WHAT DOES “CSR” MEAN IN THE TRANSLATION INDUSTRY?

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By now it is well known that CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility and that we can define it as a “self-regulating business model that helps a company be socially accountable to itself, its stakeholders, and the public”[1]. This can be interpreted in many ways and each company struggles to find a way to show that they are socially responsible. Every year the public receives reports about the CSR measures implemented by the major companies. These presentations are becoming more and more complex as the companies want to prove they give back to their communities and strive to make them see that they have their best interest at heart despite having a main goal of gaining profit. In the translation industry, it might seem like a vague concept, but in reality, there are many things that an LSP can do to show just how they work in a socially responsible manner. Environment Helping out

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Let’s meet at tekom!

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On 13th November 2018, itlocal joins tekom for many interesting events, in Stuttgart, Germany. The European Association for Technical Communication – tekom Europe e.V. is the largest professional association for technical communication worldwide. It was founded in November 2013 in Wiesbaden, Germany and connects about 9,000 professionals who are active in technical communication and related fields. The main task of the association is to represent the interests of creators and users of user information at a European level. tekom Europe supports important EU objectives such as improving the training of young people, the employability and mobility of workers as well as the competitiveness of the European economy in general. Amongst the discussed topics are: Translation and Localization, Quality Assurance,  Develop and apply terminology,  Optimize production processes and Visual design. For more information, visit their homepage! We will be there.

Machine Translation: an honest perspective

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We live in a time where technology advancements happen on a daily basis and slowly but steadily, most aspects of our lives, are being assimilated within the digital world. But what about translations? Is this industry following similar development trends in terms of advancements? In a world of technology… Machine translation stays at the forefront of our digital revolution. An outsider might expect that by now, that computers should be able to handle a slightly more complex translation, it’s 2018 after all, right? Wrong. While Google Translate brought machine translation into the mainstream more than 10 years ago, the technology first arose at the beginning of the cold war, in the 50’s. It’s been a long time since then and it might take equally long until computers will be able to meet the expectations of the 20th century visionaries. Language is a very “human” thing and given that we are

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Why choosing a smaller agency might be good for you

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In the translation industry, size actually matters. Most of the companies – also known as language service providers, or LSPs – are small, and for all the right reasons. Of course, large companies have their own place within the market as well, so why would we recommend going for a smaller agency for your next translation project? Due to their size and number of employees, big companies usually subcontract their translation projects to the smaller players, also known as vendors. Primarily, the large LSPs keep in touch with the client, manage the technology and terminology, but are not involved in the translation itself. They too will employ the smaller LSPs for this latter purpose and by doing the same and contacting us directly, you as a client could manage the process more closely from the start. So what are the advantages of working with a smaller LSP? Allow us to

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What is the difference between translation and transcreation

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In the translation industry, there is a consensus that translators should only work in their mother tongue, no matter how fluent they might be in any other language, thus ensuring the linguistic nuances in their native language are kept. Many linguists have different qualifications, whether it is engineering, legal fields, economic or marketing and so on. This allows them to be good translators, since it helps them fully understand the texts even in highly specialized domains. Some translators can be more creative in their way of thinking and writing, which allows them to approach more projects in domains like marketing, media and advertising. For some certain texts, something more than translation is necessary – transcreation. This is all about taking one concept presented in a language and completely adapting it and recreating it in accordance with the nuances and cultural ideas that need to be found in the target language.

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How does a Translation Memory work?

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We have mentioned quite a lot in the past the use of Translation Memories as a means to obtain a consistent yet cost efficient translation at little to no effort from our translators. What we want to do now is to explain to you why and how this works, allowing you to better understand our system. Using a translation memory does not mean using a machine translation but rather re-using previous translations. The Translation Memory, or TM, represents a database of „pairs”, formed by sections of already translated and approved text, in both source and target languages. Usually, the software we use in this regard (whether it is alignment programs or SDL Trados), divides the segments automatically, usually in sentences, list or table elements. Any new text is then compared to the one stored in the database and similar segments will be recognized and shown as a ”fuzzy” match. When

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Virtual Staffing, or Why you need this, now.

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In today’s economy, any company in the translation industry has to regularly review its options to remain competitive on the market.  With our Virtual Staffing program, our clients are free to better focus on their operations and concentrate on their targets. As they say, “Ensure that our clients realize quality profits they seek”, it all comes down to providing Remote Project Management Services instead of the actual Translation Services that most other companies provide. We work with your budget to find the best resources required for your translation requests and always focus on Quality! There are many other big advantages, that we can mention: flexibility on both European and US time-zones, US and European presence, minimum translation costs and an efficient production process with more resources, higher capacity, 24/7 communication, access to our huge translators database, etc. All of our clients are very happy with the new approach for outsourcing and

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Translation pricing and how it works

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How we choose translation pricing ? We will offer you more details here. Each translation project requires a unique approach and there are many variables involved in determining its price. Because of this reason, most companies do not list their prices for translation services on their websites. So, how does translation pricing work? The first step we take when receiving a project is File Preparation/Translation Memory Maintenance: • Converting files such as Microsoft Office, InDesign, QuarkXPress, FrameMaker, Flash, Illustrator, Autodesk, DLLs, EXE etc. to translatable format. • Defining rules for protection of non-translatable phrases/ formatting tags. • Preparing software resource files (software localization). • Extracting translatable text embedded in image files (if requested). • Creating Translation Memories (for first-time clients/projects/languages). • Alignment of client-provided previously translated content to populate TM. • Updating and maintaining TM consistency and integrity. • Creating and managing TM attributes for optimum leverage and quality. The next

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Understand our translation process

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The translation process is complex. We will help you understand it, by summarising some of the steps we take. We recognize that performing to the highest standards requires transcending beyond the mere linguistic element of translation services. Therefore we continuously ensure that we add value to the translation process by ensuring that: • Our customized, repeatable processes are designed ensure quality and consistency within and across documents, and reduce cost and turnaround time. Our workflow is custom-made for the Client’s needs. • Our language specialists leverage their expertise in technical subject matter with their native language skills. • We maximize leverage by developing and maintaining customized Translation Memory (TM) for each client, categorized with attributes (e.g. for division, product, project, etc.). • We are always looking for creative ways to reduce localization costs to our clients without sacrificing quality and consistency. For example by developing a translation memory (TM) from

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