Translation - Language - Culture

Moved!

2012-05-17T18:45:00.004-06:00

Please note that I now cover translation topics on my personal blog - It's Me! / C'est Moi! - Werner Patels!
Please adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

Companies struggling with cultural and communication barriers

2012-05-06T14:48:00.001-06:00

Language, cultural and communication barriers are ruining potential business deals, executives say.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Nearly half the executives at global companies believe language barriers have spoiled cross-border deals and caused financial losses for companies, says a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, a business research unit of Economist Group, the Economist magazine's parent.
The report, sponsored by language-training company EF Education First, was based on a poll of 572 senior executives world-wide.
Executives at companies based in Brazil and China said they were most affected by misunderstandings, with 74% and 61%, respectively, reporting financial losses as a result of failed international deals.

Successfully upgraded to Trados Studio 2011

2012-04-23T16:23:00.001-06:00

I was offered a very favourable price, so I finally took the plunge and upgraded to the most recent version of Trados Studio 2011. And it works like a charm, very pleased with it (and, yes, it runs perfectly within the Windows 7 OS virtualized on my iMac and Macbook).

JK Rowling has moved into 21st century

2012-04-22T03:39:00.003-06:00

For a technophobe like Harry Potter author JK Rowling to finally agree to selling her books electronically, that's quite a giant leap forward.

It's also nice to see that she managed to stick it to Amazon for once, as Amazon has agreed to allow users who purchase e-books directly from Rowling's site to upload them to their Kindles.

What's a bit ironic is that Rowling, the Luddite, herself actually foresaw the coming of "iPad newspapers". The newspaper in her books, The Daily Prophet, comes with moving pictures.

Today, this has become reality. Just look at some of the iPad versions of newspapers, like The Daily and many others, where "magically" moving images are inserted into the pages of (tablet) newspapers.

The most recent Newsweek issue, dedicated to the season premiere of Mad Men, showed the main cast members in an elevator. But if you opened the issue on your iPad, the cover turned into a short movie, with the characters shuffling into the elevator before settling on the final image that appeared on the cover of the printed magazine.

Well, Steve Jobs did say that the iPad was truly magical. Maybe he was inspired by Rowling's books.

Siri is a godsend for writers and translators alike

2012-04-22T03:37:00.000-06:00

Over the years, I have tried several voice dictation systems, such as Dragon Speak or the dictation software that comes included with the Windows operating system, but none has performed well enough to make it a fixture in my daily work routines.

Then came Siri, the voice feature on Apple's iPhone. Siri not only allows you to interact with your phone by speaking to it (and it also replies), but it can also be used to dictate emails, messages, etc.

It's been rumoured that Apple will eventually incorporate Siri into the Mac operating system, possibly as early as with the launch of the new OS Mountain Lion coming this summer.
This would be a godsend to writers and translators, and anyone who wants to dictate messages or documents, instead of typing them out.

I answer all my emails these days from the iPhone in order to use the Siri dictation feature. It doesn't matter whether I dictate in English, French, German or Spanish, the results are always 99.99% accurate (unlike Dragon or other dictation programs that get it right less than 70% of the time - at best).

Imagine what this technology would do for translators. With this accuracy, translators could dictate all their translations, require virtually no post-editing, and increase their output substantially (and thus make more money).

Not having to type would also leave you feeling healthier, as long hours of typing hunched over a keyboard, under immense pressure to meet a tight deadline, cause substantial strain to your hands and wrists, not to mention your back.

Here's hoping that Apple will roll out Siri to all its platforms, because when it comes to voice dictation software, Siri is the "philosopher's stone" that we have all been looking for.

Microsoft update messes up Trados

2012-04-22T03:34:00.001-06:00

If you installed one of the big Microsoft updates for Windows a couple of weeks ago, you may have noticed some issues with Trados and, probably, similar CAT tools.

I noticed it recently when I was asked to work on a project using Trados TagEditor. Each time I closed a TagEditor file, an error message about objects, libraries, macros, etc. would pop up.

While it didn't interfere with the work and files, it was still annoying having to click OK on the error prompt each time before being able to open and continue with the next file.

I had my suspicion that this problem, as it came about so suddenly, must have been related to the Windows update - and I also know that Windows updates always cause problems, like the entire operating system.

This is why I work on Macs, and run Windows only on a virtual hard disk within the Mac system - trust me, it eliminates most of the usual Microsoft/PC headaches if you use Windows and Windows application like that, instead of running them on a PC.

But this issue, unfortunately, still affected even my virtualized version of Windows - as it turns out, it is caused by an update to Microsoft's Visual Basic (God, I hate that thing!).

To make a long story short, I found some reliable advice on how to fix the damage caused by Microsoft (always the culprit), and I am happy to report that the fix really does work.

Oh yeah, before I forget: Microsoft sucks.

Yes, Trados works very well on Mac

2012-04-22T03:28:00.003-06:00

Thanks to the wonderful software made by Apple, writers and translators prefer to work on Mac screens, as text on screen is more soothing on the eyes than it would be on a Windows-based PC.

But many translators are still stuck with their useless PCs, because they're afraid of losing access to vital working tools, such as Trados.

It's true: Trados comes in a PC version only, but that doesn't mean you can't make the switch to Mac. Parallels is the program you need to make it happen. Install that on your Mac to create a "partition" on your hard drive, then install your preferred Windows operating system as well as the Microsoft Office package, and you're ready to go.

Now you can easily install Trados, MemoQ, Across, or any other CAT tool you'd like to use. Trados has never looked this good, or worked this fast, before. By the way: if you're interested in greater mobility and flexibility, you can implement the same setup on the Macbook Air as well. Thanks to its solid-state drive (you should opt for the 256 GB model), this one runs even faster, making it quite easy to switch between OS X (Mac) and Windows. I've been using Trados on a Macbook Air (it's so light!) for a while now, and it's fantastic.