Over the past two years, AI has significantly changed how multilingual content can be produced. Translation that once required days can often be completed in hours or minutes. Marketing content can be adapted across markets faster. Product information, knowledge articles and customer support content can move through multilingual workflows at a much greater scale.

For global organizations, the opportunity is substantial. This feels like the beginning of a new era of efficiency. But greater production capacity creates a new management problem.

When multilingual content can be created faster, organizations must make more decisions about what should be automated, what should be reviewed, which quality controls are necessary and who remains accountable for the result.

As organizations accelerate AI adoption, the central challenge is changing. It is no longer simply how to produce multilingual content efficiently. It is how to govern it appropriately.

The first question should not be: “Can AI translate this?”

It should be: “What happens if this content is wrong?” That distinction provides a useful starting point for multilingual AI governance.

Consider three pieces of content:

• a patient information leaflet for a pharmaceutical product
• a software release note describing new functionality
• a social media post promoting an upcoming event

Current AI systems can assist with all three. But the consequences of an error are very different. An incorrect dosage instruction in patient-facing content could create a safety and compliance issue. An inaccurate software release note might generate support requests or cause users to misunderstand a feature. A weak translation of a social media post might affect engagement or brand perception, but could often be corrected quickly with limited business impact.

The technology may be similar, but the operational requirements should not be. Every multilingual asset carries a different level of business consequence.

This is where many organizations encounter problems when scaling AI. They focus on whether the technology can perform a task without first defining the level of control that the task requires.

AI capability and acceptable business risk are two different questions. When organizations fail to distinguish between these realities, AI becomes less of an accelerator and more of a multiplier of poor operational choices.

AI does not remove responsibility

Instead, it redistributes it.

Traditional localization workflows placed much of the responsibility for quality with language specialists, reviewers and project teams. AI changes that structure. When automation becomes part of the workflow, important decisions move upstream. Quality depends on the decisions organizations make before content is ever translated:

• Who determines whether AI-generated translation is appropriate for a particular content type?
• Who decides when expert linguistic review is required?
• Which terminology and reference materials should the system use?
• What level of quality is acceptable before publication?
• Who approves content when regulatory, legal or safety considerations are involved?
• Who is to be held accountable if something goes wrong?

These are not primarily linguistic questions. They are governance questions.

For example, a global manufacturer may use machine translation to process thousands of internal knowledge articles. Low-risk content might be published after automated quality checks, while maintenance instructions affecting equipment safety may require review by a subject-matter linguist and final validation by an internal technical specialist.

Both workflows use AI. Only the level of control changes. This distinction becomes increasingly important as multilingual volumes grow.

AI reduces the effort required to produce content. It therefore increases the importance of deciding where human expertise creates the most business value.

One workflow cannot support every business objective

Imagine a global organization managing three initiatives at the same time:

• The Regulatory Affairs team is preparing documentation for a medical device.
• Marketing is adapting a product campaign for 20 countries.
• Customer Support is updating 800 knowledge base articles following a software release.

The appropriate workflow depends on the purpose and consequences of the content. Should these initiatives follow the same review process? Should they have identical quality thresholds? Should they involve the same people? Should they use AI in exactly the same way?

The obvious answer is no. Yet many organizations continue to design multilingual operations around standardized processes rather than business context.

Treating all three initiatives identically would create problems in different directions. Applying a regulatory review process to every support article would create unnecessary cost and delay. Publishing regulated medical content through a lightly reviewed AI workflow could create unacceptable compliance and safety exposure. Requiring several rounds of linguistic review for a short-lived marketing variation might slow campaign execution without producing equivalent business value.

Standardization creates consistency, but excessive standardization can also eliminate the flexibility needed to manage risk effectively.

Operational excellence is not achieved by making every workflow identical. It is achieved by making every workflow appropriate.

The conversation needs to move beyond AI models

Much of the current discussion around multilingual AI begins with technology. Should we use a general-purpose large language model? Should we use a specialized machine translation engine? Should we develop an internal language model? Which platform offers the highest quality? These questions matter. But they should emerge later down the line.

Technology should support an operating model. It should not define one.

Consider an organization evaluating AI translation for technical documentation. The technology team might compare several systems based on linguistic quality, integration options, security and cost. Those comparisons are useful. But they cannot answer more fundamental questions regarding quality requirements and responsibility.  Until these questions are answered, choosing a model solves only part of the problem.

Successful AI adoption begins with understanding the content, its business purpose and the consequences of failure. Technology selection follows.

Translation is becoming an operational capability

For decades, multilingual communication was often managed as a sequence of projects. Content arrived. Resources were assigned. Translation was completed. Quality was checked. The project was delivered. That model still exists, but it increasingly represents only part of the multilingual environment.

Global organizations now manage continuous content flows across product information management systems, content management systems, customer support platforms, regulatory repositories, e-commerce environments, learning platforms and AI-assisted knowledge bases.

A software company may release product updates every week. An e-commerce organization may change thousands of product descriptions every month. A manufacturer may continuously update technical documentation as products, components and regulations change. A customer support organization may generate new knowledge content every day.

Multilingual communication therefore becomes less episodic and more continuous. This changes the role of localization. 

The challenge is no longer simply coordinating translation projects. It is orchestrating people, technology, terminology, content systems, quality controls and approval processes across multiple business functions. That is an operational capability.

Every piece of content carries a different kind of risk

Language quality remains essential. But language quality alone does not determine whether a multilingual workflow is appropriate. Business context matters equally.

Consider a mistranslated sentence in four different environments. In an internal training article, the error may create minor confusion. On an e-commerce product page, it could contribute to a return or lost sale. In an installation manual, it could result in incorrect product use. In regulated healthcare content, it could create a compliance or patient-safety issue.

The linguistic error may be similar. The business consequence is not.

Organizations therefore need to evaluate multilingual content across several dimensions, including:

• regulatory and legal exposure
• health and safety implications
• financial impact
• reputational impact
• customer experience
• content lifespan
• audience size
• reversibility of errors
• required traceability
• speed and volume requirements

These factors help determine how much automation, human expertise and validation a workflow requires. This also prevents organizations from making the opposite mistake: applying expensive controls where they create little additional value. Treating every content type the same is costing organizations time, money and quality.

The future belongs to organizations that evaluate multilingual communication not only by linguistic quality, but by business consequence.

The organizations scaling AI are changing the question

The early stage of AI adoption focused heavily on capability: What can we automate? The next stage requires a more operational question: How should different types of content be governed?

Operational orchestration represents that next stage of maturity. This recognizes that multilingual communication is not one activity. It is a portfolio of decisions.

Some content prioritizes speed. Some prioritizes precision. Some require traceability. Some need native-market adaptation. Some can tolerate occasional errors because they are easy to identify and correct. Other content requires extensive validation before publication because an error cannot easily be reversed.

The objective is therefore neither to maximize AI or human review, nor to eliminate them. Both approaches can create unnecessary risk or cost when applied indiscriminately.

The objective is to combine technology, process and expertise according to the business requirements of the content. That requires organizations to understand something that traditional translation workflows have not always made explicit: the business risk associated with multilingual content.

A new way of thinking about multilingual operations

The AI era is not simply changing how multilingual communication is produced. It is changing how multilingual operations should be designed.

Organizations that apply identical workflows across fundamentally different content types will find it increasingly difficult to balance quality, speed, cost and governance.

A more scalable approach starts by differentiating content according to business context. High-risk content receives stronger controls and specialist oversight. High-volume, lower-risk content can benefit from greater automation.

Technology connects the workflows. Terminology, quality standards and governance provide consistency across them. Human expertise is concentrated where judgment matters most.

This is the shift from translation management to multilingual operations. And it changes the definition of scale. Scaling no longer means simply translating more words with fewer resources. It means creating an operating model capable of making appropriate decisions across thousands of multilingual content assets, multiple markets and different levels of business risk.

The organizations that develop this capability will be better positioned to use AI responsibly while improving efficiency, consistency and time-to-market. The advantage will not come from producing the greatest volume of AI-translated content. It will come from knowing what to automate, what to review and why.

Coming next: From principle to framework

Across this first trilogy of the Multilingual Intelligence Model, we have explored three connected shifts.

Artificial intelligence is turning multilingual communication from a production challenge into an operational management challenge. Different types of content require different levels of technology, expertise and control. And scaling AI responsibly requires organizations to understand the business consequences of multilingual content before deciding how it should be processed.

The next step is to turn these principles into a practical operating framework. In the next trilogy, we will examine how organizations can classify multilingual content according to business context and risk, and how those classifications can guide decisions about AI, human review, quality assurance and governance.

About the Multilingual Intelligence Model

This article is part of the Multilingual Intelligence Model, a Ciklopea thought leadership series examining how organizations can build responsible, AI-enabled multilingual communication capabilities.

Future articles will explore content risk, multilingual governance, AI operating models and the evolving role of multilingual communication as a strategic business function.

The post Scaling AI Across Multilingual Content: The Biggest Mistake Organizations Make appeared first on Ciklopea.

Over the past two decades, organizations have invested significantly in making multilingual communication more efficient.

They have implemented Translation Management Systems (TMS), built translation memories and terminology databases, established review processes, introduced machine translation and, more recently, started experimenting with generative AI.

These investments have improved productivity and made multilingual operations considerably more scalable. Yet one important assumption has often remained unchanged: Every piece of multilingual content is managed as though it deserves approximately the same operational treatment.

Different languages. Different markets. Different business objectives. Often the same workflow.

Content is submitted for translation, processed using a predefined combination of technology and linguistic resources, reviewed, approved and published. For years, this standardization was a reasonable way to maintain control over increasingly complex multilingual operations. In the AI era, however, it is becoming an expensive limitation.

The issue is not that standardized processes are inherently inefficient. Standardization remains essential for quality, consistency and governance. The problem is standardizing the wrong part of the process.

Organizations need consistent governance, terminology and quality principles. They do not necessarily need identical workflows for every type of content.

Not all multilingual content creates the same business consequences

Consider six common examples:

• medical device Instructions for Use
• a product launch campaign
• a customer support article
• an internal HR announcement
• an investor presentation
• a social media post

All require multilingual communication. All create business value. But the consequences of an error differ significantly.

A terminology inconsistency in a social media post may affect brand perception. The same inconsistency in regulated product documentation could create a compliance issue, introduce ambiguity for the user or delay market access.

A slightly unnatural sentence in an internal announcement may be inconvenient but manageable. Ambiguous wording in a contractual clause may create legal or commercial consequences.

A customer support article presents a different challenge again. Individual errors may carry relatively limited risk, but outdated or inaccurate articles replicated across thousands of customer interactions can increase support volumes and reduce customer satisfaction.

This distinction matters because quality requirements should reflect business consequences, not simply content volume or language pair.

A practical example: three content types, three appropriate workflows

Imagine a medical technology company preparing multilingual content for a new product. It needs to localize three types of content. 

The first is the product’s Instructions for Use. This content may require approved terminology, subject-matter linguists, controlled translation memory, documented review, regulatory validation and complete traceability of changes. AI and machine translation may support specific stages, but the workflow must remain governed by the regulatory requirements and risk profile of the content.

The second is a series of product marketing pages. Accuracy and terminology still matter, but the objective is different. Brand consistency, readability, market relevance and time-to-market become more prominent. AI-assisted translation combined with expert linguistic review may provide the appropriate balance.

The third is a set of internal project updates for employees. Here, speed may matter considerably more than stylistic refinement. A securely deployed AI workflow, supported by approved terminology and appropriate data governance, may be sufficient without requiring the same level of human review.

One company. One product. Potentially the same target languages. Three different operational models.

Applying the regulatory workflow to all three categories would create unnecessary cost and delay. Applying the internal communication workflow to all three would create unacceptable risk.

The efficient solution is not maximum automation or maximum human review. It is appropriate control.

AI amplifies both efficiency and mistakes

Artificial intelligence has dramatically reduced the effort required to produce multilingual content. That creates significant opportunities for organizations managing large content volumes.

AI can support translation, terminology extraction, content classification, quality checks, summarization, linguistic review and workflow orchestration. Combined with machine translation, translation memories and structured terminology, it can accelerate multilingual operations considerably.

But AI scales more than productivity. It also amplifies the critical need for decision-making. While it may seem that way, AI doesn’t make translation easier.

Consider an organization with a knowledge base containing 20,000 support articles across 15 languages. If an unsuitable translation process affects one article, the impact is limited.

If automation applies the same unsuitable process to the entire repository, the problem becomes systemic. Incorrect terminology, outdated instructions or misleading product information can propagate across markets before a human reviewer sees the first example. The economics of localization have therefore changed, and so have the economics of error.

Organizations can now produce multilingual content faster than their traditional review structures can realistically inspect it. This means the central AI question is no longer simply: “Is the technology accurate enough?”

A more useful question is: “Under which conditions is this level of automation appropriate?”

That requires understanding the content before selecting the technology.

The problem isn’t language

It’s decision making.

Multilingual operations have traditionally been organized around languages. French. German. Spanish. Japanese.

Operational decisions often followed target markets, linguistic resources, vendor capacity and translation volumes. Those factors still matter. But another variable is becoming increasingly important: the business context of the content itself.

Two assets translated from English into German may require entirely different levels of human involvement, quality assurance and governance. A German regulatory submission and a German internal newsletter share a language pair. Operationally, however, they have very little in common. Conversely, a technical support article translated into German, French and Italian may follow the same workflow because its purpose, risk level, content structure and quality requirements are consistent across those markets.

This leads to an important principle: Language determines linguistic requirements and content context determines operational requirements.

Effective multilingual operations need to manage both.

Efficiency without differentiation creates hidden costs

When every content type receives the same operational treatment, organizations usually encounter one of two problems.

The first is over-engineering. Low-risk content receives extensive human review even when speed and scalability matter more than linguistic refinement.

Imagine a global technology company publishing 500 minor knowledge-base updates every month. If every update requires translation, linguistic review, internal market review and final approval across ten languages, the organization creates thousands of review actions each month. 

The question is not whether those reviews improve quality. Some undoubtedly do. The relevant question is whether the improvement justifies the cost and delay for every piece of content. If the answer is no, review capacity is being consumed where it creates limited business value.

The second problem is under-engineering. High-impact content receives insufficient oversight because it follows the same automated workflow as lower-risk material. A process optimized for product descriptions may be entirely inappropriate for safety instructions, contractual content or regulated labeling.

Neither outcome creates value; one consumes resources unnecessarily, the other creates avoidable risk, and both reduce organizational agility. Organizations may believe they are standardizing quality when, in practice, they are standardizing effort regardless of business impact.

The future belongs to differentiated workflows

Mature multilingual operations increasingly resemble portfolios rather than production lines.

Different categories of content require different combinations of:

• human expertise
• machine translation
• generative AI
• translation memory
• terminology management
• automated quality assurance
• subject-matter review
• regulatory validation
• workflow automation
• data and AI governance

The objective is not to build one localization process that performs adequately in every situation. It is to establish a structured operating model that selects the appropriate process for each situation.

That shift affects more than translation. It influences budgets because organizations can direct specialist review toward higher-impact content. It affects technology decisions because tools are selected according to specific operational requirements rather than deployed indiscriminately. It strengthens governance because teams can define where automation is permitted, where human approval is mandatory and how exceptions are handled. It improves scalability because increasing content volumes no longer require human review to increase at exactly the same rate. Most importantly, it connects multilingual operations directly with business objectives.

From translation management to multilingual communication management

For many years, the language industry focused primarily on improving translation production.

Translation memory reduced repetitive work. Terminology management improved consistency. Machine translation increased throughput. Translation Management Systems improved workflow coordination.

These developments remain essential, but organizations are now operating in a different environment.

Content is continuously created and updated across websites, product platforms, support systems, learning environments, content management systems and internal communication channels. AI further accelerates that production. The challenge is therefore larger than translation.

Organizations need to decide what content should be localized, how quickly, using which technology, with what level of human expertise, under which governance rules and according to which definition of quality.

That is not simply translation management. It is multilingual communication management. The distinction matters because it changes the role of the localization function.

Instead of primarily coordinating translation production, multilingual teams increasingly become responsible for designing the rules that determine how content moves safely and efficiently across languages, technologies and markets.

Their value shifts from processing content to orchestrating multilingual assets.

A different question for leadership teams

Executives considering AI in multilingual operations often begin with a reasonable question: “How much of our content can AI translate?” The answer can produce useful estimates about automation and cost. But it does not provide an operating model.

A more valuable question is: “Which content deserves which operational approach?”

That question forces the organization to consider business impact, risk, quality requirements, technology, human expertise and governance together. Only then does it make sense to ask how much can be automated. This distinction becomes increasingly important as AI capabilities improve.

Organizations that classify their content and design differentiated workflows can automate where automation creates measurable value, while preserving specialist human involvement where judgment, precision and accountability remain essential.

The result is not simply lower localization cost. It is better allocation of expertise, faster multilingual delivery, stronger risk management and a more scalable foundation for international growth.

Because effective multilingual communication has never required applying the same process everywhere. It requires applying the right level of expertise, technology and control where each creates the greatest value.

Artificial intelligence has made that principle much more important.

Coming next

In the first article of this series, we explored why AI has transformed multilingual communication from a translation challenge into an operational one.

This article examined the next consequence: why organizations can no longer afford to treat every type of multilingual content in the same way.

The next installment addresses a related challenge in enterprise AI adoption: Why implementing AI without understanding content is like building a motorway without traffic rules.

We will examine how organizations can develop a structured understanding of their multilingual content before deciding where AI, automation and human expertise should be applied.

About the Multilingual Intelligence Initiative

This article is part of the Multilingual Intelligence Initiative, a Ciklopea thought leadership series examining how organizations can build responsible, AI-enabled multilingual communication capabilities.

Future articles will explore content risk, multilingual governance, AI operating models and the evolving role of multilingual communication as a strategic business function.

The post Why Treating Every Content Type the Same Is Costing Organizations Time, Money and Quality appeared first on Ciklopea.

AI-Powered Translation, Expert Human Localization

A key focus at Automechanika will be Ciklopea’s approach to machine translation and machine translation post-editing (MTPE). AI and automation are used where they provide measurable value – accelerating workflows, supporting high content volumes and reducing localization costs – while expert linguists and domain specialists remain responsible for terminology, context and quality-critical content.

Ciklopea’s automotive localization solutions follow recognized quality standards, including ISO 17100 for translation services and ISO 18587 for machine translation post-editing.

The objective is straightforward: help automotive brands launch products globally faster while maintaining terminology consistency, technical accuracy and high-quality multilingual communication.

Localization Built Around Automotive Requirements

Ciklopea supports automotive organizations with multilingual technical documentation, websites and marketing materials, software and apps, training content and multilingual content management.

Each workflow is designed around quality, security, and traceability, guiding content through a structured process that includes source content preparation, AI translation, expert linguist review, terminology and brand checks, quality assurance, and final delivery of localized content ready for global markets.

ISO-certified processes, NDA compliance, GDPR requirements, secure file handling and structured quality assurance help ensure that multilingual content remains controlled throughout the localization lifecycle.

From Translation Provider to Localization Partner

The resulting benefits extend beyond translated content: faster global product launches, consistent branding, fewer technical errors, stronger regulatory compliance, improved customer experience and lower localization costs.

Ciklopea’s role is therefore not limited to translation. The company works as a long-term localization partner, helping clients build integrated multilingual workflows aligned with their operational and regulatory requirements.

If you are attending Automechanika Frankfurt, meet the Ciklopea team at Hall 11, Stand B15 and discuss how localization can support your international growth.

You can also book a meeting with Ana Meštrović before the event.

The post Ciklopea at Automechanika Frankfurt 2026 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Much of the discussion about AI in the language industry still focuses on one question: Can AI replace translators?

It is understandable why this question receives so much attention. Generative AI and machine translation systems can already produce useful translations for many types of content.

But for organizations operating across multiple markets, this is not the most important question.

A more useful question would be:

How should we manage multilingual communication when AI can generate and translate content at unprecedented scale?

Consider a global technology company with a website, software interface, knowledge base, customer support operation and regular product releases.

Previously, the company might have sent defined batches of content for localization. Today, AI can translate new support articles immediately, generate localized marketing variations and help teams adapt product information continuously.

The challenge shifts from producing translations to deciding how those translations should be reviewed, approved and maintained. Hence, the role of LSPs in an AI-driven world is shifting from translation to risk management and trust.

AI Solved the Production Problem

Traditional localization workflows were relatively predictable.

Content was created, prepared for translation, translated by language specialists, reviewed and published. The process was usually organized around individual projects, releases or campaigns.

AI changes that model because content itself is becoming continuous.

A software company may update its interface several times each month. An eCommerce organization may add hundreds of product descriptions. A customer support team may revise knowledge articles every day. Marketing teams may use generative AI to create multiple versions of the same campaign for different audiences.

Producing multilingual content is therefore no longer necessarily the bottleneck.

The new bottleneck is decision-making:

• Which content should use AI?
• Which content requires human expertise?
• Which content must remain under strict governance?
• Who remains accountable for quality?
• How do we ensure consistency across hundreds of AI-assisted workflows?

Without clear answers, automation can simply accelerate inconsistency.

For example, if five regional marketing teams use different AI tools with different prompts and terminology, they may all produce acceptable translations individually. Across the organization, however, product names, technical terminology and brand language can begin to diverge.

Ironically, the easier content becomes to produce, the harder it becomes to manage responsibly.

Translation Is No Longer the Challenge

Many organizations still manage multilingual communication as a collection of translation projects.

That approach worked reasonably well when volumes were limited and localization happened at defined points in the content lifecycle.

It becomes increasingly difficult when multilingual content exists across websites, applications, product documentation, support portals, regulatory materials, internal knowledge bases and AI-generated content.

The questions organizations need to answer are therefore changing.

How should workflows be designed?

How should content be classified?

How should AI be governed?

How should quality be measured?

Which content requires traceability?

How should risk be managed?

These are not purely linguistic questions.

They involve process design, technology, quality management, risk management and organizational responsibility.

This is why multilingual communication increasingly needs to be managed as an operational capability rather than a sequence of individual translation requests.

Not Every Piece of Content Requires the Same Workflow

One of the most important principles of effective multilingual operations is simple:

Operational orchestration in the AI era means that different content carries different levels of risk.

An Instructions for Use document for a medical device can affect patient safety and regulatory compliance. A financial disclosure may create legal or reputational consequences if terminology is inaccurate.

A product description for an online store has different requirements. A short-lived social media post has different requirements again.

Using the same localization workflow for all four makes little operational sense.

AI makes this distinction even more important.

Imagine a manufacturer translating 5,000 eCommerce product descriptions. An AI-assisted workflow combined with terminology controls and targeted human review may provide an appropriate balance between speed, cost and quality.

Now consider the same manufacturer translating safety instructions for industrial equipment.

The potential consequences of an ambiguous warning or incorrect technical term justify stronger controls, specialist review and documented validation.

Once AI is introduced, applying the wrong workflow no longer creates isolated mistakes. It creates systemic risk at scale.

The Organizations That Will Succeed Won’t Use More AI

Another common assumption is that organizations with the highest level of automation will gain the greatest advantage from AI.

Experience suggests a more balanced approach.

The most effective multilingual operating models use automation where it creates measurable business value and human expertise where judgment, context or accountability matters.

Low-risk, repetitive content may be suitable for machine translation or AI-assisted workflows with automated quality checks.

High-visibility marketing content may require native linguists who understand tone, market expectations and brand positioning.

Regulatory, legal, medical or safety-critical content may require subject-matter expertise, structured review and full traceability.

The objective is therefore not to automate everything.

It is to establish a structured decision-making framework that connects:

• Business value
• Human expertise
• Governance

Finding the right balance requires a different way of thinking about multilingual communication – not as a language service, but as an operational capability.

Better Decisions Will Matter More Than Faster Translation

Organizations already measure capabilities such as cybersecurity maturity, digital maturity and AI readiness.

Multilingual operational maturity deserves similar attention.

International organizations increasingly depend on multilingual content to support customer experience, regulatory compliance, product adoption and international growth. As AI increases the volume and speed of content production, weaknesses in terminology management, workflow design and governance become more visible.

A company may be able to translate a product update into 20 languages within minutes.

But speed provides limited value if terminology differs from the software interface, legal requirements are overlooked or local teams spend days correcting the output.

The competitive advantage is therefore not simply faster translation.

It is the ability to decide what should be automated, what requires expert review, how quality should be measured and how multilingual content should be governed across the organization.

This Is Only the Beginning

Artificial intelligence has not removed the need for language expertise.

It has changed where that expertise creates the greatest value.

Language specialists increasingly work alongside technology, terminology resources, automated quality controls and integrated content systems. Their role becomes particularly important where context, subject-matter knowledge and professional judgment determine whether content is appropriate for its intended audience.

At the same time, organizations need stronger operational structures around multilingual communication.

The result is not AI instead of human expertise.

It is technology-enabled multilingual operations built around appropriate governance and specialist knowledge, which is exactly why machine translation paired with human post-editing still outperforms fully AI-driven translation.

Over the coming weeks, the Multilingual Intelligence Initiative will examine what this shift means in practice.

The next article will explore why treating every content type in the same way can become an expensive operational mistake, and why content risk should be one of the foundations of responsible AI adoption.

About the Multilingual Intelligence Initiative

This article is part of the Multilingual Intelligence Initiative, a Ciklopea thought leadership series examining how organizations can build responsible, AI-enabled multilingual communication capabilities.

Future articles will explore content risk, multilingual governance, AI operating models and the evolving role of multilingual communication as a strategic business function.

The post Why AI Does Not Make Translation Easier appeared first on Ciklopea.

From Translation to Player Experience

Game localization solutions go far beyond translating dialogue or interface text. Poorly adapted terminology, broken placeholders, oversized UI strings or culturally inappropriate references can immediately disrupt immersion – and in extreme cases, damage reviews, player trust and the commercial performance of an otherwise strong title. Ciklopea’s gaming workflows therefore place the player experience at the center of localization, combining native gaming linguists, cultural adaptation and in-context linguistic QA.

MTPE Built Around Quality

At gamescom, the Ciklopea team will place particular emphasis on machine translation post-editing (MTPE) and how AI-assisted workflows can accelerate localization without sacrificing linguistic quality. Human experts remain central to the process, reviewing machine-generated content for accuracy, terminology, tone and context while workflows are structured around recognized translation and MTPE quality standards.

This combination enables studios to manage increasing content volumes and tighter release schedules while maintaining the consistency players expect across languages and markets.

Meet Ciklopea in Cologne

If you are attending gamescom and looking to improve your localization strategy, global launch process or player experience, meet the Ciklopea team at Hall 2.1, Stand D028.

To start the conversation before the event, you can also book a meeting directly with Ana Meštrović.

Whether you are preparing a new release, expanding an existing title or rethinking your localization workflow, stop by for a coffee and a conversation about games, languages and global growth.

About Ciklopea

Ciklopea is an industry-focused language solutions provider with more than 20 years of experience in translation, localization, MTPE and language technology. The company combines human expertise with technology-driven workflows to help organizations deliver multilingual content efficiently, consistently and at scale across global markets.

About Orchestrum

Orchestrum is Ciklopea’s proprietary translation business management system designed specifically for language service providers. It supports workflow automation, intelligent resource management, vendor and client collaboration, financial processes, and scalable localization operations within a single platform.

The post Ciklopea at Gamescom 2026 appeared first on Ciklopea.

What Is Localization 

Localization means translation plus adaptation to the specifics of a local market. Localized content must be clear, usable, and adequately aligned with the target language market. Units, currency, formats, and tone all must match local expectations while conveying the core message. 

Strictly speaking, localization comes first because every business first needs to explain the basic concepts to their audience. Of course, that’s not set in stone. 

What Is Transcreation

Transcreation recreates (or transcreates) a content message in the target language to elicit the same emotional response as the original. What counts here is the impact the message has on the audience, not only its accuracy. Oftentimes, transcreation happens simultaneously while the message in question is being written. 

This is something that experienced language service providers bear in mind when approaching a translation project. 

5 Use Cases Where You Need Localization

Localization is necessary when the goal of content adaptation is usability, rather than persuasion. The target audience needs to be able to understand the content in question and act accordingly. The emotional aspect isn’t the most important element here. What matters more is to inform target audiences in one or more languages. Let’s analyze some contexts where localization is necessary. 

Product Setup and Instructional Content

Assembly steps and how-to guides exist to get users from box to finished product with as little friction as possible. Localization keeps the language plain and consistent, so the instructions read the same regardless of market. 

So, when a furniture company puts together its assembly instructions, it has to translate and localize its content. However, it doesn’t have to be transcreated; at least not when it comes to sheer product use instructions. 

IKEA is one of the most renowned global furniture brands. They need to localize such instructions for different markets. In addition to localization, IKEA and similar brands make proper use of diagrams and drawings because that’s a universal language.

Image credit @ Ikea

Compliance and Legal Documentation 

Legal text carries specific obligations that don’t leave room for creative interpretation. Localization keeps the meaning and structure intact, so the document holds up the same way in every language it’s translated into. 

What’s more, every website needs to include a privacy policy that explains how it protects user data from cybercriminals. 

Apple’s privacy policy, for instance, is detailed and strict in English and in other languages in which it is localized. The structure, clauses, and legal meaning are kept identical in various iterations; check out the German localization below. 

Image credit @ Apple

App and Interface Copy 

Users interacting with a product’s interface are focused on completing a task, rather than being persuaded. Localization keeps buttons, menus, and settings labels clear and functional, so the experience feels familiar no matter the language. 

Still, the brand voice needs to stay the same across different languages. 

For instance, Spotify retains its recognizable visual identity in the same way on its homepage in English and in its Italian version.

Image credit @ Spotify

Configuration and Settings Content 

Adjusting device settings needs to be equally convenient for a user in the US, South Africa, or South Korea. Creativity isn’t the main translation vehicle in this case, but concise and accurate localization. Localization prioritizes accuracy and consistency here, since creative turns would only get in the way of a simple task. 

Speaking of South Korea, Samsung is present in the entire world, meaning the people behind this brand must treat all their markets with equal care. Two versions of the Quick Start Guide for North America come in English and Spanish. The content is translated and localized in a straightforward, user-friendly manner. 

Image credits @ Samsung

Subtitles and Platform Interfaces 

Streaming platforms mix functional content, like menus and settings, with narrative content, like scripts and dialogue. Localization handles the functional layer first, making the platform usable before any deeper cultural adaptation comes into play. 

Netflix adapts subtitles, scripts, and dubbing features to different languages. They can’t just literally translate the content they stream. What’s more, they make a serious effort to localize their on-site content, so various audiences can access and consume this streaming platform more conveniently. 

Image credit @ Netflix

In all five cases above, success means the message needs to be legible, accurate, and consistent. What’s more, aiming for creativity in these cases might even confuse the end user. 

5 Use Cases Where You Need Transcreation

A business that wants to convey a deeper emotional message, raising awareness of their product or brand policy, typically needs transcreation. In this case, transferring only a message could lead to an undertranslation – including fewer details than necessary in the final product. 

Taglines and Slogans 

A slogan lives or dies by its rhythm and wordplay, which rarely survives a literal translation. It also needs to resonate with the particular local audience to have a proper effect. Transcreation rebuilds the phrase from scratch so it keeps its punch in the new language. Hence, globally present businesses usually have to adapt their slogans to different audiences, in line with the cultural and economic conditions in the field. 

For instance, Haribo’s long-term tagline in German is “Haribo macht Kinder froh und Erwachsene ebenso.” Literally, this means “Haribo makes children happy, as well as adults”. 

In English, the transcreated version is “Kids and grown-ups love it so, the happy world of Haribo”. The original tagline had to be adapted so that it preserves the rhyme and the rhythm, and still conveys the marketing message of the original.

Image credit @ Haribo

Culturally-Rooted Campaign Transcreation

Finding a marketing anchor or association in the local language is a perfect nest for transcreation. Transcreation is looking for that local hook rather than forcing the original concept to translate directly. 

Speaking of nest, Nestlé Japan carried out perfect transcreation for their KitKat campaign. Since there’s an expression kitto katsu in Japanese (きっと勝つ), meaning “You surely win”, applying transcreation was an obvious choice. 

The original slogan “Have a break, have a KitKat” wouldn’t sound powerful enough in Japanese, while the transcreated version has made this campaign one of the most successful adapted campaigns in general, not only for Nestlé. 

Image credit @ KitKat

Personalized Marketing Content

Personalization campaigns often hinge on details, like names, that don’t carry the same meaning across cultures. Transcreation adapts the mechanic itself so the campaign still feels personal in each market. 

A person’s name is definitely one of their strongest mental associations. The marketing gurus from Coca-Cola realized in 2011 that printing people’s first names on bottle labels could be a smart idea. They did it first in Australia that same year, with the 150 most popular first names down under. Originally promoted under the “Share a Coke” umbrella slogan, this campaign has been adapted to 120+ markets so far. 

What’s more, there’s even an option to request a customized bottle of Coke with a person’s name in case it’s not among the ones printed by the company. It hardly gets more personalized than this, at least on a global level. 

Image credit @ Coca Cola

Adaptable Global Campaigns 

A strong campaign concept can travel across markets, but its execution rarely can. Transcreation keeps the core idea intact while rebuilding the details around local humor and relevant faces. 

Therefore, many brands develop a universal message or tagline only to adapt it to local humour, famous people, or social settings. 

Snickers’ campaign under the slogan “You’re not you when you’re hungry” has become one of the most famous campaigns in the world in the last decade. The original slogan was adapted to various markets, with different celebrities taking part in the commercial variations. In line with that, Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean has become a memorable association of the Snickers chocolate bar. 

Image credit @ Sneakers

Brand Voice and Personality 

Some brands build their entire identity around a distinct personality rather than a product feature. When that’s the case, transcreation protects the character that makes the brand recognizable in the first place. 

Duolingo is one of the most effective examples of appealingly executed transcreation across several markets. The company works with different social media accounts for different markets (German, Japanese, Spanish, French, Vietnamese, etc.). Their visually appealing owl logo is an outgoing socialite in Germany, while it’s a sweet and playful birdie in the content for the Brazilian market. Even the sentences inside the app aren’t just translated from one language to another – they’re genuinely written to grasp the feel of different languages.

Image credit @ Duolingo

Localization vs Transcreation: How to Choose?

Since translation is rarely a mathematically strict process, it’s hard to tell at the beginning of a new project whether it will include only localization services or there will be a need for transcreation services, as well. But the following questions might help. 

What’s the Purpose of the Content?

The first question LSPs need to ask themselves is what this asset is for. Tutorials, instructions, and documentation need to inform, rather than persuade. The localization meaning of clarity and function resonates better with such purposes. If sales and particular landing pages are part of the project, it will have to include transcreation storytelling, delving into the transcreation meaning of emotional resonance and persuasion. 

What’s the Cultural Context? 

The next criterion in deciding between transcreation and localization is the content’s cultural context. Using humour, idioms, and pop cultural references requires transcreation. Still, content aimed at close markets in the same language (think DACH) can often stay within the localization segment. 

How Much Does the Brand Voice Matter?

The weight of the brand in question’s voice is another important checkpoint. If a brand’s recognizability is based on minute details (such as Duolingo), transcreation is a brand’s voice protector. Brands that build their voice on precision will often find localization good enough. 

What’s the Budget and the Timeframe?

Choosing between localization and transcreation also depends on the budget and time interval. Localization is usually faster, ideal for high-volume projects (especially with the help of machine translation). Transcreation is usually slower and costs more, as it includes copywriters, brand managers, etc. 

What’s the Brand’s Local Market Presence? 

Finally, a new brand in a certain market will most probably need more transcreation to ensure winning over the new audience. Once established, localization can handle the content, with transcreation jumping in for new campaigns. 

