Oversetter

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:16:00 +0000

Many thanks to members of ITI's ScotNet group for the warm welcome that they gave me when I gave a talk on "Customer service for translators" in Edinburgh on 6th March 2010.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:29:00 +0000

Like most professionals, translators sometimes tend to focus on what we do, on our professional skills, rather than how we deliver it. And yet, customer service is as crucial for translators as it is for any other professionals.

On Saturday, I'll be running a Customer Service Workshop for translators in Edinburgh. The Scottish Network of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting have kindly asked me to run i tfor them, and I look forward to seeing translators that I already know in Scotland, and to the pleasure of meeting new colleagues.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:12:00 +0000

Translate it, then check it: This evening, I'm attending a seminar organised by the North West Translators Network in Manchester. The presenter, Heidi Kerschl, will be stepping us through different approaches that translators use when checking, editing and proofreading a translation. The Germans have a good phrase that is valid here: Vertrauen ist gut, kontrolle ist besser (in English, that's something like Trust is good, but post-production quality inspection is better)

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:05:00 +0000

Cost-effective document design for a translation workflow was the short, snappy title of a webinar that I presented in November 2009 for my friends at Scriptorium - and now you can see it on YouTube, for free.

In the webinar, I explained some tricks and tips for saving money on your translation budget. As a long-established translation company, helping our clients to spend their money effectively is one of the things we specialise in at SalfTrans.

The presentation covers some conceptual issues (think about multiple languages from the start, for example), shows how XML formats can save you money on your localisation budget, and gives practical, money-saving tips if you produce your use manuals using more traditional workflows such as FrameMaker, Quark or InDesign. It also looks at the implications of text expansion during the translation phase, and how to plan for it from the start. Finally, the presentation offers information on emerging standards in the translation field, such as XLIFF and TMX, and explains how they can benefit you as a translation buyer.

They say that good things come in threes, and my Cost-effective document design for translation presentation is split into three sections on YouTube:

Part 1 of 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-1eFmewMlU

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUuC3_MDagM

Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwudRXg0KYg

Enjoy!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:31:00 +0000

Snow in Stockport:

This is a pretty view of the snow in northern England at the start of January 2010. Whilst it is very beautiful, travel in our area is very difficult at the moment. We are staffing the SalfTrans office for a few hours every day, but we are putting our staff safety first with so much ice and snow on the ground. Please bear with us if we take slightly longer than usual to respond to you this week.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:22:00 +0000

Heavy snow in Manchester: Tuesday 5th January 2010, we have had a heavy snowfall overnight. Many roads are passable only with extreme care, and our staff are having great difficulty getting into our office today. The best way to contact Salford Translations Ltd today is to send an email to Nick, which will reach him.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:23:00 +0000

SalfTrans Christmas break: We're taking a few days off over Christmas and New Year, so the Salford Translations Ltd office will be shut from 12:00 on 23rd December until 10:00 on 4th January 2010.

This has been a challenging year for all businesses, and as we all head towards economic recovery I'd like to express a very warm "thank you" to everyone that we have worked with in 2009.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:05:00 +0000

Heavy snow in Stockport and Manchester over the weekend means the team at Salford Translations Ltd will be working slightly reduced office hours between now and Christmas. Roads and pavements in our area are covered in snow and ice, and the safety of our staff is important. We will be open, but you may get our voicemail if you telephone before 10:00 or after 15:30 during the next couple of days. Thank you for your understanding.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:59:00 +0000

Maybe I'm a bit of a geek, but I am excited by the possibilities that XLIFF offers to translators. (If you'd like to know what XLIFF is, check out the XLIFF page on our SalfTrans website)

A couple of years ago, XLIFF was just another open standard. Now, it is the default storage format for several leading translation memory tools, such as MemoQ, Trados and Swordfish.

Use this first link for general information about the two "How to translate your DITA files using XLIFF" webinars that I presented on for OASIS in September 2008

Or use this next link to go straight to the .WMV file of DITA to XLIFF and back.

We still have a way to go - I'd love to see a "Save as XLIFF" button built into the main menu of mainstream applications such as Microsoft Visio or Adobe Indesign, because that would make translation of files in those formats so much easier, and so much more cost-effective. But I do think we're slowly starting to make progress!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:19:00 +0000

Christmas is coming. Now, I don't know if the goose is getting fat, but I can tell you that our translation company website is wearing its winter coat.

Click on the following link if you'd prefer to see our French website, or here if you fancy the German Christmas website. Oh, and we have it in Dutch for our friends in Belgium and the Netherlands, too.

It seems a tad early to wish you Merry Christmas - so for now, I wish you "Happy pre-Christmas build-up"!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:15:00 +0000

The Institute of Translation and Interpreting recently asked me to resume writing a column for their newsletter, the ITI Bulletin. Back in the 1990's I used to write a regular column called "Computing in Nick's Attic", about the experiences of one translator in dealing with technology. The Editor of the ITI Bulletin, Rachel Malcolm, was kind enough to contact me and to ask if I'd be interesting in picking up where I left off over ten years ago.

