Localization Trends That Never Arrived: Linguists will work for a cut rate to edit machine translation

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: All translation will just be editing of machine translation

Most linguists simply will not work for a cut rate to edit substandard machine translation. 

Linguists see it this way—first they have to spend thousands on translation tools so they can get paid a lower rate for repetitions. Now MT means an even greater fragmentation of the rate.

It seems even more unlikely that MT (even edited) would end up being as satisfying to an end client as work completed by professional linguists. For instance, translation in Japanese, Vietnamese, or Thai by expert linguists is regularly knocked back for being “completely wrong.” This is due to style, tone and other factors specific to each tongue, and it takes nothing less than trained, experienced linguists working with client feedback to get it sounding correct to the client’s ear.

NEXT: Trends that never arrived: Trados will become the standard TM tool

Localization Trends That Never Arrived: All translation will be done online, for free

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: All translation will be done online, for free

This is Wikipedia-style translation, done “in the cloud” by volunteers—either for free or with micropayments. This is really the holy grail in the industry. It is the dream that translators can be removed from translation process while still charging clients nearly the same rates. This is the driving of profits through increased margins.

Online translation platforms are already boasting huge savings and professional levels of translation work and service by tens of thousands of “linguists.”

This concept suffers from a misunderstanding of the most basic tenants of the art of translation—that not everyone who speaks two languages is naturally a translator. The idea that every person with English as a second language can log on and competently complete translation work (or edit MT) is wishful thinking. Just because a person is reasonably competent in a second language does not mean they have the knowledge, dedication, skill and ear for the language to handle translation.

It is also hard also to understand why proponents of such a system would believe that casual contributors to the process would ever take the work seriously, respect deadlines, or bother to make themselves available to cover the client queries--let alone the inevitable client complaints.

NEXT: Trends that never arrived: All translation will just be editing of machine translation

Localization Trends That Never Arrived: All translation will be done online

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: All translation will be done online

This is really the dream--that project managers and SLVs can be eliminated by somehow automating the process flow of localization. This posits that project managers and engineers do not really add anything valuable to the localization process and can thus be factored out of the equation.

Many of these systems succumb to the lure of being used to lock clients in to proprietary methods and raise the cost of switching to the competition. Those in localization production hate such systems when end clients, allowed to log on and check the progress of their jobs, use them to second guess project managers on projects they think are behind schedule.

Ultimately, the online translation model is predicated on the idea that all content can be economically produced or molded to fit such a system. The reality is that content most often comes in many non-ideal forms (non-unicode websites, scanned pdfs, legal exhibits, quirky elearning platforms, etc.) and these kinds of projects are higher volume and thus higher value.

The online model might be suitable for translating a couple page Word document, but when it comes to complex source files--not to mention layout issues later--a simple online translation system is not going to get the job done.

NEXT: Trends that never arrived: All translation will be done online, for free

Localization Trends That Never Arrived: A Few Big Players Will Dominate

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: An industry leader (a “Microsoft of translation”) will emerge and grow by buying up mid-sized players to dominate the localization marketplace

There still is little in the way of a dominant leader (much less standards) in the industry. While we still see many acquisitions in the business, it seems mainly along the lines of original owners cashing out of the firms they founded by transferring client bases to other companies. These acquisitions also seem to run along the lines of “we are all out of ideas of how to add value and thus gain customers so let’s just buy market share from other companies instead.”

Additionally, it could be that acquiring customers by buying one’s suppliers is a better business strategy long term than by having to compete for them with lower pricing or giving increased levels of service.

NEXT: Trends that never arrived: All translation will be done online

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