Localization Trends That Never Arrived: Translation is no longer a commodity

Over the years there have been many exuberant predictions of change that would fundamentally alter the localization business. However, most of these dreams of the industry have never come to pass.

Trends that never arrived: Translation is no longer a commodity

This is the idea that translation will drift away from the “per word” model and be seen more as a service that requires skilled project managers and other technicians to deliver. This idea has mainly been promoted by salesmen and the owners of small MLVs who saw themselves being compared to emerging Chinese and Indian vendors offering cut rates on per word pricing.

Of course, the opposite has happened. Translation is more commoditized than ever with an attempt to eliminate translators entirely in favor of systems that auto-translate. While such “solutions” are far from mature and probably will never fully replace the nuanced work of human translators, it cannot be denied that the per-word rate continues to dominate with prices at or below what they were a decade ago.

NEXT: Trends that never arrived: An industry leader (a “Microsoft of translation”) will emerge with several companies growing by buying up mid-sized players

Admerix is available in July and August!

Admerix is open and working during July and August. This is a period when traditionally localization work is slowed by business holidays in both Europe and the U.S. It often becomes difficult to source translation work during this time and many companies and linguist teams take time off.

During this time Admerix will be continuing to handle projects so our clients can leave the office on time and be certain that we are solving all issues while they are asleep.

Also: Our audio studios will also be open as well, providing commercial-grade audio localization in all the languages Admerix specializes in: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Thai, Khmer, Burmese, Lao, Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, Dari, Hebrew, Hindi, Punjabi, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Tamil, Nepali, Armenian, and Turkish

Why not allow us to quote on your next project? I am sure we came help you reach your sales goals this year.

Difference between Nordic languages

Not our specialty, but this is very interesting: Difference between Nordic languages

Why can’t qualified subject specialists work on your project?

The biggest challenge for production staff these days is not finding qualified linguists.

There are many very qualified translators with very specialist capabilities who would have no difficulty with even complex content. However, in many cases they cannot be used on a project because they are not equipped with the particular flavor of new TM tool that is demanded by the client.

Most professional linguists at least have Trados, but, as we know, most of the industry is attempting to break away from using this TM tool. This has led to a dizzying grab bag of emerging translation tool systems that linguists must invest in and then be trained in.

The requirement that linguists use one of these new tools vastly limits the linguists who can undertake a project.

The overlay of processes, systems, specific software, on-line registrations and procedures by translation buyers is ensuring that the pool of translators available in our oversized cottage industry is considerably limited.

These systems are sold with the promise that the company will have its own unique process management and QA tools that will guarantee consistency and a perfect translation every time.

But down at the production level where the work is actually being produced, such tools waste time and have the opposite effect of creating quality. They instead ensure that the subject specialist resources who would be the very best translators for the job can no longer be used because they do not have the tool.

What is the “right” term?

In Southeast Asian languages, you can get a generalized idea of what is the standard or what is “right,” but this is from the middle- to upper-class trained linguists that would tend to make a living as translators. This is usually based on the “official” usage.

However, this “right” term might not be commonly used, commonly understood, or colloquially acceptable depending on the client. This is because the official terms in many Southeast Asian languages are set by bureaucrats and these terms have no relation to how the language is actually used.

So clients who insist on official terms often face howls of protest when they find their customers or workers are unable to understand the translated material.

For this sort of issue we find that the best resource is often the client salesperson. This is the person who interfaces with the buyer of the product being localized. The salesperson is the person who gives the sales presentations and thus has to understand the expectations of the industry. That means the input he can bring to an issue like this is often far superior to anything a linguists can—even though the linguist is an expert and doing things in the “correct” and “proper” way.

It may be that the expected correct terms in a certain business segment is far different that the generally accepted standard or the “proper” standards being promoted by a government organization.

It is not uncommon that when a linguist employs “standard” or “accepted” terminology or other standards in a work these can be totally rejected by the client as these might not be the commonly understood terminology of their very narrow industry.

Getting this input from sales is an excellent feedback loop to create as the ultimate intent of all localization is to enable a client to sell. Bringing this issue to the client is also a good way of demonstrating consultative knowledge and expertise that the client should recognize as a way to produce a better outcome for their project.