The first issue with my "Nick's Attic" column in it came out in October 2009, and several translators have been kind enough to send me very positive feedback. Thank you!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:44:00 +0000

"So what on earth do you talk about?" is a question people often ask me about Twitter, and about how I use it.

My own use of Twitter is a bit of a cross-over. I certainly use it for work, for posts about translation, for sharing information about my work in the professional development field for translators.

But I also use it to ask questions, to seek opinions and information from others - and people are generous in their replies, happily sharing information. And I also use it to post a bit of information about me as a person, about my cycling, photography and coaching activities.

Today, I generated a "word cloud" that shows the most frequent words I have used on Twitter in the past year. You can see it here. So, now you know what I talk about on Twitter!

You can find my Twitter posts at http://twitter.com/nickrosenthal

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:04:00 +0000

Traffic chaos on 26/27 November: Following a major fire on Hopes Carr in Stockport, roads around our office are heavily congested (and a couple of roads are shut). If you are visiting us on Friday 27 November, please allow yourself a little extra time to contend with a couple of closed roads.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:28:00 +0000

Ever wondered how to save money on your company's translations? Today I'll be guest presenting a webinar for Scriptorium Publishing on "Cost-effective document design for a translation workflow". Cost is just $20, and you should pick up a few document design pointers that will save that investment many times over.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:58:00 +0000

Windows 7, and the Microsoft Translation Glossaries: I asked recently if anyone knew where I could find the official Microsoft Glossaries for Windows 7, and Licia C. has very helpfully sent me some news about this from Italy. Grazie!

You can find information about the Microsoft Glossaries at:
http://blogs.technet.com/terminology/archive/2009/10/27/downloading-software-translations-for-offline-use.aspx

Please note that you will need an MSDN subscription or a TechNet subscription to access the glossary files.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:41:00 +0000

I am looking forward to speaking at the North West Translators' Network's "Boost your productivity" day on Saturday 14th November 2009 in central Manchester (actually at the Manchester YHA, in Castlefields - the very place where the industrial revolution was born).

This will be a fascinating day, looking at how we actually work as translators. What can we do to be more productive? What new tools and techniques actually help us? What is happening in the translation memory sector? Is it faster to dictate your work - and if so, to use a human typist or to use voice dictation software?

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:05:00 +0000

Microsoft glossaries: My turn to ask a question now. Can anyone tell me where I might find the Microsoft Glossaries that contain the multilingual terminology for Windows 7? This used to be available as part of the MSDN program, but I wonder if the multilingual GUI terminology for Windows 7 is more widely available?

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:58:00 +0000

Brand names in different languages are a bit of a minefield, and companies are well advised to undertake research before running with a brand name in different countries.

For example, the French soft drinks brand called Pschitt. Looks OK, huh? Until I tell you that the P is silent when the name is pronounced in French. That may explain why Orangina made it big world-wide, but Pschitt didn't.

I recently stumbled across a website that explains (in Spanish) some classic instances of brand names gone wrong. I already knew several of them, but the Mazda Laputa was a new one to me. That'd be a hard one to sell in any country with a Latin-based language - "La puta" in Spanish means "the whore", and I can't see many people buying a car with that writ large across the back!

If you need help with international brand names, contact us at SalfTrans for professional advice.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:19:00 +0000

Time flies, and October is suddenly upon us.

The autumn is a season of conferences for me. On Saturday October 10th I will be giving a talk on Keeping Customers Happy to the West Midlands group of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (note to self: Look up how to get to Aston University!).

Saturday 14th November will see me in Manchester, taking part in the NWTN "Boost your productivity" day, which will look at how translators actually work, at the tools we use, the techniques we use, and at how the tools and techniques that translators use have changed.

Then on 19th November, Sarah O'Keefe and her lovely colleagues at Scriptorium have kindly invited me to present a webinar with them on document design issues. That will look at how to design your company's documents with cost-effective translation in mind, looking at ways to maximise the return on your translation budget. That promises to be fun.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:36:00 +0000

New translation memory tools are exciting, but new and more productive ways of working with them are even more exciting!

We were one of the first translation companies to put translation memory tools (or CAT tools) to serious use, way back in the 1990's. Back in those days, Trados was the translation memory tool of choice for most translators. And over the years, we've stuck with translation memory systems made by the same vendor. They've changed hands a couple of times, but we've stuck with the product.

But recently, we've had cause to take a fresh look at the translation tools market. And we've found some new CAT tools have much to commend them. In particular, we've been very impressed by a translation memory tool called MemoQ.

Over the past two years, we have watched MemoQ evolve from the "that has potential" category into a fully-fledged, mature, stable tool for use by professional translators. And we've grown to really like it (not least because of the brilliant technical support and customer service that they provide).

In the meantime, the supplier of our main translation memory tools committed a few customer service gaffes (most notably, the "Spend £4,000 upgrading to our new version now, or lose all reduced-price upgrade options. And yes, we know our new version is not stable, and really needs another six months of development work before we sell it to clients....").