In the end, localization and transcreation are rarely two completely separate processes. It’s just a matter of the level of brand awareness and presence in a certain market. 

Transcreation vs Localization: The Practical Distinction

When Combining Localization and Transcreation Works

Localization and transcreation are two sides of the same translation coin. The only thing is that LSPs and businesses shouldn’t leave this choice to luck. On the contrary, seasoned translation professionals need to work together with their clients on setting the goals of every such translation project. When the client provides enough information, the LSP can suggest the right workflow. In a nutshell, localization should be used for heavy lifting and basic explanations, while transcreation comes for fine strokes and deeper connotations. 

Using these two translation methodologies together, but not always at the same time, is typically the best possible practical utilization. 

With many localization and transcreation projects under its belt in 20+ years in the translation industry, Ciklopea knows how to make your brand start speaking in different languages. Get in touch to find out more and ask for your personalized quote today. 

The post Transcreation vs Localization: Which Strategy Is Best for Your Business? appeared first on Ciklopea.

For many studios, English-speaking markets represent only a fraction of their potential audience. Reaching players across Europe, Asia and Latin America requires more than translating in-game text. It requires games that feel natural, culturally relevant and engaging in every market.

Game localization has therefore evolved from a production task into a strategic business function. By combining linguistic expertise, cultural adaptation and structured localization processes, developers can expand into new markets, improve player engagement and create stronger long-term revenue opportunities.

For many successful titles, international markets generate most of the lifetime revenue. Localization is no longer simply about language. It is part of building sustainable global growth.

How Game Localization Increases Revenue and Player Engagement

Players consistently prefer games they can experience in their native language. Research and industry experience show that players are more likely to purchase, recommend and continue playing games that feel designed for their local market.

This becomes particularly important in large gaming markets such as Germany, France, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and China, where expectations for fully localised experiences continue to grow.

Effective game localization extends well beyond dialogue and interface translation. It includes adapting:

• gameplay instructions
• cultural references
• user interface elements
• store listings
• marketing content
• community communications

Each element contributes to a smoother player journey.

When players immediately understand gameplay mechanics, humour and narrative, they are more likely to remain engaged, leave positive reviews and recommend the game to others.

Localization also improves discoverability on digital storefronts by making product pages more relevant to local audiences. Rather than increasing advertising spend to reach new players, developers can often expand their addressable market simply by making their games accessible to more regions.

Studios that integrate localization early in development typically benefit from more efficient production workflows, smoother multilingual releases and fewer costly revisions close to launch.

Why Context Matters More Than Word-for-Word Translation

One of the best-known examples in game localization comes from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and the now-famous line:

“I AM ERROR.”

For many years, players assumed this was simply a translation mistake.

In reality, the original Japanese version also introduces a character named Error. A more natural English adaptation, such as “My name is Error,” would have immediately clarified the intended meaning.

The bigger localization challenge appeared elsewhere.

Another character, originally named Bug, remained as Bagu in the English version because the Japanese phonetic spelling was preserved instead of adapting the intended meaning. As a result, international players missed the relationship between the two characters and the original joke created by the developers.

The example demonstrates an important principle of professional game localization services.

Accurate translation alone is rarely enough.

Language specialists must also preserve narrative intent, humour, character relationships and cultural context so players experience the game as it was originally designed.

How Poor Localization Affects Player Experience

The impact of localization extends far beyond isolated translation choices.

A misunderstood joke, inconsistent terminology or poorly adapted cultural reference can interrupt immersion, create confusion within player communities and influence reviews. Small issues accumulate, affecting how players perceive the overall quality of a game.

Modern titles make this challenge considerably more complex than it was during the early console era.

Today’s games often include branching narratives, live-service updates, downloadable content, multiplayer communities and continuous content releases. Maintaining consistency across every release requires structured terminology management, contextual review and well-defined localization workflows.

Successful studios increasingly rely on specialised language partners that combine experienced linguists with technology-enabled processes to maintain consistency throughout development.

The objective is not to reproduce every word exactly.

It is to ensure players experience the same story, humour, emotional impact and gameplay intent, regardless of language.

Why Early Game Localization Delivers Better ROI

International launches reward preparation.

Studios that plan localization from the beginning of development can integrate multilingual content into production more efficiently, reduce technical debt and avoid costly last-minute revisions.

Early localization also supports:

• faster multilingual releases
• consistent terminology across updates
• improved collaboration between development and localization teams
• scalable workflows for downloadable content and live-service games
• lower operational risk throughout the product lifecycle

Rather than treating localization as a final production step, experienced developers increasingly build it into their development strategy from the outset.

The result is greater operational efficiency, better localization ROI, and a stronger foundation for international growth.

Professional Game Localization Creates Long-Term Business Value

Industry events such as Gamescom continue to reinforce the same message: global success requires games that resonate with players across multiple markets.

Professional game localization should therefore be viewed as an investment in sustainable growth rather than an operational cost.

By combining subject-matter linguists, structured quality processes and technology-enabled workflows, organisations can launch multilingual games with greater consistency, lower risk and improved player experiences.

Building scalable localization workflows early also supports faster releases, consistent terminology and more efficient collaboration across global development teams.

The outcome is more than a translated game. It is a game that feels natural to players, regardless of where they are playing or which language they speak.

For studios preparing their first international launch or managing multilingual live-service content, structured localization provides the foundation for sustainable global growth. By combining linguistic expertise, cultural adaptation, localization technology and ISO-certified quality processes, specialised language partners help developers create experiences that resonate across markets while supporting long-term commercial success.

The post Why Game Localization Drives Global Revenue Growth for Game Developers appeared first on Ciklopea.

But what exactly is an IDML file and how can translators use it effectively?

What Is an IDML File?

IDML stands for InDesign Markup Language. When content is created through InDesign and needs to be exported elsewhere, an IDML file ensures that the document in question is structured in a translation-friendly manner.

In technical terms, IDML is a set of XML files that contain the vital items of the InDesign document in question: styles, page structure, stories, references to assets, and geometry.

This preservation of important InDesign elements is the main reason why IDML files are a common choice in translation workflows. Phrase, Trados, memoQ, Smartcat, and other localization platforms can dissect an IDML file, detect the translatable text, and keep the structure that’s not translated, such as locked parts or tags.

Because in practice, translators don’t touch the basic, raw XML. They do their operations within the interface of CAT tools. They see and use the source text, apply the translation, and sort out inline tags that contain formatting or structural data. The end goal of this workflow is to translate the given text and keep the formatting of the document as is.

IDML vs INDD: Understanding the Difference

Understanding IDML vs INDD is important before preparing files for translation.

INDD stands for InDesign Document – a native document of Adobe InDesign. In other words, it’s a working file that designers use in InDesign to create document layouts. The key elements that an INDD file contains are: document structure, design settings, styles, links, layout data, and pages in InDesign’s native format. For designers, INDD is a perfect format for smooth and creative work. However, CAT tools and human translators alike have difficulties using the INDD file.

An IDML is an exported, adjusted version of the given INDD file. As explained above, it retains the structure and styling of the INDD file while allowing the content to be parsed, translated, and generally manipulated by CAT tools, AI-powered translation solutions, and human translators. Hence, when a translator or a translation agency needs to handle InDesign content, they typically ask for an IDML version instead of an INDD file.

That being said, the end product, i.e., the final translation, can still be delivered as an INDD file, an IDML document, or even a PDF. In some cases, a combination of these files is also acceptable. Still, the IDML translation is the main prerequisite for a smooth translation workflow, format-wise.

Why IDML Translation Can Go Wrong

Using an IDML file increases the chances that all the elements of translatable text within an InDesign document will be accessible. When an IDML file is added to a translation tool, it scans and parses the document in question. It also detects story files, uses translatable text, and preserves the format/layout information (object IDs, measurements, geometry, etc.), as well as style references that are kept as inline tags.

But an IDML translation can still go wrong; when the text is overset in InDesign, a CAT tool or a translator can miss it or discover it only during the post-translation desktop publishing procedure (DTP). As the number of manually formatted overrides increases, the CAT solution in question may lead to excessive inline tags, making a translation harder to handle; the risk of tag errors rises, as well.

The parts of text that appear on hidden layers or master pages might not be visible to a CAT tool at all. Also, if fonts aren’t supported in the target language, the translation layout might be broken even if the translation itself is accurate.

In a nutshell, the technical outlook of the IDML file depends on the format and overall quality of the source in the InDesign document. Every provider of multilingual content and DTP services needs to take care of all these elements before, during, and after every translation project.

Common Problems in IDML Files Before Translation

Based on the above, let’s analyze the most common problems in IDML files before translation. Detecting them in advance can help individual translators and translation companies organize their projects in a more efficient way.

1. Missing or Broken Links

If the images, linked assets, and graphics are missing, renamed, or stored in the wrong folder, the IDML may still open, but the InDesign file won’t be rebuilt correctly after the translation has been completed.

Hence, the InDesign file must be packaged properly before translation. The translator or the translation team needs to check all the links, as well as ask for the proper IDML file, the source INDD, fonts if necessary, and a final reference PDF.

2. Overset or Hidden Text

Overset text in InDesign refers to extra content placed outside the visible boundaries of a text frame. It may be hidden in the source file or become overset after translation because the text in target language goes beyond the text frame.

Non-printing objects and hidden layers can also create problems for translators. On the other hand, some of the document elements that are meant to stay locked can be extracted for translation.

Solution: run InDesign preflight checks and inspect the overset text manually, together with hidden layers, pasteboard content, and conditional text, before exporting IDML.

3. Text on Master Pages

Content from master pages is useful for the layout elements that repeat in a document. Still, it can lead to translation issues when it contains headers, footers, and disclaimers, i.e., real textual content.

Before the translation workflow begins, the localization team needs to check if the master page text requires translation. If so, the text on the master pages should be included in the workflow from the very beginning.

4. Excessive Local Formatting

Local formatting needs to be handled in an efficient and optimized manner. What does it mean in practice? The translation team should ask for a clean InDesign file before it’s exported to an IDML file: paragraph styles, character styles, and object styles should be used instead of manual overrides. That’s because clean styles in source documents lead to cleaner IDML files and translation segments that are easier to digest (both by translators and CAT tools).

5. Poor Segmentation Caused by Line Breaks

If translators receive fragmented segments, their entire workflow can be much slower, leading to prolonged translation projects. Neither clients nor language service providers (LSPs) are fond of late or incorrect translation.

For instance, inconsistent spacing, forced returns, and manual line breaks are all examples of poor segmentation.

Hence, before an IDML file is exported, it’s vital to remove the unnecessary line breaks, adjust the whitespaces, and avoid using returns. Layout spacing should be orchestrated through styles, not manual breaks.

6. Unsupported Fonts and Target-Language Scripts

A font that works perfectly in English may not support German or Croatian languages, let alone languages written in different letters, such as Serbian (Cyrillic) or Arabic. Wrong hyphenation, poor justification, and missing glyphs can suddenly appear once the translation is imported back to InDesign.

So, the translators in charge should confirm the target languages before the project begins, and check if the selected fonts are supported in the letter and characters in question. This is especially important for multilingual content and DTP services.

7. Tables and Anchored Objects Shifting

Designers should pay attention to tables, callouts, anchored objects, and icons before the document is sent to translators.

These elements can move after translation, especially if the target language is in another alphabet or contains diacritic accents. This collaboration between designers and translators, therefore, needs to exist before the translation works begin.

Hence, providing enough space for text expansion and proper styles is a prerequisite for successful and time-efficient translation.

8. Corrupted IDML Caused by Manual XML Edits

If a translator comes across a formatting issue during the translation process, they shouldn’t edit items manually on their own unless they are an experienced designer, as well. Changing IDs, references, or XML structure can harm the file and make it impossible to recreate it properly.

Long story short: only text elements should be changed during the translation. Any other necessary XML edits, such as structure, references, and layout instructions, should be sent back to designers for revision.

How to Fix IDML Issues Before Translation

Issues with an IDML file need to be curbed before the translation workflow begins. The first checkpoint, therefore, is the document preparation in InDesign.

The INDD file should first be opened and cleaned in the latest version of InDesign. A file from an older version needs to be updated, saved again, and checked before it’s exported to an IDML document.

The second checkpoint is looking for missing links, missing fonts, low-resolution assets, layout warnings, and overset text.

The third step is to clean the document structure: deleting duplicate or empty stories, tightening up spacing, and ensuring that character and paragraph styles are used correctly and consistently.

The fourth base is to inspect content visibility. Check the master pages, notes, conditional text, hidden layers, and non-printing elements – whether they need to be translated or left out of the translation process.

The fifth checkpoint is exporting a clean IDML file and testing it in the given CAT tool. If this document is tested before the project begins, all the stakeholders (primarily the designers and translators) will have enough time to prepare the missing elements, if any. If the text extraction, segmentation, and tags look correct, the translation workflow may commence.

Last, but not least, translators need as much content as possible. While an IDML file may reveal the text for translation, it might not display the entire visual logic of the translation material. In that sense, providing a reference PDF to the translator(s) is another prerequisite for a well-organized and timely executed translation project, as they ensure the translation team understands the page flow, tables, captions, callouts, and the entire visual hierarchy.

After Translation: QA, Rebuild, and DTP

Upon the completion of an IDML translation, the translated items are added back to the source XML structure and recreated as a localized IDML file. This is when the translation quality assurance inspection needs to be carried out, checking missing tags, as well as invalid characters, numbers, punctuation, spelling, and terminology.

The translated IDML file should open in InDesign afterwards. The potential final layout problems are visible at this stage. Some of the common post-import tasks to address can be reviewing line breaks, adapting text frames, repairing overset text, inspecting hyphenation, handling font issues, or correcting page breaks.

The final product typically includes the localized INDD file, the translated IDML file, and a print-ready PDF. Depending on the industry of the source text, the inspection process may include some other elements, as well.

The final PDF is the key deliverable submitted to the client, as it’s proof that the translation text, layout, and all visual elements have been checked and included in the final translation accordingly.

Final Thoughts

Not many professional translators are also experienced designers. Such crossovers exist, but they don’t prevail in these two fields. Therefore, a translator needs a properly adapted source text for effective and professional translation. IDML files connect InDesign structured with translation workflows. With an IDML file, a CAT tool can scan and use source text while retaining the layout of the original document.

However, an IDML file is good for use only when all the prerequisites in InDesign are met before the translation process begins. So, translation and localization teams must take the steps described in this guide to receive a fully operable IDML file. Experienced translation service providers ensure a smooth flow between clients, designers, and translators. Ciklopea has been a versatile language service provider for more than 20 years. Reach out to us for top-notch translation services, smooth InDesign documentation included.

The post What Can Go Wrong with an IDML File (and How to Fix It Before Translation) appeared first on Ciklopea.

Since then, the translation industry trends have been changing extremely fast. AI-powered translation solutions are the most obvious, game-changing innovations that have had a tremendous impact on this field. 

We already discussed how AI leads to word drift, compared words and tokens in AI translation, and the changing role of LSPs in AI-enhanced translation. 

If there’s one umbrella term for these groundbreaking changes, we’d go with ‘trends’. That’s why today we talk about the key translation industry trends 2026 and beyond. 

Localization-First Product and Content Design

In product development and marketing, localization would typically come second, back in the day. What has changed in the last few years is that we now start from the assumption that products and content are developed in different languages from the very beginning. 

Today, product, marketing and translation or language teams need to collaborate simultaneously to prepare all the necessary prerequisites in advance. The main benefits of the localization-first approach to product and content marketing are multilingual launches, lower costs in the long run, and an authentic user experience, rather than a translated one. 

Responsible and Ethical AI in Translation and Localization

Artificial intelligence is replacing a fair share of translators’ work, and we need to recognize that. At the same time, though, the role of human oversight is becoming more important than ever before. It’s the vehicle through which a translation service provider vets its accountability and experience. Responsible AI adoption means keeping track of all the AI-assisted translation processes and adding a human touch to every project. While the language itself doesn’t have to be perfect, compliance standards must be followed. 

For instance, in life sciences translation services, a machine translation error can lead to serious, even fatal consequences. This is exactly why human translation and/or post-editing is crucial. 

Translation Expands Beyond Text Into Multimedia Experiences

Subtitles, captions, voiceovers, and audio enhancements are now all part of the translation industry. Partially induced by innovative AI tools and mostly pushed by the general technological development, these multimedia experiences are becoming the essentials of global communication. 

Take, for instance, a promotional business YouTube video. If you’re aiming at a global audience, you must include English captions. Truth be told, they can be automatically generated, but they usually aren’t completely accurate. Some businesses might want to add Spanish (aiming at Latin America), German (targeting the DACH region), or other relevant languages. Organizations that don’t raise their bar in terms of multimedia translation and localization services are highly likely to fall behind.

Multilingual SEO, AEO, and GEO Reshape Global Content Strategy

Similar to the product marketing shift described above, SEO-based content is undergoing serious changes. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) now cross swords with traditional SEO. Internet users increasingly use LLMs to look for information, learn, or buy. 

That’s why now content must be optimized for both human readers and AI tools; direct and literal translation of source-language content misses the target, since search intent and expected thoroughness can’t be met that way. For this reason, from-scratch localization is becoming more important, as illustrated above. 

Hyper-Localization and Cultural Nuance at Scale

Translation has never been a word-by-word process. At least professional language service providers with decades of experience in the industry don’t do business that way. And today, when we’re witnessing the fast growth of non-English languages in the digital world, it’s more important than ever to adapt references, cultural assumptions, and emotional pathos, not just words. AI is already capable of approximating such occurrences, but it’s still not omnipotent, which takes us back to the role of human translators and editors. 

It’s this hyperlocalization that can make a business entity stand out equally successfully in different markets. If a certain campaign succeeds in one region and fails in another language environment, it can mean that the business in question needs more diverse marketing translation services. 

In a nutshell, companies and LSPs that apply hyperlocalization principles are more likely to present their ideas and products properly in different markets. The others will be lost in translation. 

Human-in-the-Loop Workflows and Standards Define Trust

AI translation is going to make the global language translation market more saturated with various services. On the one hand, most translators will have to adapt to the changes and adopt AI features that increase their efficiency. Some language professionals will have to change their jobs. However, human-centered workflows that meet the key industry standards will become more relevant. 

Every accountable LSP must comply with the ISO 18587 standard, which specifies the post-editing requirements that a human editor must apply to a machine translation output. Those translation companies providing services in the life sciences and medical devices industry also have to fulfil the prerequisites to obtain ISO 13485 – a standard for quality management in the field of medical devices. 

With adequate quality-assuring procedures and standards in place, a translation company will stay on top of the changes disrupting the industry. 

What’s Beyond 2026 in the Translation Industry?

English is still the predominant language on the World Wide Web, with 49.2% of all the content on the Internet published in this language. However, the population of Latin America, Africa, and Asia is growing. It means that Spanish and Mandarin Chinese will keep getting closer to English. LSPs will have to follow these trends and adapt their services to the global market movements. Those who deliver the required quality will stay accountable and keep growing in 2026 and beyond.

The good news for LSPs coming from smaller language markets is that there will be a growing need for localization and translation from those growing languages into the local ones. Reach out to Ciklopea and see why we’ve been one of the leading European translation companies for regulated industries in recent decades.

The post Translation Industry Trends for 2026 and Beyond appeared first on Ciklopea.

While this acceleration creates enormous opportunities, it also introduces a new operational challenge. Not all content carries the same business risk, regulatory implications, or quality requirements.

As a result, organizations can no longer rely on a single localization model. The future belongs to operational orchestration: applying the right workflow, governance model, and level of human involvement to each content category.

The End of the One-Size-Fits-All Localization Model

For many years, multilingual content management followed a relatively straightforward approach. Content was created, translated, reviewed, and published through largely uniform processes.

Today, the volume and velocity of content have changed dramatically. AI systems generate large quantities of material across marketing, product, support, regulatory, and internal communication functions.

This shift forces organizations to make a strategic distinction. The key question is no longer how to translate content. The question is how to manage different content types according to their associated business risk.

Two Content Worlds Are Emerging

Across industries, we increasingly observe the emergence of two distinct content environments.

The first consists of highly regulated, high-risk content. This includes documentation where accuracy, traceability, consistency, and compliance directly influence business operations, patient safety, legal exposure, or regulatory outcomes.

The second consists of high-volume operational content where scalability, speed, and efficiency are the primary objectives. Here, organizations seek to maximize automation while maintaining an acceptable level of quality and user experience.

Regulated Workflows: When Governance Matters More Than Speed

In regulated environments, translation quality is only one component of a much larger operational framework.

Organizations operating in medical devices, life sciences, manufacturing, and other regulated sectors increasingly require structured processes that provide visibility, accountability, and documentation throughout the content lifecycle.

This is where ISO 13485-aligned principles become highly relevant. Controlled workflows, documented procedures, traceability mechanisms, audit readiness, and clearly defined responsibilities help ensure that multilingual content supports broader compliance objectives rather than becoming a potential source of operational risk.

Commoditized Workflows: When Scale Becomes the Priority

Not every content type requires the same level of control or human intervention.

Many organizations manage large volumes of content that benefit from automation-first approaches. Product descriptions, knowledge bases, support content, internal communications, and certain marketing materials often fall into this category.

For these environments, modern MTPE methodologies aligned with ISO 18587 principles provide a structured framework for combining machine translation with targeted human review. The objective is not perfection at any cost. The objective is to achieve the optimal balance between quality, speed, and operational efficiency.

Why AI Makes Segmentation More Important Than Ever

One of the most significant misconceptions surrounding AI adoption is the belief that a single technology strategy can serve all content equally.

In reality, AI increases the importance of content segmentation. As automation becomes more powerful, organizations must become more deliberate in determining where automation should be applied and where additional safeguards remain necessary.

The most successful organizations are not those that automate everything. They are those that understand where automation creates value and where human expertise continues to provide critical protection against risk.

The Rise of Operational Orchestration

Operational orchestration is the discipline of applying the appropriate workflow model to each content category based on risk, business impact, compliance requirements, and operational objectives.

Rather than treating all content equally, organizations establish governance frameworks that determine which workflows should be automated, which require human validation, and which require enhanced controls.

This approach enables greater efficiency without compromising quality. It creates transparency without introducing unnecessary bureaucracy. Most importantly, it allows organizations to scale multilingual communication while maintaining confidence in the integrity of their content.

How We Approach This at Ciklopea

At Ciklopea, we believe the future of localization is not defined by translation alone. It is defined by the ability to orchestrate complex content ecosystems in a way that aligns technology, governance, quality, and business objectives.

Our operational model is built around two complementary pillars. On one side, we continue strengthening regulated workflow frameworks inspired by ISO 13485 principles for environments where control and compliance are critical.

On the other hand, we continue to develop scalable, AI-enabled workflows and MTPE methodologies aligned with ISO 18587 principles for organizations seeking efficiency and growth at scale.

Looking Forward

The AI era is not eliminating the need for human expertise. It is redefining where and how that expertise creates value.

Organizations that succeed in the coming years will be those that move beyond the traditional question of “human versus machine.” Instead, they will focus on building intelligent operational models that combine the strengths of both.

Operational orchestration represents that next stage of maturity. It enables organizations to leverage automation where appropriate, maintain governance where necessary, and ultimately create multilingual content operations that are both scalable and resilient.

At Ciklopea, we see this evolution not as a future trend but as a transformation already underway.

The post Operational Orchestration in the AI Era appeared first on Ciklopea.

There is no doubt that these technologies can generate fluent text quickly and offer valuable productivity gains. However, when it comes to sensitive, technical, or high-stakes content, relying entirely on generative AI raises important questions about privacy, consistency, accountability, and long-term quality.

Privacy and Liability Concerns

One of the most significant concerns surrounding generative AI is data security. Many AI-powered translation tools operate through cloud-based platforms where user-submitted data may be stored, processed, or reused for further model training. This creates substantial risks when translating confidential legal documents, medical records, business contracts, or intellectual property.

Companies and institutions handling sensitive information cannot afford uncertainty regarding where their data is stored or how it may be used. In sectors such as law, healthcare, and life sciences, even a minor breach of confidentiality can lead to severe legal and financial consequences.

Traditional MT systems, especially those deployed locally or within secure enterprise environments, offer significantly greater control over data handling and compliance requirements.

The Challenge of Consistency

Consistency becomes even more important when we’re dealing with specialized content. If a medical device manual uses three different terms for the same component, the consequences can go beyond simple confusion.

Large Language Models can generate different outputs each time they are prompted, even when given identical input. While this variability may be useful for creative writing or conversational applications, it becomes a serious weakness in professional translation.

Specialized fields such as medicine, pharmaceuticals, engineering, and legal practice require absolute consistency in terminology and phrasing. A single inconsistency in the translation of a medical instruction or legal clause can alter the meaning and potentially create dangerous consequences. Because LLMs prioritize plausibility rather than factual certainty or terminological consistency, they require careful human oversight when used for high-stakes translation work.

Why Traditional MT Still Has Major Advantages

Ironically, one of the perceived weaknesses of traditional machine translation systems is actually one of their greatest strengths. Unlike generative AI, conventional MT systems are consistent by design. They tend to produce the same output for the same input, which allows translators and organizations to maintain stable terminology across projects.

While MT alone is certainly not perfect, this consistency becomes extremely powerful when combined with human post-editing and revision. Professional translators can recognize semantic nuances, contextual subtleties, cultural references, and domain-specific terminology that MT systems may overlook. Human revision ensures both linguistic accuracy and contextual appropriateness while preserving the efficiency gains offered by machine assistance.

Translation Memory Makes the Workflow Even Stronger

The integration of machine translation with translation memory systems creates an exceptionally effective workflow. Translation memories store previously approved translations and automatically suggest them for future projects. This ensures consistency not only within a single document but across entire long-term projects and corporate communication strategies.

When paired with MT and human revision, translation memories become a cornerstone of translation quality assurance. Terminology remains standardized, repeated phrases are translated uniformly, and the overall reliability of the final product increases substantially. Generative AI systems, by contrast, often struggle to maintain such consistency over large-scale or ongoing projects.

A Long-Term Industry Question

The growing AI-powered translation industry also faces a deeper structural problem. In many ways, the industry may be sawing off the branch it’s sitting on. As organizations continue to automate larger portions of the translation process, questions arise about the long-term sustainability of the human expertise that AI systems ultimately rely upon.

Professional translators produce carefully reviewed and contextually accurate translations that help establish quality standards across the industry. If investment in human expertise declines significantly, maintaining those standards may become increasingly challenging over time. In the long term, this would create a cycle of deteriorating translation quality masked by short-term economic gains.

This is not to say that AI has no place in modern localization. On the contrary, AI-powered tools can significantly improve productivity, accelerate turnaround times, and help translators focus on the most challenging linguistic tasks. The key question is not whether AI should be used, but how it should be integrated into a quality-focused workflow.

Conclusion

The future of professional translation should not be framed as a competition between humans and machines. The most effective approach combines the speed and efficiency of machine translation with the judgment, expertise, and accountability of human translators. Traditional MT, paired with skilled post-editing and revision, offers the best balance among productivity, consistency, security, and quality.

While generative AI may serve as a useful auxiliary tool in certain contexts, entrusting it entirely with sensitive or specialized translations still carries significant risks that organizations should carefully evaluate. Human expertise remains indispensable wherever accuracy, nuance, and accountability truly matter.

The post Why Machine Translation Paired With Human Post-Editing Still Outperforms Fully AI-Driven Translation appeared first on Ciklopea.

In the third sequel of this trilogy, we’re talking about the changing role of LSPs and how language is controlled. 

From Producing Language…

For years, even decades, the core operations of an LSP were straightforward: translation services, localization services, and timely delivery. When necessary, we would provide some translation and localization consulting services, but the focus was on production. 

We paid special attention to the Venn diagram of translation speed, volume, and cost per word. 

For a long time, that made sense. We kept adopting language technology solutions as they were released or developing them in-house (like Ciklopea did with our Orchestrum TBMS). Every new version of these tools propelled the efficiency of our translation procedures. 

…To Controlling It

Now, AI-powered translation services have become standard. LSPs and natural persons alike can generate content instantly, at scale, in various languages. Content production and translation have never been faster, speaking from a strictly technical point of view. What comes into the spotlight now is the way those translation processes and outputs are controlled. 

In other words, who is sitting at the helm of these AI translations? Ideally, experienced and knowledgeable translators who know the procedures and know how to handle risks. 

Because AI is a mere tool. Like any other tool, it can boost your productivity, but it comes with certain dangers. A chainsaw in the hands of a weathered lumberjack cuts corners (and some wood along the way). But an inexperienced chainsaw operator could cause more damage than benefit. 

This metaphor isn’t here only for literary reasons. Take, for instance, the IFU translation services for medical devices. If the user manuals are translated solely by an AI tool, without a human controller, it could put someone’s life at risk. And these risks can pile up. 

Where the Risks Actually Show Up

Mistranslations are especially common when machines translate the same content across several languages. In some industries, such mistakes may lead only to misunderstandings. For instance, when carrying out game localization, a mistranslation may be frowned upon, but it can hardly lead to serious consequences. 

But medical translation services, on the other hand, must be free of any errors. User manuals, as illustrated above, also need to be meticulous. When handling risk management translation, every term is sacred. 

The risks in AI-driven translation hide in inconsistent terminology across documentation, as well. Such occurrences are especially dangerous in legal translations, where a lack of content alignment with local terminology may influence court decisions and other legal operations. 

When such risk-inducing translation problems spread across systems, products, and regions, they can ruin LSPs’ reputation and put their entire business operations at risk. 

LSPs Shifting Their Roles

So, the core role that LSPs need to play in this AI-driven ecosystem is complete translation control. We’ve always been controllers and verifiers of someone’s translation. Back in the day, it was only humans. Then we started inspecting the joint efforts of human translators and machines. We should keep doing the same, only on a larger scale. 

LSPs must follow their in-house and external procedures and standards to ensure trust, mitigate risks, and establish that total control over our outputs. 

Translated to our daily routines, we need to validate our content through the following checklist:

• Is it consistent?
• Is it aligned across systems?
• Is it traceable?
• Is it safe to use in a regulated environment?

Only translation outputs that tick all the boxes can be delivered to our clients. 

Why Does This Matter Even More in Regulated Environments

We’ve mentioned user manuals, medicine, and law above. The list of heavily regulated industries doesn’t finish there. Pharmaceuticals, healthcare, life sciences as a whole, and trade agreements all demand precise, consistent, and auditable translation. 

Inconsistencies incur compliance issues, legal penalties, and safety concerns.
When AI translation services are scaling up fast, these risks grow along with it. Human control and pre-defined structure become essential in risk management. 

How Standards Establish Structure

Every LSP that wants to stay competitive in this brave new translation market must build meticulous internal procedures and adopt all the relevant external standards. A translation service provider must meet the requirements for ISO 18587. It’s the international standard for post-editing of machine translation. Following the activities prescribed by this standard ensures that the LSP in question is an internationally competitive entity. 

What’s more, working with clients from the medical industry means that fulfilling ISO 13485 is a must. An international standard that refers to medical device quality management paves the way to winning over important clients from this niche. 

In a nutshell, adopting various international standards promptly and adapting to their updates is the safest road to compliance for LSPs. 

When the procedures are in place, it’s easier to establish control and traceability across different translations and industries.

A New Road for Established LSPs

LSPs that want to stand out from the crowd must stay committed to quality when it comes to the core translation work. But that won’t be enough. Artificial intelligence and language learning models will become even better translators than they are now. However, it’s still a long way until they can completely translate and localize on their own (if ever).

Language service providers that establish proper control over the translations and procedures are the ones that will stay in this game. As a matter of fact, a reliable human factor will be a deal breaker in an AI-saturated future.
With more than 20 years of experience, Ciklopea has developed a unique human touch that has finally reached its real value. Contact us and get your tailor-made offer today.

The post The Changing Role of LSPs in an AI-Driven World: From Translation to Risk Management and Trust appeared first on Ciklopea.

In the first article of this series, we saw how language is evolving through word drift. This time, we explain the tokens vs word count difference. Knowing it can make your translation operations more efficient and immune to mistakes. 

Two Different Ways of Perceiving Language

For centuries (an audacious translator might even say millennia), we’ve been operating through word counts. We charged our translation work through word and character counts, as well. Our workflows revolved primarily around words and word counts. The translation industry was founded on a word as a unit of meaning. A human translator can recognise, translate, review, and approve words. 

LLMs base their translation on tokens. But one token isn’t necessarily one word. One word can contain more than one token. 

Also, tokenization without a deep understanding of what it really is can lead to incorrect or even dangerous translation outputs. Take, for instance, the aforementioned word drift – a situation in which a lexeme or expression changes its meaning due to mistranslation. Before LLMs came to power, this lexical drift typically happened in a cultural context, over a course of time. 

We have the forthcoming World Cup in the USA, Mexico, and Canada. A better part of the world will use the world ‘striker’ many times in the time ahead. What originally denotes someone who strikes or hits anything has gradually acquired a much narrower reference to an attacker in a football lineup. 

False friends are also a good example of shifted meaning – embarrassed in English, and embarazada in Spanish (meaning pregnant). So, if an LLM translates football as ‘soccer’ (the US term for football), the rest of the world says ‘football’, it shouldn’t lead to any fatal outcomes. 

But if language loops and literal translations occur in the field of medical device translation, the consequences can be way more serious. The aforementioned difference between embarrassed and embarazada could lead to certain issues in a medical translation. 

That’s why understanding what word tokens are and how LLMs use them is important for every translation service provider. 

Word Count vs Tokens: Meaning vs Structure 

Where we see meaning and its potential layers, LLMs see structure that needs to be followed to break text into meaningful units, only to put them together in a new structure in another language. This new structure is called the translation. 

But how many tokens in a word are there? Do tokens really work, and how many tokens per word are commonly calculated? 

Tokens are based on language morphology. One word can equal one token, but it doesn’t have to be the case. For instance, the verb ‘believe’ is one token. Now things are getting complicated: ‘believable’ is still one word, but two tokens. An LLM would divide this adjective into ‘believ-’ and ‘-able’. And if we say ‘unbelievable’, an AI-powered translation tool would typically break it down into three tokens: ‘un’, ‘believ’, and ’able’. So, morphology plays a vital role in tokenization. 

And this is only one example in the English language. Typically, other letters, such as Chinese or the Cyrillic alphabet, take more tokens per word than English. 

So, in human translation services, we read between the lines, scan the text for the context, and adapt the terminology to certain cultural or regulatory environments. For instance, life sciences translation services require that the language service provider work in compliance with various domestic and international standards and legal regulations. 

AI tools can do that, but they lack the proper understanding of essential details that make a translation legally and regulatory compliant. 

However, the gap between human translators’ expertise and AI’s technical translation is getting narrower. 

Tokens vs Word Count in Practical Matters 

When using AI for translation, you paste your text into an AI tool and get the output in a matter of seconds. It’s straightforward and efficient. 

Still, when you try to plug AI into real-world translation workflows, certain mismatches and misunderstandings start to happen. 

Example 1: Pricing and Expectations

Until the last few years, a client would typically ask: “How many words?” 

The word count defined the budget, the deadlines, and the expectations. 

Today, clients still might ask about the word count, but tech tools that may be used in translation operations work with tokens. This means that the basic unit of the technology and the basic unit of industry don’t fully match. 

Example 2: Segmentation

We often hear the sentence: “The system must comply with all applicable regulations.”

It refers to a single segment and one unit of responsibility in a TMS:

• One translation
• One review
• One approved version.

There’s a certified translator or a team of translators responsible for delivering such a translation. 

LLMs don’t process such a sentence in the same way. For an AI translation solution, this is still only a sequence of tokens. That’s why it’s more difficult to track, reuse, and control a shared AI translation. 

