The Second Languages of Every Part of the World in One Incredible Infographic

The Second Languages of Every Part of the World in One Incredible Infographic

How many computer aided translation tools do we really need?

How many Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tools do we really need?

 

In the last year, we have seem the strange phenomena of most large language service providers investing in newly developed tools. This is not really new. There has long been a desire throughout the industry from freelancers up to large companies to find effective, but low priced, alternatives to Trados.

This is totally understandable when taking the viewpoint of the translation professionals who not only see up front investments in tools, but the continuous requirement to upgrade. We in the language supply business are forced into paying for training schemes to teach us how to do what we already know how to do.

 

Apart from Trados version 2007 required by some clients and different versions of Trados Studio from others, we have very recently seen all of the following being requested:

Transifex, Izumi, SDLPassolo, MemoQ, AgitoTranslate, XTMTranslate, Wordfast, dejavu, and Wordbee.

 

Not to mention: Fluency Translation Suite, GeoWorkZ, TransitNXT, MadCap Lingo, Smartling, MetaTexis, CafeTran, LogiTerm Pro, Sordfish, OmegaT, MemSource Cloud, Heartsome Translation Studio, Across, MultiTrans Prism, Text United, etc. The list seems endless and every year there are new players joining the field.

 

Given that we know that the translation industry, when it is all reduced down to its most basic components, is that it is little more than a cottage industry and it looks like it is staying that way for the foreseeable future.

 

So, the question is, how do the freelancers cope when every new client asks for a different tool to be used? Short answer is, they don't! This then causes a greatly reduced number of linguists available for translating certain projects. Those that do know the tool may not have the required know how for the subject matter, but these days, it is often the knowledge of a particular tool that determines which linguist is assigned to the given project.

Too many CATs in the house is not making for better quality translations. Translation buyers are ultimately paying for all this “innovation.” Calls to continuously upgrade existing tools is clearly designed to fuel the profits of the software development companies who are hanging on the fringe of the industry.

 

Surely all these groups that keep telling us that there is a need for standards control for quality can help out a little here. If translation industry tools could be standardized or streamlined it would be a huge leap forward in both productivity and competitiveness for everyone at the coal face of translation work.

Wow! The future of content creation?

Robots have mastered newswriting. Goodbye journalism 

...The text penned by a real journalist scored highly on words like "well written" and "clear" and being pleasant to read. Software-generated text, on the other had, scored highly for being descriptive, informative, more accurate, trustworthy, and objective...

Admerix hard at work during the Eurozone holidays

The Admerix team wants to let you know that we are hard at work in Singapore when most of the Eurozone is taking its annual August vacation.

Our Thai team is also hard at work on Thai-language projects. This ensures that vital Thai-language projects are not impacted by civil strife in Thailand. Supply chain disruptions have hit many small translation companies there.

You can have a relaxing holiday knowing that Admerix is hard at working solving your problems and helping you reach your sales goals for the year.

We are here every day so email us and we will be ready to tackle any challenge you come up against.

Auto-translated content designated as spam?

Watch out for quick fixes in translation and localization...

For some Euro languages, auto-translation can give a reader some idea of the meaning, but the resulting content is clearly non-idiomatic and is often jumbled gibberish. For languages outside of the Euro-zone, auto-translated content is mostly unreadable.

You may have already known all this, but did you know that auto-translated content hurts your visibility on search engines?

In Google Search content that is auto-translated is designated as spam.

AdSense is no better. AdSense has been undergoing a revamp this year (it seems each year the criteria is made more stringent to restrict payments). Many sites have found their AdSense accounts frozen for either "scraped content" or “websites with gibberish content that makes no sense or seems auto-generated.” Both of these conditions can occur when site content has been translated using some sort of auto-translation process.

Even if your company site does not use Google Search or AdSense, it can still suffer if you have translated your site using auto-translation tools.

Presenting gibberish content on the web is no way to build a brand or generate client confidence in your offerings. As everyone knows, there can be disagreements between any two writers on the best wording to persuade a reader so why does anyone thing cutting corners with auto-translation is right for their company?

When you translate your company's materials--whether it is website content or product brochures--it is vital to have subject specialists linguists and copywriters who can ensure that your company makes the very best impression to potential customers.