So we've taken a bold decision, and changed our primary translation memory tool at SalfTrans. Which in turn, has meant changing and reviewing our workflows a bit (in itself, never a bad thing). And it has meant rolling out a training program across our translator team.

And this morning, I have a really, really huge smile on my face: MemoQ has announced that their new release, version 3.6, includes a new workflow for translating Word files. This new workflow involves converting the Word files via the DocX format, rather than via RTF, and it is a much more stable way of handling file conversion. Which in turn, means we can do our job more easily, and focus on the really important parts of our company's work, like concentrating on really good translation, really clear writing, consistency of terminology and exciting stuff like that.

Well, we find it exciting!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:43:00 +0000

Training is important for translators, just as it is in any other profession. It is important to keep ourselves up to date, to keep our professional skills fresh, to learn new ways of doing things.

So during August, we'll be running some very special in-house training workshops as we explore new workflows, as we bed in new and better ways of producing top-quality translations. We'll be looking with our specialist translators at new developments in translation memory tools, at checking and revision procedures, at terminology management and at workflow issues.

It promises to be a fun month!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:08:00 +0000

Gosh! Prizes, accolades and kudos: I am flattered to learn that this Oversetter blog has been nominated as one of the top 100 blogs for language professionals.

Even better news is that you, gentle reader, get to play too! You can vote for this blog by clicking on this button, then scooting down the list to the entry for Oversetter:

And thank you. I have fun writing this blog. It gives me an opportunity to simply tell things as I see them. To learn that people find that interesting is very humbling.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:03:00 +0000

Saving money - or rather, spending your translation budget effectively - is more important than ever.

Leading XML guru Sarah O'Keefe recently published an article on Efficient Multilingual Workflows, which might equally well be called How to save money by using XML when translating and publishing your company's documentation.

Sarah and I had some interesting and wide-ranging discussions about XML when she was writing the article, and her article kindly quotes my views on how you can save costs in the translation cycle through the effective use of XML to reduce DTP costs. Click here to read Sarah O'Keefe's article.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:13:00 +0000

A pencil sharpener: That's how I think of next weekend's "Style Matters" workshop, organised by the Scottish network of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting.

I'm a technical translator by original training, with a full set of professional qualifications (starting with a degree in languages, then moving on to membership of two professional bodies, including passing relevant professional exams in both organisations). Yup, translators have professional qualifications, too!

But these days, most of my time is spent actually running a translation company in England. So whilst I spend a lot of time on quality assurance matters (from initial translator recruitment, through to training issues, to workflow management and final QA checks before we return completed translations to clients), I get to spend very little time actually translating.

That's the appeal of professional development days for translators. I get to translate. Better yet, I get to translate alongside other professionals, with constructive feedback.

It helps keep me at the top of my game. It makes sure my pencil stays sharp. Whatever line of work we are in, it is always good to stay fresh!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:09:00 +0000

String concatenation used to be a big issue in the translation world, once upon a long ago. Programmers would insert variables into the middle of a sentence in their software strings, not realising that pluralisation in other languages involves more than sticking the letter S on the end of a word. But I thought that era was past, most programmers now know better, and internationalise their applications from the start. Based on some comments I heard at the recent ITI Conference in London, it appears that it is sometimes still an issue, so I am re-posting some old notes on the subject.

If we look at sentence structures in different languages, it quickly becomes clear that string concatenation is bound to result in problems in at least one language. Some languages, such as German, require the verb to be at the end of the sentence. Some require different structures for negative constructions (think of ne ... pas in French), other languages require adjective agreement for gender and even for different cases.

Back in 1997 in a "Global from Day One" article in Byte, the authors made the point that stringing together the local string for "file", the local string for "error", and the local string for "has occurred" may not give the local string for "file error has occurred". Hall quotes the example of "%d long green blade(s) of grass", and points out that in many languages the adjectives ("long" and "green") must reflect the number used in the variable. He also gives an example in Polish, showing that plural agreements are not always as simple as one might think:

1 red armchair 1 czerwony fotel

2, 3, 4 red armchairs 2, 3, 4 czerwone fotele

5-20 red armchairs 5-20 cerwonych foteli

Well-intentioned programmers often used to try to save space by using variables in strings, rather than creating a number of similar complete strings that have to be stored for calling up by the program. Unfortunately, this approach often does not work across different languages. For example, in Developing International Software for Windows 95 and Windows NT, Nadine Kano gives the example of the following three sentences:

"Not enough memory to open the file FileName1."
"Not enough memory to save the file FileName1."
"Not enough memory to spellcheck the file FileName1."

Let's have a look at what happens when we translate these sentences into German, and notice how the italicised variables move around (they do not all follow the same pattern):

"Nicht genug Speicher, um DateiName1 zu öffnen."
"Nicht genug Speicher, um DateiName1 zu speichern."
"Nicht genug Speicher für Rechtschreibprüfung von DateiName1."

Most books and articles on this subject strongly recommend storing each sentence in its entirety, and I would fully endorse that approach.