Example 3: Consistency

In traditional translation workflows, the same segment typically leads to the same translation. Such consistency is especially important in heavily regulated industries, such as the aforementioned life sciences or technology and manufacturing. In other words, wherever safety is the utmost feature, translation consistency and accuracy mustn’t be compromised.

The thing is that in AI workflows, the same input may lead to similar, but not identical output. In creative, more flexible contexts, such as marketing or game localization services, it can be uncomfortable, but not fatal. In highly regulated or documentation-heavy contexts, such glitches can lead to serious legal issues, let alone terrible outcomes in the field. 

Example 4: Traceability

Translators and translation managers must make sure that in every translation, all the stakeholders know what has been changed, where the changes have been implemented, and why they have been applied in the first place.

Every modern TMS, based on words, makes this traceability possible. In token-based systems, such transparency isn’t provided naturally, which leads to discrepancies. 

Where Structure Becomes Critical 

Translation management systems are still here because they ensure one critical factor: structure. LLMs and these systems aren’t mutually exclusive, even though they operate on different engines. 

Translation must be consistent; terminology must be constantly controlled; and changes must be traceable. Retaining a certain operational and translation structure is essential. Again, highly regulated fields of work, as highlighted above, require a deeper awareness of the cost of error. This awareness translates (pun intended) into a properly edited, proofread, and adapted output. Localisation also plays an important part in those specific niches. 

All these features pose a demanding challenge: how to make AI translation solutions complement TMSs rather than function as two separate units. Bridging the gap between these fields will reduce the word count vs tokens difference. 

Also, international frameworks such as ISO 18587 (post-editing of machine translation) and ISO 13485 (medical device quality management) bridge the gap between flexible, token-based AI output and structured, word-based workflows. Using these international standards ensures that LSPs establish and keep control, consistency, and traceability over their procedures and output. 

Such international standards and frameworks prevent small inconsistencies from becoming larger problems at scale.

A Different Way to Look at the Future 

After more than two decades in the language service industry, we can discuss to what extent AI is changing the translation industry. Tokens vs word counts, LLMs juxtaposed with human translation, and stricter international regulations are all challenges that translation companies face every day. 

To be truly honest, LLMs can significantly speed up the translation process. They are machines. They understand language statistically and treat words in a binary way. That’s why a token is a unit of measure in machine translation. 

A computer sees a word from the outside. A human translator understands the interior of the word. Together, they make a powerful translation transformer that can do more per unit of time than translators in the past. What we need are proper procedures and operations for maintaining quality. 

As one of the leading LSPs for regulated industries in Europe, Ciklopea stands at the front of the tectonic changes the entire industry has been experiencing in recent years. 

The post Word Count vs Tokens: The Hidden Gap Between AI and Language Services appeared first on Ciklopea.

Failing to follow these frameworks may pose serious risks to people’s health and lead to severe legal consequences. Staying on top of medical device translation rules and regulations reduces regulatory risks and keeps your organisation audit-ready and compliant. 

Medical Device Regulation Rules

The EU Medical Device Regulation (2017/745) prescribes that the manufacturers of medical devices must ensure proper labelling, instructions for use, and all other required information on the devices they produce. What’s more, all these details must be provided in the official languages of every EU member state where the device in question is available. 

It also refers to field safety notices, summary of safety and clinical performance (SSCP), implant cards, and software interfaces. To top it all, the differences on the national level of every member state are highlighted in the latest overview of language requirements, released in August 2025. 

In the context of the medical device translation services, it means more work, but also more compliance for translation companies. 

From IFU Translation Services to legislative frameworks, medical device translation procedures must meet the requirements under this regulation.

What’s more, global standards stipulate that information provided by medical device manufacturers must be written in a clear and understandable manner. For instance, reliable medical translation services must be carried out in line with ISO 13485 and other relevant quality, risk, and safety standards.

Here’s what every medical translation service provider can do to meet those medical device translation requirements: 

• Analyse the potential language gaps based on the language requirements set by the Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG). 
• Include proper linguistic verification in your risk management files and design controls to ensure proper compliance. 
• Rely on medical device translation procedures that are fully certified (think ISO 17100) and traceable.
• Ensure high-quality medical device translation through expert human review, particularly for high-risk topics and content. 

Handling Ambiguities in Medical Translation Services

Translation is rarely a straightforward process. In highly regulated fields, where medical manufacturers and translation service providers belong, working in several languages at the same time requires special attention and expertise. 

For instance, both SSCPs and MDCG guidelines underline that implant cards must contain unambiguous content. One issue may be that domestic and national regulations don’t fully follow these instructions. 

Some countries may accept medical documentation in English, which still means medical professionals must be proficient in English. Others demand that medical content be translated into their national language. This is where grey areas appear more frequently. Unclear regulatory wording between different languages can lead to ambiguous information. 

Consequently, medical device manufacturers and providers of medical translation services might expose themselves to the risk of becoming non-compliant. 

This doesn’t refer only to strictly textual medical content, such as medical reports or analyses. The process of software interface localization or digital manual update demands that the same decision, word choice, or phrasing be handled in the same way. 

We suggest a few takeaways to avoid ambiguities and inconsistencies in your day-to-day medical device translation service: 

• Note down the rationale based on which you make translation and operational decisions in grey areas; one day, an auditor might ask you about it.
• Hire domestic medical experts to help you bring those decisions in line with the practical foundations.
• Use back-translation. 
• Create a framework that will ensure handling potential risks, in line with the MDCG documentation and the relevant local legal regulations. 

Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs Managers in the Field

The field of medical device translations requires continuous adaptation to compliance requirements and requests. It’s an ongoing process. That’s why translation and localization companies need to work with quality assurance (QA) and regulatory affairs (RA) experts. 

Those respective translation and legal pundits must keep proper documentation of judgment calls made at your translation company. When the time comes for an audit or compliance inspection, you need to possess the data about the translators’ qualifications and verification methods (usability checks, language tests). What’s more, such auditors may require to have an insight into your procedures for handling deviations and risks. 

Also, the relevant glossaries used at the translation company in question must be available for inspection. Language technology solutions and audit tracks significantly help document translation choices. 

In a nutshell, accountable persons at every medical device translation organisation need to keep documents about the inputs from stakeholders, risk assessment, and their own professional reasoning. 

Sorting Out Linguistic Deviations Naturally

Linguistic deviations can happen in any medical device translation. When we say linguistic deviations, we mean contextual mismatches, wording issues, and terminology discrepancies. It’s important to handle them naturally to avoid overloading quality systems. Following practical principles for deviation management, based on ISO 13485, should make this process simpler and easier. 

Those who are still asking themselves, “What is ISO 13485?” should know that it’s an international quality standard that every manufacturer of medical devices needs to meet. As a result, any business entity collaborating with such manufacturers or carrying out operations related to medical devices needs to follow ISO 13485. Logically, this includes medical translation, as well as life sciences language services. 

Every translation provider – and any other relevant organisation handling medical or pharmaceutical procedures and products – that becomes the ISO13485 certified translation partner increases its chances of landing global deals with renowned brands from the medical industry.
When handling linguistic issues that may incur risks if applied in practice, make sure to properly prioritise this procedure, i.e., to apply the corrective action and preventive action (CAPA) plan adequately. 

The first deviations to sort out are the ones that affect data security and overall safety. Then follows handling smaller deviations, such as additionally training the in-house translators or adapting the glossaries. 

What’s Next for Medical Device Translation?

The growth of AI-powered translation solutions and the further development of medicine as a science are among the most obvious challenges for medical device translation providers. We need to bear in mind that the touch of a human translator and editor will be more important than ever before. 

Machines can translate, but only seasoned language translators and medical experts can check whether the translation in question is useful and safe. 

Reach out to Ciklopea if you need life sciences and medical device translation. Check out why we’ve been one of the most reliable translation and localization providers in Europe for more than 20 years. 

The post Medical Device Translation: How to Avoid Regulatory Risks and Stay Audit-Ready appeared first on Ciklopea.

Within these fast changes, one of the most important trends is the word drift: a gradual change in how a certain lexeme is understood and localized. It may refer to other linguistic features than mere lexemes. For instance, if you expected another verb in the sentence above, in addition to understood and localized, it means that your mind has already been accustomed to this string of three, commonly used in AI-generated text. 

Within the AI revolution we’ve been witnessing in the last few years, AI-generated language feeds back into human language. 

The language industry experts are aware of these changes. Many of us are already working on systematic solutions that would utilize AI for the benefit of translators and clients while preventing errors and avoiding misuse of AI translation services. It’s important to highlight the term systematic because ML systems we’ve built to generate language now increasingly shape it; not only one language, but numerous languages. 

At the GALA World Ready Conference in Berlin, held on 12-14 April 2026, word drift was explicitly mentioned during the keynote speech. That idea has stayed with me even after the event as something that deserves some additional explanation, as something deeply consequential for translators, localizers, and transcreators. 

Still, this word drift comes with certain risks, embedded in the terminology drift, compliance implications, and consistency vs. nuance interplay. 

What is Word Drift?

Word drift is a gradual change in the way lexemes, idioms, and linguistic structures are used over a time interval. Before the AI shift, word drift typically happened via human interaction, culture, and geography. Those were the natural influences that used to form language patterns. 

Today, however, AI tools generate incredible amounts of documentation, business correspondence, marketing content, and niche-related text. Given the vast amount of language data that AI tools have been fed with, machines now influence language in a subtle but powerful manner. 

The AI-enhanced word drift is especially visible in regulated industries, documentation-heavy surroundings, and multilingual workflows. These fields have been more exposed to and inclined to machine translation, mostly because they contain more formulaic expressions than some other language environments. 

Based on our 20+ years of experience in the translation industry, we know that increased risk that affects translation consistency may lead to compliance issues. Still, we are here to cover all the bases that would reduce such risks and provide the best possible service to clients. 

What Are We Already Seeing?

From a practical, day-to-day perspective, several patterns are emerging:

• Increasing use of standardized, “safe” phrasing
• Repetition of certain sentence structures
• Neutral, flattened tone across different contexts
• Reduced stylistic and regional variation
• Convergence toward globally understandable language patterns.

Under the influence of the language patterns generated by AI tools, people now increasingly use phrases and lexemes that sound like artificial language. They don’t do it on purpose, though. The exposure to such content leads to massive use of AI patterns. 

A Shift in How Language Evolves

Ever since humankind started to speak, language has evolved through people.

This is the first time in history that it evolves through a feedback loop:

Humans train AI → AI generates language → Humans adopt patterns → Those patterns feed back into AI.

Trapped in a language loop, people start sounding more like robots. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a negative thing in everyday communication. Apart from stylistic issues, it most commonly won’t lead to any dramatic outcomes. 

In the context of translation and localization services, repetitive, robotic text can cause serious damage. Take, for instance, the translation field of IFU services (instructions for use). A mistranslated AI translation could harm someone’s life. That’s why the translation industry must treat word drifts and language loops with special care.  

Impact on Multilingual Environments

In multilingual contexts, the growth of systematically robotised language causes bigger changes. 

As new language patterns are introduced, they are further replicated across different languages. For instance, a misinterpreted medical term from English enters Spanish. When it’s repeated frequently enough, the new meaning outshadows the old, more reliable one. Through AI translation tools, this improperly translated term may spread to, say, Chinese, causing confusion in another market. It would be the real game of Chinese whispers, but in a field of work where such mistakes can be fatal. 

It’s fair to say that machine translation can help improve consistency and increase the production rate. We’ve had Trados for decades now. Such tools have made our profession easier through a certain level of automation. It’s easier to align across various markets with the assistance of AI tools. 

Impact on Regulated Industries

Some industries are less immune to such sudden changes in the way translation is carried out. Life sciences language services are among the most AI-sensitive niches out there. Medical devices and pharmaceuticals follow it closely. Such industries heavily rely on precise terminology and consistency among documentation for operational and compliance reasons. What’s more, the traceability of changes and the alignment between language and regulatory intent play a vital role in these translation fields. 

Small shifts in phrasing can lead to:

• Inconsistencies across IFUs, software, and regulatory documentation
• Misalignment between markets
• Increased review cycles
• Potential compliance issues.

As AI tools enable faster scaling, they also accelerate the impact of those inconsistencies.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have the marketing and content industry, or e-commerce localization services. Saying that AI-enhanced translation and localization have been one of the key factors in global e-commerce would be an understatement. Nevertheless, even in such less risky niches, human translation services and editing are still vital translation and proofreading methods. 

What This Means for Companies

Organizations working in different language markets and within various legislative contexts must adapt to the word drift, language loop, and other phenomena..

This adaptation consists of the following features:

• Stronger terminology governance
• Controlled workflows
• Clear quality frameworks
• Defined roles between AI and human expertise.

Every bit of content translated, localized, and edited at translation companies requires an extra dose of human management. This approach guarantees that the final product isn’t an AI slop that can put people’s lives in harm’s way. 

From Standards to Safeguards

Apart from ensuring the uncompromising quality of core tasks, translation companies must introduce and follow structured approaches in terms of regulatory requirements. 

Frameworks such as ISO 13485 and ISO 18587 are some of the international standards that every company, regardless of its industry, should implement. But what is ISO 13485 in the first place? ISO 13485 is a standard for quality management in the medical devices industry. Every provider of translation services in the medical industry, pharmaceuticals, and life sciences should possess this certificate. 

On the other hand, ISO 18587 is an ISO standard that defines the requirements for post-editing of the machine translation output. This standard is one of the most important niche-narrow ISO standards for the translation industry. Together with ISO 27001, these are all the necessary ISO standards for competitive, legal, and smooth translation services, especially on a global level. 

From a security point of view, these standards are the safeguards that provide control where scale increases risk. Also, possessing such international standards increases the organisation’s competitiveness. 

A Shift Worth Paying Attention To

After more than 20 years of dedicated work with multilingual content, I feel that we’re entering a whole new era. Under the influence of AI, language is now shaped both by human interaction and machine language systems. In addition to being translators, editors, proofreaders, and transcreators, we now have to expand the list of our duties to include careful examination of AI-translated and AI-generated content. 

If we can use a famous movie phrase at the end of this insight: AI you talking to me? Are we starting to speak like AI, or is AI starting to imitate us?

Have you noticed certain phrases becoming more “standardized” in your communication?

The post Word Drift and Language Loop in the Age of AI: What It Means for Multilingual Communication appeared first on Ciklopea.

Translation refers to conveying messages from one language into another in a linguistically and grammatically correct manner. 

Localization includes the relevant additional features, adapting the translated piece of text to a narrower group of people. As the name itself tells us, the text is localized when it addresses a certain local audience. 

In the context of life sciences content localization, different markets may require different localizations, for pure linguistic or legal purposes.

Localization Vs Translation in Life Sciences

Life sciences translation and localization services make a difference for the providers of medical services and patients. If translators haven’t translated the content in question properly, the localization part will lack the necessary quality. 

Also, the translation company might have to deal with the same language in different versions.

For instance, if we translate a guide on certain medicines from English into Spanish, the end product for Spain may differ from the one prepared for Mexico. Spain is an independent country and an EU member, so the life sciences translation services might require a two-fold adaptation for this country. 

Mexico, on the other hand, is an independent country, but it’s also a member of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on free trade. The latter brings some legal translation specifics that Spain doesn’t have. 

Life Science Localization in Practice

When we’re talking about translation vs localization in life sciences, we need to be precise about the terms. A medical translation and localization may include medical software, instructions for use (IFU) for medical devices, user manuals, doctor manuals, and other aspects of medical content. 

A pharmaceutical translation and/or localization may refer to patient information leaflets (PILs), summaries of product characteristics (SPC), medical labels, etc. 

Translating and localizing clinical research materials includes informed consent forms (ICF), patient-reported outcomes (PRO), questionnaires, study protocols, and communication with local regulations, among other things. 

When handling these niches of life sciences content localization, translators and localizers must take into account domestic units of measure and conventions, local compliance, and established medical practice. They also need to meet the established expectations, jargon, and warnings. 

Also, the providers of life sciences localization services have to bear in mind that in-field medical workers and hospital staff typically work under a lot of stress. Working in an emergency unit or being a nurse/surgeon in an operating room leaves no room for ambiguity. That’s why accuracy and compliance are the pillars of Ciklopea’s policy on life sciences localization services.

Who Are Life Sciences Language Services For?

The target audience of life sciences translation and localization services may differ. For instance, adapting instructions for patients in clinical treatments is different from translating or localizing text for healthcare professionals. If a patient receives complicated and unlocalized instructions, they might feel more uncomfortable, which can additionally affect their medical condition. 

A user manual for doctors has to meet the knowledge level they possess and the activities they carry out in their daily tasks at work. To use the example from above, translating a doctor’s manual on medicines from US English into Mexican Spanish would require localizing the measure units, i.e., adapting imperial measures to metric measures. 

An international guidebook for hospital management demands a completely different approach. As such content usually contains regulatory and compliance-related details, language service providers are obliged to meet the standards expected at that level. They often have to properly explain and cover international standards, such as the ISO 13485.

Life Sciences Localization Vs Transcreation

In the translation vs localization comparison, it’s important to explain whether transcreation is applicable to life sciences. In most cases, transcreation isn’t part of the translation process in life sciences. 

Localization and translation predominantly revolve around adapting semantic items from one language into another. Transcreation includes a higher level of creativity in the message-conveying process. It’s used to transfer the tone, style, and purpose of the original text to an international audience. As such, transcreation is more commonly used for marketing, advertising, and branding translation services, rather than technical and medical translation. 

Since life sciences localization services are more focused on accuracy and compliance, i.e., drier but more precise communication, transcreation is generally avoided. Still, it can be used when it’s necessary to create more detailed or more vivid instructions for patients. 

ISO Standards and Life Science Language Services

Every company operating in an international business environment needs to meet certain ISO standards. The providers of life science and language services are no exception. For starters, it’s important to answer one pillar question: what is ISO 13485, because this is one of the key standards in life sciences. 

The ISO 13485 is an international standard for manufacturers of medical devices. It’s a rulebook with various rules and requirements that such entities need to follow in order to produce internationally verifiable medical devices. It prescribes the production, installation, maintenance, and proper, safe design of medical devices. 

Compliance with ISO 13485 is formal proof that a localization and translation service provider has implemented strict legal regulations. In turn, it demonstrates that the service provider in question is capable of delivering accurate and consistent translation. Since errors in the life sciences industry can have fatal outcomes, every organization operating in this field must meet stricter requirements than what might be the case in some other industries. 

ISO 27001 is another important standard for every business. It defines how the Information Security Management System within an organization should function, in order to ensure it’s a secure and compliant entity. A localization and translation service provider is not a high-risk business. However, translating and localizing content for clients from healthcare and pharmaceutical industry includes exposure to content that requires special legal compliance. 

ISO 18587 is another crucial standard for translation and localization companies. It contains guidelines and features required for post-editing of machine-translated content. In the life sciences industries, post-editing plays a vital role because of the life-sensitive content that such niches include. 

The Future of Translation vs Localization in Life Sciences

The number of people in the world will keep growing steadily in the time ahead, meaning that more people will need medical services. Apart from urgent interventions, every person needs routine medical care. There will be more medical devices and more medical content to cover in the time ahead. Providers of translation and localization services have to be aware of these processes to keep pace with the market. This is what every client needs to know when comparing translation vs localization in life sciences. 

Ciklopea is fully invested in knowledge and professionals who ensure top-tier localization and translation services. Get in touch with us, and we’ll work together to create a tailor-made offer for life sciences translation and localization services. 

The post Localization Vs Translation in Life Sciences: Understanding the Difference appeared first on Ciklopea.

Attendees will have the opportunity to gain insights into the latest industry trends, innovative technologies, and best practices, as well as to exchange knowledge with peers from across the globe. The conference will also emphasize collaboration and forward-thinking approaches to overcoming industry challenges.

If you are attending the conference and would like to connect in advance:

Meet with Mladen Meet with Sandra

We are looking forward to engaging discussions, inspiring sessions, and the opportunity to strengthen existing partnerships while building new connections.

See you in Berlin!

The post GALA Worldready Conference 2026 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Still, we can say we are more than satisfied with the achievements we have reached as a language solutions provider for highly regulated industries. The certificates we have been awarded along the way only showcase our organisational maturity. 

But let’s take a look back at the developments that have made us proud of our success from the beginning. 

The Beginning: Structure in a Time of Rapid Growth (2009)

In 2009, Ciklopea saw fast and steady growth. This operational expansion has brought along more complex processes. What functioned well in a smaller organisation demanded a different approach as the company and its operations developed. 

The need to position strategically in a competitive market and impose internal operational discipline and scalability led to the implementation of ISO 9001 and EN 15038 (predecessor of ISO 17100). 

The first stage of this procedure was complicated, as the required documentation kept growing. We had to formalise the in-house processes in line with international standardisation. We were basically adapting to this compliance system because we wanted to become a fully compliant international translation company. 

The greatest benefit we experienced from implementing those requirements was a more precise definition of our responsibilities. What’s more, we started tracking our performance more efficiently while improving the quality of every individual operating within our system. 

So, the first takeaway was straightforward: scalability is more feasible when preceded by structure. 

Information Security as a Maturity Test (2013)

When a business is growing, its client list is expanding, as well. Ciklopea had experienced such proceedings between 2009 and 2013. As we continued collaborating with larger and more complex organisations, compliance requests regarding IT governance, data protection, and information security became increasingly challenging. 

So, obtaining ISO 27001 was a two-fold benefit: we responded to the market requests and carried out an internal reality check. 

The process of adopting an Information Security Management System changed how we handled our internal competencies, IT infrastructure, and resource allocation. What’s more, the entire adaptation to obtain this ISO certificate raised our in-house awareness of security challenges. 

The key takeaway from this period of ISO-friendly transformation was that you cannot just copy-paste the standards. They have to be implemented in line with the organisation’s size, structure, and risk exposure. 

A translation and localization company is not a high-risk organisation in theory. In practice, providing companies from the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and payment industries with translation services does require more complex compliance measures. 

At that time, there was another major issue we had to handle: integrating three different standards under one coherent Quality Management umbrella. It was essential to encompass information security control, general quality requirements, and translation procedures within the same system. Hence, integration was crucial in shifting from compliance-driven thinking to system-driven implementation. 

Living Through Transitions, Not Just Certifications

Once you obtain an ISO standard, you cannot rest on your laurels. Compliance is an ever-changing entity, and Ciklopea has always been at the helm of the legislation and security requirements.

At one point, EN 15038 was expanded into ISO 17100, and ISO 27001 was changed. We responded to every such revision through reinterpretation, adaptation, and internal alignment.

We have followed one essential principle to operate successfully on a global business scale: certificates are static, but the company’s capability is dynamic. 

With every new revision of international standards, we have improved our internal procedures. To be more precise, our documentation discipline and process ownership have seen continuous advancement. As an organisation, Ciklopea has learned that changes are the natural way of things to implement and retain ISO standardisation procedures. 

By 2015, we had carried out a true internal transformation: ISO was no longer something we prepared for. We became aware that meeting the ISO standards is more than just passing audits. Instead, we adapted our procedures and documentation to improve our internal operations. 

Along the way, we eliminated the unnecessary bureaucracy and optimised our system for real-world challenges. 

Standardising What Already Works: ISO 18587 (2023)

In 2023, we implemented the ISO 18587 standard for machine translation post-editing. At that point, the MPTE services had already been operational. The main driver behind the applied changes was scalability. Our main goal was to formalise established procedures so they could increase seamlessly, without affecting the quality of our services. 

This implementation yielded a different takeaway: standards can strengthen operational maturity instead of just creating it. 

ISO 18587 served as the connective tissue that additionally formalised something that already existed within our organisation. 

Entering the Regulatory Depth: ISO 13485 (2026)

This year, we have completed the implementation of ISO 13485, which has become the cornerstone of a new era at Ciklopea. Namely, this standard is aimed at medical device manufacturers. Since we provide language solutions to various clients from this industry, we had to understand its applicability to our services and adopt it in a practical and proportionate manner. 

We started by formalising the existing life sciences practices, only to reshape the following several aspects of our business operations: 

• Risk management in regulatory contexts
• Documentation discipline
• Traceability expectations
• Incident handling procedures.

The main rationale behind the application of ISO 13485 is that medicine is a highly regulated niche because of the legal framework in which it operates. Even if the medical text is semantically accurate, it can still cause issues. This is why localization is of utmost importance. Together with translation, localization ensures that regulatory documentation, clinical trial processes, various manuals, and communication with patients all meet the real-world regulations. 

Obtaining ISO 13485 has increased the regulatory awareness across the organisation, particularly in our Life Sciences Department. 

In regulated industries, quality is inseparable from compliance and risk management.

The Real Transformation: From Audit Survival to Organisational Capability

The greatest benefit of the five ISO certifications we have obtained over the course of years is the cultural shift we have experienced at Ciklopea. What seemed merely as a legal obligation soon became a game-changer: our entire team realised that meeting the requirements for ISO certification is a structured framework for continuous improvement. 

Instead of preparing for audits, we started looking at it as an independent magnifier that helps us understand how to make work more secure and organised. 

Fulfilling those requirements has become a methodology for reinventing our core values:

• Simplicity
• Transparency
• Integrity
• Continuous improvement
• Professionalism
• Partnership

Now that we have unified all standards within a coherent and efficient management system, we have eased our procedural rigidity and concentrated on the details that improve our performance. 

The system started returning the efforts and practices we have invested in it. 

Business Impact: Trust, Eligibility, and Differentiation

The integration and implementation of the five ISO standards have had a tangible effect on operational efficiency at Ciklopea. 

Now we qualify more easily for demanding, regulated projects.
Our sales conversations rely on demonstrable traceability.
Client trust has increased due to documented incident-handling and risk management.
The ISO standards have also reinforced our positioning as a specialised language solutions provider for regulated industries.

Finally, our procedures in line with the ISO standards have laid the foundation for developing Orchestrum TBMS, our Translation Business Management System, based on the same compliance logic that drives our internal procedures.

In a nutshell: maturity has propelled innovation.

Capability Over Certification

This journey was not easy. It was a rocky road that demanded investment, internal alignment, adaptation, and patience.

But the outcomes have proven that everything we have accomplished since 2009 to this day has given us an edge. 

Ciklopea has always been a reliable and award-winning provider of translation and localization services. The adaptation of our internal and external processes to meet the global ISO standards now makes us a formal and official contender to qualify for major projects in the global translations industry. 

Together with our inherent accountability, scalability, and earned trust in environments where quality is not optional, the ISO certifications are the pillars of future growth at our organisation.

The post From Checklists to Capability: What Five ISO Standards Taught Us About Quality, Risk & Trust appeared first on Ciklopea.

We have also passed expert audits for ISO 9001, ISO 17100, and ISO 18587, thereby proving the continued advancement of our integrated management systems.

These recent certifications confirm that Ciklopea is a trusted language solutions partner for highly regulated industries, such as life sciences, technology, and manufacturing.

Strengthening Compliance, Risk Management, and Trust

Obtaining ISO 13485 certification demonstrates Ciklopea’s readiness to support medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies. Language is an important subject in regulatory documents, clinical processes, and patient information and guidance. Apart from that, quality, traceability, and risk management are vital features for full compliance and utmost security in these areas.

The transition to ISO 27001:2022 encompasses the necessary software development standards and covers security requirements for both service delivery and technology development. It also includes Orchestrum TBMS, Ciklopea’s translation business management system, which ensures secure data management throughout the content lifecycle.

Together with ISO 9001, ISO 17100, and ISO 18587, these standards build an integrated framework that delivers superior quality, robust data protection, clear process transparency, and continuous improvement.

Long-Term Commitment to Operational Excellence

Ciklopea has been at the forefront of premium translation, localization and language technology solutions for more than 20 years. The successful implementation and maintenance of the five ISO standards above is a token of long-term commitment to strong practices and international compliance.

The result of these procedures is the integration of quality control, information security, linguistic standards, and legal provisions into a single operational system. Ciklopea has always delivered scalable, audit-ready language solutions to clients operating in complex regulatory environments. The recent ISO certifications represent the official confirmation of Ciklopea’s professional excellence.

With the newly earned certifications, we will continue to help organisations of all sizes meet their multilingual communication goals and compliance requirements on a global scale.

The post Ciklopea Achieves ISO 13485 Certification appeared first on Ciklopea.

The workshop was led by Katarina Barun Baotić, Project Management Team Lead at Ciklopea, and Marina Orešković, Product Owner at Across Systems. Together, they presented two powerful tools that have been reshaping modern localization workflows:

• The AI Agent in Across Language Server

Attendees had the opportunity to see how the AI Agent served as an intelligent assistant for localization teams, PMs, and linguists. It has demonstrated the ability to accelerate post-editing, support routine tasks, and maintain high quality standards by combining AI automation with human expertise.

• The Orchestrum Translation Business Management System

Orchestrum was showcased as a system built by project managers, for project managers. Participants explored how the platform reduced administrative overhead, increased workflow transparency, and delivered meaningful business insights through intuitive analytics.

A Milestone Event

This 10th anniversary edition of Focus PM offered PMs the chance to:

• Enhance their leadership skills
• Strengthen their practical and technological competencies
• Understand the impact of AI in localization
• Refine communication and team coordination

With the theme “The Agora of Project Management: Where Process Meets Purpose,” the event encouraged dialogue, the exchange of ideas, and practical learning, inspired by the historical setting of Athens, the birthplace of democratic thinking.

Ciklopea’s Ongoing Commitment

By contributing to Focus PM 2025, Ciklopea reaffirmed its dedication to education, innovation, and the continuous development of localization project managers.

We were delighted to connect with partners, colleagues, and PM professionals—and we look forward to many future opportunities for collaboration and knowledge-sharing.

The post Ciklopea at Focus PM 2025 appeared first on Ciklopea.

tekom is the flagship event for technical communication professionals, attracting thousands of visitors from around the globe. This three-day conference and trade fair offers a unique platform to explore the latest innovations in technical documentation, content management, translation technology, and industry best practices. With hundreds of exhibitors and an extensive program of workshops and presentations, tekom 2025 is where the future of technical communication takes shape. 

You’ll find Ciklopea at Hall 2, Booth C15 throughout the three days of the event, November 11-13, 2025, at Messe Stuttgart, where we’ll be demonstrating our comprehensive language solutions and discussing the latest trends in technical communication. 

Meet Our Team 

Join us at our booth to meet the Ciklopea team: 

• Ana Meštrović – Business Development Manager 

• Denis Kranjčić – Product Owner 

• Andrea Mataija – Account Manager 

• Mladen Stojak – Chief Stategy Officer 

We’ll be showcasing our latest language solutions and discussing how we can support your technical communication needs. 

Get Your Free Trade Fair Ticket 

We’re delighted to offer our valued customers, partners, and guests complimentary access to tekom 2025. We’re covering the cost of the first 50 trade fair tickets redeemed with our exclusive code: 

Code: J25Ciklopea 

How it works: 

1. Visit tcworldconference.tekom.de and select your trade fair ticket 

1. Add the ticket to your shopping cart 

1. Enter our code J25Ciklopea at checkout 

1. Your ticket will automatically be set to €0.00 – completely free! 

The first 50 guests who register with our code will receive complimentary admission. Act fast to secure your free ticket to this premier technical communication event!  

Why Visit Us? 

Discover how Ciklopea’s language technology solutions can streamline your technical documentation workflows, improve translation quality, and help you reach global markets more effectively. 

We look forward to seeing you in Stuttgart! 

For more information about the event, visit tcworldconference.tekom.de. 

Can’t make it in person? Contact us at sales@ciklopea.com to schedule a virtual meeting with our team. 

Schedule a Discovery Call

The post Visit Ciklopea at tekom 2025 in Stuttgart appeared first on Ciklopea.

As language service providers, we’ve long offered machine translation postediting (MTPE) as a standard service to stay competitive and deliver value efficiently. But times are changing.

With the widespread availability of free-to-use machine translation and AI tools, more and more clients are now translating their content independently—then sending these pre-translated texts to LSPs for “review,” often without disclosing that the content was machine-generated or machine-translated.

For project managers, this introduces a new layer of complexity:

• How can you recognize when a project is actually postediting in disguise?
• How do you define scope, effort, and quality expectations for such projects?
• How do you ensure client satisfaction while also protecting your margins and securing a smooth and realistic workflow for your team?

Welcome to the World of Stealth Post-Editing

Sarah’s session will explore this emerging phenomenon and offer some practical strategies for identifying hidden MT content early, managing it transparently, and keeping quality and profitability under control.

This is a must-attend session for project managers, LSPs, and anyone working to maintain quality in the age of readily-available AI tools.

Why Meet Central Europe?

Meet Central Europe (MCE) is one of the most important events for the translation and localization industry in the region, bringing together LSP leaders, project managers, linguists, and technology experts to share knowledge, build partnerships, and exchange ideas.

The conference’s mission to inspire collaboration and professional growth perfectly aligns with Ciklopea’s commitment to innovation, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement in language technology.

Ciklopea: Driving Excellence in the Age of AI

At Ciklopea, we embrace technology not as a replacement for human expertise, but as a tool to enhance it. Our teams combine linguistic mastery, data insight, and process innovation to deliver translation solutions that meet the highest standards of accuracy, compliance, and efficiency.

Sarah’s participation at MCE highlights our leadership in addressing the real challenges of AI-driven translation workflows, from MT engine training to process optimization and transparent client communication.

As one of the region’s leading language service providers, Ciklopea continues to set standards for excellence in quality, technology, and partnership—helping clients and colleagues navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of modern localization.

Join Us in Bratislava

If you’ll be at Meet Central Europe 2025, don’t miss Sarah’s talk on Thursday, October 16, 11:00–11:45 AM.

It’s your chance to discover how to recognize hidden MT projects, manage them effectively, and build sustainable workflows that work for everyone involved.

We look forward to connecting with peers, partners, and industry friends in Bratislava—and continuing to shape the future of language services together.

The post Ciklopea at Meet Central Europe 2025: Navigating the New Era of “Stealth Post-Editing” appeared first on Ciklopea.

The Data Revolution in Language Services 

The language services industry has undergone a dramatic transformation. Where once Language Service Providers (LSPs) primarily focused on translation accuracy and delivery speed, today’s leading providers have evolved into strategic partners who leverage comprehensive data analytics to drive business decisions. 

This evolution reflects a broader trend in business intelligence: the recognition that data-driven decision making consistently outperforms intuition-based strategies. When applied to language strategy, this principle becomes even more powerful, as the stakes of getting market entry wrong can be substantial. 

Consider the complexity of modern market analysis. A company expanding into Southeast Asia, for example, must navigate not just linguistic diversity, but varying levels of digital penetration, economic development, cultural preferences, and competitive landscapes. Traditional approaches might focus solely on population size or basic economic indicators. Data-driven strategies, however, incorporate multidimensional analysis that reveals hidden opportunities and potential pitfalls. 

Key Data Points That Drive Strategic Decisions 

Digital Market Intelligence 

Understanding internet population size and digital behavior patterns provides crucial insights into content consumption habits. Markets with high mobile internet usage may require different content strategies than those dominated by desktop users. Social media penetration rates, e-commerce adoption, and digital payment preferences all influence how content should be localized and distributed. 

Economic Indicators with Linguistic Context 

Online GDP data, when combined with language distribution metrics, reveals market potential with unprecedented accuracy. A region might have strong economic indicators, but if the target language represents only a small percentage of the economically active population, the localization ROI may be limited. Conversely, markets with moderate overall GDP but high concentration of target language speakers might offer exceptional opportunities. 

Language Vitality and Usage Patterns 

Modern BI tools enable analysis of language vitality—not just how many people speak a language, but how actively they use it in digital environments. This includes social media engagement, content creation patterns, and online purchasing behavior in specific languages. These metrics often reveal significant gaps between census data and actual market reality. 

