8/28/2010
We’re avid readers of Engadget, a web magazine with in-depth reviews and coverage of electronic devices for consumers. And, we’re longtime observers — and occasional participants — of the practice of community, crowdsourced, and collaborative translation. So, when we saw a review of a new tablet PC with, “We wish we spoke Hindi” in the title, we felt compelled to ask, “So… why don’t you?”
Engadget is no stranger to multilingual content. It has localized websites in various languages aside from English, including Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. So, it’s odd that a reviewer would post a Hindi-language video on its English site without attempting to at least get a basic understanding of the content. That’s where Engadget community members stepped in. A helpful Hindi-speaking member posted a summary of the content, enabling others to engage with the review more fully and have a conversation about it.
And that’s where it begins. Community translation enables populations of web users to make more content available in other languages. No, they are not necessarily professional translators, nor do they necessarily need to be. As our research shows, most of the companies that use community translation are just like Engadget – they don’t hesitate to spend money on setting up localized websites and paying for translation and localization. It’s just that they can’t possibly translate each and every piece of information that their members produce. This content is largely user-generated, changes rapidly, and is not in every case going to be valuable enough to merit the average price per word.
What boggles our mind is why Engadget hasn’t yet made it easier for its members to make content available in other languages. The simple addition of a “submit a translation” button or a “summarize this review in another language” link would solve many problems. Of course, any user-translated content (UTC) would need to be published with the appropriate caveats — for example, “[username] translated this review on behalf of the Engadget community,” or “this English-language summary of the Hindi video was contributed by [username]” would provide transparency while making it clear that the target-language content was submitted by community members.
As we predicted, community translation is not slowing down –it’s growing. Each full issue of the Economist is translated into Chinese by a dedicated group of translators/fans. The world-famous TED talks are also available to more people thanks to crowdsourced translation practitioners. And, the implications of community translation reach far beyond just sharing information in the category of leisure reading.
We’ve written before about how businesses are embracing crowdsourced translation to enter new markets. Companies like Twitter, HootSuite, and others have recently embraced this practice too. However, some researchers even propose leveraging the power of online communities to quickly make information available in other languages for assisting with emergency response efforts in various parts of the world. Imagine if the victims of flood-hit Pakistan could quickly and easily receive cutting-edge, real-time information on relief and recovery efforts in each of the 73 languages spoken there.
In summary, as more companies like Engadget just “happen across” the potential of multilingual communities to make information available to others, our hope is that it’s a sign of things to come. We envision a time when generations of web users around the world will say, “An online language barrier? That actually existed back then?” And, we’ll recount the old days, when online content in Sindhi (with 18.5 million speakers in Pakistan) was quite difficult to come by.
We've been writing a lot about social media lately (here, here and here) and for good reason. It's a hot topic inside and outside the life sciences and translation industry. The explosion of social media outlets has enabled an unprecedented level of information to flood the market. The same technology that drives this growth represents a challenge to companies trying to maintain control of their
 Machine translation has arrived for good in the language industry; the influential Global Watchtower blog even called it a tidal wave earlier this year. TAUS’ recent article on Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft ended by promising to look at the issues highlighted by the team’s analysis. Their assessment is that we need shared services and resources in 21st century translation to grow from a $15 billion industry to a $70 billion one. I pick up the baton by proposing companies combine investments to effectively leverage open source SMT for localization.
While research in machine translation has been going on for over 50 years, recently adopted statistical methods make it easier to create customized MT systems for specific language pairs and domains. By leveraging existing translation assets, translation providers and buyers can build well-performing MT systems that, combined with post-editing, are more productive than traditional translation methods alone. This is beginning to lead to wide-spread adoption of statistical MT (SMT) systems throughout the industry.
The following instructions were reportedly translated into English and found in an Elevator in Belgrade, Serbia.
[...]
This free translation price calculator, which you can easily install on igoogle, comes courtesy of our IT superhero and guardian angel, Thomas Gruber. We use Translation Office 3000 for our professional quotes, but sometimes we just want to get a quick rate without actually logging a not-yet-approved project. Thomas was tired of seeing us pull out our very uncool handheld calculators; so he
 Since May 1, 2008, the London Agreement, meant to reduce costs relating to the translation of European patents, has been in effect. The London Agreement provides for patent claims to be available in the national language of the states where the European patent is registered, while the description — which represents the bulk of the text of a patent — can be made available in English, French, or German, the official languages of the EPO (European Patent Office).
The argument for the London Agreement was that the cost of translations reduced the incentives for companies to apply for a European patent and, many argued, the situation was a burden on the competitiveness of the European economy, compared to the situation in the United States.
However, according to news from NetworkWorld, the European Court of Justice might put a break on the stated plans of the current EU presidency to foster a common patent system across the European Union. The court's Advocate General believes that a centralized patent is "incompatible with the treaties" that created the EU, according to a leaked document.
If the European Court of Justice moves forward with this decision, translation companies specializing in Patent Translations will see a return of business in high volumes. Companies like UK publicly-traded RWS and Denmark's Lingtech are set to benefit from this return. I might even develop a service in this area for Milengo if this ruling materializes.
