Answering the Need for Translation

The question: Should I translate my website and my marketing material? arises every time a company explores venturing into a new market. Is the cost of translating and localizing marketing collateral going to pay off with market share in the future? is another question that looms over the heads of International Sales people in their attempt to justify their translation budgets for their material. This article, written by Don DePalma, covers some important things to factor in when considering translating and localizing content from marketing collateral to user interfaces and online help. Here's an excerpt from the article that I think address the questions above. Read the full article here


Excerpt: Global Strategies: Watch Your Language

Written by Don DePalma

Monday, 01 June 2009

Buyers want products they can understand
This need to localize isn’t unique to consumer products; it crosses a wide range of goods and services. At Common Sense Advisory, we have long tracked this product requirement. In 2006, we asked 2,430 consumers in eight non-English-speaking countries about their language and usage preferences for Web sites. The answer was unequivocal: they wanted information, user interfaces, and payment methods that they could read, use, and understand, not English.

More recently, we extended this inquiry to corporate software buyers, both the kind you use on your desktop at work and the heavy-duty enterprise solutions that power supply chains, financial institutions, and corporate operations. This time, we asked 351 buyers in eight non-Anglophone countries about their buying preferences.

We think this survey has broader implications for global sales and should be interesting even if you don’t buy or sell software. Think about the things you do buy or sell. They are marketed either online, in-person, or in the mass media, so the marketers have to attract the prospective buyers’ attention in selling propositions that make sense to them.

Think office equipment, machine tools, anything you might drive or fly, medical devices, and a bunch of other gear. Then consider what makes up these products. Each has an electronic user interface, comes with lots of documentation, and may require post-sales technical support. In many ways, from initial marketing to post-sales support, these products are similar to software.

To measure the localization requirements for business products, we selected a cross-section of countries around the world, aiming for a representative mix of markets for which companies frequently adapt their products (France, Germany, Japan, and Spain), attractive developing markets (China and Russia), and locales for which English is often thought to be sufficient for most offerings (Sweden).

Global TM

This week ICD started tweeting, and we started to follow Renato Beninatto, famed translation industry expert and President of Common Sense Advisory. He tweeted about the future of the Global TM (Translation Memory). Basically, it's the idea of combining multiple translation memories from different vendors and create a shared TM. Access can be granted to both vendors and clients who agree to share their memories. Now, that sounds like it should bring about fair market competition between translation companies. For example: If translation company A and B are bidding on the same project they would have the same competitive edge when it comes to the translated content, but the winning bid would come down to the translators cost. That's when the problem arises for translators. The price war has already begun, and with a global TM, translators will have to beat each other based on prices because that becomes the sole variable for translation cost. Then the question of quality becomes an issue.

The other problem arises with proprietary content. TMs are the clients proprietary material, and if they entered into an agreement for a Global TM, then their translated materials would be shared with their competitors. I'm not sure how this will effect instruction manuals, but it could be a problem for marketing literature with catchy tag lines and phrases. You certainly don't want your prized tag line that your marketing gurus spent hours coming up with duplicated or beaten by a competing company. It only takes a couple words to have a best seller.

Will the Global TM succeed? Maybe, if limits are placed on the exchange of translated content, and on access provided to companies that agree to share their memories. Smaller translation companies will also feel the pain as they will be less competitive if they don't participate in the Global TM.

ICD Tweets!

Our twitter account is up and running, check out the RSS feed on the right or 'tweet-in' at http://twitter.com/Trans2Evolve

Is XML easier to Translate?

I've always been a proponent of XML content. I think it's faster to get things translated, and with a CMS it alleviates unnecessary emails and creates a translation work flow. However, there are a couple of fundamental problems in XML construction that you should address before setting up a translation work flow. One common problem is using CDATA sections.

Problem:
It's a very bad idea to use CDATA sections to separate
database content from database structure if you want to translate this content. CDATA sections make it impossible for third party tools to parse/separate the text and tags/elements within the CDATA sections. CDATA sections are designed this way because they are explicitly used to hold text and tags to prevent parsing. This makes it almost impossible for third party tools like Translation Memory Systems (TRADOS/SDLX) to parse the text and tags within the CDATA sections. TRADOS/SDLX exposes the CDATA content for translation without further parsing. Therefore, you get all the tags as "real text".