Competitive Landscape Analysis 

Data-driven approaches also examine competitor localization strategies, identifying market gaps and oversaturated segments. Understanding which languages competitors have prioritized—and more importantly, which they’ve overlooked—can reveal strategic opportunities for market differentiation. 

From Traditional Localization to Strategic Global Content Solutions 

The transformation from traditional localization to strategic global content solutions represents a fundamental shift in thinking. Traditional approaches typically followed a sequential model: create content in a source language, then translate it for target markets. This process often resulted in content that was linguistically accurate but culturally misaligned or strategically irrelevant. 

Strategic global content solutions, by contrast, begin with comprehensive market analysis and audience research. Content creation becomes a parallel process, with market insights informing not just how content is localized, but what content is created in the first place. This approach recognizes that effective global communication often requires fundamentally different messaging strategies for different markets, rather than simple translation of existing content. 

The financial implications of this shift are significant. Companies that invest in strategic, data-driven language planning typically see higher engagement rates, improved conversion metrics, and more efficient resource allocation. They avoid costly mistakes like over-investing in low-potential markets or under-investing in high-opportunity regions. 

Technology Tools Enabling Data-Driven Decisions 

Business Intelligence Platforms 

Modern BI tools have become essential for language strategy planning. These platforms can integrate diverse data sources—from demographic databases to social media analytics—creating comprehensive market profiles that inform strategic decisions. Advanced visualization capabilities help decision-makers understand complex relationships between linguistic, economic, and cultural factors. 

Language Analytics Solutions 

Specialized tools now exist for analyzing language-specific metrics across digital platforms. These solutions can track language usage patterns, content engagement rates, and conversion metrics by linguistic segment. Such granular analysis enables optimization of both content strategy and resource allocation. 

Market Intelligence Integration 

The most effective approaches combine language-specific data with broader market intelligence. This integration provides context that pure linguistic analysis cannot achieve, revealing how language preferences intersect with economic behavior, cultural trends, and technological adoption. 

Ciklopea’s Approach: Leading the Data-Driven Revolution 

At Ciklopea, we’ve embraced this data-driven transformation not as a trend to follow, but as a fundamental principle that guides every aspect of our service delivery. Our approach recognizes that truly effective language strategy requires deep understanding of the intersection between linguistic capability, market dynamics, and business objectives. 

Our consultative methodology begins with comprehensive data analysis, examining not just obvious metrics like population size, but sophisticated indicators like digital engagement patterns, economic activity by language segment, and competitive positioning analysis. This foundation enables us to provide recommendations that are both strategically sound and practically implementable. 

We’ve invested significantly in developing proprietary analytical capabilities that combine traditional language service expertise with modern business intelligence tools. This combination allows us to identify opportunities that might be invisible to approaches focused solely on linguistic or purely commercial factors. 

Our client partnerships reflect this strategic orientation. Rather than simply executing predetermined localization projects, we work collaboratively to develop comprehensive language strategies that align with broader business objectives. This approach has consistently delivered superior outcomes for our clients, whether they’re entering new markets, optimizing existing international operations, or developing global content strategies. 

The regional expertise that defines Ciklopea’s market position enhances our data-driven capabilities. Our deep understanding of Central and Eastern European markets, combined with sophisticated analytical tools, enables insights that generic global providers cannot match. We understand not just the linguistic landscape, but the cultural, economic, and technological factors that influence how content performs in specific markets. 

The Competitive Advantage of Strategic Language Planning 

Organizations that embrace data-driven language strategy gain several distinct competitive advantages. First, they make more informed market entry decisions, reducing the risk of costly failures while identifying high-potential opportunities that competitors might miss. 

Second, they optimize resource allocation more effectively. Instead of spreading localization budgets thinly across multiple markets, they can concentrate resources on segments with the highest probability of success. This focused approach typically delivers better ROI and faster time-to-market for successful launches. 

Third, they develop more resonant content strategies. Understanding the cultural and linguistic nuances revealed through comprehensive data analysis enables creation of content that connects more authentically with target audiences. This authenticity translates directly into improved engagement and conversion rates. 

Finally, they build more sustainable international operations. Strategic language planning creates systematic approaches that can be scaled and replicated as organizations expand into additional markets. This systematic foundation supports long-term growth more effectively than ad hoc localization decisions. 

The Future of Global Content Strategy 

The trajectory toward increasingly sophisticated, data-driven language strategy is clear. Organizations that embrace this evolution position themselves for sustainable global growth, while those that cling to traditional approaches risk being outmaneuvered by more strategic competitors. 

The tools and methodologies that enable effective data-driven language strategy continue to evolve rapidly. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are beginning to provide even more sophisticated market analysis capabilities, while integration platforms make it easier to combine diverse data sources into comprehensive strategic frameworks. 

However, technology alone cannot deliver strategic advantage. The most successful approaches combine advanced analytical capabilities with deep linguistic and cultural expertise. This combination—sophisticated data analysis guided by experienced strategic thinking—represents the future of effective global content strategy. 

Take the Next Step: Transform Your Global Strategy 

The opportunity to leverage data-driven language strategy for competitive advantage has never been greater. Markets are evolving rapidly, digital channels are proliferating, and consumer expectations for authentic, locally relevant content continue to rise. 

If your organization is ready to move beyond traditional localization approaches toward strategic, data-driven global content solutions, Ciklopea is positioned to guide that transformation. Our combination of regional expertise, analytical capabilities, and consultative approach enables us to develop language strategies that deliver measurable business results. 

Whether you’re planning initial international expansion, optimizing existing global operations, or developing comprehensive multilingual content strategies, we invite you to explore how data-driven language planning can transform your approach. 

Contact Ciklopea today to  

Schedule a Discovery Call

and see how personalized, data-driven language strategy can accelerate your global success.  

Let us show you what’s possible when strategic thinking meets linguistic expertise, powered by comprehensive market intelligence. 

The post From Guesswork to Growth: How Data-Driven Language Strategy Transforms Global Business Success appeared first on Ciklopea.

Meet the Panel 

The session brought together a unique blend of voices from the language services industry, the gaming world, and the player community: 

• Ana Meštrović, Business Development Manager at Ciklopea, provided a look under the hood of large-scale localization projects, highlighting the tools, workflows, and quality assurance processes used by LSPs to ensure seamless global releases

• Maja Pavlinušić, Growth Marketing Expert at Today’s Games Studio, joined us to share insights from the client side. She gave us a real-world case study of Resetna, a game brought to life for multiple markets through carefully crafted localization

• Lukas Schwitzer, experienced Localization Specialist, offered his linguistic expertise, diving into the art of translating not just words but emotions, context, and culture

• Sir Baron Sand, gamer and content creator, brought energy and authenticity, sharing what localization looks like from the end-player’s perspective, the difference it makes in immersion, gameplay, and ultimately, enjoyment

Behind the Screens: How Game Localization Really Works 

Ana Meštrović kicked things off by unpacking the inner mechanics of a typical gaming localization project. Far from being just a matter of converting words from one language to another, gaming localization, especially at scale,  involves: 

• Detailed terminology plannin

• Close coordination between developers, linguists, and project manager

• Use of CAT tools, term bases, and QA system

• Ongoing cultural and functional reviews to ensure immersion and accuracy
   

“Gaming localization is unique because it has to preserve the tone, atmosphere, and playability, all while adapting to different languages and cultures. It’s like translating an interactive story that you also have to feel, not just read.” 

From Vision to Voice: How Resetna Went Global 

One of the most impactful moments came when Maja Pavlinušić shared the story of Resetna, a game that required deep localization to maintain its immersive and cinematic experience. 

“It was very important to really have this, I’d say, very, very good translation and localization because it is not something that you can just, you know, translate easily. You really need to look at it as maybe almost a movie… because it really needs to be immersive. And Ciklopea helped us achieve that for Resetna.” 

Her words highlighted how localization is intertwined with the creative identity of a game. It’s about transcreation, not translation, ensuring that the game resonates emotionally with players from different linguistic backgrounds. 

From the Player’s POV: Why Localization Matters 

Sir Baron Sand brought a much-needed player’s voice to the conversation. His stories illustrated how localization can elevate — or disrupt — a gaming experience. Whether it’s a poorly translated mission objective that confuses the player or a perfectly localized joke that lands just right, localization shapes how players perceive and connect with the game. 

“When localization is done right, you forget it’s even there, you’re just immersed in the world. But when it’s bad? It pulls you out instantly. You notice it.” 

He also emphasized how today’s players are increasingly discerning and appreciative of quality localization, and how language access often influences their purchasing decisions. 

Between the Lines: The Linguist’s Craft 

Lukas Schwitzer rounded out the conversation by speaking to the art and nuance behind great localization. For him, the magic lies in the balance between accuracy and creativity. Whether it’s adapting wordplay, maintaining consistency in UI/UX, or localizing cultural references, linguists must make micro-decisions that impact the entire gaming narrative. 

“Good localization requires a feel for the rhythm, tone, and pacing of a game. You need to understand the world the developers created, and then rebuild that world for a different audience without breaking immersion.” 

He also stressed the importance of playing the game or working with gameplay footage, to ensure context is never lost. 

Final Takeaway: Localization is Strategy 

If there’s one takeaway from this panel, it’s this: localization isn’t just a technical task, it’s a strategic advantage. 

Done right, it: 

• Extends your game’s reach to global market

• Deepens player engagement and satisfactio

• Preserves brand tone and narrative voic

• Improves sales, reviews, and retentio

In the words of our panelists, localization is storytelling at scale, and with the right partners, like Ciklopea, studios can go global without losing their soul. 

 Missed the live panel?
Catch the replay on our LinkedIn page, or contact us for more insights on how we can help you localize your next hit title. 

The post Webinar Recap: Level Up – The Power of Localization in the Gaming World appeared first on Ciklopea.

Take this example: 

“Potrebujesz jednoduchsi sposob, ako získat zaplatené?”
A confusing mix of Polish, Slovak, and Czech — and completely off for native speakers. 

Or this one: 

“vybudovali dôveru a привиедли viac”
A Slovak sentence that unexpectedly jumps into Russian Cyrillic mid-thought. 

But it’s not just a Central European problem. South Slavic speakers regularly see their languages treated as interchangeable or corrupted: 

“Dragi korisnik, vaš račun je zatvoren zbog техничких razloga.”
(Croatian + Serbian Cyrillic in a single sentence. Not ideal.) 

South Slavic ≠ One Language 

To a language model, these languages may seem similar. But to native speakers — and especially in formal or professional contexts — mixing Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Slovenian is not acceptable. Each language has its own norms, registers, idioms, and even writing systems. 

Yet AI often fails to make this distinction, leading to: 

• Inconsistent use of scripts (Cyrillic vs. Latin)
• Cross-contamination of vocabulary and grammar
• Tone and register mismatches that hurt readability and trust.

Why Is This Happening? 

1. Low-Resource Languages

Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Slovenian are considered low-resource in the AI space. That means there’s less high-quality training data available — especially from verified, domain-specific, and native sources. 

2. Language Proximity Confusion

AI models rely on statistical patterns, not true linguistic understanding. Similar structures across Slavic languages can cause the model to blend them together without understanding their differences. 

3. Reinforcement Bias

A popular story from the AI community suggests that GPT “stopped speaking Croatian” because Croatian users downvoted too many outputs, unintentionally signaling the model to stop trying. This kind of feedback loop is especially harmful to smaller language communities.

Why This Matters 

Bad translations aren’t just an inconvenience — they: 

• Undermine professional communicatio

• Harm brand credibilit

• Alienate local audience

• Introduce misinformation or legal risk in regulated industries
   

In multilingual regions like the Western Balkans, accuracy isn’t optional — it’s essential. 

The post Lost in Translation: Why AI Struggles with South Slavic Languages (and What We Can Do About It) appeared first on Ciklopea.

We are thrilled to announce that Ciklopea will be exhibiting at the NEXT Pharma Summit 2025, taking place in the stunning city of Dubrovnik. This renowned event brings together top minds and companies from the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors to explore the future of life sciences, technology, and innovation.

Representing Ciklopea at the summit will be our Chief Strategy Officer, Mladen Stojak, and Business Development Managers, Ana Meštrović and Milena Matić. Our team will be available to connect, share insights, and discuss how smart language solutions can power the global growth of pharmaceutical companies while ensuring compliance, accuracy, and cultural relevance.

At Ciklopea, we understand that in the pharma industry, every word matters. From clinical trial documentation and regulatory submissions to patient-facing content and product labeling, high-quality translation and localization are critical for safety, trust, and success in global markets.

Why meet us at NEXT Pharma Summit?
Discover how our tailored language solutions meet the strict regulatory and scientific demands of the life sciences sector
Learn about our experience with top pharma and biotech companies
Explore our workflows designed for speed, precision, and confidentiality
Discuss how AI and technology are shaping the future of medical translation

If you’re attending the event, make sure to stop by our booth or connect with us in advance to schedule a meeting. Let’s talk about how language can help your pharma business go further, faster.

See you in Dubrovnik!

The post Ciklopea at NEXT Pharma Summit 2025: Supporting Innovation Through Language appeared first on Ciklopea.

For procurement leaders in regulated environments, localization QBRs serve as formal audit-ready documentation of:

• Compliance verification with industry-specific regulations (FDA, EMA, MHRA, etc.)
• Risk mitigation protocols implemented across all target markets
• Documentation of corrective actions taken to address previous quality incidents
• Validation of linguistic validation procedures for patient-facing materials
• Standardization of processes across multiple departments and global markets

Unlike typical vendor reviews, QBRs in regulated industries function as formal governance mechanisms that create auditable trails of oversight—essential during regulatory inspections.

Industry-Specific KPIs That Matter to Procurement Leaders

The most effective localization KPIs for regulated industries focus on risk reduction, compliance assurance, and total cost of ownership:

1. Compliance & Risk Metrics

• Regulatory submission acceptance rates by market and document type
• Terminology consistency percentage across product lines and submissions
• Compliance deviation tracking with root cause analysis
• Audit-ready documentation completion rates

2. Process Validation Metrics

• First-time-right percentage for regulatory submissions
• Change management efficiency (implementation time for terminology updates)
• Process adherence scores across different document categories
• Deviation investigation closure rates

3. Cost Containment & Efficiency

• Total cost of ownership analysis (including revision cycles and regulatory delays)
• Workflow automation adoption rates and resulting time savings
• Resource allocation efficiency across therapeutic areas/product lines
• Technology integration ROI measurements

4. Strategic Partnership Indicators

• Process standardization progress across markets and divisions
• Knowledge transfer effectiveness scores
• Continuous improvement implementation rates
• Cross-functional alignment measurements

Ciklopea’s Approach: Governance-Focused Localization Management

As specialists in regulated industry localization, Ciklopea implements a procurement-friendly approach to QBRs and KPIs that emphasizes:

• Audit-Ready Documentation: Our QBR process creates inspection-ready trails of all localization decisions and quality controls.
• Compliance-First Technology: We integrate regulatory terminology databases and compliance checks into every workflow.
• Risk Categorization Framework: We stratify content by regulatory risk level to optimize resource allocation while maintaining compliance.
• Cross-Functional Integration: Our systems integrate with your quality management and document control systems for seamless traceability.

The Procurement Advantage

For procurement professionals in regulated industries, implementing structured QBRs with Ciklopea delivers tangible benefits:

• Simplified vendor consolidation with demonstrated compliance expertise
• Reduced regulatory submission cycles through first-time-right processes
• Documented due diligence for all localization activities
• Standardized processes across global markets and therapeutic areas/product lines

Take the Next Step

If your organization requires demonstrable governance of localization activities that will withstand regulatory scrutiny, let’s discuss implementing a structured QBR framework with compliance-focused KPIs.

Contact our Team for a consultation.

The post Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) and KPIs in Localization: A Strategic Approach for Regulated Industries appeared first on Ciklopea.

In a world where AI is transforming language services, the human element remains crucial. While AI enhances efficiency and accuracy, it lacks the cultural awareness, empathy, and personal connection that define successful vendor and employee relationships.

Our presentation will explore:

– How to build trust and strong partnerships with vendors
– Why a supportive and engaging work environment boosts productivity
– The balance between AI-driven processes and human expertise

At Ciklopea, we believe that technology is a tool, not a replacement. By combining AI’s power with human insight, we ensure high-quality translation services and lasting industry relationships.

See you in Barcelona!

Want to connect?

Reach out to us before the event!

The post Ciklopea at ELIA Together 2025 – Exploring the Human Side of AI in Translation appeared first on Ciklopea.

This year, our remarkable clients from diverse industries—pharmaceuticals, technology, and retail—generously shared their experiences. Their feedback is more than just data; it’s the blueprint for our continuous improvement.

Survey Highlights: A Testament to Our Dedication

Exceptional Recommendations: Trust Beyond Words
The numbers speak volumes. Most of our clients would enthusiastically recommend Ciklopea to their professional networks. This isn’t just satisfaction—it’s a resounding vote of confidence in our reliability, professionalism, and unwavering quality.

Speed Meets Precision: Our Competitive Edge
“Reliability, very quick and accurate translations,” one client remarked. Another echoed, “Professional attitude, promptness, and pleasant communication.” These aren’t just compliments but the cornerstones of our service philosophy.

Driving Business Growth, One Translation at a Time
Our impact transcends linguistic accuracy. Clients directly attribute our translations to tangible business growth. As one client stated, “Translation of our products and services has a noticeable positive impact on our business.”

Collaboration: More Than a Service, a Partnership
The survey revealed that working with Ciklopea is an experience, not just a transaction. Clients consistently praised our communication, describing interactions as “pleasant,” “professional,” and “efficient.”

Why Clients Choose Ciklopea: Our Differentiators

Clients consistently highlighted four key attributes:

• Uncompromising quality and reliability
• Lightning-fast response and delivery
• A team that’s both professional and genuinely friendly
• Competitive pricing that delivers exceptional value

Innovation on the Horizon: Listening and Evolving

Your feedback is our compass. We’re keenly exploring cutting-edge solutions like SharePoint connectors, AI-powered translations, and machine translation post-editing. Our commitment? To stay ahead of the curve and anticipate your evolving linguistic needs.

A Message of Gratitude and Commitment

When a client says, “You are the best!” it’s more than a compliment—it’s a challenge to maintain our excellence. We’re proud to partner with industry leaders like Optimapharm, Primevigilance, and Medtronic, transforming linguistic barriers into bridges of opportunity.

Looking Ahead: 2025 and Beyond

As we close 2024, we’re not just celebrating our achievements but preparing for unprecedented growth. Your trust fuels our passion, your challenges inspire our innovation.

To our incredible clients: Thank you for being more than customers. You’re our partners, our motivation, and the reason we continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in linguistic services.

Stay connected. Stay inspired. The best is yet to come.

The post Reflecting on 2024: Ciklopea’s Journey of Excellence Through Customer Feedback appeared first on Ciklopea.

Ciklopea’s participation underscores our commitment to continuous learning, staying ahead of industry trends, and enhancing our project management practices.

The event is an opportunity for professionals across the language services industry to network, exchange ideas, and explore strategies that drive innovation and success.

Stay connected for updates and highlights from this must-attend event!

Meet with Milena Matić

The post Meet Ciklopea at ELIA’s ‘Focus on Project Management 2024’ Event appeared first on Ciklopea.

Ana’s focus will be on building partnerships and discussing how Ciklopea’s language services can support medical organizations in navigating international markets, ensuring clear and accurate communication in multiple languages.

Whether it’s medical translation, regulatory compliance, or linguistic expertise for clinical studies, Ciklopea is committed to empowering healthcare providers with precise and localized solutions.

If you’re attending MEDICA 2024, reach out to Ana for a chance to connect and discuss how Ciklopea can help your organization achieve multilingual success!

Meet with Ana Meštrović

The post Ciklopea’s Presence at MEDICA 2024: Connecting with Healthcare Industry Experts appeared first on Ciklopea.

At Ciklopea, we understand the critical role that localization plays in technical communication, ensuring that documentation and user guides are clear, accurate, and accessible to global audiences. Our participation in tcworld allows us to stay ahead of industry trends, fine-tune our services, and continue delivering top-quality solutions for our clients in technical fields.

Let’s Connect

If you’re attending the conference and would like to discuss how Ciklopea can support your technical communication and localization needs, we’d love to meet you. Feel free to reach out and schedule a time to chat with Mladen Stojak and Andrea Mataija. This is a fantastic opportunity to explore how our solutions can help your business thrive in an increasingly globalized world.

We look forward to seeing you at the tcworld Conference 2024!

Meet with Mladen

The post Meet Ciklopea at the tcworld Conference 2024 appeared first on Ciklopea.

It’s true: basic translation is now freely available to anyone with an internet connection. But as with many “free” digital services, the question isn’t only about cost—it’s about value. Just as social media platforms offer free access in exchange for data, the real value in language services lies beyond mere word conversion.

The Human Element: Crucial for Quality and Context

While machine translation has made impressive strides, it still lacks the nuanced understanding that only human experts can provide. At Ciklopea, we leverage the power of technology while ensuring that skilled professionals guide the process. Here’s why this matters:

1. Contextual Understanding: Machines excel at processing data, but they struggle with context. Our human experts ensure that the intended meaning and impact of your message is preserved across various languages and cultures.
2. Quality Assurance: Free tools can’t guarantee accuracy when it comes to important communication. Our team provides the necessary oversight to catch and correct errors that machines might miss.
3. Cultural Adaptation: Effective global communication requires more than literal translation. Our experts adapt your content to resonate with specific target audiences, considering cultural nuances and local preferences.

Project Management: Our Core Strength

For over two decades, Ciklopea’s core business has remained consistent: expert project management. In the realm of language services, this means:

• Coordinating complex, multifaceted translation projects
• Ensuring timely delivery without compromising quality
• Managing resources efficiently to optimize costs
• Providing a single point of contact for all your language service needs

Embracing Technology for Enhanced Services

While our foundation remains strong, we’ve expanded our services to meet the evolving needs of our clients:

1. System Integration: We help you seamlessly integrate translation processes into your existing workflows and technologies.
2. Engine Training: Our experts fine-tune machine translation engines to improve accuracy based on your specific industry and content types.
3. Data Management: We assist in managing and leveraging your linguistic assets to improve consistency and reduce costs over time.

The Ciklopea Advantage: Technology and Expertise

At Ciklopea, we don’t see technology as a threat but as a powerful tool to enhance our services. Here’s how we create value:

• Efficient Processing: We use advanced tools to handle large volumes of structured bilingual data quickly and accurately.
• Human Oversight: Our experts review machine outputs, ensuring context is correct and the final product meets the highest quality standards.
• Strategic Guidance: We advise on the best approach for each project, balancing speed, cost, and quality to meet your specific needs.

Ready to Enhance Your Global Message?

Keep your message from getting lost in translation—partner with Ciklopea for translations that combine human expertise with technological efficiency. Whether you’re launching products on new markets, managing international legal documentation, or building global customer relationships, we ensure your message resonates exactly as intended.

Contact us today to discuss how we can help you communicate effectively across languages and cultures. Let’s make your global communication goals a reality.

The post Why LLMs Aren’t Ready to Replace Human Translators appeared first on Ciklopea.

But that’s not all!

To keep the momentum going, we’re launching a short video series reflecting on the key points discussed during the webinar. Whether you missed the event or want a recap, these videos will provide valuable insights and practical tips to enhance your business with expert translation services.

Watch the first video here: Characteristics of AM texts for translation

Stay tuned for the rest of the series as we continue to explore how precise translations can drive success in the automotive market.

The post A Successful Webinar – Fast and Flawless: How High-Quality Translation Drives Success in the Automotive Market appeared first on Ciklopea.

• Enhance customer experience and trust
• Support regulatory compliance and safety
• Strengthen brand recognition
• Boost business growth and financial success

Webinar Details:

Date: 09.10.2024
Time: 10:30
Format: Online, via Zoom

Our expert team, including Ana Juzbašić (Senior Project Manager), Marijana Mikić (Lead Linguist), and Petra Šešljaga Paradi (Vendor Manager), will share insights into the challenges and opportunities of translating for the automotive industry. You’ll also learn how translation services can support your global expansion and optimize your business processes.

Why Attend?
Whether you’re navigating complex regulations or striving for customer satisfaction, this webinar will provide actionable insights and strategies to improve your business with high-quality translation.

Register today

and don’t miss the opportunity to stay ahead in the competitive automotive market!

The post Join Our Webinar: How High-Quality Translation Drives Success in the Automotive Market appeared first on Ciklopea.

1. Enhancing TM Accuracy with AI

Over time, Translation Memories can become cluttered with outdated or incorrect translations. Traditional manual cleanup is time-consuming and prone to human error. By leveraging AI technologies like Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning, prompt engineering allows the system to automatically identify and correct inconsistencies, ensuring that your TM is always up-to-date and reliable.

2. Boosting Linguistic Quality

Prompt engineering takes AI TM Cleanup beyond just identifying duplicate or outdated entries. It helps improve linguistic quality by identifying contextually inaccurate translations, fixing language-specific issues, and fine-tuning the output to reflect the most current terminology and style. This significantly reduces the time and effort required by human linguists to perform manual reviews and corrections.

3. Reducing Operational Costs

Manual TM maintenance is not only labor-intensive but also costly. An AI-driven approach to TM cleanup automates these tasks, allowing your team to focus on more valuable, high-impact activities. By streamlining operations and minimizing human intervention, you can cut down on resource allocation and ultimately save costs.

4. Optimizing Translation Consistency

One of the biggest challenges in localization is maintaining consistency across translations. With AI prompt engineering, TM Cleanup ensures that repetitive, inconsistent, or irrelevant content is removed, while valid and contextually appropriate translations are maintained. This leads to higher consistency across projects, resulting in better brand coherence globally.

5. Accelerating Time-to-Market

Localization is often a race against time. With prompt-engineered AI TM Cleanup, the time-consuming task of manually reviewing and updating TMs is drastically reduced. By automating this process, teams can accelerate project timelines and bring products to global markets faster.

6. Data-Driven Insights for Continuous Improvement

AI prompt engineering offers a unique capability: the generation of data-driven insights. By analyzing large sets of translation data, the AI can provide actionable feedback on which translation units are performing well and which need improvement. This information can guide continuous improvement efforts, ultimately enhancing translation quality and efficiency.

7. Seamless Integration with Translation Management Systems

AI TM Cleanup can easily integrate with your existing Translation Management System (TMS), such as Orchestrum, making it a seamless addition to your localization workflow. By embedding AI within your TMS, you ensure that every aspect of your translation process, from project initiation to final delivery, is optimized for efficiency and accuracy.

8. Handling Large-Scale Projects with Ease

As localization projects grow in complexity and size, managing massive TMs manually becomes impractical. AI prompt engineering is designed to handle large-scale projects efficiently, processing vast amounts of data in a fraction of the time it would take a human. This scalability is crucial for global businesses aiming to manage content in multiple languages across numerous regions.

9. Preserving Brand Voice Across Languages

Maintaining a consistent brand voice is critical for global businesses, and AI-powered TM Cleanup ensures this by automatically detecting and correcting any deviations from established brand guidelines. With prompt engineering, the AI can be trained to prioritize specific terms, tones, and styles, preserving your brand’s identity across all markets.

10. Future-Proofing Your Localization Efforts

AI is continuously evolving, and so is prompt engineering. By investing in AI TM Cleanup now, you are future-proofing your localization efforts. The AI will become smarter over time, learning from new data to provide even better results. As the technology advances, so will your ability to manage TMs efficiently, ensuring long-term success in the ever-evolving world of global communication.

Conclusion

AI-powered TM Cleanup, enhanced by prompt engineering, represents a significant leap forward in the localization industry. By automating the tedious process of TM maintenance, businesses can ensure their translations are always accurate, consistent, and aligned with the latest linguistic standards. Investing in this technology not only saves time and money but also sets the stage for better localization outcomes in the future.

At Ciklopea, we are committed to leveraging the latest AI technologies to deliver superior language solutions to our clients. Contact us today to learn more about how AI-powered TM Cleanup can elevate your localization efforts and drive global success.

The post Maximizing Translation Efficiency with AI-Powered TM Cleanup: The Future of Localization appeared first on Ciklopea.

Linguistic annotation involves adding metadata to language data (texts, audio, etc.) to mark various linguistic features. This could include anything from labeling parts of speech in a sentence to indicating the sentiment of a phrase, or even marking pauses in speech in an audio file. These annotations provide essential context and structure to raw language data, making it more useful for training AI and ML models.

Types of Linguistic Annotation

1. Morphological Annotation: This involves tagging the grammatical features of words, such as tense, number, and case. It’s a foundational step in understanding the structure of languages and is vital for tasks like machine translation and text analysis.
2. Syntactic Annotation: Here, sentences are broken down into their grammatical components, such as subjects, objects, and predicates. Syntactic annotation is crucial for developing natural language processing (NLP) systems, which need to understand sentence structure.
3. Semantic Annotation: This goes a step further by tagging the meanings of words and phrases. For example, in the sentence “The bank is closed,” semantic annotation would help an AI differentiate between a financial institution and a riverbank.
4. Pragmatic Annotation: This type of annotation focuses on the context in which language is used, such as identifying speech acts (e.g., requests, commands) and discourse markers (e.g., “however,” “therefore”). It’s essential for applications like dialogue systems, which need to understand conversational context.
5. Sentiment Annotation: Sentiment annotation involves tagging text with information about the emotional tone or attitude expressed. This is especially useful in customer feedback analysis, social media monitoring, and other areas where understanding sentiment is key.
6. Named Entity Recognition (NER): This involves tagging the names of people, organizations, locations, and other entities within a text. NER is crucial for information retrieval, question-answering systems, and many other NLP tasks.

The Importance of Linguistic Annotation in AI and ML

The success of AI and ML models largely depends on the quality and quantity of annotated data they are trained on. Without linguistic annotation, AI systems would struggle to interpret and generate human language accurately. Here are a few reasons why linguistic annotation is vital:

• Improved Accuracy: Annotated data helps models understand the nuances of language, leading to more accurate predictions and outputs.
• Contextual Understanding: By providing context, annotations enable models to grasp the meaning behind words and phrases, which is essential for tasks like translation and sentiment analysis.
• Training Efficiency: High-quality annotations reduce the need for massive amounts of data, as they help models learn more from smaller datasets.
• Better User Experience: Ultimately, well-annotated data leads to AI and ML systems that better understand and interact with users, creating a more seamless and natural experience.

Linguistic Annotation at Ciklopea

At Ciklopea, we recognize the importance of linguistic annotation in developing sophisticated language technologies. Our team of linguistic experts and data scientists work together to provide high-quality annotation services tailored to the needs of AI and ML projects. Whether it’s for training a new NLP model or enhancing an existing one, we ensure that the annotated data we provide is accurate, contextually rich, and ready to fuel innovation.

Conclusion

As AI and ML continue to advance, the demand for precise linguistic annotation will only grow. By understanding and implementing effective annotation practices, companies can ensure their language-based technologies are not only functional but also capable of delivering superior user experiences. At Ciklopea, we are committed to supporting this journey with our expertise in linguistic annotation, helping our clients turn language data into powerful, intelligent solutions.

The post Understanding Linguistic Annotation: Enhancing Language Data for AI and ML appeared first on Ciklopea.

1. Enhancing Accuracy and Consistency

At the heart of linguistic validation is a commitment to accuracy. Translations must not only convey the original message but also do so with precision. Dual forward translations and reconciliations are employed to ensure that the final translated version is free from errors and discrepancies. This meticulous process ensures that content remains consistent across different languages, which is crucial for comparative studies and multi-country research.

2. Ensuring Cultural Relevance

A translation that is technically accurate but culturally irrelevant can lead to misunderstandings and inaccurate data. Linguistic validation addresses this by incorporating cognitive debriefing and clinician reviews. These steps ensure that translations are not only accurate but also adapted to the target audience. This cultural adaptation enhances participant comprehension, leading to more accurate and reliable responses.

3. Meeting Regulatory Standards

Regulatory bodies, particularly in the fields of clinical trials and health assessments, often mandate linguistic validation. This requirement underscores its importance in ensuring that translations meet international standards. By adhering to these rigorous validation processes, researchers can ensure compliance with regulatory guidelines, facilitating smoother approval processes and ethical research practices.

4. Improving Data Quality

Accurate and culturally relevant translations are essential for the collection of reliable data. Linguistic validation minimises the risk of misinterpretation and response errors, thereby enhancing the quality of the data collected. This improvement in data quality is vital for obtaining valid and reliable research findings, which can inform decision-making and policy formulation.

Conclusion

Linguistic validation is more than just a step in the translation process; it is a crucial element in ensuring the success of global research. By enhancing accuracy, cultural relevance, and regulatory compliance, linguistic validation significantly improves data quality and research outcomes. As research continues to transcend borders, the importance of this meticulous process cannot be overstated.

The post The Crucial Role of Linguistic Validation in Global Research appeared first on Ciklopea.

Ciklopea’s inclusion in CSA Research’s 2024 rankings is a testament to our unwavering commitment to providing top-quality language services. Our consistent recognition over the years showcases our dedication to helping businesses bridge communication gaps and succeed on global markets.

The Value of Being Recognized

Being named among the largest language service providers in Southern Europe is not just an accolade; it reflects our ongoing efforts to deliver exceptional value to our clients. This recognition reaffirms our position as a trusted partner for companies seeking reliable and professional language solutions.

Innovative Solutions

In our quest to provide even greater value to our clients, we are excited to announce several new solutions and integrations:

• Client Portal: Our new Client Portal offers a seamless and efficient way for clients to manage their projects, track progress, and communicate with our team.
• SharePoint Connector Integration: This integration allows for streamlined document management and collaboration directly within the SharePoint environment.
• WPML WordPress Integration: Our WPML integration ensures smooth and effective multilingual website management for WordPress users.
• New Certificate for Human Post-Editing: We have obtained a new certification for Human Post-Editing, ISO 18587, which covers Full Machine Translation Post-Editing and Light Machine Translation Post-Editing.
• AI-Powered Solutions: We are continually enhancing our services with AI-powered solutions to deliver faster, more accurate, and cost-effective language services.

About CSA Research Rankings

CSA Research is a leading independent market research firm specializing in the language services and technology industry. Their rankings are the industry’s only validated listings, offering a reliable benchmark for companies to gauge their performance and competitiveness. We are honored to be part of this exclusive list, which is based on thorough and objective analysis.

Looking Ahead

As we celebrate this achievement, we remain committed to our mission of enhancing global communication. We look forward to continuing our journey of growth, innovation, and excellence. We extend our heartfelt thanks to our dedicated team, clients, and partners for their support and trust in our services.

Stay tuned for more updates and insights as we continue to expand our capabilities and set new standards in the language services industry.

For more information on our services and how we can assist your business, please contact us or visit our website.

Schedule a discovery call with the Ciklopea team today!

The post Ciklopea Secures Place Among Leading Language Service Providers in Southern Europe for 2024 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Our Proven Advantage

• Expertise-Driven Solutions: Think of us as an extension of your team. We understand the regulations and terminology unique to your industry. Whether it’s medical, legal, or financial content, accuracy and understanding of the regulations are non-negotiable.
• Measurable ROI: Global expansion is an investment. We help you go beyond simple cost calculations, offering data-driven strategies for maximizing the return on your localization efforts.
• Seamless 3-Step Process: We’ve outlined this process in a previous blog. Our goal is to make complex localization projects easy for you – with transparency and consistent communication from start to finish.

Why Partner With Us?

• Trusted by Leading Brands: Leading brands and corporations from industries like the life sciences and industrial manufacturing rely on us for their localization needs.
• Global Reach, Local Expertise: We have the network to connect you with in-country specialists who ensure cultural sensitivity and market-specific regulatory knowledge.

