Maintaining TMs

What's the difference between 101% match and 100% match. Well, the main difference is a 101% match has been reviewed over time and is matched up not just as a previously translated sentence, but matches in context as well. This means the the translation is not only accurate but matches the style and context of the previous translation in the translation memory. LSPs and translators have faced this issue before. The match is 100%, but sometimes the context might be slightly incorrect or a word choice might need to be changed. For this reason, most LSPs would suggest a review of the 100% instead of ignoring it.  

Translation memory is a fabulous tool to enhance productivity, but if not used correctly becomes the repository for all sorts of old sentences, mistakes, and bad translation choices. Some TM's store multiple entires of the same translation without overriding the previous translation. This is an issue if multiple translators were used on a project. Now you have multiple enteries and inconsistent translations for the same source sentence. Translation Memories should be updated regularly especially after a client performs a review. 

One method to avoid inconsistencies is setting up a terminology database. This is one of the best tools to control quality and consistency of your translation. If terminology is analyzed and agreed in advance with your client and their in-country reviewers, it can only be the "right" terminology to use, thus cutting down on review time and enhancing quality, consistency, and brand messaging.

Downloading a TMX editor to clean up the inconsistencies, formatting tags, and miss-aligned segments is another method to help clean up the memory and ensure that you get better matches for future projects. This is important if you plan on using this translation memory to train an automated translation engine. 

The next thing that helps consistency is coming up with a style guide. Before starting a project, talk to your client, find out who their audience is, which style of writing they want to adopt. For many romance languages there is a great difference if you write in a “formal” manner or an “informal”. Then there is a difference in flavor, especially in Spanish. When a client says Spanish for Latin America, Ideally you want a translator who is a native of Argentina or Columbia. A translator from Mexico will have a different style and dialect that will not suit the Latin American audience. 

These methods will not only improve the quality of your translation, but it will reduce time and cost for you, your client, and the reviewers. 

ICD's Experience at the AEM Exhibitor Education Meeting

AEM Exhibitor Education Meeting, May 18th-19th, 2010

Danielle and Catherine attended this meeting as ICD sponsored the AEM vendors meeting, and is the  chosen vendor for CONEXPO translations. Here is Danielle's insights on the meeting:

The CONEXPO Trade Show can appear quite daunting at first glance: In March 2011, over 2,000 exhibitors from countries all over the world will come together for a five day trade show in Las Vegas. During the 2008 CONEXPO show, over 144,600 industry professionals representing 28,000 companies attended the show. Come to think of it, even after a second or third glance, the CONEXPO is still an imposing figure. How does a company prepare to exhibit at a show of this magnitude?
This is exactly the question that The AEM Exhibitor Education Meeting sought to answer for its attendees. Over the course of two days, industry professionals and trade show analysts provided seminars on a diverse range of topics, such as marketing, booth design and how to create the best return on investment. However, two topics seemed to be the underlying message of the show: the importance of branding your company, and the need to create a goal or objective for your company experience at CONEXPO.
Branding your company into a unique entity within your industry is essential to stand out in a tradeshow of 2,000+ exhibitors. Creating a Branding Proposition for your company means promoting your company not just as “the best of the best,” but instead as the only company that does what you do. How will we stand apart as different than our top 3 competitors at the show? To do this, we will need to create a brand that goes deeper than great quality, low prices and excellent customer service, and instead look at what makes us unique and memorable within the industry.
It is also important to have an explicit goal or objective for exhibiting at CONEXPO. Without a clear objective, it becomes too easy to be swept up into the enormity of the CONEXPO show. Before the show, staff will need to be trained on how to accomplish our goals, the booth will need to be designed to best reflect our objective, and marketing materials will need to be sent out that will aid our goals. During the show, every action the company takes should be working towards our final goal. After the show, a thorough analysis and reflection will need to be taken to make sure all of our efforts were used to accomplish our goals for CONEXPO. March 2011 may seem like a long way off, but every moment of planning will be essential to create a positive experience for International Communication by Design at CONEXPO.

Changing the Game

The recession has forced many translation companies to re-think their sales and service approach. The price for translation is a never ending bottom line battle, and companies have to choose to either make less money while providing the same level of quality, or come up with added services at no-cost to justify their prices.

No doubt new technologies have been developed to help the industry move forward as a whole. Machine Translation and Editing by human translators is one service that many translation companies have chosen to offer. It's sort of a budget version translation. A compromise in cost. The quality is probably a B, and that's enough for most instructional manual. The problem here is finding a good translator to edit a machine translation.

Other translation companies have started offering services like 24 hr instant translation. Naturally, they probably use a machine because it's going to be pretty hard to have a translator work on-call for them. There's one company that goes as far as offering a hotline for "translation emergencies". This is a great idea on paper, but when is translation really an emergency. Even if it is, I doubt that a 100 pages can be done in less than 1 day. The hotline does work as a tool for client's to find out the progress of their projects, or to inquire about the completion date.

Overall, we have to adapt to the changing economic climate to satisfy our clients needs. We may have to streamline the process, and offer more competitive prices, or justify the current prices with added services. There is a value attached to every dollar, and we must remember that there is a value attached to a good translation.

Getting Started with Translation Style Guides

Creating a style guide for translation is essential for translators, editors, and desktop publishers. It keeps everyone on the same page through the translation and localization process.  Translation tools are able to preserve most formatting and keep the punctuation intact. However it fails to account for spacngs before punctuations (in French), measurement conversions, decimal points to commas, and units of conversions.
One simple rule to start your style guide is to record  every choice that can not be recorded in a translation tool glossary or a translation memory. You can find instructions and choices that you should included in your translation style guides here: Annex D of European Standard 15038 for translation services (see page 15). Here are some of the criteria listed:

• Punctuation 
• Spelling 
• Formatting 
• Adaptations 
• Language-specific and client preferences 
• Common errors to be avoided 
• Other miscellaneous elements  

An effective translation style guides can vary in length and detail, as exemplified by the following downloadable style guides from the technology industry:

Oracle and Sun’s Language Style Guides: guides in 8 languages, each of at least moderate length, French, Spanish, German, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Swedish

Microsoft’s Language Style Guides: guides for 90+ languages, each of varying length

Other international organizations and governments with respectable translation teams have also made their translation style guides available online for download:

The World Bank Translation Style Guide: English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Russian
The European Commission Translation Style Guides: English, Danish, Finnish, Portuguese, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, and other languages

These should help you get started creating your own style guide.