Oversetter

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:52:00 +0000

Conference time: I am speaking at the Institute of Translation and Interpreting's International Conference in London this weekend, which will be a lot of fun.

I'm involved in two things at the ITI Conference.

Firstly, I'm taking part in a panel discussion on Customer Service in the translation profession, which I'm sure will be a lively and interesting discussion.

And secondly, I'm telling people about the ITI's PSG course, which is an online course that teaches business skills to professional translators.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:12:00 +0000

A quick overview of features in the new MemoQ 3.5: Kevin Lossner in Berlin has kindly posted a short review of the new features in MemoQ's new version 3.5. This is a major update to the MemoQ translation memory tool, particularly their new sub-segment matching feature. If you are interested in translation technology, and in the tools that professional translators use in their work, then do have a read of Kevin's article.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:04:00 +0000

Communicating well with your staff is essential for any business. So I was interested to read an article on the American Bar Association's website about a court case in France where a company was sued for failing to provide French employees with information in their own language (French). The company in question provided internal documentation in English only - and the French courts duly ruled that this was inappropriate. (At the time of writing, the company is appealing against this legal decision.)

Without wishing to criticise the company in question, it amazes me that any company would not want to communicate clearly with their own staff. Am I old-fashioned in thinking that your staff are your company's greatest asset? And in thinking that making them feel valued is important for a company's success?

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Mon, 04 May 2009 08:18:00 +0000

15 minutes of fame: The ITI conference is approaching, and Sarah Dillon has interviewed me as part of her series of interviews with people who are speaking at the ITI Conference in 2009. See http://www.dillonslattery.com/2009/05/experts-in-the-industry-nick-rosenthal-salftrans.html#more-414

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:20:00 +0000

Website translations: Clients often ask me if they can have a look at some translations that our SalfTrans team have translated. So we've updated our website to include some more links to websites that we have translated.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:49:00 +0000

"Never let the cock beat loose.... ". There, that got your attention, didn't it? But I bet it didn't quite get your attention in the way you'd like to grasp the attention of your customers when they read your product manual, did it?

Kevin Lossner, a translator based in Berlin, quotes this lovely example of shoddy translation on his blog at http://simmer-lossner.blogspot.com/2009/03/never-let-cock-beat-loose.html

Next time somebody offers you a cheap translation, stop and think. Are you sure that is what you really want?

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:59:00 +0000

ITI's West Midlands Regional Group (www.iti-wmg.org.uk) have very kindly invited me to speak to them in October 2009 on Customer Service, which is one of my pet topics. This will be part of a one-day training seminar for translators, and will be held on a Saturday in October 2009, probably at Aston University.

A lot of translators don't realise how important customer service is. Fortunately, there are a lot who do! The old "I don't do customer service, I just translate" attitude is dying out, replaced with a brighter, chirpier, more proactive generation of translators (although in fairness, I know some very "mature" translators who also give excellent customer service to their clients).

I spoke at a West Midlands regional group event a couple of years ago, and the day received a lot of positive feedback. Equally importantly, it was tremendous fun!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:17:00 +0000

Where foreign-language teaching in Britain is going wrong: I was shcoked ( but not suprised) to see an article on the BBC News website today which claims that teachers of modern languages are being trained to use scripting to help kids pass oral exams in French or German or Spanish. Nothing wrong with that. My teachers taught me how to pass the exams, too. But they taught me how to do so on a basis of understanding, or responding appropriately by showing I had understood the question. Now, it seems, the whole thing can be scripted, with questions asked in an order that the child knows in advance:

He suggested getting pupils to learn and rehearse phrases which showed their ability to use a verb properly and then to ask questions in a particular order which elicited those phrases, interspersed with others that required "Oui" as the response.

He said it was also important that the pupil knew the order the questions would come up.

I would go so far as to suggest that while this may help kids to pass language exams, it contributes absolutely nothing to giving them the language skills or confidence that they need if they wish to travel, or to be effective in the modern international business world.

And I shake my head, sadly.