Life Sciences

• Life Sciences Expertise: Our team includes translators and reviewers with specialized qualifications and experience in the life sciences, ensuring accurate communication of complex medical information.
• Regulatory Compliance Navigation: We stay up to date with the latest regulations for clinical trial documentation, medical device labeling, and pharmaceutical packaging across your target markets.

Industrial Manufacturing

• Technical Accuracy & Consistency: We maintain a robust glossary of industry-specific terms for consistent and accurate translation of technical manuals, safety data sheets (SDS), and engineering specifications.
• Global Supply Chain Support: We have a network of linguists experienced in translating documents for global supply chains, ensuring clear communication across manufacturing and distribution partners.

Corporate & Marketing Translations

• Multilingual Marketing Campaigns: We craft culturally sensitive marketing materials that resonate with your target audience, helping you achieve brand consistency across languages.
• Regulatory Awareness for Marketing Materials: We understand the legal nuances of marketing claims in different regions, ensuring your campaigns comply with local regulations.

Conquering regulated markets doesn’t need to be a gamble. With a trusted localization expert by your side, you’ll gain the confidence to expand into new territories and tap into the growth that awaits. Think of this partnership as an accelerator for your global ambitions.

Ready to unleash your potential on regulated markets?

Schedule a discovery call with the Ciklopea team today!

The post Expand Your Global Reach: Partner with an Expert and Conquer New Markets appeared first on Ciklopea.

• The importance of precise translation in ensuring patient safety and effective communication within the healthcare industry.
• Strategies for handling the unique challenges of translating scientific texts.
• Practical tips for maintaining accuracy and consistency in medical translations.
• Real-world examples highlighting the differences between translations for healthcare professionals and patients.
• Solutions for managing terminology and incorporating client feedback to improve translation quality.

Announcing Our Video Series

To continue sharing the wealth of information discussed during the webinar, we’re excited to announce a special video series that will be released over the next four weeks. Each week, we’ll share a new video featuring highlights from the webinar. Here’s what you can look forward to:

• Most Frequent Document Types in the Life Sciences: A Short Overview
• Ciklopea’s Workflow and Services: Strategies for Managing Scientific Terminology and Ensuring Translation Accuracy
• Vendor Management: How We Form Teams for Life Sciences Translations
• Possible Errors: Practical Examples of Translation Challenges and Solutions in the Medical Field

If you want to learn more, take a look at our first video

We invite you to follow our blog and social media channels to stay updated on the release of these videos.

Each video will provide valuable insights and practical tips that can benefit anyone involved in the life sciences and translation industries.

The post Reflecting on Our Webinar “From Lab to Lexicon: The Crucial Role of Translation in the Life Sciences” – Video appeared first on Ciklopea.

Why Attend?

LocWorld51 offers a unique platform for networking, learning, and innovation. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with experts and enthusiasts, discuss the latest trends, and explore new technologies that are shaping the future of localization. The event will include various sessions, workshops, and panel discussions designed to provide valuable insights and practical knowledge

Meet Mladen Stojak

Mladen will be available throughout the conference to discuss how Ciklopea’s comprehensive localization and translation solutions can support your business needs. This is a great opportunity to learn more about our services and how we leverage the latest technologies to deliver high-quality language solutions.

Join Us

We look forward to meeting you at LocWorld51 in Dublin. Whether you are looking to enhance your localization strategies, explore new technologies, or simply network with industry peers, this event is not to be missed. Join us for an inspiring and informative experience that will help drive your business forward.

The post Meet Ciklopea at LocWorld51 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Global success doesn’t come from one-size-fits-all solutions. We start with a collaborative discovery session to:

• Uncover Your Pain Points: What are the specific bottlenecks slowing down your multilingual projects or causing costly errors?
• Identify Risks: Are you facing potential legal hurdles or cultural miscommunications in your target markets?
• Define Measurable Objectives: Do you want to increase website traffic in new markets, improve customer satisfaction scores, or streamline internal communication?

Step 2 – Customized Solutions: Your Tailored Path to Growth

Based on your unique needs, we’ll design a custom program. This isn’t just about translation – it’s about understanding your business model. Your solution might include:

• Vendor Selection: Matching you with the perfect translation specialists for your industry and content type.
• Process Optimization: Using technology to improve efficiency and collaboration, saving you time and money.
• Workflow Design: Developing the ideal steps from content creation to multilingual delivery.
• Timeline and Evaluation: Setting clear milestones and success metrics.

Step 3 – Expertly Guided Execution: Your Partner in Progress

We don’t just hand you a plan and disappear. We’re your partners through the entire process, offering:

• Expert Implementation: Our team guides you through every stage, ensuring a smooth rollout.
• Ongoing Support: We’re here for questions, adjustments, and adapting to new challenges as they arise.
• Sustained Growth: Together, we’ll analyze success metrics, celebrate wins, and refine your approach to maximize your global reach.

Translation and localization can be overwhelming. But with a trusted partner and a strategic process, it becomes your key to international expansion. Think of this 3-step model as a roadmap – allowing you to navigate new markets with confidence.

Ready to ditch the translation headaches and unlock your global potential?

Schedule a discovery call with the Ciklopea team today!

The post From Translation Chaos to Global Growth: A 3-Step Process for Success appeared first on Ciklopea.

Why participate?

Poor quality translations can compromise patients’ lives and safety. This is why, besides linguistic knowledge, medical translators must have specialised training, experience, and interest in the field. We are here to show you how translators and project managers ensure high-quality translations that use the correct terminology and properly convey information from the source text.

Speakers

Mirna Relić, Senior Medical Linguist, and Sarah Ann Rengel, Senior Project Manager at Ciklopea, will share their extensive experience and expertise with you.

What will you learn?

• The characteristics of different texts within the life sciences industry and the principles that must be adhered to when translating
• How medical linguistic teams are formed and selected
• How linguistic teams deal with terminology and other relevant information
• How linguists deal with the differences between texts intended for healthcare professionals vs. patients, with practical examples
• The most common mistakes and translation traps (practical examples), and how medical translators deal with them
• What solutions Ciklopea offer for translating medical texts consistently and within budget
• The importance of client feedback, and what teams do with the feedback they receive

How to apply?

Apply now, save the date for our exclusive webinar, and find out why translation in the life sciences domain requires collaboration between specialised medical linguists and expert project managers.

Register now

The post From Lab to Lexicon: The Crucial Role of Translation in the Life Sciences appeared first on Ciklopea.

The NEXT Pharma Summit serves as a premier platform for thought leaders and professionals to converge and delve into the most pressing issues and innovative solutions within the pharmaceutical landscape. With a commitment to staying at the forefront of industry advancements, Ciklopea’s CSO, Mladen Stojak, and CEO, Sandra Boljkovac Stojak, will be present, eager to foster meaningful connections and exchange insights with fellow industry experts.

At Ciklopea, we recognize the paramount importance of adapting to evolving industry trends and leveraging cutting-edge technologies to deliver unparalleled services to our clients. As such, we are keenly interested in exploring the latest breakthroughs and technological advancements showcased at NEXT Pharma Summit 2024, with a focus on how they can be harnessed to elevate our translation and localization offerings in the pharmaceutical sphere.

Our team is enthusiastic about the prospect of engaging with attendees at NEXT Pharma Summit 2024 and invites all participants to visit our booth. Whether you’re seeking innovative solutions or simply looking to connect with like-minded professionals, we look forward to welcoming you and exchanging valuable insights that drive the future of pharmaceutical translation and localization.

Join Ciklopea at NEXT Pharma Summit 2024 in Dubrovnik, and let’s shape the future of pharmaceutical communication together. See you there!

The post NEXT Pharma Summit 2024 appeared first on Ciklopea.

1. Prevention: Planning for Success

● Lack of Planning & Strategy: Don’t jump into translation blindly. Define your goals, target markets, and budget. A strategic plan will save you money, headaches, and embarrassing cultural missteps.
● Choosing the Wrong Vendor: Expertise matters! A vendor that doesn’t understand your industry will produce translations that miss the mark. Do your homework and find a partner specializing in your niche.
● Legal & Regulatory Compliance: Each country has its own laws governing things like data privacy and marketing content. Consult with experts to ensure your localized projects stay on the right side of the law.

2. Proximity: Communication is Key

● Communication & Collaboration: Translation projects often involve multiple teams across time zones. Establish clear communication channels and set expectations to avoid delays and rework.
● Wasting Time on Manual Processes: Technology is your friend! Use translation management systems and automation to streamline the process, reduce errors, and free up your team for higher-value tasks.
● Preserving Design & Layout: This is more than just aesthetics. Different languages take up different amounts of space. Design your content with localization in mind OR use tools that make formatting adjustments easy.

3. Popularity: Know Your Audience

● Not Knowing Your Target Market: A literal translation isn’t enough. Successful localization requires deep cultural understanding. Partner with in-country experts to tailor your message appropriately.
● Insufficient Control Over Source Material: Translators aren’t miracle workers. Provide clear, concise source texts with well-defined terminology to ensure the best possible output.
● Maintaining Brand Consistency: Your brand voice should be recognizable in any language. Establish clear style guides and glossaries, and enforce them across all translated content. Translation and localization are investments in your global success. By applying our 3P model, you can minimize potential pitfalls and ensure your message resonates with your audiences worldwide.

Do any of these challenges sound familiar? Our team at Ciklopea can help you develop a comprehensive localization strategy that puts you on the path to international growth.

Schedule A Discovery Call  if you want to learn more NOW.

The post 9 Critical Failures in Translation & Localization Projects and Programs: How to Avoid Them appeared first on Ciklopea.

The post Ciklopea Announces Ivana Barišić Oharek as Chief Operating Officer (COO) appeared first on Ciklopea.

As a Business Development Manager, you will be part of a team working on strengthening Ciklopea’s leadership position in providing localization solutions to clients, helping them successfully present themselves on international markets and secure a strong position on the global market.

Since Ciklopea has offices in Slovenia and Serbia and actively operates in the global market, our focus is on business development in the region and globally.

By adopting an individual approach to customers and understanding their needs, you will assist them in finding solutions tailored to their business.

If you have experience in the language or IT industries, understand the importance of modern language solutions for business success, and enjoy participating in business development, you might be the ideal person for us.

Responsibilities:

• Selecting potential clients
• Identifying key contacts from among potential clients and arranging meetings with targeted potential customers to initiate the sales process
• Creating and monitoring new business opportunities
• Collaborating with the sales team and management to determine necessary strategic sales approaches
• Continuously expanding the company’s sales channel
• Achieving sales targets and profit margins
• Negotiating prices and finalizing contracts to close sales
• Registering all sales activities on a daily basis in the CRM system
• Providing weekly/monthly/annual reports to management on achieved results
• Reporting on market trends in the industry

Required qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree – completed three or four-year program
• 3-5 years of direct sales experience
• Knowledge of the Slovenian language is required, with a preference for prior work experience in the Slovenian market
• Sales experience – converting potential clients into business partners while maintaining established sales quotas
• Experience in assessing potential clients, planning communication, customer development, and time management
• Successful qualification of potential clients, including multiple key decision-makers
• Strong problem-solving and complaint resolution skills
• Ability to build and maintain lasting customer relationships
• Excellent verbal communication and presentation skills, as well as impeccable written skills
• Team player with strong personal opinions and solutions
• Ability to achieve and exceed goals even under pressure
• Fluent knowledge of English is necessary. Fluent knowledge of German is a plus.

What we offer:

• Good working conditions and a comprehensive benefits package
• Opportunity for personal development and goal achievement
• A positive attitude and excellence, result-oriented teamwork

Ciklopea is an Employer Partner.

Find out more at: https://ciklopea.com/careers/

Please send your application to hr@ciklopea.com.

Join our team and show us that we can’t do it without you anymore!

The post We are Looking for Business Development Manager (M/F) appeared first on Ciklopea.

As with any technology, the amount of good that AI will bring to the translation industry depends on how it’s used and how much we, as humans, invest in understanding its potential.

At Ciklopea, we were always curious about the innovative ways technology can help people work better and support clients in delivering localized experiences while saving time and money. Here’s where we stand when it comes to the controversy surrounding AI in translation.

Fear of Change Stands in the Way of Progress

When your only tool is a hammer, you see nails everywhere you go. The same goes for being overly set in your way of thinking. If you insist on looking for the dangers of AI for the translation industry, you’ll find them. But this short-sightedness prevents you from seeing the potential of AI.

The way you can beat this is by shifting your perspective and replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity. AI can help translators and language service providers as a whole in tremendous ways. Ask yourself the following questions:

• How can AI help language experts become more efficient in delivering translations or collaborating?
• Is there a way to leverage AI to ensure more consistency and accuracy in translations?
• Can AI help us break the language barrier faster?
• Can AI support human creativity in the localization process?
• What are the new and positive opportunities AI brings to the language market?

You probably don’t know how to answer all these questions immediately, but they serve as good prompts to challenge your old way of thinking. You can do independent research, of course, and you can also keep reading to discover what we see as the main benefits of AI in translation.

Machine Translation (MT) Can Boost Your Productivity by 60%

As technology advances, so do translation services. Machine Translation (MT) is the most obvious and most common use case for AI in translation. But it’s not just about inserting source text into a tool and then pasting it into a document and calling it a day. So don’t think that it’s just a fancy name for Google Translate.

Machine Translation is about improving efficiency and accelerating time-to-delivery. The combination of MT and advanced artificial intelligence systems allows translators to work better and faster.

An average translator can translate between 2000-2500 words per day without any help from MT. Imagine how much faster turnaround times could be if we let machines do the heavy lifting? According to our calculations, it’s somewhere between 50-60%.

This benefit for the translator creates a benefit for the end client, too. For projects that don’t require transcreation and heavy localization – i.e., detailed and careful checks of tone, style, and the cultural values of the target audience – MT brings a lot of benefits.

Even in cases where the human touch is integral to the process, MT can help with the initial brainstorming or with kicking off the translations so that language pros don’t have to start from scratch.

CAT Tools Powered by AI

If you’re a translator, you’re probably using some form of AI in your everyday life without even being aware of it. It doesn’t have to be shiny or marketed with power words in order for it to be groundbreaking. Take CAT tools as an example.

AI-powered CAT tools help human translators by suggesting translations based on previous work. They can create translation memories and identify inconsistencies. Imagine if a translator has been working on a tedious project, translating hundreds of pages of legal documents, and within a tight deadline.

These tools minimize the chances for human error, they can boost productivity, and make sure you achieve language consistency. Just think about advanced grammar and spell checkers, source and target text search, concordance search, and more.

Standard CAT tools we’ve used at Ciklopea (or are actively using) include Across Language Server, SDL Trados Studio, SDL GroupShare, SDL Passolo, memoQ, Phrase, Wordfast, Translation Workspace and others, and they come both as desktop software and cloud-based solutions.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) Helps with Sentiment Analysis and Translation Efficiency

NLP is a field of AI that focuses on the interaction between computers and human language. It relies on algorithms and models to enable machines to understand, interpret, and generate human-like language.

So, how is it different from Machine Translation (MT)?

The primary goal of MT is to produce accurate and coherent translations from a source language to a target language. On the other hand, NLP aims to enable computers to understand the meaning, context, and nuances of human language. This includes syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

In a nutshell, they are both branches of AI that deal with language, but they serve different purposes and involve different technologies.

Here are some examples of how NLP can be used:

In terms of techniques, NLP might rely on tokenization, which is breaking down text into smaller units, such as words or phrases. This can help translators to do their job more efficiently and without wasting energy on source text preparation. Of course, there is also syntax and semantic analysis, which refers to understanding the grammatical structure and meaning of sentences.

AI Supercharges the Quality Assurance Process

QA checklists for linguists are long. They have to be, to ensure great-quality translations. QA experts need to evaluate and review consistency, verify terminology, check for grammar and syntax errors, make sure translations adhere to the style guide, and more.

Luckily, AI has the power to accelerate the QA process and make things a bit simpler. To be more precise, technology can help us with:

• Identifying inconsistencies (e.g., variations in phrasing, contradictory terminology)
• Contextual understanding (e.g., flagging idiomatic expressions that don’t match the ones stored in translation memory systems)
• Quality scoring (e.g., introducing scoring mechanisms and pointing out areas in MT-assisted translations where human attention is needed)
• Automated error reporting (e.g., categorizing and reporting different types of errors, such as spelling mistakes or grammar issues)

Large Language Models (LLMs) are based on AI-powered algorithms and are incredibly powerful in terms of generating, summarizing, and predicting text. These language models can be used not only for generating and classifying text but for direct translation of text as well.

LLMs are generally considered to be “the next step” in MT. They are particularly helpful for languages that are rich in homonyms, for recognizing context, and for properly interpreting the use of reflexive structures in certain languages. Because they have been trained on large datasets, they can help with the quality of MT output (i.e., grammatically correct and well-structured sentences that are contextually appropriate and accurate).

A more advanced version of AI-powered quality assurance implies using predictive analytics. AI algorithms can predict potential translation errors based on historical data and patterns. Just think of the possibilities! You can proactively identify and correct issues before they turn into bigger problems or even blockers on a project level.

Don’t Ignore AI’s Potential for Translation and Localization

AI is here to help you work better and save money, not to steal your job. Absolutely everyone in the translation ecosystem can benefit from it. If you have repetitive content you need translated, with MT you can get it done much faster. Just think about manuals, user guides, or privacy policies.

Here’s how everyone wins:

With MT, translators don’t have to start from scratch. They can post-edit the content and do quality assurance so everything is ready much faster than it would be if they weren’t using tech.

And what does this mean for you? Lower costs, faster translation turnaround, and better translation quality. With machine translation and AI, you can cut costs where human post-editing is sufficient, and then allocate the remaining resources to more complex projects that require creativity or transcreation.

Want to explore how Ciklopea can help you? We hold all the relevant ISO certifications and have more than 20 years of experience. There’s a reason why we’re one of the most trusted language service providers in Europe. Schedule a call today to discuss your project.

The post Why AI Won’t Take Away Translators’ Jobs appeared first on Ciklopea.

I prepared a short presentation on machine translation post-editing, followed by practical work on three different texts that were translated by a machine: an operating manual, an EU communication, and the webpage of a tourist agency, both from and into German. So, the participants had to edit the machine translation and eventually give their feedback. I wanted to show them what the challenges of MTPE are and how to solve them. It also helped them learn with what language combinations and what types of texts post-editing does (or doesn’t) work with.

• How do you see the role of post-editing evolving in the translation industry, especially in the context of advancements in machine translation technology?

After having taken part in the TEF conference in Brussels last November and having heard the experiences of other companies and freelance translators, I believe post-editing has already become an integral part of translation processes in other countries such as Spain, while here in Croatia it is still something new and unwanted, much like the ugly duckling. We will have to adapt and embrace whatever advantages machine translation has to offer and work around the pitfalls of post-editing in order to end up with the best possible translation product. People have always wanted to work with machines and now it has finally become a reality, and I hope that instead of being intimidated by MTPE we will learn how, where, and when to make the best use of it. It will never replace human translators and the experience and context that we bring to the table, especially in the creatively demanding fields, but why not use it as a tool, just like we use CAT tools? Post-editors are what translators and proofreaders used to be, and with MTPE they are taking it to a higher level.

• Did you notice any challenges or questions that came up frequently during the workshops?

The students are mainly concerned about the rates for post-editing, how much and how is one paid for their post-editing services, having in mind the worries produced by AI and machine translation, and the idea that translators as such are no longer needed.

• In your experience, what are the main benefits of post-editing, and are there specific types of content or projects where post-editing is particularly effective?

Ideally, when working with good MT, if the text is relatively straightforward with as little word plays as possible, post-editing saves time (and consequently money). Sometimes MT offers words and synonyms you would maybe not think of. Depending on the type of text and audience/readers, you put in as much effort as you think is required. It is particularly effective when translating the textual parts of manuals, instructions for use, privacy policies, and we have seen that when the MT is really good, it performs extremely well even with more contextually demanding types of texts, such as EU communications, directives, regulations, etc.

• In your opinion, how could the information from the workshops be helpful for those who participated, especially those studying German?

I hope I helped them realize that post-editing is indeed our future, or rather our present. They will not be able to escape it should they choose to pursue a career in translation. But in order to be a good post-editor, they first need to be a good translator and a good proofreader; they must be fluent in both source and target languages, and they must know how to work with various different CAT tools. But it is manageable and achievable. And naturally, they should like/love/enjoy their job.

• Have you noticed any challenges or concerns among translators regarding post-editing? How can these challenges be addressed or mitigated?

Translators are mainly worried about not being paid fairly for their work, and rightly so. No one enjoys cleaning up other people’s mess, let alone after a machine translation. It is still difficult to separate pure translation from post-editing because it sometimes happens that instead of editing you need to translate a sentence/segment from the beginning and in that case, MT is nothing but a nuisance. However, these situations tend to appear less and less, so be patient.

• As a translator, how do you balance the use of machine translation and post-editing with maintaining linguistic and cultural nuances in your work?

I usually approach any text that I proofread/edit in the same way. I look at the whole sentence, detect what is wrong or unusual on the grammatical and syntactical level and work my way through to the semantics and check whether it is consistent with the rest of the text, focusing on terminology as well as style. I ask myself how a human would express an idea in the target language. Very often you need to do some research to find the right collocation.

If it works as it is, I tend to edit as little as possible, and if the linguistic and cultural nuances are off, sometimes I change the MT output completely or translate the whole source sentence from scratch.

• Do you believe that post-editing will continue to be an essential skill for translators in the future? How can translators adapt to the changing landscape of machine-assisted translation?

Most certainly. The simplest way to adapt is to be up to date, follow the trends and what is going on in the industry, and to be willing to adapt.

• Looking ahead, do you have any advice for fellow translators on how to embrace the evolving landscape of machine-assisted translation and post-editing in their careers?

I would say: just dive in! You can’t know if you’re any good with it or if MT is any good if you don’t try. Clients expect and will increasingly expect machine translation post-editing. Whether we like it or not, there is no reversing that. Use your experience to your advantage, and if you don’t have any experience, start gaining it.

Also, hopefully universities will start including MTPE in their curricula soon so that the demands of the market can be met and in a more high-quality manner, by providing know-how for post-editing experts.

The post Exploring the Future of Post-Editing: Insights from Marijana Mikić, Translator and Workshop Facilitator appeared first on Ciklopea.

Discover the pivotal role of project managers in creating exceptional customer experiences.

What Is an Editable File (And Why a PDF Isn’t Really One)

Understand the significance of editable files and why a PDF isn’t exactly one of them.

What is Translation Alignment and How it Works for You

Familiarize yourself with the concept of translation alignment and how it can benefit you.

Culturalization or What Happens When Content Meets Context

Explore how culturalization impacts the intersection of content and context.

A Translation Style Guide – What Is It and Why Do You Need One?

Learn what a translation style guide is and why you need one.

Different Procedures, Same Goal: Dealing with Clients from the Private and Public Sectors

Examine how different procedures converge towards the same goal when working with clients from the private and public sectors.

Localization Project Management: Best Practices

Gain insights into best practices in localization project management.

Translating Patient-Facing Content: Challenges and Solutions

Understand the challenges and solutions in translating content directed towards patients.

IFUs for Medical Devices | Technology and Manufacturing | Solutions

Delve deeper into the world of instructions for use in medical devices and their technological and manufacturing solutions.

Localization: The Key to the Future of International Business

Learn why localization is key to the future of international business.

Most Popular Case Studies:

Wallis Automotive Europe Achieves Continuous Localization with Ciklopea

Explore how Wallis Automotive Europe achieved continuous localization with the help of Ciklopea.

Dun & Bradstreet Translates

Discover how Dun & Bradstreet successfully translated its Financial Dictionary App with Ciklopea’s help.

Maistra

Get acquainted with Maistra’s success story and their experience with Ciklopea.

We appreciate your trust throughout the past year. We look forward to sharing more valuable information and experiences in the upcoming year.

The post Our Most Popular Blog Posts in 2023: A Year in Review appeared first on Ciklopea.

Arab Health becomes the canvas for exploring the intersection of precision, clarity, and innovation in healthcare language solutions. Join our team, led by Marina Roček, Business Development Manager, and Ana Meštrović, Project Manager, as we unravel the business opportunities that our language solutions can unlock for your organization.

In a world interconnected by healthcare, our coverage of over 150 language combinations positions us as a global player. Whether it’s expanding into European markets or establishing a global presence, Ciklopea is poised to be your strategic partner.

Let’s redefine standards and shape the future of healthcare communication together at Arab Health 2024!

Email: sales@ciklopea.com

The post Beyond borders, beyond languages – Ciklopea’s healthcare journey continues! appeared first on Ciklopea.

The second session, “Workflow Demonstration”, will offer participants a practical demonstration of the workflow in a translation agency, providing insights into everyday procedures and activities. This session is intended to prepare students for the expectations of the professional market.

These workshops offer valuable opportunities for students to gain practical knowledge and insights into the translation industry, potentially shaping their future careers.

Ciklopea has been known for sharing its knowledge and organizing various regional workshops in the past. Learn more about our involvement and the other opportunities we offer to students.

We’re always looking for new team members so feel free to fill out the open application here.

Good luck!

The post Ciklopea to Hold Two Translation Workshops at the Department of German Studies in Zadar appeared first on Ciklopea.

Believe it or not, we’ve been experimenting with MT and AI-related technologies for more than a decade. In the beginning, we experimented with Moses-powered statistical algorithms, and later on we explored what NMT-powered engines can do.

Ciklopea has always leaned into technology to help people work better and support clients in delivering localized experiences while saving time and money. Now we’ve been officially certified with ISO 18587, adding it to our range of existing norms (ISO 9001, ISO 17000, and ISO 27001).

This ISO standard establishes the qualifications post-editors must have, and the technical aspects involved in the post-editing process. We’ll review and correct the output generated by MT systems to make sure that 1) it meets the required quality standards and 2) fulfils its purpose.

The main benefit of MT lies in the fact that it automatically translates text or speech from one language to another. And while AI is great, it’s important to use it responsibly.

At Ciklopea, we are strong advocates for keeping humans “in the loop” to verify the raw engine output. Human post-editing is simply irreplaceable, especially from the standpoint of contextual understanding, subject matter expertise, handling uncommon languages and dialects, and more.

For certain projects, the ideal approach has proven to be a combination of human expertise and machine assistance. This is how you get accurate and culturally appropriate translations. Translated by machines. Verified by humans.

Maybe you’re looking for a way to optimize your translation budget through AI as well?

MT can help save up to 60% of translators’ time. This means two things for you as a client: 1) you will get translated content faster and 2) you will optimize your costs.

Schedule a call with Ciklopea and let’s explore post-editing together.

The post We Earned the ISO 18587 Certification for Human Post-Editing appeared first on Ciklopea.

Our team incorporates insights from industry leaders to continually enhance our localization solutions. Staying informed through conferences such as Game Changer allows us to provide services aligned with the latest trends in gaming, fintech, and e-commerce.

The program, held across two halls, an exhibition area, and an investor zone, covered topics from augmented reality in online sales to the role of artificial intelligence in shaping the future of e-commerce.

Ciklopea has been present on the Slovenian market since 2017, with its branch office continually expanding its operations while nurturing partnerships with clients in Slovenia.

Let’s transform words into opportunities – explore the world of seamless communication with us. Ready to redefine your linguistic landscape? Connect with Ciklopea today and schedule a discovery call.

The post Ciklopea’s Presence at the Game Changer E-Commerce & Fintech Conference appeared first on Ciklopea.

Another recipient, the Ruđer Bošković Technical School, seeks to enable students access to server equipment to foster their understanding of server systems, virtualization, and applications.

Additionally, Ciklopea contributed servers to Novska High School, which aims to facilitate data sharing among classes, enriching students’ learning experiences and technological skills.

Our initiative directly supports organizations committed to enhancing learning experiences in IT, web technologies, and game development. This reflects Ciklopea’s ongoing commitment to supporting the community and nurturing young talent.

The post Tech for Tomorrow: Our Contribution to Inspiring Young Learners appeared first on Ciklopea.

As Ciklopea grew, we recognized that it was time to invest in a Business Management System (BMS). In 2016, we built our BMS Orchestrum to ensure better efficiency, consistency, and smooth management of multilingual content.

Orchestrum is used by all Ciklopea’s employees. This includes the project management, sales, linguistic, and QA teams, as well as our various support teams, including accounting and IT. It’s used by all Ciklopea’s vendors as well. Our direct clients also have the option to open a profile and check their quotes, orders, and invoices.

Thanks to the fact that we use Orchestrum as a central system for recording and exchanging information, we’re able to identify trends and take a deep dive into the data to learn more about the nature of the projects we work on.

Our Top 5 Most Popular Language Pairs

1. English to Croatian

At Ciklopea, the most popular language pair is British English and Croatian. This doesn’t come to us a surprise given the fact that we’re the leading language services provider in Croatia and one of Southern Europe’s Top 20 largest language services providers.

2. English to Slovenian

The second most popular language pair is British English and Slovenian. The largest volumes for this language pair are from medical translations, ensuring effective communication and the delivery of high-quality healthcare services, as well as accurate translation of drug labels, package inserts, and regulatory documents.

3. English to Serbian (Latin)

The third most popular language pair is British English and Serbian (Latin).
Fun fact: If you didn’t know, the Serbian language is unique in that it has two official scripts: the Latin alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet. This duality has historical, cultural, and linguistic roots.
The Serbian Cyrillic script has its origins in the medieval Serbian Empire and the activities of the Serbian Orthodox Church. It was adapted from the Glagolitic script under the influence of Byzantine Christianity.
The Latin script, meanwhile, was introduced to Serbia under Austro-Hungarian rule in the 18th century and gained prominence during the 19th and 20th centuries.

4. German to Croatian

The fourth most popular language pair is German and Croatian. The majority of German to Croatian projects are technical ones, translating documentation relating to tools and machines. We’ve translated almost 1 million words from German into Croatian in this field.

5. German to Slovenian

The fifth most popular language pair based on the volume of translations is German and Slovenian.
Did you know? German and Slovenian belong to different language families (Germanic and Slavic, respectively) and have distinct grammatical structures, vocabulary, and syntax. Translators need to be aware of these linguistic differences to ensure accurate and natural-sounding translations.

Most Popular Industries

1. Life Sciences: 6.3 Million Words Translated

Medical translations are vital for several reasons, considering the high-stakes nature of the healthcare industry and the potential impact on patient outcomes. From patient safety and informed consent to global research, regulatory compliance, interdisciplinary communication, and addressing health disparities, medical translations are crucial for effective healthcare communication and equal care.

2. EU Legal Documents: 4.5 Million Words Translated

Translation of legal documents supports the principle of equal access to information. Legal professionals, including judges and lawyers, may need to refer to EU legal texts in various languages, and translations ensure that everyone involved in the legal process can comprehend and apply the relevant laws.

3. Industrial Manufacturing: 4.4 Million Words Translated

Tools and machinery are often manufactured and used globally. Translating documentation ensures that people from different linguistic backgrounds can access and understand important information. Not only that, but they also ensure compliance with regulations, as well as accurate safety instructions and guidelines.

4. Marketing: 3.1 Million Words Translated

Marketing translations involve adapting promotional content, advertising materials, and branding messages from one language to another. Speaking your customers’ language (quite literally) can transform the success of your business across borders. Ciklopea has helped many different businesses across the globe in adapting promotional content to cultural and linguistic contexts, ensuring brand consistency and compliance with local regulations.

In Need of Translation Services?

As a language solutions provider, Ciklopea started its journey over two decades ago as a humble home-based startup. Over time, we have evolved into a recognized industry leader. We are known for our commitment to investing in our team, refining our processes, and staying at the forefront of technological advancements.

If you need translation services, we’re here for you: schedule an appointment so that we can discuss your needs.

The post We Translated Over 23 Million Words in 2022–Here’s What We Learned appeared first on Ciklopea.

At the heart of our impactful presence was the diverse range of language solutions we offer, spanning from the meticulous crafting of IFUs and SmPCs to the development of innovative marketing strategies and the precise localization of clinical research materials. This comprehensive approach underscores Ciklopea’s pivotal role in maintaining industry precision and clarity on a global scale.

Medica Trade Fair provided an invaluable opportunity for us to interact with key stakeholders, industry leaders, and potential collaborators. Our engagement went beyond the traditional bounds of exhibition, focusing on meaningful conversations and building relationships. These connections are the bedrock of future collaborations that will contribute to the advancement of healthcare communication.

Medica unfolded its technological and scientific marvel, offering an immersive experience for participants across diverse segments, engaging topics, supporting shows, and enlightening conferences.

Our role at Medica 2023 was not just about showcasing our achievements; it was a strategic move towards exploring new horizons and seizing emerging opportunities in the ever-evolving healthcare sector. As a result, we are thrilled to be at the forefront of advancing the industry, equipped with a renewed sense of purpose and enthusiasm.

The event served as a stepping stone to new possibilities, emphasizing our commitment to staying ahead of industry trends and driving innovation in language solutions. As we look back on our impactful presence at Medica Trade Fair, we eagerly anticipate the positive ripple effects on the healthcare communication landscape and the exciting ventures that lie ahead.

Ciklopea remains dedicated to delivering excellence in language services, contributing to the global growth of the healthcare industry. Stay tuned for more updates on our journey, as we continue to make strides in shaping the future of language solutions in healthcare.

Connect with us to explore how Ciklopea’s expertise can elevate your global communication needs –  schedule a discovery call. Let’s shape the future together!

The post Strategic Excellence: Ciklopea’s Impactful Display at Medica Trade Fair 2023 appeared first on Ciklopea.

This impact is twofold. Firstly, your external partner can accelerate your time to market, which means that you’ll reduce the amount of revenue opportunity loss. Secondly, the quality of the translations you receive will determine how successful you are in expanding on the market.

With the right system, evaluating different vendors can get easier. Here’s how you can hire the right partner in the shortest possible amount of time.

Ciklopea is an award-winning language service provider that’s been in the business for more than 20 years. Book a call with us today or explore our translation services.

Tip #1: Define Your Requirements

One of the common mistakes we see during discovery calls is that our potential clients don’t know what it is that they actually need. They haven’t sat down internally to define their project needs and the scope. This step is essential in making sure you find a language partner who’s a good fit.

Similar to the scenario where you’re hiring someone for your in-house team, you need to make a list of requirements. Identify the languages involved, the type of content, any specific industry expertise required, and the deadline for completion.

Clear communication of your requirements will help you find the right translation service. Here are the things you need to consider:

• Clearly define the language pairs you need assistance with
• Describe the nature of the content that requires translation
• Assess whether the content requires specialized knowledge in a particular field
• Determine when you need the content translated
• Estimate the volume to be translated (word count or pages)
• Decide whether you want the translation service to provide revisions or reviews after the initial translation
• Determine your budget for the translation project
• Establish clear communication channels with the translation service provider

Only after you’ve done this preparation will you be able to start evaluating different vendors.

Tip #2: Look for Qualifications and Experience

One thing that is especially important in cases where you’re expanding to markets that are uniquely different from yours is external support in the form of cultural consulting or additional services beyond translation (e.g., language consulting, localization).

In any case, you need to carefully assess the qualifications and experience of your potential vendor. And how do you do that? Start by reviewing their website. As you explore it, ask yourself the following questions:

• Which industries does this language service provider cover?
• Do they have ISO certification? Which certificates do they have?
• What types of translations do they cover?
• What types of language tech and tools do they use?
• How do they work with clients?
• What do their client testimonials say?
• What kinds of case studies do they have available to refer to?
• Has this language solutions company received any awards?

To evaluate different vendors, make sure you use the same scoring framework. This is the only way you can compare apples to apples.

Did you know? Ciklopea was once again recognized as one of the leaders in the multibillion-dollar global translation, interpreting, and localization industry.

Tip #3: Contact the Vendor to Learn More About Them

Finished looking at their website? That’s great! Now’s the time to book a discovery call.

