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How to Capture Your External Translation Spend

One of the most common questions asked by localization vendors when assisting clients with their translation needs is “how much do you spend on translation?” and the most common answer is “I have no idea”.
If you are one of these organizations, please know that you are not alone. However, finding out how much your company [...]

Testing Translation Services the Right Way

More companies are using translation tests as part of their procurement cycle. Testing translation can be beneficial, but it is essential that you understand “what” you are trying to gain from the test. For a test to be successful, you must match your test translation requirements to the most appropriate vendor strategy for your organization. The [...]

Back Translation: Out of Date in the Advanced Localization Community?

Back Translation is the process of translating a document that has already been translated into a foreign language back to the original language – preferably by an independent translator. This process is most common in organizations were product testing and research are a core aspect of the business, i.e Survey organizations, pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
The [...]

Translator research in global-scale translation

I found an interestng blog entry today by Ivete Camargo López. It was part of her series on Sacred Cows of translation – this one was “translators research“. Ivete did a great job of describing how challenging it can be for a generalist translator to translate specialist materials if the localization company doesn’t support them [...]

Measuring and using TCO in localization

SDL is kicking off a series of webinars on Tuesday (the 7th July) that tackle a set of best-practices around improving the total cost of ownership of localization – the first being increasing the Return on Investment for localization budget. The others tackle localization testing, machine translation, multimedia, validation and review processes, localization in Agile environments and culminating in Business Process Outsourcing on the 18th of August. Most of these webinars and many others put on by SDL as well as other vendors are aimed at improving the Total Cost of Ownership when it comes to localization – but what really is the Total Cost of Ownership when it comes to localization, and how do you go about quanitifying it, and how do you then understand what you can do once you know the number.

The lure of crowdsourcing translation

In the past few years we have seen a shift in the way some organizations view their customers – with a growing emphasis on involving customers.  An emerging trend that capitalizes on this shift is crowdsourcing – relying on a largely volunteer force to solve business problems in a distributed manner. In areas such as [...]

Review of localization event in Portland

SDL hosted a localization networking event on June 16th in Portland, OR.  The panelists were Francoise Hovivian, Steve Kemper and Yvan Hennecart.  With around 20 attendees, it turned out to be a fantastic knowledge exchange on localization best practices and solutions.
The expert panelists brought years of expertise in localization to the discussion.  Francoise is the [...]

Maximize translation spend and grow your ROI

Kicking off the upcoming webinar season is a session around how to maximize total translation spend. The session (the first of six) is on the 7th July at noon EST.
Too often the first question is “how much per word” when the first questions should be “what do you do to maximize appropriate reuse and improve [...]

“Pidgins and Creoles” or “Why Machine-only Translation Will Always Fall Short”

Several weeks ago I was speaking at a localization conference when and audience member asked me about machine translation, and if it would ever completely take the place of human linguists in the industry. I answered “No,” although I did concede that machine translation is consistently making strides and does have a place in the [...]

How to avoid getting trapped in the day to day challenges of localization

Jason Fink is Corporate Communications Manager for Celanese Corporation and has been with them since March 2007. His responsibilities include oversight for online communications, which includes internet and intranet design and support. Prior to joining Celanese, Jason was a communications project leader for United Parcel Service responsible for the internal/external communications department for the North [...]