Returning Language to the Spotlight: The Interdependence of Usability and Words    

that optimal word choices, good sentence structure, and general readability are the basics that comprise usability. “Writing is what most of us do most of the time.”

Marnell, Geoffrey. Intercom (2009). Articles>Language>Usability

Making Content Understandable: Inherent Usability in Plain Language    

Using an example from his personal life, Haller shows how government writing should be simplified to ensure that a reader can understand government documents. He also discusses the importance of passing the Brayley Bill, the plain language bill.

Haller, Thom. Intercom (2009). Articles>Language>Usability>Minimalism

Benchmarking Translation Agencies  

Whether you are new at the translation business or a veteran of many globalization projects, a benchmarking study of your translation supplier(s) is a worthwhile endeavor. In benchmarking, you compare suppliers against one another based on specific criteria. The suppliers’ performance in the study can reassure you that your current relationship is a good one, or can lead to you a more compatible agency.

Finan, Jill. STC International TC SIG (2001). Articles>Language>Outsourcing>Translation

Choosing a Translation Agency  

There is no single factor that will determine your best choice of a translation agency. It should not be based on price alone, because as the old saying goes, “you get what you pay for”. Nor should it be based solely on the company’s size, number of employees, or any similar strictly objective measurement factor. Although such information may be important, and should be considered, it is just part of the total picture you need to adequately evaluate an agency.

Nagy, Charlene. STC International TC SIG (2001). Articles>Language>Outsourcing>Translation

Client Language Review—The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly  

Your company's overseas personnel are important to its success. It's natural to want their input on translated documents. Including them in a review of the translation before it's published gives them a chance to contribute their knowledge. Understanding the purpose and structure of the review can help you avoid trouble down the road. Here are some details to consider in advance.

Smith, Jackie. STC International TC SIG (2001). Articles>Language>Translation

Evaluation of Machine Translation

Many methods and measures for evaluating machine translation (MT) systems have been developed over the years. The ISLE project, funded jointly by the European Union and the US National Science Foundation, is continuing the work started in the EU's EAGLES project on systematizing these methods and measures.

Klein, Fred. STC International TC SIG (2001). Articles>Language>Translation>Machine Translation

How to "Proof" a Translation

As the global economy expands, American companies are translating large numbers of documents into multiple languages. As a technical writer, my job is to read documents in German, Italian, Danish, French, Spanish, Greek, and Polish among other languages. I also review documents in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, but the process is harder and less productive. This article will provide a few practical tips for "proofing" translations of Western documents.

Ribert, Roger. STC International TC SIG (2005). Articles>Editing>Translation>Language

Reducing Translation Costs

Over the past two years my team conducted an extensive review of translation process and costs, and we found a lot of ways to reduce translation time and costs. This including exploring use of machine translation. In the end, we found that machine translation created more hassles than it fixed. It was hard to explain to upper management, but the concept that helped most was explaining that translators aren't translating word for word, they're translating thought for thought.

Brewer, John. STC International TC SIG (2005). Articles>Content Management>Translation>Language

The Translation Memory Advantage  

Have you ever wished you could remember everything you've written over the past few years, and reuse it whenever needed? Now that would be a valuable, timesaving tool. In the same vein, it would be worth a great deal if a translator could recall every sentence translated for a client, and recycle it wherever appropriate. Today there are tools that help translators do exactly that. These tools are programs, called translation memory software, which allow translators to store and retrieve text. Using this software saves time and money and contributes to a better translation.

Smith, Jackie. STC International TC SIG (2001). Articles>Language>Translation>Machine Translation

What Type of Translation Agency Staff is Right for You?  

When you have materials that need to be translated into a foreign language, how do you decide where to send them? Your basic choice is between an agency that uses only freelance translators or one that has employee translators in-house. Your decision on which to use should depend on the type of final product you are looking for and the subject matter of the material to be translated. This article describes the two types of agencies in more detail, to help you make an informed decision regarding the type of agency that will work best for you. We have tried to maintain an impartial view of both types while making potential clients aware of the industry and its various practices and levels of quality.

Nagy, Charlene. STC International TC SIG (2001). Articles>Language>Outsourcing>Translation

Where Writing and Translation Meet  

Just as developing an English document may take months as it crosses the desks of subject matter experts, sales and marketing managers, and editors, so does producing translations. Documents to be translated can go before a translator, editor, subject matter expert, proofreader, in-country reviewer, and client before a final version is ready for distribution.

Kramasz, Deb. STC International TC SIG (2003). Articles>Language>Translation>Writing

Overview of Localization

Internationalization is the basis for ease of localization and includes support of international character sets, separation of localizable features such as translatable character strings from the code, and provision for locale-specific features and functions.

STC International TC SIG (2001). Articles>Language>Localization

Bug Reporting in Localization Projects

Don't turn down a project just because part of it requires work in another language. With a little forethought, you'll see that it's not "rocket science" after all, and that it's not so different from testing the original version of the product. In fact, the quality assurance team that works on the original version of the product is the one best suited to testing the localized versions.