Make sure to prepare your requirements and questions in advance. During the call, there are three main things you need to ask about:

• References and/or translation samples
• Quality Assurance measures
• Pricing and turnaround time

We’ll go into more detail about each of these three things in a little bit. Before we do that, though, there’s another thing you need to evaluate during the call – whether or not the potential language partner is a cultural fit.

For instance, Ciklopea’s core values include transparency, integrity, and simplicity, while at its core, the company believes in continuous improvement (Kaizen), the value of partnerships, and professionalism.

The thing is, people have different visions of partnerships and collaboration. You want to make sure that your vendor’s cultural values match yours, that their work ethic is strong, and that they treat you with respect.

So, what’s a good signal that the company has experience with successfully managing client relationships?

• They tend to show flexibility and go the extra mile to help you with your project
• They have defined SOPs and communication channels to ensure your collaboration runs smoothly
• They are professional yet friendly, and they provide numerous value-added services
• They are transparent and open about the way they do business
• They genuinely want to help you, and that’s their priority

Now, let’s take a look at the next tip.

Tip #4: Ask for References and Translation Samples

When requesting references and samples, be specific about your requirements. More precisely, provide the following information:

• The type of content you need translation for
• Language pairs
• Any specific industry or subject matter you’re interested in

This helps the translation service provide relevant references and samples. However, you should bear in mind that some clients may have confidentiality agreements with the translation service. This means they might not be able to share specific documents or reveal the identity of their clients.

This is particularly common for the financial and legal industries, as well as tech. In such situations, you should ask for generic samples or references.

Once you receive the references, take the initiative to contact them directly. Ask specific questions about their experience with the translation service, including the quality of translations, adherence to deadlines, and overall professionalism.

When reviewing translation samples, pay attention to the accuracy, fluency, and appropriateness of the translation for your specific needs. Assess whether the vendor in question truly has the experience that you’re looking for.

If you have questions about the samples or references provided, don’t hesitate to ask the translation service for clarifications or additional information.

Pro tip: Make sure to ask for recent references. This is how you’ll understand the translation service’s current quality and performance. Language trends, terminology, and quality standards can evolve over time.

Tip #5: Make Sure You Understand Quality Assurance Measures

Inquiring about a translation service’s quality assurance measures is very important. Only then can you evaluate if the translations you receive are likely to be accurate, consistent, and error-free.

Quality assurance measures can vary from one translation service to another. Check the table below for the most common components.

Tip #5: Make Sure You Understand Quality Assurance Measures

Inquiring about a translation service’s quality assurance measures is very important. Only then can you evaluate if the translations you receive are likely to be accurate, consistent, and error-free.

Quality assurance measures can vary from one translation service to another. Check the table below for the most common components.

At Ciklopea, we use the 6-eye principle, meaning that at least three different linguists/experts have checked the translated materials before delivery. Learn more about our translation quality assurance.

Tip #6: Understand Pricing and Turnaround Times

Unless you’re lucky enough to work at an established company with a large translation budget, every translation project implies some sort of tradeoff. You are either going to sacrifice quality, time, or your financial resources. Or at least that’s what the language industry tells you.

Make sure you understand all the costs associated with translating:

• Are there any hidden costs?
• What are the potential service add-ons that you could benefit from?
• Are there any discounts available?
• What about rush fees?
• What is the pricing model? Hourly rates, per word, flat fees?

Ask as many questions as you can to get the full picture of vendor’s pricing and turnaround times.

Did you know? At Ciklopea, we use custom technology and optimized processes to decrease translation costs.

Want to Explore a Collaboration With Ciklopea?

At Ciklopea, we believe that quality and cost efficiency can go together, along with reasonable deadlines. We’ve been in the business for over 20 years, and ever since day one we’ve invested in our team and their professional development. Talented people, proven processes, and useful technology are the not-so-secret elements of our success.

Want to discuss your translation project with us? Book a call now! We’re always happy to help.

The post Top Tips for Hiring a Professional Translation Service appeared first on Ciklopea.

If you’re attending Medica as well and would like to explore how our services can benefit your organization, especially in the life sciences sector, we’d love to schedule a meeting.
You can meet Ciklopea’s representatives in Hall 12, stand no. 12A11.

Let’s make the most of this opportunity to exchange ideas and insights at Medica 2023. We look forward to the possibility of connecting with you and exploring ways to work together.

Schedule a meeting with Marina

Schedule a meeting with Ana

The post Meet Ciklopea at the Medica 2023 in Dusseldorf appeared first on Ciklopea.

If you’re interested in how Ciklopea can assist with terminology and software documentation localization, come meet Mladen and Andrea at the conference.

Stay tuned for updates on our participation at tcworld 2023. We can’t wait to connect with you and share how we can help with your terminology and software documentation needs.

Schedule a meeting with Mladen

Schedule a meeting with Andrea

The post Meet Ciklopea at the tcworld conference 2023 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Game Changer 2.0

In Zagreb’s Z Center, the second Game Changer conference, with its unique concept and more than 100 speakers, demonstrated the immense potential of combining the gaming industry with the world of WEB3, encompassing e-commerce, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and marketing. This innovative approach opens exciting opportunities for the future.

Over 1,100 attendees had the unique opportunity to tap into the minds driving digital transformation, gaining not only the latest insights into trends but also finding the spark for shaping and directing their own career and business journeys.

CRO Commerce 2023 – “Humans vs. Machines”

CRO Commerce 2023’s fifth edition provided valuable insights into Croatian consumer habits. It highlighted the steady growth of online sales, now comprising a significant 13% of Croatia’s total retail market. The conference gathered 500+ retailers, logistics professionals, IT, and marketing experts from Croatia and the wider region.

With a captivating Main Stage program at the Faculty of Economics and an equally engaging Workshop Stage featuring expert lectures and thematic panels, CRO Commerce 2023 equipped attendees with a wealth of practical insights.

At both conferences, the spotlight shone on the transformative tech trends shaping our future. These dynamic discussions spanned across the domains of e-commerce, WEB3, gaming, startups, and the revolutionary realm of AI.

These events provided invaluable insights and practical knowledge, equipping Ciklopea to further enhance its cutting-edge solutions and better align with the evolving needs of its clients.

Want to hear more on how we make use of these trends in our everyday business? Schedule a call! 

The post Ciklopea at the Forefront of Industry Trends – Game Changer and CRO Commerce 2023 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Our team is looking forward to connecting with fellow language professionals, sharing our expertise, and learning from the best in the field. If you’re attending #2023TEF, we’d love to connect ahead of time to exchange ideas and insights. Let’s make the most of this opportunity!

If you’re attending #2023TEF as well and want to connect prior:

Schedule a meeting with Ciklopea

Looking forward to new partnerships!

The post Meet Ciklopea at the Translating Europe Forum 2023 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Japanese culture places a strong emphasis on youth and contemporary aesthetics. Classical European architecture may evoke feelings of aging and nostalgia, which are not aligned with the Japanese consumer’s preference for modernity and youthfulness. What may be perceived as timeless elegance in one culture may translate as outdated to another.

Did you know you can hire Ciklopea for cultural consulting? Our experts know all about culturally sensitive communication, minimizing misunderstandings, and respecting local norms. Book a call with us today.

Why Culture Matters in Translation and Localization

Have you ever experienced cultural shock? It’s a feeling of disorientation, confusion, and discomfort that people may experience when they are exposed to a completely new and unfamiliar culture.

The world is incredibly diverse and rich in traditions, beliefs, and values. When where you come from clashes with a completely different culture, you might feel isolated, alone, frustrated, or homesick.

A similar thing happens in interactions with global brands. To succeed, it’s important that your company not only speaks your customers’ language, but also to make sure your message gets across by paying attention to the cultural context.

From linguistic nuances and cultural beliefs and values, to user experience and a deep understanding of consumer expectations around the world – there’s a lot you need to know.

Linguistic Nuances, Subtext, and Emotions

Linguistic nuances allow translators and localization experts to navigate the cultural sensitivities of the target audience. They help in avoiding content that may be considered offensive, inappropriate, or culturally insensitive.

Additionally, cultures use language in many different ways to convey emotions and subtext. Understanding these nuances helps you to accurately translate not just words but also the intended emotional and cultural context.

Marketing and localization departments sometimes need to make tough calls when it comes to adapting content. It’s a delicate act that requires balancing their company’s interest with what their customers want and expect. Here’s one example: Haribo candy.

Haribo is well-known for its jingle: “Kids and grown-ups love it so, the happy world of Haribo”. The upbeat melody is simple, it gets stuck in your head easily, and it’s just very positive.

But how does this one-liner translate to other cultures?

For the company, it was far more important to preserve the brevity and melody than it was to precisely translate the sentence. Here’s how they handled localizing it for different markets:

• Spanish: Vive un sabor mágico, ven al mundo Haribo (“Experience a magical taste, come to the world of Haribo”)
• Germany: Haribo macht Kinder froh, und Erwachsene ebenso (“Haribo makes children happy, and grown-ups too”)
• Italian: Haribo è la bontà, che si gusta ad ogni età (“Haribo is the great thing that you can eat at any age”)

Understanding Cultural Values Helps You Stay Relevant

Let’s take a look at one example of a global brand that became a synonym for athletic leisure and excellence: Nike. Nike’s slogan “Just Do It” is famous because of its brevity and the motivational power it holds. It inspires people to build healthier habits and overcome the default behavior of making excuses.

The challenge for Nike was to adapt this slogan to different target markets around the world. To achieve this, Nike used the “Ideal Man” framework, which is built upon questions drawn from sociology and social anthropology. Some of the questions Nike’s experts asked were the following:

• How is the Ideal Man embedded in society?
• What are the deepest values that describe his orientation towards others around him, and theirs to him?
• How does his culture define the way he should operate in the world?
• Which of his skill types are particularly honored in his culture?
• How is he distinguished from women?

With the help of this framework, the team was able to precisely define each culture and inform the localization and marketing teams. For example, their research showed that in the US consumers are driven by the possibility of leaving their mark on the world, while in the UK people lean more towards living a good life. Nike has created campaigns that speak to these values, which is one of the many reasons this company is estimated at almost $150 billion.

Consumer Behavior Varies Depending on Culture

If you want to create meaningful experiences that resonate with your global audiences, you need to understand how consumers in a target market behave, make decisions, and interact with products or services.

However, ensuring your global customers have content available in their preferred language is just the start. You also need to think about the visual elements, because graphic design, color choices, and imagery can have cultural connotations. Additionally, you need to think about the cultural context and references; for example, historical events, famous figures, and popular trends that are familiar and relevant to the target audience.

Hiring a cultural consultant can help you understand the best way to adapt to different markets. For example, some cultures are individualistic while others are collectivist.

In individualistic cultures, the emphasis is placed on the individual’s autonomy, independence, and personal achievements. These cultures (e.g., the US, Canada, Western Europe) often prioritize personal goals, self-expression, and individual rights. When it comes to consumer behavior, they value individuality, unique items, and personalized products that they use to communicate their interests and values.

In collectivistic cultures, the emphasis is on the group, community, or family over the individual. These cultures (e.g., Japan, Korea, China) prioritize harmony, cooperation, and interdependence among members. They tend to purchase and use the same products and services as people around them.

Knowing the culture of the market you are expanding to will help you understand their shopping habits, decision-making processes, and the way they form brand loyalty. This data will inform your translation and localization strategy.

Need Help with Cultural Consulting and Localization?

As you can see, culture permeates every aspect of translation and localization, influencing language, design, messaging, and user experiences. This is why you need to be aware of the cultural context in which content will be received. Easier said than done, right?

Instead of trying to detangle the complexity of different cultures, you should partner with language service providers that also have cultural consulting within their services. Ciklopea has been in the business for more than 20 years, acting as a gatekeeper for quality and a partner for removing communication barriers.

If you’re interested in exploring whether or not we’d be a good fit, book a call with us today. We’re always happy to hear from you.

The post The Impact of Culture on Translation and Localization appeared first on Ciklopea.

With our expertise and the integration of memoQ with JGL’s SharePoint site, we revolutionized their translation process. This strategic collaboration significantly streamlined translation, automating the handoff process and facilitating swift dissemination of multilingual content.

Discover how Ciklopea provided innovative language solutions to help JGL achieve its goals.

Read our Case Study

The post New Case Study Available: How JGL Automates the Handoff Process to Continuously Translate Their Internal Communications appeared first on Ciklopea.

This is what our Senior Linguist Manager, Petra Šešljaga Paradi, told us about what International Translation Day means to her as a translator:

“I feel particularly proud on this day because I truly love my profession and I’m glad that there is a day dedicated to it. I hope that these kinds of celebrations will eventually contribute to greater visibility and awareness of the translation profession.”

When asked about the most common misconceptions people have about the translation profession and how she debunks them, she continued:

“I think that people, in general, don’t know much about translating, starting from the qualifications and knowledge that are needed for someone to become a good translator, all the way to the complexity, hard work, constant learning, and effort that needs to be invested every day in order to do the job well.

In addition, this profession is of great importance because it breaks down barriers between cultures and contributes to the creation of a feeling of equality and community. Therefore, we should speak more about translating, and International Translation Day is a big step towards greater acceptance and the destigmatisation of this profession.”

We also stopped Marijana, our Lead Linguist, in the middle of her busy everyday work schedule, and asked her a few questions over a cup of coffee . We were interested to hear more about the key skills a successful translator should have.

“Curiosity (in this case, it will not kill the cat, but rather improve one’s quality), willingness to learn and eagerness to find the right solution to a translation problem. Also, the ability to navigate successfully through various CAT tools, to swiftly upgrade one’s knowledge and to keep up to date with the latest trends as much as possible.”

She gave some advice on how to keep up with language trends, terminology, and industry changes in order to ensure high-quality translations:

“By following all the relevant sources, pages, organisations and the right people. You have to be interested in going forward and professional improvement, so you read and search. Sometimes the hype around certain trends can blur your perspective, so it is essential to stay focused and decide in which area you want to develop further.”

Mirna, a Senior Medical Linguist, elaborated on translation accuracy and cultural relevance. She also shared some advice for younger linguists who are in search of their own professional path:

“Language reflects the customs, beliefs, values and traditions of its speakers. This is why cultural nuances and context-specific expressions, such as idioms and regional variations, must be considered during translation. Translators must have a deep understanding of the target culture to accurately convey the message of the source text while also ensuring that it resonates with the target audience. This creates a sense of familiarity, closeness and connection, and target readers feel like the text is written for them in their native language instead of just being translated.”

Her best advice for aspiring translators or those considering a career in the field would be:

“Constantly improve your language proficiency, invest all your energy into learning innovative technologies and perfecting your translation skills, and treat language as an ever-evolving thing. Always stay motivated, choose a specialization that will highlight your best qualities and strive for success in both the professional and personal sense.”

The post International Translation Day: Translators’ Reflections on the Profession and Its Significance appeared first on Ciklopea.

I can definitely say that the language industry was the only logical path for me. As soon as I started learning French back in elementary school, I knew that my professional life would have something to do with foreign languages. After finishing a high school for languages, I decided to study French and Croatian language and literature in Zagreb. As a graduate, I had the opportunity to work for Croatian Radiotelevision as a freelance translator and subtitler, then back in 2012 I started my own little language services business, and the rest is history.

How many languages can you speak and/or understand?

I speak French and English, but I also understand Italian and Spanish, and I would like to perfect my knowledge of these two languages. Of course, I also understand all of the languages spoken in our region.

How did you become Vendor & HR Manager at Ciklopea?

I started working at Ciklopea five years ago as a Project Manager after many years of experience in the translation industry and in managing my own language services business. However, I love organizing things, communicating, and working with people, so we all realized early on that I could contribute to the company much more if I became involved in strategic tasks, which primarily included sales and customer care. Then I got the opportunity to transfer to Vendor Management, which also includes employee care. So, I’m happy to say that I’m familiar with and experienced in all aspects of working in the translation industry, from translation, to organization and management of different teams, to employee care.

What is your driving force at work?

Every day I try to seek new challenges and make moves that will enable me to go one step further. This can be a new project, onboarding a new vendor, developing a new service, bringing in a new employee, or teamwork on a more complex project. I love working with people, and the most important thing for me is open, clear, and friendly communication. And, of course, my biggest support is my family.

What is your advice for your younger colleagues?

Be persistent and do what you love. It’s normal to lose motivation for work sometimes, but it’s also important to know how to follow your own path and to be open to new people, situations, and challenges. Openness, optimism, constant willingness to learn, and curiosity are my main motivators, and thanks to that I can achieve great results, which makes me fulfilled and happy.

What is your secret superpower?

I’m a good listener. I’m constantly learning new things, and there’s word going around that I am also a good teacher of the Croatian and French languages and cultures.

Who is your hero and why?

My parents. They are always full of support and understanding. They were both hard workers in their professions and are nowadays still in love and enjoy life and spending time with their family.

What is your motto or favorite quote?

Be yourself and follow your own philosophy of life, but at the same time respect others and accept diversity, because nothing beats the fact that we are all different, but can still be full of mutual respect. I love multiculturalism!

The three things you would take to a desert island?

My favorite photo, a notepad, and a pen.

Describe Ciklopea in one sentence.

A dynamic, successful, and modern company that encourages learning and progress in the language industry.

The post My Ciklopea Story: Ivana Barišić Oharek appeared first on Ciklopea.

At Ciklopea, we make sure to offer our clients consulting services and explain our strategic approach to ensuring consistency in multilingual communications. This is how we can set them up for success and ensure that they have solid documentation to rely on in the future. Continue reading to learn more.

1. Start by Developing a Style Guide

You need to create a comprehensive style guide that includes guidelines on grammar, punctuation, tone, formatting, and specific terms or phrases. This guide should be followed consistently across all languages to maintain a unified voice and branding.

The thing is, you will certainly need to adjust your brand a bit depending on the market you’re trying to reach. Having a style guide as a single source of truth helps you define what adjustments and changes are acceptable. By providing these guidelines to translators, you can ensure that the translations maintain the desired brand voice consistently across all languages.

For example, if your brand is known for being friendly and approachable, the style guide can instruct translators to use a conversational tone in all languages. This might mean a different thing for the German market than for the Japanese one, and our linguists and cultural consultants can help you make the right choice for each market.

Additionally, a style guide helps establish and maintain consistent terminology across languages. It includes preferred translations for key terms, product names, and industry-specific vocabulary. Consistent use of terminology enhances clarity and prevents confusion among users. For example, a style guide might specify that a particular product feature should always be translated in a certain way, ensuring consistency across all language versions.

This leads us to the next important aspect of maintaining multilingual consistency.

2. Use Translation Memories (TMs)

Translation memories are segmented databases containing previously translated elements in a specific language pair that can be reused and recycled in further projects. Productivity software calculates the percentage of similarity between the new content for translation/localization and the existing segments that were previously translated, edited, and proofread, and the linguistic team is able to access this information, use it, and adapt it where necessary.

This percentage has a direct impact on costs associated with a translation/localization project and the time required for project completion, as the matching segments cost less and require less time for processing.

TMs help maintain accuracy by providing translators with approved and validated translations as a reference. This ensures that the translations are consistent with the original source content and aligned with your brand’s messaging. Translators can also refer to the TM’s suggestions for consistency in grammar, style, and formatting.

Other benefits of using TMs include:

• Consistent voice and tone
• Better collaboration between translators, reviewers, and project managers
• Improved version control

For example, you can reuse previously translated content such as marketing slogans, product descriptions, or brand messages in different campaigns. This is how you’ll ensure a consistent voice and tone throughout your multilingual communications. It’s useful to have a centralized platform where translation memories can be shared and accessed by the entire team.

3. Hire Professional Translators to Maintain Multilingual Consistency

If you think professional translators are expensive, try hiring amateurs. There is a widespread misconception that simply by being bilingual, you can translate content with confidence. The truth is, translating is not just about bridging the language barrier.

Professional language service providers (LSPs) have expertise in translation, localization, and linguistic nuances. The best translators have native-level proficiency in the target language, ensuring accurate and culturally appropriate translations. Their linguistic knowledge allows them to maintain consistency in terminology, style, and tone across different languages.

Additionally, professional language service providers often specialize in specific industries or subject areas. This expertise allows translators to understand complex technical, legal, or industry-specific content, and navigate these domains with ease.

There’s also the factor of legal implications and compliance questions. Depending on your industry, there may be regulatory requirements or industry-specific standards you’ll need to adhere to. Professional translators are well-versed in these compliance standards.

Other benefits of hiring an LSP include:

• Established and proven quality assurance processes
• Access to tools and resources that can help you optimize your costs
• Fast translation turnaround time
• Ability to scale quickly and maintain a healthy project pace
• Long-term partnership and ongoing support

4. Keep the Lines of Communication Open

One thing that is often deprioritized is transparent communication between all the key stakeholders – both internal and external. If you’re the main point of contact for translators, you need to clarify all requirements and objectives. By providing comprehensive information about your brand, target audience, tone, style, and specific terminology, you enable translators to deliver translations that align with your expectations and maintain consistency across languages.

Also, translators may have questions or face ambiguities and uncertainties during the translation process. Establishing an open line of communication allows them to seek clarification on specific terms, phrases, or context.

An important part of the process is feedback – if you’re able to provide feedback on translations, offer insights into audience reception, or suggest refinements, this can empower translators to fine-tune their work and improve the consistency and quality of future translations.

As you can see, translators can do all the heavy lifting, but your input is nonetheless valuable and necessary for achieving the best possible end result.

5. Test, Iterate, and Document What You’ve Learnt

If you want to achieve multilingual consistency, you have to be light on your feet and open to feedback. This means that you should conduct regular tests and fine-tune your approach as you continue translating and localizing your content. So how does this look in practice?

Some common testing methods include usability testing, focus groups, and expert reviews. You can observe and gather feedback from users from different markets as they interact with your multilingual content. This can be done through in-person sessions, remote testing, or online surveys. This way, you can identify patterns and see whether or not there’s room for improvement.

For instance, if your social media content is performing well on the DACH market but not so much on the Japanese market, what could be the reason? Do you need to introduce some linguistic changes, adjust visuals, or is the cause a bit deeper and requires a change in strategy?

Expert reviews are a good way to find these answers without involving your target audience too much. Language experts, linguists, and professionals with cultural knowledge can evaluate your content and determine whether it is accurate, consistent, and culturally appropriate.

Once you gather feedback, it’s time to evaluate your translations and different market strategies. The next step would be to implement necessary improvements, repeat the testing process to validate the effectiveness of the changes, and finally – identify any remaining areas of concern. Make sure to document everything that you’ve learnt. With iterative testing, you can make sure that you’re continuously refining and optimizing your multilingual communications over time. Plus, customer behavior constantly evolves, which means that your multilingual communications need to keep up.

Ensure Consistency Across Your Multilingual Content by Hiring the Right Language Partner

Do you understand the value of multilingual content, but you’re not completely sure where to start? Ciklopea has over 20 years of experience in multiple industries. With our technology-eclectic and people-first approach, we have earned the trust of the leading brands that are striving towards domination of the global market.

We’re always happy to hear from you: schedule a call to discuss your project, assess if we’d be a good fit, and receive a quote.

The post How to Ensure Consistency in Your Multilingual Communications appeared first on Ciklopea.

Check out our diverse list of summer reading favourites:

Call Me by Your Name –  André Aciman

The Bread the Devil Knead – Lisa Allen-Agostini

Testament –  Nina Wähä

If Beale Street Could Talk – James Baldwin

Ithaca – Claire North

Fresh Water for Flowers – Valerie Perin

Greenlights – Matthew McConaughey

The Woman in the Window – A.J. Finn

The Four Agreements – Don Miguel Ruiz

Lessons in Chemistry – Bonnie Garmus

Tools of Titans – Timothy Ferris

The post Ciklopea Summer Reading List 2023 appeared first on Ciklopea.

As we celebrate our 20th anniversary, we are thrilled to announce that CSA Research, an independent market research firm, has once again recognized Ciklopea as a leader in the multibillion-dollar global translation, interpreting, and localization industry.

On the List of the Top 20 LSPs in Southern Europe

Once again, we’ve earned our place on the list of top 20 language service providers in Southern Europe. This recognition marks the sixth consecutive time that Ciklopea has been acknowledged as a leader by CSA, beginning in 2018.

We take immense pride in our journey, which started with a home-based startup and has seen us transform into an industry leader through continuous investment in our people, processes, and technologies.

Mladen Stojak, CSO at Ciklopea, expressed his thoughts on this year’s ranking, stating:

“Over the past 20 years, we have perfected our vision of delivering top-quality language solutions. Thanks to our team’s ever-evolving expertise, continuous investment in technological infrastructure, and highly-developed business processes, all of which set us apart, we consistently meet our clients’ needs year after year.”

It’s all about commitment and persistence. At the core of Ciklopea’s culture lies the will to constantly improve, whether it’s related to the way we work, the technology we use, or the processes we rely on.

“Being recognized as one of the best LSPs in Southern Europe for the sixth time reaffirms that our hard work is paying off. We are motivated to achieve even better results in the future, and we extend our gratitude to our partners for their commitment and the successful results we have achieved together,” says Mladen.

Talented People and the Ability to Adapt

Having a good team was the key to Ciklopea’s success. Much like a skilled crew on a sailing adventure, our competent team navigated the challenging business waters, efficiently divided ownership, and supported each other during rough times. We all had to adapt, innovate, and take calculated risks, ensuring the business could seize opportunities for growth.

Sandra Stojak, CEO at Ciklopea, emphasized the company’s core focus and the ability to adapt:

“The past few months have brought us significant challenges, but we understand the necessity of accepting change and adapting to new circumstances. It is during such times that we truly witness the resilience and strength of our team.”

Early on, we realized it’s extremely important for our team members to work together seamlessly. For example, translators and localization experts with a deep understanding of the target languages and cultures ensure accurate and culturally sensitive translations. Project managers coordinate tasks, set clear deadlines, and maintain open communication to ensure smooth workflow and timely deliveries. Specialized linguists carry out quality assurance through rigorous editing and proofreading processes, which ensures consistently high standards.

Adaptability and tech-savviness are crucial, as language services require a thorough knowledge of evolving technologies and diverse client requirements. That’s why having talented people in your company’s ranks means the world.  Sandra adds:

“I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the dedicated employees at Ciklopea. Your hard work, flexibility, and determination have been essential in overcoming challenges and driving our ongoing success. Thank you for your exceptional efforts.”

Ciklopea hires for attitude, not for skills, as Mladen Stojak, the company’s CSO, shared in an interview for GALA:

“The first thing we’re looking for is whether that individual is a good fit, and whether they display a willingness to learn, improve, change, and adapt.”

Ultimately, a strong team is the driving force behind a successful business, guiding it towards its goals and overcoming challenges along the way.

Making the Most of AI and Language Technology

The rise of AI technology, and ChatGPT in particular, has caused unreasonable panic in the language industry, primarily due to the fear that human translators might very soon become obsolete. While these tools have made significant strides in natural language processing and machine translation, they are not likely to replace humans.

AI lacks the depth of contextual understanding, creativity, subject-matter expertise, emotional intelligence, and ethical considerations that human translators bring to the table. The human touch in translation remains invaluable for accurate, culturally sensitive, and industry-specific communication needs.

At Ciklopea, we believe that it’s worth replacing fear with curiosity, and figuring out how to make the most of AI and available technology to work better and smarter.

In the mid-2000s, we invested in a Trados server and started using computer-assisted translation. Today we have four different CAT servers, and we’ve created impressive databases and various bilingual corpora for different industries. If you’re going to work with AI, it needs an extensive amount of quality data to do a good job.

“We don’t fear that technology will take our jobs because we’ve been working with it for years. The future lies in the collaboration between AI and humans,” said Sandra in an interview for Bloomberg Adria.

At Ciklopea, we find that the optimal approach is a collaborative one, where AI tools aid and complement human translators, enhancing efficiency and expanding their capabilities rather than replacing them. We’ve also developed Orchestrum, our proprietary BMS, which helps us boost productivity by up to 85% thanks to process automation; and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the way we’re using technology to optimize translation and localization costs.

What’s Next for Ciklopea?

These past two decades have been amazing, such an exciting ride for us. When we were getting started, translations were still being sent through the post and most linguists worked on typewriters. Ciklopea was among the first companies to launch a business website.

Everything’s changed now. The language market is becoming more saturated and new technologies are continuously emerging. Only with a focus on people, technology, and processes can we ensure that we stay ahead of the curve and remain competitive.

So, what’s next for Ciklopea? We’re excited to get started on a new phase of growth and embrace the new challenges that lie ahead!

At Ciklopea, we feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for all those who’ve been a part of this journey. From our dedicated team members and visionary leadership to our wonderful clients and loyal supporters – this celebration is as much yours as it is ours.

Thank you for your continued support and trust in our services. Here’s to 20 years of excellence, growth, and continued success in breaking down language barriers.

The post Ciklopea’s 20th Anniversary, and Recognition as One of the Top LSPs in Southern Europe appeared first on Ciklopea.

The Dos of Translating Your Website

Let’s first take a look at the best practices for translating your website. This way, you’ll learn how to organize your content the best way, accelerate the translation process, and make sure your website truly resonates with your international audience.

1. Do Research Your Target Audience

Before officially kicking off your website translation project, you need to understand the language and cultural preferences of your target audience. This ensures your translation is not only accurate but also resonates with them.

Here are some questions that can help you tailor your website translation to meet the specific needs and preferences of your target audience. Think through the answers, and you’ll improve your chances of success in the global market.

2. Do Hire Professional Translators

Different Language Speech Bubble Hello Concept

There are several reasons why you need to hire professional translators for website translation.

Professional translators have the expertise and linguistic skills to accurately convey your content in the target language. They understand the nuances, grammar, idiomatic expressions, and cultural references necessary for a high-quality translation. This ensures that your website’s message is communicated accurately and effectively to your target audience. The quality of the experience you offer to your international audience directly impacts the integrity of your brand.

Another important aspect is maintaining brand consistency across multiple languages. How can you ensure you preserve your brand look and feel, as well as your tone of voice, but also adapt to different markets? That’s where professional translators can help.

Professional translators can maintain consistent terminology and style throughout your website, providing a seamless user experience. They can also create glossaries and translation memories to ensure consistency across future updates or expansions of your website.

Moreover, true language experts know that translating a website goes beyond word-for-word translation. They are familiar with the target culture and can adapt the content to suit the cultural nuances and preferences of the local audience. This way, you can ensure that your website resonates with the target audience and avoid any cultural misunderstandings or offensive content.

3. Do Test Your Website and Offer Language Options

After translation, you need to thoroughly test your website to make sure it works properly in all target languages.

Offering your website in different languages won’t mean much if the user experience is poor. You should check for broken links, test form submissions, navigation menus, search functionality, and any interactive elements to ensure they work properly.

You should also test your website on different web browsers (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Safari) to ensure that it displays correctly and functions well across all major browsers. Pay attention to any inconsistencies in layout, styling, and functionality. This includes mobile responsiveness as well. Make sure that the translated version of your website adapts well to different screen sizes, maintains readability, and retains functionality on mobile devices.

The Don’ts of Translating Your Website

Now let’s take a look at what you should avoid when kickstarting the project of website translation. Here’s what to keep in mind to make sure your content is first-rate and reaches your target audience effectively.

1. Don’t Rely on Machine Translation Exclusively

Machine translation has its place in the translation process, but you should never solely rely on it. MT tools cannot fully understand idioms, tone of voice, or style, and they can never replace human translators. Machine translation can help with cost optimization, but you need translators to make sure there are no awkward phrases, inaccuracies, and misinterpretations that may drive potential customers away.

At Ciklopea, we use machine translation carefully because it has proven to boost the productivity of our translators by up to 60%, which means our clients can save money in the long run. Using AI can help you balance costs by freeing up time for more complex translation tasks.

An average translator at Ciklopea can translate between 2000-2500 words per day without any help from MT. Imagine how much faster turnaround times could be if we let machines do the heavy lifting! But in order to leverage the power of AI without jeopardizing the quality of your website translation, you need linguists that are well versed in technology.

2. Don’t Neglect Cultural Specificities

Character illustration of people with a world map illustration

Not neglecting cultural nuances when translating a website is crucial. You can hire a cultural consultant if you want an expert who will help you effectively connect with your target audience. International customers expect you will show respect for their cultural background, and with the help of professionals, you can avoid potential misunderstandings or offence.

But why is it so important?

Let’s take idioms, for example. The literal translation of idioms and expressions may cause confusion or misinterpretation. You need to translate idiomatic phrases while preserving their intended meaning in the target language. For instance, the English phrase “break a leg” translates to the German equivalent of “Hals- und Beinbruch” (neck and leg fracture), which is a common idiom used to wish someone good luck in Germany.

And what about website localization? Looking beyond just translation, you should localize visual elements and pay attention to colours and symbols as well. Images and visuals play a significant role in website design. However, what may be visually appealing or appropriate in one culture may not be in another.

It’s important to select images that are culturally relevant and sensitive to the target audience. For example, displaying images of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds on a healthcare website promotes inclusivity and acknowledges the multicultural nature of the audience.

The same goes for colours. Colours can have different meanings and associations across cultures. For instance, in Western cultures, white is often associated with purity and weddings, while in some Eastern cultures, white is associated with mourning and funerals. Understanding colour symbolism helps you select appropriate colours for your website design and imagery.

3. Don’t Forget About Local SEO

One of the main benefits of translating your website for a foreign market is the opportunity to increase your visibility in local search. Paying attention to relevant keywords while translating and adjusting content can help your website rank in multiple languages.

By following local SEO best practices, you can ensure that search engines understand the geographical relevance of your website, making it more likely to be displayed to users searching for relevant products, services, or information in that specific location.

For example, translating metadata elements such as page titles, meta descriptions, alt tags, and URLs is crucial for local SEO. When these elements are optimized in the target language, they provide search engines with relevant information about your website’s content, improving its visibility and click-through rates in local search results.

Website Translation Has Never Been Simpler

Translating your website can be rather complex. It depends on the number of markets you are trying to reach, the cultural context of these markets, as well as the size of your website. You can try a DIY approach and hire freelancers to help you out while taking care of project management and implementation. This might be tempting because of potential cost savings, but there’s another side to that coin. You’ll need to pay in a different currency – with your time. Plus, you’re likely going to have issues with quality assurance.

This is why we recommend you hire a one-stop shop for website translation. Ciklopea is an award-winning language solution provider that can help you optimize your translation costs and handle everything from end to end. Schedule a call today to discuss your project and receive a quote.

The post The Dos and Don’ts of Translating Your Website appeared first on Ciklopea.

Mobile app localization is not just about making your app accessible in different languages. It’s about understanding (and responding to) different user preferences, habits, and perceptions, and about taking the cultural context into account. Picture your users effortlessly navigating through your interface, captivated by content that resonates with their cultural norms, traditions, and values.

This is the power of mobile app localization – creating an immersive and personalized experience that has a lasting impact. But let’s take a closer look at the benefits of localizing your mobile app.

Reach a Wider Audience

Many companies believe that English is something like a universal language, but that is far from the truth. Translating your app’s content, interface, and user instructions into different languages allows you to engage global users who may not be proficient in the app’s original language. This opens up opportunities to engage users who prefer using apps in their native language.

Localizing your app involves considering cultural nuances and adapting the content, visuals, and design elements to align with the target audience’s preferences, as well as cultural and social values. This makes the app more relatable and appealing to users from diverse cultural backgrounds.

It’s worth noting that app stores often prioritize localized apps in search results and rankings for specific regions. By localizing your app, you increase its visibility in relevant app stores, making it easier for users in different countries to discover and download your app. Additionally, there’s a lower competition ranking on local keywords. If you’re localizing your app’s content, chances are you’re capitalizing on a great opportunity simply by speaking your customers’ language.