It always struck me as strange the fact that the EU was promoting a common European Patent, when respect for linguistic diversity is a core EU value. In fact, Article 21 of the ‘Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union’ forbids discrimination on several grounds (specifically including language), while Article 22 guarantees respect for cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.
Let's wait and see how this pans out.
I was recently trapped in the LA County Criminal Court Juror holding room for a day waiting to do my civil duty, albeit reluctantly. As I was waiting I had a wonderful twitter storm chat with @rinaneeman and @renatobeninatto and others about innovation in general and about innovative LSPs in particular. It was pretty intense and we covered a lot of ground given the format. We talked about the change in the overall business model (translation-as-a-utility), automation, new, more efficient ways of of doing translation work and much more. This is the best I can recapture (and click on show conversation) and I am not sure how to really see the thread in a nice chronological stream with all the people involved. If you know how to do this please let me know. However, one of the questions that came up in this discussion was where could one learn about these new technologies and processes (MT being just one of them) that facilitate innovation and allow one to address new translation problems?
I had believed that that there is very little formal training around and then Renato reminded us that regional associations play an important role in providing training. The next ELIA conference in Dublin in particular has a very strong focus on innovation and translation automation technology in addition to the traditional localization themes. I have found these smaller regional shows to be more effective in providing useful training and allows a much deeper dive into the reasons why this makes sense. The ELIA event has singled out MT and affiliated technologies as worthy of serious attention in direct response to member requests. I think this is wonderful not only because I have a prominent role at this event, as I will be presenting a keynote on broad changes impacting the overall world of translation as well as doing a detailed training session on how to get started with MT technology for those who really want to get down and dirty. It is also a sign that this technology can take the next step with technology developers and translation practitioners working together. I am a big believer in dialog, and this event is an example I think of an honest attempt to build this dialog.
In the keynote session I will look at how 2 billion+ internet users, community and crowdsourcing initiatives, translation technology, ever improving free MT, new attitudes to open collaboration and data sharing are impacting the professional translation world. I will explore how the shift to the project-less, translation-as-utility world will require new skills and new services from language service providers, explore and comment on emerging innovation and also point to the ever increasing market potential that becomes available to industry innovators who have competence with and understand the new dynamics.
I will also run a training session that will go over MT technology in some detail and provide basic background on the technology fundamentals and point to what I think are keys to being successful with MT. I will try and make this as practical and useful as possible answering questions about RbMT vs. SMT, MT engine customization strategies, MT quality assessment and relationship to post-editing effort, understanding data, skills required for different tasks etc. I believe that innovative LSPs will be the driving force behind creating really amazing MT systems in future and I will focus on the skills that I think will be most critical to enabling this kind of success.I will also explore new business opportunities that MT can enable to get you out of the software and documentation localization market. Hopefully this session is highly interactive and I am open to communication about what participants might want to most focus on and understand. The session is on Monday October 11th so please feel free to communicate with me on this before then.
As we setup translation production lines to handle 10X or 100X more content in the future we will need to link key processes together. Information quality focused processes and integrated and efficient post-editing will also be necessary to build efficiency. MT alone is not enough to solve the problems we face in the future and I think it will also be critical to learn how to clean up and “improve” source content before any kind of translation attempt. Frans Wijma will also provide guidance on Simplified Technical English which will provide attendees some insight on the IQ, controlled language, source simplification issue. Something that will be increasingly valuable to learn and do in future.
Those who stay in the MT track will also get to hear Sharon O’Brien talking about post-editing MT. She will answer all the following questions: How does post-editing of Machine Translation output differ from revision or QA activities in the localization domain? Are translators the best post-editors? Do they need specific experience and training? What guidelines should be given to post-editors? What productivity enhancements can be reasonably expected? Why do translators seem to dislike this task? I saw her speak at LRC (one of the best conferences I attended last year) and she has great insight and advice to offer on this subject.
And if that weren't enough to make you sign right up, there are also some great sessions on sales strategies for LSPs from non other than Renato, localization basics and next generation localization research from CSA, CNGL and the Gilbane Group. And all at a fraction of the cost of larger conferences. Check out the ELIA site for more details.
I hope to see you there and for those of you who don’t know, I am easily persuaded onto the karaoke floor. No alcohol required but unfortunately this is not because I necessarily sing so well. I went to a Jesuit (Boys only) School in India and had a teacher of mixed Indian/Portuguese (Goanese) extraction who used to exhort:
“Sing with gusto boys! Don’t worry about the notes, you will find them.”
This is advice I have taken to heart, as my karaoke friends from the IMTT Cordoba 2009 event will also tell you. In spite of having nothing more than a laptop with tiny speakers to provide musical backing, we sang with gusto till dawn and indeed we did eventually find the notes. ;-)
This guest post is contributed by Tisha Dotson, who writes on the topics of medical coding certification. She welcomes your comments at: tishadotson86 [at] gmail [dot] com.A new question that many cognitive scientists have recently delved into is whether or not the language we speak affects the way we perceive the world. One way that neuroscientists have attempted to establish this link is
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