Solution:
You should considers using name spaces instead by placing the database structure, XML into it's own name space and have the database content in a second name space (or have it without a name space). SDL TRADOS Snippet might be a more or less usable workaround here, but it limits the tags you can "hide", and text within CDATA sections that are not closed will be hidden as well.

I hope this helps those of you out there who use XML as a content editor, or are planning to send XML files for translation. It's always a good idea to communicate with you translation vendor, or potential translation vendor when they are bidding on your project. Work together on finding ways to solve potential structural problems within the XML file. You certainly don't want unnecessary content translated, and this will allow you to preempt any exporting problems you might face with deleted or missing tags when you want to publish your translated content.

ICD's You Tube Channel

ICD has set up a You Tube channel. We plan on having a few interviews, and maybe some demos of the software we use. Hopefully, this is will give you a deeper insight into the world of translation. Right now, we have 2 videos. The latest is an interview with Ann Zdunczyk from A2Z Publishing.  Ann helps out with DTP and she attended the STC conference with us.

Interview with Catherine Potter

This is an interview with Catherine Potter. She gives her insights and perspective on this year's STC conference.

Photos from the 56th Annual STC Conference

As promised, here are a few pictures from the 56th Annual STC Conference that was held in Atlanta, GA. Catherine, Ann, and I had a great time meeting people, and seeing the sights in Atlanta. We met some interesting exhibitors including the creators of Guimags. A bright idea that allows designers to save time and money by creating their layouts on a board with customized magnets. It also eases the UI testing process with a more interactive experience. Check them out. Overall, the conference was geared more towards writing content in the new age of blog, wikis, and twitter. There was less of a focus on translation and localization even though the majority of the exhibitors were translation companies.

Mobile Blogging Failed, STC Conference Day 2

Well, the mobile blogging idea failed. I didn't have the patience to key in every single word with my not smartphone phone. I should get an Iphone if I want to seriously mobile blog. Yesterday, Catherine and I arrived in Atlanta, and we had to set up our booth. The new booth looks awesome, pictures to come. Now, I'm sitting in a session about blogging and using wikis and blogging about it. Hilarious. Anyway, the blogging aspect wasn't anything new, but the info on wiki's is pretty neat. The speaker is explaining the whole wiki process: setting it up, expanding it, and updating. ICD is considering creating a wiki to update our clients on what's going on with their projects. Twitter would work, but no one seems to think it's very professional. "Wiki Wars" the speaker just said that. Apparently, it happens. People battle it out to see what's actually "true" content. I know, I went off on a tangent. Ok, back to wikis.

The speaker is a writer for Floss manuals, and they use the wiki they created to run book sprints. Book Sprints are a collaborative writing effort to create a book or manual in a short period of time. One option is to use the wiki as a collaborative writing community like a writers block, but on an online community where things can be debated, edited and changed all at the same time. Floss Manuals was able to create a manual for Firefox users in 5 days, and it was a collaborative effort with Mozilla developers. That's pretty quick. There's so much out there in the online community, that people are starting to make business connections and promote their services through the internet. In order to succeed though, you have to be able to utilize the internet effectively, and manage and update your blogs, and wikis so people continue to follow your posts and stay connected.

Esprit d'ICD Spring 2009

Hello All,

ICD's Newsletter Esprit d'ICD has received a face lift for 2009. Gone are "Catherine's Column", "Employee Profile", and "Puzzler" (Ipod's are to valuable to give away during hard economic times). We have more content now and the articles are more concise. Now, you get more stuff to read and more information. We have tried to add article that are a little more widespread and encompass different issues and industries. Some highlights include: "New strides in machine interpretation", "Instant sharing of views and news through Twitter", "The first GPS without a screen", and "What's in a car name?" You can read the newsletter here

We have tried to include what's relevant in today's world, and what's going on in the translation industry. I hope you enjoy reading this issue. If you want to subscribe to our mailing list and receive a copy, email: translate@icdtranslation.com

I'll be in Alanta this coming week for the STC conference, and I'm going to try mobile blogging. Hopefully, I'll be able to inform you about the goings on at the STC, and stuff that might happen with the ICD team as we take on Atlanta.