Watts, Edward. STC International TC SIG (2005). Articles>Language>Localization

Designing for a Non-English Audience

Through experience, I've discovered that foreign language typesetting can be very challenging--even when using the right software and platform, or having the help of a very experienced foreign typesetter. Through solving the problems encountered in the process, I also developed a new appreciation for simple, "internationalized" designs that are much easier to "localize" than others. Many problems can be avoided if the graphic designer keeps in mind that the document may be later translated into other languages. Sometimes, an attractive and very professional design in English can be a "nightmare" in other languages.

Bratu, Felicia. STC International TC SIG (2005). Articles>Document Design>Localization>Language

DITA in Localization  

It is critical to address localization as part of the DITA adoption early as it may significantly impact your localization process with potential schedule and cost implications that could negate many benefits of XML.

Lionbridge (2009). Articles>Language>Localization>DITA

Sensing of Meaning and Introvert Products

The human mind is geared to derive meaning out of what it perceives. And this attribute is so fundamental to it, that it may even be the most basic building block of human cognition. In our zest to dig out some meaning from everything, we even go to extreme lengths. There have been diviners, oracles, and witch-doctors who try to read meaning from chicken entrails, yarrow sticks, tea leaves, bird flights, etc, with the same seriousness that a doctor reads an x-ray, or a hot-air balloonist reads weather patterns. The famous metaphysical saying “there is no such thing as a coincidence” is something which rides on the underlying philosophy that says - there is always a meaning in everything - if you can find it. Understandably, this philosophy can be a highly devious tool in the hands of occultist quacks, and yet the motive behind it is a fundamental driving force of human cognition.

Sapkal, Pankaj. Journal of HCI Vistas (2007). Articles>Language>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology

Machine Learning for Asian Language Text Classification    

The purpose of this research is to compare several machine learning techniques on the task of Asian language text classification, such as Chinese and Japanese where no word boundary information is available in written text. The paper advocates a simple language modeling based approach for this task.

Peng, Fuchun and Xiangji Huang. Journal of Documentation (2007). Articles>Language>Taxonomy>Machine Translation

The Most Annoying, Overused Words in the Workplace  

"Leverage," "interface," and "circle back" are among the most annoying and overused terms in work settings today, according to a new survey of executives.

Musbach, Tom. Yahoo (2009). Articles>Language>Workplace>Rhetoric

The Trouble with Translation Memory Programs

Translation memory is not a burden to be vilified, but I do think translation agencies and some TEnT developers should think long and hard about their practices. We pay for our tools – not the agency. Why should we be paid less to use them? That just doesn’t make sense.

Sommer, Jill. Musings from an Overworked Translator (2009). Articles>Language>Translation>Machine Translation

Considering Culture-Bound Terminology

It is clear that the term blacklist, and the newer term whitelist, and yes, graylist, are not racist in origin. Nor are they used today with any connotation about race. But these terms are culture-bound and might present globalization issues. That is, the colors black and white are not globally perceived as negative and positive, respectively. In some cultures, the meaning is the opposite.

Kocher, Sue. Carolina Communique (2009). Articles>Language>Diction>Professionalism

The Long Road to Embrace Domestic Multilingualism

People often ask us which commercial market is the most advanced when it comes to viewing linguistic diversity as a boon instead of a bane. Language service providers (LSPs) in other countries often point to the United States, which in 2010 will support an estimated market of US$765 million for telephone interpreting services, largely generated from organizations that sell goods and services to its multicultural residents. However, is the U.S. market truly 'mature' when it comes to embracing multilingualism? Not by a long shot.

Kelly, Nataly. Global Watchtower (2009). Articles>Language>Translation>United States

Ten Irresistible Potholes that Writers Find on the Road to Globalization

Optimizing the translation process has two basic components: improving the writers' source texts and improving the translators' process. For the moment, we'll focus on the writer's job. Dear Translator: Please remember that most writers never had any training at all about translation and usually know one lonely language. Many of them can only rely on the limited writing advice that they got in school. They're never aware of how they can make life hellish for translators and for international readers. So, don't blame them; help them out. Pass this list on to them and discuss it until they understand.

Dillinger, Mike. Content Wrangler, The (2009). Articles>Language>Translation>Writing

International English Gives Satisfactory Machine Translation into Spanish

An article about machine translation was translated into Spanish by Google Translate (www.google.co.uk/language_tools?hl=en). In September 2009, professional translators evaluated the translation for fluency and for accuracy of meaning.

TechScribe (2009). Articles>Language>Translation>Machine Translation

Translation as an Act of Communication

Includes an illustration of international professional communication, the double commitment of international professional communicators, and professionals and documentation experts.

Durão, Rosário. SlideShare (2008). Presentations>Language>Communication>Translation

Internationalizing Your Content: Authoring with Localization in Mind 

Localization is the process of adapting a product or service to a particular language and culture. Internationalization is the precursor to localization and involves the process of planning, designing and implementing a culturally and technically neutral product, which can easily be localized. Internationalization helps decrease translation cost and speeds up time-to-market by addressing crucial technical, aesthetic, cultural, and linguistic issues at project start-up. It also has the unique advantage of streamlining not only the localization of your content but authoring in general.

Pietrangeli, Lisa. TC World (2009). Articles>Language>Localization>International