Crowdsourcing Translation

I was just sent an interesting article (from March 31st) about how Facebook is going to use crowdsourcing to translate their site into Chinese.  China has a huge population that could use Facebook but historically many western companies have been very challenged in entering this market.  This very web 2.0 approach could be the best way to give China some ownership of the application and spread the word.  The dangers – bad translations and no quality control. 

What do you think about giving control of your brand in another country to its population?

Writing for Translation

A good translation starts out with a well written source document. 

Often times our translators are presented with poorly written material. 

Source documents that have serious readability issues can cause our team confusion and can easily be avoided. 

The following issues can cause delays, mis-translations and errors in your final products:

• Simple grammatical mistakes,
• Use of gerunds, qualifying nouns and pronouns
• Ambiguities and homographs
• Inappropriate terminology
• Abbreviations, Acronyms, jargon, idioms and colloquial words
• Long and complex sentence structures
• Text heavy art that will need to be completely redrawn

There are some simple rules to follow when writing for translation. 

1. Simple, clear, concise and grammatically correct sentences

2. Illustrations that show more than written text could

3. Using call outs instead of using text in art

4. Globally appropriate symbols, metaphors, icons and colors

5. Consistent format and structure with a style guide to share with the translation team

6. Create a glossary of important or industry specific terminology with illustrations when possible

7.  Use of controlled authoring, terminology and tools (like Iterotext’s Authoring Coach)

All of these writing tips will help translators produce better translations of your documents.

Resources and Additional information:

Klein, F. (1997) International Technical Communication. keyword, A journal for technical and scientific communicators. Vol 7, No 2, P17-18.

McGregor, H. (1997) International Documentation. keyword, A journal for technical and scientific communicators. Vol 7, No 2, P5-11.

Ring, P. (1997) Translation of manuals and multilingual manuals. keyword, A journal for technical and scientific communicators. Vol 7, No 2, P14-16.

Importance of an In-Country Reviewer

When trusting your translation projects to a translator or a translation agency you are giving a lot of power for your product and brand.

We always suggest an in-country reviewer as a final step in the foreign language translation process.  This last step can be imperative to a “good’ translation. 

An in-country reviewer is typically a subject matter expert that knows the language and is able to proof the translated document to ensure that the translation is fully localized for the target market.  Their input will help improve the quality and the effectiveness of the materials.  This last step is a very prudent measure before the release of the translation. 

A note of caution: 

Many reviewers make some language adjustments that are merely a word preference as opposed to an actual translation issue.  Just as with English, anyone who reads a document will have their opinion on how to say the same thing.  Semantics is prevalent in translation as well.  The most important aspect of an in-country review process is to ensure that the localization was performed correctly and that the nuances of the materials were appropriate for that target market not to nit pick the document to the detriment of the timeline and process. 

5 Reasons to Translate your Website

In an article I recently read at Marketingprofs.com Huiping Iler discusses why you need a global website that generates revenue and reduces costs. 

1.  The global web is the most affordable, hardest-working sales force you will ever put together.

This works while you sleep in the native language of your potential clients.  Time zone issues become less of an issue. 

2.  The global web helps you save on support costs.

If you do this right your need for hiring native language speakers for support work will be reduced if non-existent.

3.  The global web with local content brings you a local presence.

Google, Yahoo and many other search engines give strong preference to Websites that contain local language content.  In addition, for SEO purposes – you will be found in the native language of your potential clients.

4.  The global web facilitates innovation and learning by delivering training to corners of the world that physical classrooms cannot reach. 

This real time when people want and where they can learning opportunity is an asset. 

5.  The global web helps build corporate culture.

By providing multilingual content you are showing your employees how important diversity is to you and your organization.  This is a true step in walking the talk. 

Harnessing the full capacity of the web’s technology and power today will spell the difference between global success and failure. 

Target vs. Source Translations

Translation is the art of interpreting the meaning of a written text and producing an equivalent text in another language that communicates the same message. 

The text that is translated is called the “source” text/language and the language that it is translated into is the “target” text/language. 

When getting quotes and working on projects be sure to check if the translator/agency is working from your source language for pricing or is quoting the target translation.

This is important as most translations will expand in text up to 20% or more. If you are given a quote for the source text than it should be pretty accurate unless the original document is a PDF (an image, which is a bit more difficult to gather an exact word count.)  If you are getting a quote for the target word than it will be an estimate, until the project is finished, when typically a final word count can be provided.    

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