Build Positive Brand Perception

Investing in app localization shows a commitment to delivering a high-quality product. Users appreciate the effort put into ensuring accurate translations, culturally appropriate visuals, and a polished user interface. This attention to detail conveys professionalism, reliability, and a commitment to excellence, which positively influences brand perception.

Besides that, localization is the hidden hero that encourages your customers to trust and value your brand. When users see that you have taken the time and effort to adapt your app to their language and culture, they perceive your brand as more trustworthy and reliable. This trust translates into increased user confidence in your brand, leading to stronger brand loyalty and positive word-of-mouth.

User loyalty leads to higher app retention rates, meaning users continue to use and engage with the app over an extended period. According to a study by Localytics, loyal app users (those who return to an app within three months) generate 25% more in-app purchases, which means their lifetime value is higher. They are also more likely to recommend the app to their friends.

Both from a marketing and business perspective, loyal users are precious. Acquiring new users can be costly due to advertising and marketing expenses. Retaining and nurturing loyal users is often more cost-effective. As a matter of fact, just by increasing customer retention by 5%, you can expect a profit increase between 25% and 95%.

Looking at the potential return on investment, it’s clear that mobile app localization is a no-brainer.

Increase Your Revenue

Mobile app localization helps you improve conversion rates by ensuring a seamless user experience. Global users are more likely to make purchases, subscribe to services, or upgrade to premium features if they enjoy the way you adjusted the app to their preferences. This includes language, UX, design, and more.

The localized experience reduces friction and enhances user confidence. As an end result, you can expect higher conversion rates and generate more revenue from different international markets. Different regions may have unique payment preferences, for example local payment methods or subscription models. If you make an effort to accommodate these preferences, you can increase your revenue streams.

Essentially, what you’re doing here is making it easy for your customers to buy from you. Here’s one example from Amazon. They introduced a 1-click button for ordering which not only simplified the way people buy products online but also encouraged impulsive purchases. Even though this example is not directly related to localization, it’s a great example of how creating a seamless user experience impacts behavior and sales.

Make sure to tailor your products or services to specific regions, and create targeted upselling and cross-selling opportunities. In this way, users will be more likely to engage and make in-app purchases. Localize your special promotions or exclusive offers, and it’s likely you’ll see a significant difference when it comes to the amount of revenue you generate from foreign markets.

Gain a Competitive Advantage and Increase Your Market Share

Luckily for you, many brands still perceive localization as a “nice-to-have” as opposed to a “must-have” for business success. For a lot of companies, localization is still not a priority and they treat it as an afterthought. In reality, localization can be your most valuable asset and a tool for growth.

Even though it’s not immediately obvious, mobile app localization can help you forge strategic partnerships with local companies and organizations. Consequently, collaborating with local businesses, influencers, and organizations can expand your visibility and credibility on the target market.

Such partnerships can provide access to local marketing channels, cross-promotion opportunities, and insights into the local market landscape, giving you an edge over competitors who may not have established similar connections.

Here’s an example of one of the most popular messaging apps that increased their market share through localization: WhatsApp. By supporting multiple languages and adapting its app to different regions, WhatsApp has been able to penetrate various international markets. For example, it offers localized versions for languages such as Spanish, Hindi, and Portuguese, which has contributed to its global dominance. At the moment, WhatsApp has over 2 billion users worldwide.

TikTok is another great example. The popular short-form video app has been localized in 75 languages. The app achieved global success and gained a significant market share in various countries through effective localization strategies. For example, in 2020, TikTok’s localization efforts in India, including localized content, challenges, and music, helped it become one of the most downloaded apps in the country. Impressive, don’t you think?

Still Not Convinced Mobile App Localization Is Worth It?

If WhatsApp and TikTok aren’t strong enough examples for you, here’s a piece of data to convince you mobile app localization is worth it: localized apps have up to 128% higher download rates per country compared to non-localized ones.

If you’re ready to reach a wider audience, build positive brand perception across different markets, increase your revenue, and gain a competitive advantage while increasing your market share, then start with localization.

Ciklopea can be your trustworthy language partner. We have the fastest response time in the industry, top-notch linguists and consultants, tech tools, and processes that make collaboration smooth and fruitful. Schedule your call today, we’re always happy to hear from you.

The post The Advantages of Localizing Your Mobile App appeared first on Ciklopea.

As a Business Development Manager, you will be part of a team working on strengthening Ciklopea’s leadership position in providing localization solutions to clients, helping them successfully present themselves on international markets and secure a strong position on the global market. By adopting an individual approach to customers and understanding their needs, you will assist them in finding solutions tailored to their business.

If you have experience in the language or IT industries, understand the importance of modern language solutions for business success, and enjoy participating in business development, you might be the ideal person for us.

Responsibilities:

• Selecting potential clients
• Identifying key contacts from among potential clients and arranging meetings with targeted potential customers to initiate the sales process
• Creating and monitoring new business opportunities
• Collaborating with the sales team and management to determine necessary strategic sales approaches
• Continuously expanding the company’s sales channel
• Achieving sales targets and profit margins
• Negotiating prices and finalizing contracts to close sales
• Registering all sales activities on a daily basis in the CRM system
• Providing weekly/monthly/annual reports to management on achieved results
• Reporting on market trends in the industry

Required qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree – completed three or four-year program
• 1-3 years of direct sales experience
• Sales experience – converting potential clients into business partners while maintaining established sales quotas
• Experience in assessing potential clients, planning communication, customer development, and time management
• Successful qualification of potential clients, including multiple key decision-makers
• Strong problem-solving and complaint resolution skills
• Ability to build and maintain lasting customer relationships
• Excellent verbal communication and presentation skills, as well as impeccable written skills
• Team player with strong personal opinions and solutions
• Ability to achieve and exceed goals even under pressure
• Fluent knowledge of English is necessary. Fluent knowledge of German is a plus.

What we offer:

• Good working conditions and a comprehensive benefits package
• Opportunity for personal development and goal achievement
• A positive attitude and excellence, result-oriented teamwork

Ciklopea is an Employer Partner.

Employer Partner Certificate is a project aimed at identifying and promoting companies with quality human resources management.

Find our more.

We are waiting for your application at hr[at]ciklopea.com.

Join our team and show us we can no longer function without you!

The post We are hiring a Business Development Manager! appeared first on Ciklopea.

Manuel Herranz shares valuable insights on the challenges faced in developing and implementing Machine Translation (MT) and AI solutions for translation, along with the strategies employed to overcome them.
He sheds light on the benefits that businesses can expect to see when integrating MT and AI solutions into their translation workflows, dispelling common misconceptions about the capabilities of MT.

The dynamic discussion also explores the evolving landscape of the translation industry and the trends driving its transformation. Manuel Herranz offers his perspective on the evolving role of human translators alongside the increasing use of MT and AI solutions.

Furthermore, he highlights successful projects undertaken by Pangeanic, showcasing the tangible impact that MT and AI solutions have had on their clients’ businesses.
The conversation touches upon the crucial issues of data privacy and security, emphasizing how Pangeanic ensures the protection of sensitive and confidential translation projects.

Looking ahead, Manuel Herranz provides valuable insights into the future of MT and AI in the translation industry, discussing the developments and innovations that we can anticipate.

We invite you to watch this video to gain valuable knowledge and stay informed about the exciting advancements in the world of AI and its implications for the translation industry.

Stay tuned for more insightful conversations in our Ciklopea Coffee Chat series, where we bring you topical discussions with language professionals and researchers.

The post Ciklopea Coffee Chat (Video): Exploring the Power of AI in Translation appeared first on Ciklopea.

Ensuring your content is available in multiple languages is mainly about inclusivity, but there’s also a lot more to it.

Why Investing in Multilingual Content Pays Off

When you offer multilingual content, you’re breaking down language barriers and making your e-commerce platform accessible to people from different parts of the world. In other words, you are enabling your international customers to browse, shop, and understand product descriptions in their own language. This creates a sense of belonging and shows that you genuinely care about the way they interact with your brand, which in return can encourage them to buy more.

When you offer content in their native language, you open doors to previously untapped markets. It’s like unlocking a treasure trove of potential customers who are more likely to engage with your brand and make purchases when they can understand and connect with your content.

What’s a great example that illustrates just how important it is to translate content or invest in development in different target languages? Customer reviews.

According to Gartner, there are two key benefits to offering customer reviews in their native language: easier promotions and better customer understanding. You should develop a system that will allow you to gather genuine reviews from local customers. Reviews that are written in native languages are more relevant and more likely to resonate with target customers.

Your potential customers are likely to feel more at ease and confident in their decision-making process if they can identify with existing customers. Reading customer reviews from someone who has a similar cultural background will positively impact their user experience, which will in turn lead to higher satisfaction rates, repeated visits, and recommendations to others.

Improve Your Online Visibility Through Local SEO

Multilingual content plays a crucial role in boosting your SEO and improving discoverability for e-commerce businesses. It can significantly impact your online visibility on various local markets.

When you create multilingual content, you optimize your website for different languages and regions. This means that when users search for products or services in their native language, your website has a higher chance of appearing in search engine results. If you target specific keywords and phrases in different languages, you will generate organic traffic from diverse regions. This also means higher chances of attracting potential customers.

Google and other search engines have become our main means for seeking out answers. They act as filters of relevancy for us and we trust them to show us the results that will satisfy us. Think about it: when was the last time you clicked on the second page of the search engine results page? Because these algorithms are so advanced, you’ll likely find what you’re looking for on the first page.

It’s worth mentioning that the top Google local search result accounts for almost 25% of the total   clicks. This means that, when you invest in multilingual content, you gain a competitive advantage over businesses that only focus on a single language. If you make your e-commerce website available in multiple languages, search engines will improve its rankings in local search results. This will help you stand out from competitors who may not have localized their content, and it increases the likelihood of attracting local customers searching for products or services in their preferred language.

Expand Geographical Targeting with Multilingual Content

Multilingual content resonates best if it goes beyond linguistic translation. When you take into account the cultural nuances and preferences of specific regions, you’re setting the stage for the development of meaningful relationships with international customers. Many businesses might consider translating and localizing content as being “over the top”, but that’s where your opportunity lies.

Ensure that your content aligns with local cultural norms, customs, and sensitivities and you’ll demonstrate respect and understanding for that specific region. This level of cultural sensitivity helps you build trust with customers.

Besides the fact that multilingual content inevitably helps you connect with your customers, it’s also important for different marketing and ad campaigns. One of the most common ways to re-engage your customers is by targeting them based on their online behavior. The best-known example in e-commerce relates to friendly reminders about abandoned shopping carts. Typically, you send customers an email and encourage them to finalize their purchase or provide an additional incentive such as a special discount or a bundle offer.

In any case, ad copy, creativity, and tone of voice play a big role here, and addressing your customer in their native language can increase the chances of them making a purchase.

Get Closer to Your Global Customers by Speaking Their Language

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.” This is a quotation that has been wrongly attributed to Nelson Mandela. Even though the famous activist and politician never said these exact words, they are nonetheless true.

Let’s say that you’re expanding your e-commerce business to the DACH region. You would need to translate your website, potentially even create a different country-level domain name (.DE), and ensure all product descriptions are translated, as well as customer support materials.

You would also need to adjust your content to align with German cultural preferences and style. German consumers are known as savvy buyers. They have a distinctive purchasing pattern and are typically uncompromising in their expectations – both in terms of customer experience and product quality. They will carefully read through customer reviews, evaluate pricing, and they can easily return the product if they are not satisfied with it. In addition, they expect a seamless mobile experience when they shop online, because that’s the norm.

Bearing all that in mind, if you’re targeting the German market, you should not only ensure your e-commerce has content in the German language but also be extra careful about the shopping experience you’re providing them. This might require different product copy. For example, if you own a fashion brand, you want to provide information about the way you’re sourcing your materials and include high-quality photos that potential customers can zoom in on.

Ready to Grow Your E-Commerce Internationally?

If you’re planning to launch on new markets, you need to ensure your e-commerce is available in multiple languages. Instead of trying to handle this in-house or with the help of freelancers, why wouldn’t you outsource your work to a reliable, one-stop-shop type of language partner?

If this sounds tempting, reach out to Ciklopea today. We know you have smarter things to do with your time, such as marketing your products and services or strategizing your next big business milestone. We’d be happy to be a part of it.

The post The Power of Multilingual Content for E-Commerce Success appeared first on Ciklopea.

At Ciklopea, we understand the importance of staying up-to-date with industry trends and advancements, and we are excited to learn from the experts at NEXT 23’. We are particularly interested in exploring the latest technologies and solutions in the pharmaceutical industry and how they can be applied to provide the best possible services to our clients.

Mladen Stojak, CSO at Ciklopea, is excited to attend this event, stating: “We’re thrilled to be a part of NEXT 23’ and look forward to learning from the best in the business. Our team is dedicated to providing the highest level of service to our clients, and attending events like this is essential for staying up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies in the industry.”

Kristijan Novak, BDM at Ciklopea, added: “At Ciklopea, we are committed to providing innovative and cutting-edge solutions to our clients. Attending NEXT 23’ allows us to connect with other like-minded professionals and learn from their experiences and successes in the industry.”

We are excited to attend NEXT 23’ and look forward to connecting with other industry professionals. If you’re attending this event, be sure to stop by our booth and say hello. We can’t wait to see you there!

Schedule a meeting with Mladen

Schedule a meeting with Kristijan

The post Meet Ciklopea at NEXT 23’ appeared first on Ciklopea.

• Organizing complex translation and localization projects, priority management, financial aspects and other resources;
• Preparation and management of project documentation and translation quality control;
• Building and maintaining professional relations with clients and vendors;
• Day-to-day work in specialized professional software.

Your profile:

• C1 level in German or English (required)
• Language industry experience
• Language proficiency
• University degree preferred, not required;
• Administrative and data entry experience;
• Excellent computer literacy (MS Office package);
• Preferred: familiarity with CAT tools.
• Education and experience in an international environment preferred
• Work experience in similar corporate environment;
• Specialized professional software experience;

Your traits and skills:

• Positive professional attitude;
• Result orientation;
• Dedication, credibility and loyalty;
• Excellent organizational skills and deadline respect;
• Proactivity, leadership and team work;
• Professional independence and responsibility;
• Efficient problem solving skills;
• Advanced computer literacy.

We offer:

• An opportunity for work in a dynamic and international environment, team spirit;
• An opportunity to work in foreign languages with interesting clients on the global market;
• An opportunity for professional success and career development – this job is an opportunity to develop into an excellent Translation Project Manager with excellent industry knowledge;
• Professional development and excellence stimulation;
• Stimulative pay;
• Continuous education, growth and development.

Location: Zagreb, Croatia

If you believe this job is for you, contact us at hr[at]ciklopea.com.

The post We are hiring a Localization Project Manager (M/F)! appeared first on Ciklopea.

What sets this event apart is the picturesque setting. The town of Bled in Slovenia is surrounded by stunning Alpine peaks and blanketed with lush forests. The clear blue waters of the lake create the perfect backdrop for this Elia business retreat. It’s the perfect setting to unwind, network and engage with peers and colleagues in the industry.

At Ciklopea, we recognize the importance of attending industry events like the Focus on Executives program. It provides an opportunity for us to learn, grow, and connect with other executives in the language industry. Our CEO and Founder, Sandra Boljkovac Stojak, is looking forward to attending this year’s event: “I’m excited to attend the Focus on Executives program this year. It’s an opportunity to network with like-minded professionals, learn from experts in the industry, and explore new ways of doing business.”

Mladen Stojak, our CSO, is also looking forward to the event: “The Focus on Executives program is always a great opportunity to connect with industry leaders and learn from the best in the business. I’m eager to hear from the keynote speakers, engage in workshops, and exchange ideas with my peers.”

In conclusion, attending the Focus on Executives program is a must for executives in the language industry. It provides a unique opportunity to network, learn, and grow in one of the most stunning locations in Europe. We can’t wait to attend and hope to see you there!

Schedule a meeting with Mladen

Schedule a meeting with Sandra

The post Join Ciklopea at the ELIA’s Focus on Executives 2023 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Let’s take a closer look at why marketing translation should be taken seriously.

Conveying the Right Message Through Marketing

Let’s first talk about linguistic and cultural barriers. Foreign customers may come from various cultural backgrounds and speak various languages. To avoid misunderstandings or offense, it’s crucial to communicate in a clear and culturally appropriate manner.

Additionally, you have to think about whether or not your marketing content is relevant and relatable. Consumers are more receptive to marketing materials that speak to their needs, preferences, and values. It’s crucial to deliver a message that the target audience can relate to.

With prospects, a carefully-produced marketing message can help establish credibility and trust. Customers from other countries who might not be familiar with your business or its products usually pay particular attention to this. They might be skeptical about new brands on their market and you’ll need to do some additional convincing to trigger a shift from them preferring local brands over yours.

On a worldwide scale, your company will face up to other international companies. You can stand out from the crowd and attract more clients by communicating the proper message.

And how do you do that? With accurate translations.

The trick here is to have an internal consensus about what it is that you want to say so that you can work with experts who specialize in marketing translation to ensure your message gets through (regardless of the market). More often than not, this requires transcreation services, especially when it comes to taglines or content that include wordplay and idioms.

Attracting New Customers

In the 21^st century, we have reached the peak of consumerism, where we buy things not because we need them, but because we want them. A huge part of why we want them is because brands have managed to get closer to us and create a narrative about their products that seems inviting and even irresistible.

Just think about Nike’s success. When people buy their athletic wear, they’re not just buying workout clothes. They’re metaphorically buying a ticket to the world of people who are passionate about being physically active. Nike’s global success wouldn’t have been possible if they weren’t heavily invested in adjusting their advertisements and marketing content to their global audience.

Tackling this task is hard even for your own market, but the complexity of it multiplies when you have to do it for a foreign one. Misunderstandings, complicated phrases, and even offense can result from a poorly translated marketing message. This can cause audience and brand trust to decline. By effectively and appropriately communicating with your target audience, accurate translation contributes to the development of trust.

Maintaining Your Brand Image and Staying Consistent Across Different Markets

Although it might be difficult, maintaining a consistent brand image across several markets is essential for fostering client loyalty and brand recognition. You must decide what your brand stands for before you can achieve consistency. This encompasses the tone of voice, brand values, and visual and verbal identity.

This is why we at Ciklopea start by looking at the internal documentation that you already have. It’s a crucial piece of the puzzle that helps us accurately translate your marketing content.

You need to have brand rules that specify how your brand should be portrayed across various channels and marketplaces after you’ve established your brand identity. The rules for your logo, typography, colors, artwork, messaging, and tone of voice are all included in this.

Some of our clients use a centralized brand management system while smaller organizations stick to Google Drive folders. In any case, having a system will make it simpler to maintain consistency across markets. All stakeholders, including external vendors, should have access to the most recent brand standards and assets.

However, you also have to adapt your message to each individual market. Using language that appeals to local audiences and highlighting regional cultural allusions are two examples of how to do this.

You should also regularly assess how your brand is regarded on various markets and make any adjustments to your strategy that might be required. This may include reviewing social media stats, performing market research, and obtaining feedback from your customers.

How Technology Supports Accurate Marketing Translations

At Ciklopea, we’re big on incorporating technology into our translation processes to make everything more efficient and increase the return on investment for our clients. Here are a few examples:

Natural language processing (NLP) has made machine translation a precious tool for precise marketing translations. It analyzes and translates text from one language to another using algorithms.

Then we have translation memories (TMs), which preserve previously translated text so that translators can reuse it later. By ensuring that frequently used terminology and expressions are translated regularly, translation memories can improve consistency and accuracy.

Translators can maintain consistency by using terminology management tools when translating particular terms and phrases into multiple marketing materials. This helps to avoid consistency issues and guarantees that important marketing messages are adequately conveyed.

In addition, technology-based methods for quality control, such as translation software, can help find flaws before marketing materials are sent in their final form.

Need Help With Marketing Translations?

If you’re looking for a reliable partner to help you with marketing translations, your search is over. Ciklopea is an award-winning language solutions provider with more than a decade of experience in corporate and marketing translations.

From websites, sales brochures, online content, and catalogs to white papers, case studies, newsletters, and more – we cover all of it.

Schedule a call with us today to discuss your project!

The post Why Accurate Translation Matters in Marketing appeared first on Ciklopea.

Not Everybody Knows English

Those of us living in the Western part of the world have subconsciously adopted an “Anglophone” worldview, the approach of people whose native language is English or who speak English because they live in a country where this is one of the official languages.

However, it’s estimated that there are only around 360 million people who speak English as their first language. Yet we often fall into the trap of considering it a global language or some form of modern Esperanto. English might be the most-spoken language of the world, but it’s not spoken everywhere, nor will it help you get closer to your customers (especially if you’re aiming to expand into the APAC region).

Additionally, when it comes to establishing your company in a new market and selling your product or services, it’s not just about being understood. It’s about speaking your customers’ language and adapting your brand because you want to build a rapport with them. It also goes well beyond just words and includes all sorts of communication – including audio and visual communication.

Here’s how localization can help, and why you should consider it.

Build Your International Presence the Right Way

By localizing your website and marketing materials into the language of your target audience, you can make it easier for them to understand your message and engage with your brand. The bare minimum is to have a multilingual website, but if you want to go the extra mile and fully localize your online presence, you should present your international audience with unique pages.

This can mean anything from optimizing the user experience to meet their expectations and online browsing habits, using photography or visuals that resonate with them, showcasing diversity, or introducing a color palette that will trigger positive emotions in your target audience.

The result? Better engagement, stronger brand trust, and more conversions.

Taking Cultural Sensitivity Into Account

Cultural sensitivity must be taken into account when localizing content in order to make sure that it is respectful of the target audience and appropriate for their culture. The process of adjusting materials or products to satisfy the linguistic, cultural, and other unique requirements of a given region or country is known as localization.

Cultural sensitivity in localization refers to a process of translation and modification that takes into account the target audience’s cultural quirks, values, beliefs, and customs. This entails observing and respecting regional norms, traditions, and customs as well as staying away from objectionable or inappropriate material.

Ignoring cultural sensitivity when localizing a product can result in major cultural misconceptions that could have negative effects on the target population, cost a company money, or even result in legal problems.

For instance, a business can unintentionally use a symbol or image in an advertising campaign that is objectionable to the target culture, which would ruin the campaign and possibly harm the company’s reputation.

Working with localization specialists and cultural consultants who are familiar with the target culture and can offer advice on how to adapt content and goods successfully while maintaining cultural sensitivity is therefore essential. As a result, localization initiatives may be more successful and effective, enabling you to reach new customers and foster enduring relationships with existing ones.

Let’s Not Forget Local SEO

Let’s face it: if we’re looking for a product or a service, we’ll all turn to Google. And if we need the solution now (e.g., “the best restaurants near me”), we’re likely to formulate queries in our native language.

Because it enables companies to tailor their online presence for particular geographic regions, local SEO is essential for localization. To rank higher in local search results, a website or piece of online content must be optimized.

Search engines like Google prioritize results for users searching for goods or services in a certain area based on their location. So, if a company wants to draw in local clients, it must tailor its web material to the particular geographic area where it conducts business. Local SEO is useful in this situation.

Building local backlinks, optimizing local business listings in directories like Google My Business, and optimizing the website’s content and structure are all examples of local SEO tactics. Businesses can use this to improve their exposure in local search results, which will eventually result in more local customers by bringing more targeted traffic to their website.

Localization Can Offer Your Company a Competitive Advantage

You can outperform rival companies that are not investing in localization by localizing your operations and marketing initiatives, especially in regions where localization is not yet widespread. Here are some of the ways you can beat your competition:

• Provide a better customer experience. Businesses can offer a better customer experience by providing goods and services that are tailored to the regional market. Increased client retention and loyalty may result from this, which may raise sales and profitability.
• Increase your market share. You can increase your market share by catering to the unique demands and preferences of a certain market. This may result in more sales and income as well as a more solid position on that market.
• Reduce your competition. You can limit competition and obtain a distinct advantage by providing goods and services that are not easily accessible to rivals. Profitability and market share may rise as a result.
• Enhance your brand reputation. You can enhance your brand reputation and boost brand loyalty when you show a dedication to understanding and satisfying local customers’ demands. Over time, this may result in increased revenue and sales.

Ultimately, localization can give your company a competitive edge by assisting you in better comprehending and satisfying the specific needs of your target markets, which in turn increases customer satisfaction, market share, and profitability.

Need Help with Localization?

Ciklopea is an award-winning LSP that provides language solutions by combining three key elements: technology, processes, and people. We are fast and professional, customer-centric, and most importantly, we continuously raise the quality bar for our clients.

If you’re at a crossroads and not sure how to handle your international expansion, fret not: we have cultural consultants and excellent localization experts that will ensure you enter new markets with great success.

Schedule a Discovery Call

We’re always happy to hear from you!

The post How Localization Can Help You Reach More Customers appeared first on Ciklopea.

Participants will learn about key concepts and terminology used in such documents, achieve translation consistency, and tackle specificities of the translation process.

The workshop is aimed at linguists with experience translating medical and pharmaceutical texts, as well as individuals from the medical and pharma fields who work with these types of documents.

It will be led by Mirna Relić, a Senior Medical Linguist, and will take place on Wednesday, 3 May 2023, from 10AM to 2PM at Ciklopea’s offices in Zagreb.

The price is EUR 100, and it includes the theoretical and practical parts, coffee and breakfast, and a training certificate.

The application deadline is 28 April 2023, and the number of participants is limited.

Apply at hr@ciklopea.com.

We look forward to your application and participation! 😊

The post Expert Workshop: Translating Clinical Trial Documentation appeared first on Ciklopea.

We couldn’t not mention ChatGPT and its role to change the future of content creation and language services as well, given the fact that artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming various industries.

We are firm believers that the success of AI depends on how it is used. It offers significant opportunities, but only if you approach it strategically and responsibly. As AI continues to evolve, organizations that can harness its power effectively will gain a competitive advantage.

Still, it cannot replace human intuition and creativity entirely. Therefore, it is crucial to strike a balance between AI and human intervention.

Ciklopea Coffee Chat is our new series designed to bring you interesting and insightful conversations with language professionals and researchers.

The post Ciklopea Coffee Chat (Video): AI Is an Opportunity, if You Know How to Use It appeared first on Ciklopea.

Twelve years ago, Ciklopea became a corporate member of GALA, which it credits as an excellent platform for networking, business development, learning, and knowledge sharing with peers from the industry.
Today, Mladen is CSO at Ciklopea and he believes in simplicity, transparency, integrity, partnerships, and continuous improvement as the core values that form the basis of Ciklopea’s thriving business model. When hiring new people, he believes in hiring for attitude and training for skills.
The best career advice he’s received is to be flexible, and open to change and learning new things. He is proud of the company he’s built.

If you’re interested in learning more about Mladen’s insights on globalization and localization, or if you want to explore the benefits of being part of GALA, be sure to check out their website. You can also connect with other professionals in the industry, attend events, and gain access to valuable resources by joining GALA as a member. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn from experts like Mladen is and to take your career or business to the next level.

Schedule a meeting with Mladen

The post GALA Champion Mladen Stojak appeared first on Ciklopea.

There were three main challenges Aircash was facing:

1. They already had materials in English, but they needed a native speaker to revise them
2. They needed a reliable language solutions provider to help them successfully enter new target markets
3. They also needed the regulation translation done in parallel with the new translations

Discover how Ciklopea provided in-context review and translated 200K+ words to help Aircash achieve its goals: check out our newest case study.

Schedule a Discovery Call

The post New Case Study Available: How In-Context Review and the Translation of 200K+ Words Supported Aircash’s International Growth appeared first on Ciklopea.

To ensure you have a nice overview of the tech we use, we created another page on the Ciklopea website where you can inform yourself about the tool stack and also schedule an appointment with us if you have any questions or you want to discuss your project.

So why does this concern you, our potential customer? When you’re vetting different LSP vendors, always make sure to ask about their tech stack and their experience with using different tools. Vendors should have ready answers to these types of questions and potentially even share quantifiable results they’ve managed to achieve through the use of different translation technologies.

Additionally, they should be able to advise you about the best combination of tools based on their experience and your project needs, and show flexibility if you’d like to stick to your own tech stack.

For a nice overview of the custom tech Ciklopea uses, we invite you to read this article.

If you’d like to discuss your project or ask any questions about the way we work with our customers, feel free to schedule a discovery call. We’re always happy to hear from you!

The post Ciklopea’s Custom Technology Components That Drive Efficiency appeared first on Ciklopea.

Learn from industry experts

Attending sessions and workshops can provide insights into new trends, technologies, and best practices. You will also have the chance to ask questions and engage in discussions with the speakers and other attendees.

Network with professionals in your industry

Conferences offer opportunities to meet and network with other professionals in your field. These connections can lead to new job opportunities, collaborations, and partnerships.

Stay up-to-date on industry news and developments

Conferences are a great way to stay informed about industry news and developments. You may hear about new research, product launches, or regulatory changes that can impact your work. This knowledge can help you stay ahead of the curve.

Gain new perspectives and ideas

Attending conferences can expose you to new perspectives and ideas that you may not have considered before. This can help you think creatively and innovatively in your work.

I’m excited to attend the GALA conference and look forward to sharing my experiences with you when I return. If you’re interested in attending as well, I encourage you to check out the conference website for more information and registration details.

Ready to talk localization over a pint or two? I’ll be there! 😊

Schedule a meeting with Mladen

The post Exciting News! I’m Attending GALA Dublin 2023 and Here’s Why You Should Too appeared first on Ciklopea.

Tech and the Language Services Industry

There is a lot of hype and misinformation surrounding AI in general and in particular surrounding AI-powered chatbots, which are related to their technical capabilities and functionalities and their business applicability and sustainability, especially in the context of enterprise business (B2B). That’s why the concerns related to the language services business in “the age of AI-powered chatbots” are in large part unfounded. The thing is that the language services industry is one of the first industries in the world that has been exposed to digital transformation and transformative trends. It started some 30 years ago with the rise of CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation)/ TMS (Translation Management Systems) tools and the language-related digital assets (e.g. translation memories, terminology lists, glossaries, etc.) that were generated as a result. Since then, this technology has evolved into a mature, enterprise-accepted technology with a lot of competitive solutions in the space. Combined with powerful TMBS (Translation Business Management Systems) they’ve become easy to integrate into clients’ systems and lives. However, considering that the language services industry is very fragmented, and consequently very complex, there is no “one size fits all” solution; one consultancy firm has even developed a technology atlas to enable buyers of these services and solutions to easily navigate the space. After the beginning of the CAT/TMS phenomenon, Google Translate in its first form appeared, powered by a statistical algorithm. It was sometimes funny, but functional and widely accepted. Although it enabled the rising popularity of MT (Machine Translation) solutions for a wider audience, it still wasn’t a mature and enterprise-ready technology. The moment that changed was in late 2016, with the launch of the NMT (Neural Machine Translation) algorithm, and it revolutionized everything. Since then, the translation and localization industry has faced increasing pressure to adopt quickly and incorporate different enterprise-ready NMT solutions into workflows to offer competitive solutions that would benefit their clients, as well as to develop these solutions further. The new technology helped the industry grow and opened up new opportunities for those who embraced the change.

The Impact of AI – Changing Creative Industries Forever

What we’re witnessing right now is probably a similar phenomenon, just in different industries. This time, AI-powered chatbots will probably affect those working in creative industries more, such as copywriters, journalists, etc. Those who embrace the new technology will remain on the market since the technology itself is here to stay. And what they can learn from the translation and localization industry as an example is that in the long run, generative AI will probably be just another tool. Of course, a tool that will change their and our lives, and improve efficiency and productivity, but also a tool with small or no added value without good interaction with humans and their expertise.

Over the years, we’ve learnt that the basic thing clients need to understand is the value (in our case of localization), potential ROI, and why localization is an investment, not an expense. And this represents the basis of all of our conversations with clients. In that context, it is necessary to continually educate clients about possibilities, whether they relate to tech or human expertise, since the complexity of services and solutions is constantly growing. Another thing that I’ve learned along the way is that even though there is no unambiguous value, from the technical point of view, the benefits can be classified into 3 categories:

• Consistency-related benefits (Quality)
• Turnaround-related benefits (Speed)
• Pricing-related benefits (Price)

Requirements are never uniform and depend on clients’ preferences, but prerequisites are. And the most important prerequisite (along with expertise) is data. As Clive Humby said back in 2006, ‘Data is the new oil. Like oil, data is valuable, but if unrefined it cannot be used.’ So, pay attention to your data and treat it as an asset – a digital asset. Improve your data management processes, and structure and appropriately scale them so that they can be used by different algorithms and integrations. This approach (along with our company values), represents the basis of our thriving and successful business model, and we hope that this can offer some insight and inspiration into how to navigate these turbulent times, both for businesses and for individuals.

The post The Rise of ChatGPT – The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning? appeared first on Ciklopea.

Marija shared her experience with post-editing and talked about all the opportunities her students have when it comes to learning more about the translation and localization industry, as well as why teaching by example is a very  successful method.

We also broached the subject of specialization in translation and how to reach a particular level of excellence in your everyday work.

We believe that we are quite a match, because Ciklopea has always tried to offer great opportunities for students, be it through internships, workshops, lectures, Open Door Days, or Summer Schools. We believe that success comes naturally when you use the right tech, rely on the right processes, and most importantly, have the right people on your team.

Investing in your people and helping them grow is incredibly valuable. You can learn a lot through practical work, but also through mentorship and mapping gaps in knowledge that can be taken care of with the right type of training.

Ciklopea Coffee Chat is our new series designed to bring you interesting and insightful conversations with language professionals and researchers.

The post Ciklopea Coffee Chat (Video): What Do Translation, Post-Editing, and Teaching Have in Common? appeared first on Ciklopea.

Thanks to continuous investments in HR development, Ciklopea has achieved tremendous results in attracting and hiring new talent. It has also thrived in the field of professional development and focused on inspiring, motivating, and rewarding the efforts of its employees.

What’s interesting is that this type of strict evaluation takes into account both the perspective of the employer and the perspective of the employee.

Following HR trends and taking the employee-first approach

Ciklopea has been around for 20 years now and during that time, it has won significant awards and acknowledgments that testify to the company’s commitment to the employee-first approach.

Ciklopea’s founder and CEO, Sandra Boljkovac Stojak, emphasized how the HR and leadership teams constantly strive to minimize the gap between executives and employees:

“We will continue following trends and adapting to new market challenges. But what sets us apart is that we genuinely want to be partners with our employees, we care about their opinions, and deeply value open communication. There is always room for improvement and we want to support our teams and encourage them to embrace lifelong learning, both in a personal and professional setting.”

This also means working together to build meaningful internal processes and ways of working that make sense for employees. Ivana Barišić Oharek, Ciklopea’s HR and Vendor Manager, told us more about the actual changes that were implemented in 2022:

“We increased the amount of paid leave, and organized many external training sessions with the goal of strengthening the skills and competencies of our employees. You could say the entire year was marked by educational events. Of course, the best results come when you collaborate with others and brainstorm together. I would like to thank Selectio, the company that always brings new ideas to the table and helps us improve. And of course, a big thanks to all Ciklopea’s employees for the amazing collaboration and support!”

Employees appreciate the opportunity to learn and grow

Ciklopea has always tried to offer great opportunities for students, be it through internships, workshops, lectures, Open Door Days, or Summer Schools. We believe that success comes naturally when you use the right tech, rely on the right processes, and most importantly – have the right people on your team.

Investing in your people and helping them grow is incredibly valuable. You can learn a lot through practical work, but also through mentorship and mapping gaps in knowledge that can be taken care of with the right type of training.

