Beckham (I’ve definitely got the looks though). Some clients tell us that one translation agency quotes for 7p a word and ask why our quote is not that low. It’s because we only use qualified, experienced translators. That means they have a recognised university qualification in translating. Many people don’t understand why we don’t choose less-qualified (or unqualified) people to give clients a lower cost. What they don’t realise is that low-qualified means even lower quality. The bottom line is that if you want a crap translation, then go to those agencies but, frankly, we don’t do crap.
5. There are fun runners and there are serious professional athletes
   There are ISO 9001 certified agencies who also hold UNI EN 15038. And then there are the fun runners.
6. There are no shortcuts
   Just as a runner goes through every inch of those twenty-six point two miles, so we go through every word of your text. Sounds obvious? The Italians say “squadra del cuore” (lit: team of the heart). They’re talking about the football team you support. A “shortcut” would simply be to translate this literally: Who is your team of the heart? Which is English, true, but makes no sense. Only by knowing the sense of the phrase, can we provide a better translation: Which team do you support? It just takes a bit longer because we’ve got to use our brains and think about what we’re doing.
7. The support is critical
   A marathon runner – in training or during the run – needs the support from those around him/her. And it’s the same when translating. Resources, expert advice, computer programs (perhaps to do pagination or layout), all focus on the person running. If a runner had to stop to go to a cash-point to buy a bottle of water, it’d be pretty poor. That’s why we follow our “runners” with everything they might need.
8. There’s always another one to do
   After one marathon, it may take a week or two but many people start planning their next one. The inaugural Brighton Marathon in the UK will take place on 18 April 2010. (link: Brighton Marathon). The next translation comes a little sooner but that’s how we like it!
9. You can always get better
   Your personal best (PB) is always there to be broken. And at Intrawelt we believe that continuous improvement is essential. We look for ways to improve quality, improve consistency, and increase speed. By leveraging information technology better, by streamlining processes, by opening communication, we continually strive to a better PB.
10. A disciplined, professional preparation will eventually show
    In practically every market, the client starts to demand more and more. Not only do their needs change but the client becomes more sophisticated. Eventually, the man in his bedroom with his schoolboy French will be unable to keep up and those clients will not accept his shoddy – but cheap – translations. Just as runners don’t collapse but run through the finishing line and proudly wear the finisher’s medal, knowing that they ran the marathon.

Who cannot remember those dear boys, The Sex Pistols? Their music, behaviour, attitude and personal hygiene were to become the knitted blanket which falls comfortably over the settee to hide the worn patches over the arms.

And how should translators deal with swear words? That’s the thorny issue I’m wrestling with right now. It’s a real ****** because many swear words don’t translate terribly well: either there’s no real translation; or there are too many translations; or there’s a real translation but it’s not applicable because the swear word isn’t used in that way.

When we translate, we try to bear in mind the “blind taste test”. (do you remember the blind taste test cola adverts?). If we were to give the source and target texts to someone, would they be able to select the translation? We always try to produce a translation that looks as though it’s the original: written as if it were the source.

If you need to translate a single expletive, it’s not too bad usually. **** or **** or **** or ****** **** can be translated without difficulty. But what about when swear words as used as adjectives as in “What ****** idiot did that?” or an adverb “You’ve got to be ******* joking?” or a noun “You’re a right *******”?

Because when we use a particular word, it means something particular. Change the swear word and you change the strength of meaning slightly. How can this depth of feeling – so easily created in profanity – be captured in translation? It’s not ****** easy, I can tell you.

And there seems to be no rule either. A **** one day does not translate the same way the same time tomorrow. Like I said, it’s all down to the context and how the word is said (or perceived to be said). A slight change (more than slight sometimes) and the meaning can be very different.

And what about religious expletives? What impact will taking the Lord’s name in vain have in a non-Christian country? And you can’t just replace one God with another – which one would you choose, for example, if you had to pick from the Hindu deities where (link: thanks to Wikipedia) you can choose from 330 thousand?

I know there’s been a **** load of work done in this area already by minds far more able than mine to deal with the issues. But when you’ve got a translation in front of you and there’s **** and **** and **** all over the place, it’s a ****** **** ******!

No posts last week – not because of the UK’s Royal Mail strike – but because of that little virus thing going around town right now. Aching joints and back, headache, earache, sensitive to light, temperature, cough, blocked sinuses, nausea, lost appetite, short temper, where’s my mum?

I had a splendid week planned with not one nor two but three rather important projects to deliver. And then I was sick. I’m sure the ‘flu hits people differently but I was flat on my back on the couch for 72 hours. And I was suffering. I felt rotten. Really miserable. And I remember a telephone call with the office. I was asked how I was and, being British, my initial, “let’s not even think about that question for a moment” response was to say, “Oh…not too bad”.

But I stopped myself.

I thought about how I felt and decided to tell the truth: “Actually, I’m really, really sick. My temperature’s over 39. I ache all over. I cannot get comfortable. I feel really bad – to be honest, I’m suffering. I can’t possibly come to work today. I’m really sorry”.

Now getting that off my chest didn’t change a thing and I certainly didn’t feel better but it left me reflecting on the socio-linguistic “handshaking” that so often goes on and whose purpose is to lead the parties towards a point where the real action can start.

And it left me wondering what should happen if one person really wanted to know how the other was doing:

Person1: “Hi. How are you doing?”
Person2: “Fine. Not too bad.”
P1: “No, really. How are you?”
P2: “Fine. I’m fine.”
P1: “NO! Tell me how you’re really doing!”
P2: “I JUST DID! I’M OK”.

When I meet people, it’s automatic to ask after their health but I am expecting a standard reply – they’re going to be fine because they’re at work / in the bar / at the supermarket.

If they were ill, they’d look ill and my question would be more “Hi….are you OK? You don’t look too good…” and I’d expect a response to confirm that.

So I make an assumption based on the way you look and where I meet you. So I’m not asking to really find out how you are. It’s a conversation starter; an ice-breaker; a salutation. And then other questions came to me which fulfill a similar function:

How’s the wife/husband?
How’s work?
How’re the kids?

In some cultures, the greeting can be translated as “Have you eaten?” and of course, the expected (and only) response can be “Yes, heartily. I am sufficiently sophonsified and adequately nourished. Thank you.” But if you thought that poppycock, you could simply sit them down to a meal anyway. Which, politeness would dictate, would be eaten thus confirming the host’s position: you had not eaten sufficiently otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to eat this meal.

The more I thought, the more I began to see this type of language at work. I call it linguistic bubble-wrap. Whilst it ultimately gets discarded in favour of the precious object which it protects, this bubble-wrap is very important and, indeed, without it, how could I deliver my message? It’s a very necessary step in the whole process.

And bubble-wrap is so flexible and useful. It’s so tactile and who hasn’t played with it endlessly? – popping all those wonderful bubbles? Bubble-wrap’s great!

So the next time I’m asked how I’m doing, expect a cheery, “fine. I’m fine”. Because it’s bubble-wrap, you see.