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:28:00 +0000

It is good to see the program for the Institute of Translation and Interpreting's Conference in May 2009 taking shape. They now have speaker details listed at http://iti-conference.org.uk/conference-2009/content/view/18/54/

I will be participating in a panel discussion on customer service, and also giving a short presentation about a professional development course for translators that ITI runs. It promises to be a fun conference!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:25:00 +0000

"Machine translation is fine - it'll give you the bulk of what it means". Or so people keep telling me! Personally, I'm a little wary. And here's a lovely example of why I am cautious. This machine translation of an Italian report of a bike race is, um.... interesting.

I start form the perspective of knowing a bit about cycle racing, and being able to take a semi-intelligent guess at how things may have been expressed in the Italian. But even so, it left me confused!

"The flown one has been launch to the 300 meters from the arrival banner."

Yer wot?

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:05:00 +0000

Language learning in schools: Is Britain at odds with the rest of the EU?

As a professional translator, I clearly place value on the learning of foreign language skills in schools. They bring obvious practical benefits (the ability to communicate when in a foreign country, to order a beer, to book a hotel room, to say "hello" and "thank you" to overseas business partners), but they also bring educational benefits - there is research that shows that learning a second language stretches and develops parts of the brain which (to borrow a line from the old Heineken advert) other subjects cannot reach.

The EU clearly recognises this, too, and has today announced that they would like to encourage member states to ensure that 80% of pupils in secondary education should be learning two European languages by the year 2020.

Meantime, in Britain (and most especially in England), the number of pupils taking a GCSE exam in languages is plummeting. Even more shockingly, the BBC claims that only 45% of secondary schools in England are in a position to teach two foreign languages to GCSE standard. This is really not good for Britain's long-term future, not good for our schools, and not good for the employability of English youngsters in a job market that is becoming increasingly international.

I may be a linguist, but I also studied maths when I was at school. So I can see that the figures reflect the decline of language learning in England: Across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, there were 216,718 for foreign languages in 2007. In 2008, that figure had dropped to 201,940. Because I had to study a range of subjects at school, I can recognise that this represents a drop of roughly 7% in one single year. And sadly, that merely reflects the trend. Equally sadly, very, very few British schoolchildren could even attempt to read out the number in French (the number of pupils taking French at GCSE has fallen by 30% since it stopped being compulsory for over-14s to learn French in 2004).

So what happened? Well, back in 2002, the British government decided that studying modern languages should no longer be compulsory in secondary schools. I have often wondered why, and in February 2009 BBC News quoted the then-Education Secretary Estelle Morris as saying - well, read her comments yourself. I read it as saying "Truants told us they didn't like going to school because they didn't like having to learn foreign languages." So she did away with the compulsory learning of modern languages. (Interestingly, Ms Morris did not abolish compulsory schooling, which would surely have been the more logical conclusion!).

I despair!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:48:00 +0000

Early Bird booking discounts for the 2009 ITI Conference, to be held in London in May 2009, expire on 28th Feb 2009. So if you are thinking of attending, book now!

I'll be speaking at the ITI Conference this year. Actually, I'll be speaking twice: Once on customer service in the translation world, and once about the PSG, a professional development course for translators that the Institute of Translation and Interpreting runs (and which I am involved with - I will be tutoring on the marketing module this year).

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:02:00 +0000

I have been a bit of a twit, and forgotten to mention here that I now have a Twitter account: http://twitter.com/nickrosenthal

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:59:00 +0000

Terminology consistency doesn't sound an exciting subject, but it is crucial for professional translators. Most translators use specialist tools, such as Trados MultiTerm or MemoQ Termbase, for terminology management.

But of course, these only help translators to keep track of terminology they already know. First, we have to know it. And for translators working in the computing field, that's where the Microsoft Glossaries come in. Ever wondered what Network printer search is in German? A quick check of the Microsoft Glossary shows that on a German version of Windows, that would be Netzwerkdruckersuche.

And now, there's an easy way to look this stuff up in the online version of the Microsoft Glossaries. Just go to: http://www.microsoft.com/language/en/us/default.mspx