Here’s what Maja Peradin Vuksanović, Ciklopea’s Project Management Team Lead, had to say about the learning activities she’s participated in:

“The internal training sessions were very well organized. We even had an entire week dedicated to professional development during which employees could interact and participate in many different presentations. These types of activities are great not only for sharing knowledge but also for strengthening team spirit. I believe this was particularly important for departments that work remotely, outside of Zagreb, and therefore they don’t have many opportunities to hang out with their colleagues in person. However, we all appreciate the hybrid work model Ciklopea has adopted, it provides so much flexibility.”

Maja’s colleague and Quality Assurance Team Lead Nina Bađun, shares her impressions:

“Last year in Ciklopea was incredibly interesting and dynamic. I appreciate the opportunity to advance in my career and learn new skills. Personally, I participated in two external training sessions and many internal ones, and I also participated in one international conference. I feel like my colleagues and managers have offered me such great support so far and I believe that that’s not going to change!”

We’re thankful and humbled to be selected as the best employer for eight consecutive years. We will continue improving and try our best to win this important title next year as well. Because without people and a healthy workplace culture, everything loses its meaning, and businesses cannot thrive. It’s the collective effort that makes us successful as a company and happy in our jobs.

If that sounds interesting and you are driven to new learnings, research, and to easily make first contact, share your profile with the Ciklopea vendor management team:

Join us

The post Can You Be the Best Employer for 8 Years Running? At Ciklopea, the Answer is YES! appeared first on Ciklopea.

We already wrote about the intriguing history of machine translation but today, we want to dive deeper into the way you can benefit from hiring an LSP that relies on AI and machine translation.

As technology advances, so do our translation practices

Standing still won’t stop the world from spinning around you. You just might get dizzy in the process. The same goes for important advancements in technology. Early adopters always have a competitive edge, so it’s up to you to choose whether you’ll adapt or deny the reality.

We at Ciklopea always choose the first option because we believe that technology, people, and processes are at the core of our services. When it comes to applying AI in translation, it probably sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. If you have the right tech, skills, and experience, you can incorporate machine translation into the translation process fairly easily.

The truth is, machine translation can save up to 60% of translators’ time. This means two things for you as a client: 1) you will get translated content faster and 2) you will optimize your costs.

However, it’s important to be crystal clear here: when we say “machine translation”, we don’t mean pasting your content into Google Translate and sending it back to you. Why would anybody pay for that?

We’re talking about using special technology that does the “heavy lifting” for our translators so that they can do human post-editing afterward and ensure that the content is properly localized. In return, you can launch your product on the international market faster.

When using AI translations and human post-editing is a good idea

In situations where you want to suddenly scale a project (i.e. pivoting from expanding to two markets to expanding to four markets), then it makes sense to include machine translation combined with human post-editing because this gives you the upper hand when it comes to speed. You certainly don’t want to lose any revenue by being late to market.

Another scenario in which it makes sense to rely on AI includes translation projects that include repetitive content. These can be anything from manuals and user guides to privacy policies and other uniform legal documentation (e.g. GDPR and Cookie Policies for EU citizens). So if you need these kinds of materials reproduced quickly in multiple languages, using machine translation significantly cuts down the time needed to translate these kinds of documents.

Plus, with AI in the form of a translation memory, any risk of inconsistency is reduced by automatically filling in the translated content where the repetition occurs. This allows translators to focus on maximizing translation quality.

When you should skip AI translation

In our experience, machine translation cannot be fully utilized when translating marketing content, branded materials, or long-form SEO articles. For example, SEO content requires knowledge of on-page optimization and at least basic keyword analysis skills.

Marketing and branded materials might even require transcreation because it’s important to adapt to different locales while still preserving the look and feel of the brand. This is something in which machines tend to fall short and where human creativity is still necessary.

Balance costs by working with the right LSP that knows AI translations

The main benefit of being open to machine translation post-editing (MTPE) is balancing costs and creating a win-win situation for yourself.

By allowing your chosen team of translators to work with machine translation and AI, you can cut costs where human post-editing is sufficient. Then simply allocate your remaining resources to projects that are more complex. These might include tricky legal and financial translations, software, or other tech product localizations that are too complex or sensitive to be entrusted to machines.

At Ciklopea, we are big believers in the combined strength of people and AI tech, and every project can benefit from it. The only question is – to what extent?

For a nice overview of the AI translations and MTPE services we offer, we invite you to visit this page.

If you’d like to discuss your project or ask any questions about the way we work with our customers, feel free to schedule a discovery call. We’re always happy to hear from you!

The post How AI Can Ensure Faster and More Affordable Translations appeared first on Ciklopea.

• What is proofreading?
• How to proofread: what should be corrected, and what shouldn’t?
• Which materials should you refer to when proofreading?
• “I don’t like this” – what role do preferential changes play?
• How do you evaluate a translation?

We hope that you learnt something new.

Today we’re sharing the first of four videos on the subject, which we plan to publish every Wednesday.

The subjects that we’ll cover in the upcoming videos are the following:

– A proofreader is a reader, not a writer

– How to correct errors

– Stylistic corrections: When and why

If you want to learn more, take a look at the video.

If that sounds interesting and you are driven to new learnings, research, and to easily make first contact, share your profile with the Ciklopea vendor management team:

Join us

We hope that you learnt something new about the advantages that are useful in the work of a translator.

Stay tuned!

The post Proofreading: The Key to an Excellent Translation – Videos from the Webinar appeared first on Ciklopea.

To ensure you have a nice overview of the tech we use, we created another page on the Ciklopea website where you can inform yourself about the tool stack and also schedule an appointment with us if you have any questions or you want to discuss your project.

Automation and QBR reports available in Orchestrum

Orchestrum is the tool we developed in-house because we couldn’t find a proper tool on the market that would meet all our business needs. At its core, it’s a business management system that enables you to automate parts of the translation workflow.

For example, you don’t have to manually upload files and project data to another TMS or BMS if you have an existing database such as Memsource, memoQ, or BeLazy. So instead of trying to navigate the translation project in Excel spreadsheets and have all the data scattered across different sources, you have everything centralized in a single place.

After the most recent update of Orchestrum, we have managed to integrate it with a cloud-based CAT platform. This allowed us to delegate approximately 85% of the repetitive and administrative tasks to Orchestrum.

The impact on productivity is undisputable: our project managers don’t have to waste so much time on administrative tasks; instead, they can focus more on other, more important aspects of their job. This includes increasing productivity, maintaining good translation quality control, ensuring a healthy project pace that will effectively positively impact launch times, etc.

A recent addition to Orchestrum are easily accessible QBR reports. Extracting reports is easy, all it takes is one click. You can select the period you want to observe, the sum of translated words, a list of selected services in that period, average project cost, total project cost, and more.

BeLazy and memoQ help you save time and money

We are happy customers of both BeLazy and memoQ because they help us work smarter and more efficiently, and to bring more value to you, our end customers.

Integrating BeLazy into Orchestrum helped us increase interoperability which resulted in cutting project administration time by 20%. This was something we noted early on, which is why we increased the use of BeLazy in our system. It now processes between 400 and 500 projects every month. This is approximately 130,000 words of small, repeating tasks.

Just like BeLazy, memoQ was complementary to our existing processes. The main way memoQ helps us is by allowing us to set up multilingual files quickly and efficiently. The tool also makes it easier to export the files once the translations are ready, without much additional work on the final file.

When it comes to saving time and money, memoQ templates in particular aid us in optimizing the way we work. If you invest in continuous localization and have translation fully integrated into your growth plans, or if you often have repetitive projects (e.g. translating marketing materials into multiple languages), then templates can truly be a life-saver.

We can also build dynamic templates for projects. This allows us to change settings and rules for automating tasks in any way you, as the customer, prefer.

Using Memsource (now a part of Phrase) since 2016

Memsource is now a part of Phrase as a larger localization suite. However, we’ve been its happy customers since 2016. The thing we love about Memsource is how easy it is to use – whether you want to create Translation Memories, Term Bases, manage users, and more. You have a separate workspace with all your projects nicely organized so you don’t have to chase files across different tools.

Creating a project is also very easy: you can use an existing template, name the project, select the source language and target languages, add the due date, select the appropriate status, and make any notes you might need about the project. This ensures a better level of transparency among all stakeholders participating in the translation and/or localization process.

The Machine Translation engine in Memsource is optional. We sometimes use it in combination with human post-editing if the customer wants to save money or if it’s the type of text that won’t get huge exposure. All of this is pre-agreed with the client, of course. It’s easy to upload translation files or insert them directly from an online repository.

Why custom technology components matter for end customers

So why does this, as our potential customer, concern you? When you’re vetting different LSP vendors, always make sure to ask about their tech stack and their experience with using different tools. Vendors should have ready answers to these types of questions and potentially even share quantifiable results they’ve managed to achieve through the use of different translation technologies.

Additionally, they should be able to advise you about the best combination of tools based on their experience and your project needs, and show flexibility if you’d like to stick to your own tech stack.

For a nice overview of the custom tech Ciklopea uses, we invite you to visit this page.

If you’d like to discuss your project or ask any questions about the way we work with our customers, feel free to schedule a discovery call. We’re always happy to hear from you!

The post Introducing Ciklopea’s Custom Technology Components That Drive Efficiency appeared first on Ciklopea.

We were also pleased to reintroduce our Success Stories as well as Coffee Chats and share news on our presence at various fairs and conferences in the post-pandemic period.

We were also very proud to introduce our new webinars, aimed primarily at our vendors, which are dedicated to skill development with a focus on the industries we specialise in.

Today, we’d like to share our most popular content from 2022 with you.

Wallis Automotive Europe Achieves Continuous Localization with Ciklopea

5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Professional Localization Services in 2022

Why We Work With the Across Language Server

A Buyer’s Guide to Translation and Localization Services [eBook]

How Orchestrum helps boost productivity by up to 85% thanks to process automation

Stay tuned, we promise there will be more interesting topics in 2023!

The post Our most popular content in 2022 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Information security management is integrated into all processes at Ciklopea, including recruitment, project management, vendor management, IT administration, etc.
Our information security management system is also constantly being improved to match the needs of our customers and the everchanging IT landscape.

Regarding quality management, special emphasis is placed on quality on all levels – from the selection of our employees and partners, the implementation of technology and process optimization, to the final quality control of our product.

Once again, professional experience has shown that quality of service depends on all stakeholders in the business process – employees, suppliers and management.

Year after year, we plan, analyse and improve every business process where necessary. Read more about Ciklopea’s values.

Schedule a discovery call with us

The post Ciklopea Has Successfully Completed Its ISO 27001:2013 Recertification – What Does Kaizen Have to Do With It? appeared first on Ciklopea.

Balázs shared his experiences of founding of the company almost 20 years ago, about the very beginnings of memoQ, his vast experience with the localization of products over time and TMS functionalities in general.

We talked to him about how the tool offers various functionalities when it comes to the metrics of the work done, plugins to make your production team more efficient and of course, their future plans when it comes to one of the most popular TMSs in the industry.

If you want to find out more about how memoQ helps Ciklopea streamline the translation process, read our Success Story.

Ciklopea Coffee Chat is our new series designed to bring you interesting and insightful conversations with language professionals and researchers.

The post Ciklopea Coffee Chat (Video): Premium content and the most versatile Lego block in the industry appeared first on Ciklopea.

Great project managers are accustomed to context-switching and juggling different tasks, but that doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate tools that help them work smarter—quite the contrary! Here’s how memoQ TMS helped Ciklopea’s project managers overcome challenges that were threatening to cause serious bottlenecks.

Using memoQ TMS was complementary to our existing processes

When adopting new tools, you need to consider the amount of change management inside your organization. We were happy that memoQ TMS nicely fit into our existing workflow and that there was not a steep learning curve to it.

The main issue we faced was related to multilingual Excel files that included multiple languages across multiple sheets and columns. Needless to say, it gets messy and difficult to track progress when you’re staring at numerous rows and cells in such a format.

Luckily, memoQ TMS allowed us to set up these multilingual files quickly and efficiently. It also made it easier to export the files once the translations were ready, without much additional work on the final file.

Saving time and money with memoQ templates

Anyone who’s ever worked within an LSP knows that with long-term clients, you are likely to repeatedly work on similar types of projects. This is particularly true if the client invests in continuous localization and has translation fully integrated into their growth plans.

In those cases, as a project manager, you want to find a way to efficiently manage recurring projects—especially if they include the same project team, similar documents, the same language pairs, and TMs.

With memoQ templates, it’s way easier to kickstart projects of this type; you simply set up a template and you never have to start from scratch again. This approach contributes to the optimization of localization costs because you already have your formula for success—the right people who are in sync and know the bar for quality, the standards that are established, and the terminology and glossaries you can rely on. You just need to replicate it and with memoQ, it’s done fairly easily.

Our technical team set up memoQ templates in collaboration with our PMs. This collaboration was extremely valuable because our PM was able to determine precisely what they needed from the template from the very beginning. So, you set it up once and use it as many times as you need.

memoQ is an advanced solution for managing multilingual files

Ciklopea’s team translates into a variety of languages, most often into CEE languages. Often, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of words that need to be translated within a single project. Bearing that in mind, it’s essential that you have an efficient process in place. To achieve this, the bare minimum is to have a tool that allows you to automate certain tasks and a tool that enables you to manage files properly.

memoQ TMS offered advanced solutions for multilingual files, allowing us to quickly set up multilingual files across multiple sheets and files. But that’s not all, the tool has great options for setting up rules for what to import/not import. This was important for us because the files we receive often include instructions from the client, which can be imported in the form of comments. All this helps us keep our source files well organized and ensures that our linguists have easy access to all the information they need while they’re working.

We also love the flexibility that memoQ TMS offers. You can build dynamic templates for projects and enjoy changing settings and rules for automating tasks.

The power combo: Orchestrum and memoQ TMS

You may know that we developed an in-house tool for project management called Orchestrum that helps us boost our productivity by up to 85% thanks to automation. It works incredibly well in conjunction with memoQ.

We handle project settings (especially for recurring projects) within Orchestrum, and the project teams that are set up in memoQ are also entered there. This allows us to enter data from the projects into Orchestrum efficiently.

You could say that we have the best of both worlds, and our project managers truly feel the difference. The process is streamlined and we have more clarity about the current status of the project. Optimal efficiency is ensured through project templates and making maximal use of the TM and TB. Because we work mostly with PDFs, the TAT is dictated by OCR and technical prep. Once the text is in memoQ, we can assign it to a translator and get to work on these projects extremely quickly.

Better quality and faster translation turnaround times with memoQ

Having a toolkit that supports your productivity and commitment to quality is priceless. When using memoQ and Orchestrum together, we have managed to achieve faster translation turnaround times (especially on smaller recurring projects) and to assemble a winning team of linguists, PMs, and QA professionals who are familiar with texts and niche projects.

Our typical workflow looks like this:

Technical prep (OCR) – Translation – Revision – QA in memoQ (or external QA program)

As you can see, memoQ is the key ingredient that facilitates collaborative workflows and lets translators and reviewers work simultaneously within a single environment.

At Ciklopea, we like to keep things as simple as possible. We found that the quality assurance offered by memoQ TMS works particularly well for smaller projects, so in most cases, we will carry out the QA phase in memoQ. The QA module finds machine-detectable errors and then there’s an LQA that assesses the quality of translations and provides feedback. We tend to treat it as a good starting point; the tool directs your attention so that you can evaluate whether or not some translations need to be revised.

All in all, memoQ TMS is a comprehensive translation environment that’s also compatible with a myriad of file types which means that you don’t need to introduce a lot of changes to the way you work. Ciklopea’s project managers wholeheartedly recommend that all LSPs try this solution as it can do wonders for your productivity and efficiency.

Let’s start a new memoQ project together

The post How memoQ TMS helps Ciklopea streamline the translation process appeared first on Ciklopea.

As the organizers themselves say, this event is designed for project managers who are serious about delivering the very best for their company and clients.

This year’s edition is a chance to review every aspect of a PM’s role, connect with like-minded peers and understand how future trends will affect best practices moving forward.
We are sure it will leave our colleagues equipped to operate on a new level in 2023.

We are proud of our girls and wish them a very successful event in Manchester.

In case you’re attending as well, let them know. They’ll be happy to meet you very soon!

The post Meet Ciklopea at ELIA Focus PM 2022 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Inside the research findings

Here are the main things you can learn more about inside the downloadable PDF:

• The main concerns and worries companies experience when looking for an LSP
• The main goals companies want to achieve when collaborating with language vendors
• The biggest localization challenges
• The main roadblocks companies encounter when working with LSPs
• The main benefits of working with an LSP, according to clients

About our data sample

We conducted long-form interviews with nine different clients. Depending on the size of the company and the type of project we collaborated on, our point of contact was either a Marketing Manager, Localization Manager/Project Manager, Global Resource Manager, or a member of a Regulatory Team (in the case of pharma companies). The questionnaire consisted of 12 different open questions. In most cases, interviews were conducted face-to-face, which allowed us to understand the context better and ask follow-up questions.

The value of our research

Although we originally envisioned this research as something that we’d use only internally, we soon realized that there are some interesting findings that are worth sharing with the industry. We believe that publishing this data can encourage meaningful conversations and perhaps make us prioritize differently. Only when we exchange knowledge can we keep pushing forward together, as an industry.

Download our research findings today

You can freely download our research findings here.

If you have any questions or thoughts you’d like to share, or if you’d like to discuss a localization project, don’t hesitate to contact us today.

The post [DOWNLOAD OUR RESEARCH FINDINGS] Localization challenges, costs, and working with LSPs appeared first on Ciklopea.

We talked to him about how BeLazy can help you save time and money while making your teams more effective and happier in general.

We also talked about Istvan’s professional career, his background, and Belazy’s vision for helping companies to become more efficient when it comes to project management in general.

We had a lot to talk about…

Since Ciklopea’s early days, dealing with process improvement and providing our clients with extra value has been an important part of our business. This includes the automation of processes with leads to turnaround time improvements, as well as generally upgrading the quality of our working environment. One of the most important ideas is that our team should be able to see a positive change in their daily task management.

Learn more about Ciklopea’s proprietary BMS and how supported integrations such as MemoQ, Memsource, and BeLazy contribute to cutting project administration time in the following article.

Ciklopea Coffee Chat is our new series designed to bring you interesting and insightful conversations with language professionals and researchers.

The post Ciklopea Coffee Chat (Video): The Importance of Automatization, Today and in the Future appeared first on Ciklopea.

The organiser’s aim is to maintain a Nordic regional focus with their themes and speakers as well as their forum venues.

Meet Ciklopea’ s representatives, the management team (Mladen Stojak, Managing Partner & CSO and Sandra Boljkovac Stojak, Founder & CEO), and learn more about Ciklopea and Southern Europe.

Schedule a meeting with Mladen

Schedule a meeting with Sandra

Looking forward to meeting you at the Nordic Translation Industry Forum!

The post Meet Ciklopea at NTIF 2022 appeared first on Ciklopea.

• What is proofreading?
• How to proofread: what should be corrected, and what shouldn’t?
• Which materials should you refer to when proofreading?
• “I don’t like this” – what role do preferential changes play?
• How do you evaluate a translation?

The webinar will also include useful tips for everyday work and practical examples.

The webinar will be held in Croatian on Wednesday, 30 November 2022 at 10 am, online via the Zoom platform.

After registration, we’ll contact you with the registration information for the webinar itself.

We’re looking forward to your active participation!

The post Webinar: Proofreading – The Key to an Excellent Translation appeared first on Ciklopea.

A jam-packed programme of forums and conferences focused on current challenges in care, such as disaster, military and sports medicine will provide additional points of interest for attendees. The MEDICA Start-up Competition and the Healthcare Innovation World Cup will highlight breakthrough solutions.

Meet Ciklopea’s representatives,  Kristijan Novak, BDM and Mirna Relić, Senior Medical Linguist at our booth: Hall 12, Stand-No. 12A11.

Come and visit us or schedule a meeting, and let’s discuss how a healthcare professional can benefit from individual language solutions tailored to their business.

Schedule a meeting with Kristijan

We’re looking forward to meeting you at MEDICA, Leading International Trade Fair!

The post Meet Ciklopea at Medica 2022 appeared first on Ciklopea.

#2022TEF will show how technology, coupled with the specialist skills and knowledge of translation professionals, is making the world a more interconnected, accessible and user-friendly place. Translation continues to help businesses reach foreign clients, with the audio-visual sector taking on increasing prominence. Emerging language technologies such as speech-to-text and automated speech recognition help people in crisis situations overcome language barriers, bring them more diverse foreign news content and allow them to enjoy films in different languages. Technology means we can dream big, but humans – with our irreplaceable creativity – remain centre-stage.

If you are attending 2022TEF as well and want to connect prior:

Schedule a meeting with Ivana

Schedule a meeting with Zana

Looking forward to new partnerships!

The post Meet Ciklopea at the Translating Europe Forum 2022 appeared first on Ciklopea.

At Ciklopea, we try our best to educate our clients and stay true to our people-first approach, which ultimately means prioritizing business relationships and employees’ well-being over profits. Still, one of the most common mistakes we’ve noticed is a logical fallacy that localization costs = translation fees per word.

This is why we decided to write an ebook that explains:

• The dilemma of localization costs vs. localization as an investment
• How to break down localization costs
• Which localization costs are optional
• Which localization costs are inevitable
• How technology can help you decrease localization costs

Want to learn more? Download your ebook today to fully understand localization costs.

The post New ebook available: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Localization Costs appeared first on Ciklopea.

Our third webinar this year covered and included useful tips for everyday work and practical examples relating to questions such as:

– What is localization?

– Why is localization an important part of the translation industry?

– What are its advantages from the perspective of project managers and language experts?

– What is being localized and why?

We focused  on  the stages of the localization process, the technology used to successfully implement a localization project, and the teams involved in the project and their workflow – from project managers, translators, and proofreaders to quality assurance specialists.

We hope that you learnt something new.

Today, we’re sharing the first of three videos on the subject, which we plan to publish every Wednesday.

The subjects that we’ll cover in the upcoming video are the following:

– What does localization mean?

– What exactly gets localized?

– The workflow of a localization project

If you want to learn more, take a look at the video.

If all this sounds interesting and you’re inspired to learn new things, research, and to easily make the first contact, get in touch with us today.

Looking forward to meeting you!

The post Localization – Workflow and Practical Examples – Videos from the Webinar appeared first on Ciklopea.

At the world’s largest industry event, with the tcworld conference and tekom fair running in parallel, the full range and depth of topics in technical communication will be offered – and much more.

Find out how Ciklopea can help you with terminology and software documentation localization.

We’re waiting for you at our booth 2F40, at the Messe Stuttgart ICS, and looking forward to new partnerships!

Schedule a meeting with Mladen

Schedule a meeting with Kristijan

Immerse yourself in endless knowledge at the tcworld conference 2022.

The post Meet Ciklopea at the tcworld conference 2022 appeared first on Ciklopea.

Naturally, we were first curious to learn more about Yuka’s career path and whether she always knew she’d be working as a localization expert:

I didn’t become a globalization strategist because I “wanted to.” A tree doesn’t want to become a tree, it grows as a tree because that’s what’s written in its DNA. I am naturally good at seeing the big picture, viewing things from different angles, and critically thinking about every option. I suddenly realized that what I create and execute is a strategy while talking to my coach one random day.

Creating a global strategy requires standardization and a combination of international and multinational strategies. So how does one become a globalization strategist? Yuka underlined the importance of doing things and experimenting while connecting the dots:

To be a strategist, you need to know the subject matter deeply enough and widely enough as a practitioner. I’ve been in different positions in different layers in the industry. I know lots of things well enough and in a connected way to relate everything, and it is knowledge I acquired by doing – not by reading about it.
That’s some golden advice for you right there!

AI has been in the localization industry for a while

With DALL-E officially available to the general public, Google’s LaMDA, and Metaverse – the fast development of AI and tech are in our focus. We were curious to find out how Yuka perceives these events, and what are some of the technology-related trends she’s noticed in the localization industry:

An increasing amount of commoditization and industrialization are happening in the industry, and even more with recent investments. Tools have become further diversified and sophisticated. Machine translation seems to be accepted and now we are moving forward with different types of artificial intelligence (AI).
As Yuka explains, AI exists in so many forms and on various levels. If you’re working in the localization or translation industry, you’ve likely already relied on it:

I sometimes roll my eyes when localization or translation professionals cite AI as something that they don’t know well or they don’t use much. We are one of the leading industries in terms of real AI usage – machine translation itself is a very good real-life application of Natural Language Processing (NLP), which is one of the core parts of artificial intelligence.

Speaking of tech, we also wanted to know just how important technology is for the success of a localization project:

It, of course, depends on the technology you are talking about. Trying to translate everything only by overwriting in a word processing program like Word or Google Doc doesn’t produce the same results in speed, volume, or quality as when you use a CAT tool. Trying to manage projects with only a spreadsheet and email is doable but it’s much faster and more accurate to use a TMS.

Additionally, translation and localization tools can help you save precious time and be more productive:

Keeping up with the technologies is very important. With new tools, maybe you won’t have to click that annoying button one hundred times anymore. This creates the space for you to do other meaningful tasks.

And what about the voices from the industry that panic, saying human translators will become obsolete or lose value on the market? Yuka has a prepared answer:

We have skilled talents in the language industry. The only thing is that we need to keep shifting what we do and how we work. While our current skills are essential, unless we stay current with the rapidly emerging new technologies and applications in which we can be of service, we won’t be thought of as the go-to talent that we are.

We couldn’t agree more!

The 4 golden rules for a successful localization project

Yuka was kind enough to share some golden rules that apply to most companies localizing their product or services.

Rule #1: Think global from the very beginning

If you’re planning to expand internationally, you have to be proactive about localization, Yuka explains:
Localization cannot be an afterthought if you really want to enjoy its money-saving aspect. If you do localization well, you will likely sell more across different markets. Coming from another market, localizing the product, gives you a financial competitive edge compared with local businesses developing the same from scratch.
This is true for any type of product, be it physical or digital. BUT when the original products are not designed well or prepared well for localization, it takes more time and money to localize them, which dilutes that competitive edge.
There’s also a widespread logical fallacy that all your customers know English and that it’s fine to leave it be:
One of the most common mistakes I see is to use English as the main language on a market where the native language is not English or to do it without a localization professional overseeing the efforts. The mess you create by doing it unprofessionally costs a lot of money to redo and restart.

Rule #2: Internationalize before you even think about localization

The second rule is about internationalization and the importance of getting the buy-in from everyone – engineers included:

You need to internationalize the products fully even before you think about localization. Here, the term internationalization is used in a very technical and specific way. A well-internationalized product is designed to be universal from the foundation and architecture – in addition to full implementation of internationalization rules for the type of products. Surprisingly enough, there is a myth in the localization industry about this new type of design tool, and that’s that engineers don’t need to do internationalization. It is far from reality.

Rule #3: Be data-driven and develop KPIs

The third rule is to be data-driven and create sensible KPIs for your localization operation:

The KPIs you’ll rely on will depend on the maturity of the company or your localization operations. After collecting data from the appropriate data points, you need to think about what you need to share with each stakeholder in your organization and strategize how to share the insights with them. The best practice is to keep updating all the stakeholders with an appropriate report from your team to departments and functions, and executives.
And what should the report look like? Yuka has the answer:
The report may vary from the operational team to a set of executives. Think frequency, format, and content. Everyone should understand the collective progress that’s being made, and how they can all collaborate to keep refining the operation. Globalization is highly strategic and you may need to change the strategy to align with the business strategy. Remember that localization is a tool, not a purpose.

Rule #4: Never stop learning, always adapt

The fourth rule is about always finding new ways to innovate, both when it comes to professional development and updating the processes and tech tools you have in place:
The speed of technological advancement is so fast that what’s true today may not be true tomorrow. It’s not an era of changes: what we are facing is actually a change of an era. I won’t be surprised if I see some innovative people enter the industry and scoop localization professionals who are not up to date off their feet.
Supporting social causes and leading the way with kindness
When you speak with Yuka, you instantly feel like you’re in the presence of an incredibly curious and ambitious mind. She’s currently leading a digitization and globalization project for a local winery, a film industry global research project, and participating in many network group activities such as LocLunch Barcelona and soon the Global Chamber Barcelona.

Yuka is also working on Metaverse evangelization, doing KTLC promotion as an ambassador, and investing continuous effort into being a great mom, something she feels is the most important and challenging role of all.

We were curious to learn more about her collaboration with Translators Without Borders. Yuka started fundraising for them as a part of her leadership training:
When the training ended at the end of May, I felt I’m not done yet. So I decided to continue. For the moment, I haven’t done much but haven’t given up. Consistency over time wins over any sprint type of effort. You know the tale of The Tortoise and the Hare.

We asked Yuka about her inner drive and how she connects purpose to her work:
I feel my mission in life is to connect and build bridges between people. It happened to become more international now that I live in a foreign country and speak a few languages. And that’s what I do professionally as well. My company’s mission is to help people bridge cultural and linguistic barriers and make the world a better place.
Something that Yuka noticed in more than two decades of work is just how culturally rich and emotionally intelligent translators and interpreters are. This allows them to empathize with people in another language or culture, which is precious when there is a need for humanitarian support activities:
Now that the world is becoming smaller and smaller, people need us to step up and help. I encourage anybody in the industry to do what we can do. It doesn’t have to be big. Many raindrops form a stream and then a river. Before you know it, you’re a part of the vast ocean.

Thank you, Yuka Nakasone for this inspiring interview!

Ciklopea Coffee Chat is our new series designed to bring you interesting and insightful conversations with language professionals and researchers.

The post Ciklopea Coffee Chat: “Localization is a tool, not a purpose”: Interview with Yuka Nakasone appeared first on Ciklopea.

We are proud to be part of the Across family!

Learn more about why we work with the Across Language Server and how we received the Across Language Server v7 certificate earlier this year.

Let’s start a new Across project together!

The post Meet Ciklopea at the Across LSP Day Online appeared first on Ciklopea.

Today we invite you to explore the essence of Ciklopea and take a closer look at the way we’ve been carefully building our culture, services, and relationships – both internally, with our team members, and externally, with our clients.

Technology-eclectic approach

We are big believers in leveraging the power of automation to work more efficiently. Ultimately, this means using tech to remove repetitive manual tasks from one’s to-do list and including machine translation where it makes sense for the sake of cost optimization. This allows people to allocate their time to those areas where their contribution cannot easily be replaced by software (e.g. translation quality assurance, project management, transcreation).

This is exactly why we built our own proprietary software called Orchestrum. It’s made a huge difference when it comes to improving overall efficiency and the management of multilingual content. After the most recent update of Orchestrum, we were able to integrate it with a cloud-based CAT platform.

The result? Around 85% of administrative and repetitive project-related tasks can now be delegated to Orchestrum, which is a significant productivity boost. There are quite a few automation options available in the software. For example, you can automatically create projects thanks to integrations with various TMS tools, pull data from CAT tools such as Memsource, or fill out a vendor recruitment form to automatically create candidate profiles.

All in all, Orchestrum makes everyone’s life easier and even allows multiple LSP processes to be contained within a single system. Pretty neat, right?

Award-winning regional and industry expertise

For the fifth consecutive time, Ciklopea has been recognized as one of the top language service providers in Southern Europe. We believe that there are three key ingredients for such success in the translation industry.

Firstly, our team is made of great experts. But more importantly, we all collectively invest in continuous improvement and professional development. Secondly, it’s because of our technological infrastructure and meaningful partnerships with industry leaders that we’re able to develop system integrations and improve our existing practices. Last but not least, it’s due to our innovative approach, custom business processes, and the flexibility we have for each individual client.

Additionally, we have specific industry expertise and cultural knowledge of the biggest global markets. We help the life sciences, IT and software, tech, and manufacturing industries effectively communicate with their target locales. After almost two decades of working in the industry, we’ve learned the best ways to use localization to help your business grow globally.

Committed to seeing our clients succeed

We offer translation, localization, and consulting in more than 150 language pairs, with a range of additional services designed to help you build meaningful relationships with your international audiences.

Saying that we’re client-focused might sound like a business cliché, but it is true nonetheless. We’re well aware that localization and translation are the key ingredients to succeeding on international markets. Speaking your customers’ language can not only increase sales, but can also create a stronger bond with your target audience and prevent miscommunication.

Every client has a unique business situation, but often the set of challenges they face is universal. Thanks to our experience, it takes little time for us to define what would be the best translation workflow – both in terms of efficiency, cost optimization, and achieving the best quality.

For example, for Affidea, the leading provider of advanced diagnostic imaging, we established an agile workflow that allowed us to translate 2.4 million words of clinical materials and GDPR policies into 15 languages in a timely manner. Read this and other case studies if you’re curious to discover more about our past projects.

It’s the people who matter

As we already mentioned, there are three key elements at the core of Ciklopea’s success: people, technology, and processes. Even though they all play their part, we have to underline the people factor. The thing is, technology and processes don’t have value if you don’t have amazing people that will use them and improve them over time.

This is why we’re very selective when it comes to hiring. It’s not just about the expertise one person brings to the table. It’s also the mindset, values, and willingness to continue learning. The person should not only fit into the culture but also add to it. This is how we can collectively grow and ensure better results for our clients.

People work together like ants and bees and each individual in a sometimes complex ecosystem contributes to a shared goal. This is why Ciklopea has always focused on people. If you trust your team, create a healthy work environment, and ensure they have everything they need to do their work to the best of their abilities, rest assured that they will.

Throughout the years, we have strengthened our partnership with academia to help students find their way into the working world. The idea is to bridge the gap between linguistic and technical knowledge by offering students the opportunity to learn hands-on. In addition to internships, we organize workshops, lectures, open door days, and the Ciklopea Summer School.

Don’t just trust our word for it

Each year, we conduct a client survey to learn how our partners see us and map potential areas of improvement. This is how we ensure that the quality of our services stays top-notch. Here are some key takeaways from 2022:

• Our NPS is 70% and we’ll continue working towards an even higher percentage
• More than 75% of our partners would recommend working with Ciklopea to their colleagues
• On a scale of 1 to 5, our clients gave our project management team a score of 4.81
• Our vendor management team received a score of 4.88
• Our accounting management team received a score of 4.91

We’re pretty happy with how our clients perceive the value Ciklopea provides. It motivates us, even more, to continue improving our services.

Have a project in mind?

It’s challenging to put everything that makes Ciklopea unique on the market in a single article. However, we hope that this gave you an idea of who we are as a company and what we can do for you.

If you have a translation or localization project in mind, or if you’re interested in consulting services, feel free to Schedule a Discovery Call. We’re more than happy to explore how we can help you.

The post What makes Ciklopea different from other LSPs appeared first on Ciklopea.

It also offers the possibility for companies to present themselves at the MCE Jobs Fair 2022.

If you are attending MCE as well and want to connect prior:

Meet with Ivana

Meet with Zana

We’re waiting for you there and looking forward to new partnerships!

The post Get to Know Ciklopea at the Meet Central Europe Conference 2022 appeared first on Ciklopea.

How did your cooperation with Ciklopea begin?

Although we work with global suppliers of language solutions, we needed a more local one at some point, a partner who would be able to provide translations to two or three regional languages. On the basis of its experience in the life sciences sector and other factors such as its custom-developed process, Ciklopea fit the bill, and here we are.

What types of documents do you usually need translated?

Mostly health-related content: documents, articles about our products, presentations and product inserts/instructions for use.

Do you think that the role of translation and localization services is important in your line of work?

Although it may not be obvious at first glance, translation and localization play a tremendously important role. People relate to language as a natural phenomenon, everybody is using it, right, so they naturally tend to overlook the hard work of communicating the messages across different languages.

We provide products designed to make people’s lives easier and better, and if they do not have the relevant information in their language on what is the intended use of a product or how and when they should use it, we may achieve exactly the opposite effect. Of course, we do not want this to happen, so we delegate the language-related tasks to the professionals.