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

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Before we delve deeper into the procedures, it should be noted that the choice of accurate and appropriate terminology in the life sciences sector will depend upon the target audiences and purpose of the materials.

If the content is targeted at the patients/end users who are not necessarily familiar with the expert terminology, we may want to use the terms that such audiences will understand.

These are the so-called patient-facing materials and may include a wide range of content from informed consent forms and various patient surveys to marketing materials and user interfaces of medical devices.

Another group of content is targeted at the industry professionals and/or regulators and the language of these materials needs to feature the industry-accepted terms, consistent with the scientific and legal conventions of the target market. These materials also include a wide range of materials, from clinical trial protocols to SmPCs.

The Heritage, the Modern Times and the Speed

The largest part of the medical/pharmaceutical vocabulary in the European languages originates from Latin, Greek and Arabic, making it an international, almost universal lexical stock, and while traditionally it took little more than adapting a Latin/Greek/Arabic phrase in accordance with the target language orthography to render a usable translation, with English having become the lingua franca and the language of much of the contemporary technological and scientific development, this situation looks somewhat different.

Most of the terms describing modern medical procedures, diagnostics, equipment and devices are coined in English every day, combining the traditional terminology with new technologies, at a much faster pace than these terms are adopted in other, comparatively smaller languages.

This situation is frequently resolved by the healthcare professionals simply using the English terms with little to no adaptation out of necessity and this is one of those case when terminology management, as one of the standard procedures in the language industry, truly acts as an auxiliary discipline to the life sciences.

What is terminology management?

Terminology management is a multistage process of identifying, translating, storing and maintaining searchable multilingual terminology bases for use on translation/localization projects.

For best possible results, terminology bases should be developed in collaboration with the client/client’s subject matter experts as the best practices show that client’s input regarding the explanation of new technologies and the desired solutions before/at the early stages of the project can speed up the process dramatically and generate results of higher quality.

Although they are also developed and used in conjunction with productivity software (CAT tools), unlike translation memories that store translated segments (sentences or paragraphs) in a single language pair, terminology bases store only translations of specific terms and provide a quick and reliable reference to the translators and reviewers working on the project.

Terminology bases can be described as customized advanced dictionaries and some of their benefits include:

• Terminology bases are multilingual (they can contain translations for specific terms in many languages);
• Terminology bases can contain specific notes (clarifying the context, e.g. which translation should be used for the patient-facing materials);
• Terminology bases can contain images/definitions (very useful for providing additional context);
• Prohibited terms / terms that must remain in the source languages (DNT terms) can be defined.
• Terminology bases are stored and can be reused on future projects, ensuring lexical and stylistic consistency.

Benefits of terminology bases

Terminology bases are one of the building blocks of any successful/lean translation process.

A result of joint effort of the linguists, client’s subject matter experts and the experts working on the technical preparation and execution of translation projects, terminology bases with their versatile functions ensure a faster and leaner translation process with less editing in the quality assurance stages.

Side effects

While terminology bases are an excellent tool, they are not a substitute for a magic wand that will make any bad translation go away.

Unclear/missing context of the desired terms may actually generate very bad results (just consider the entirely different meanings of simple words such as thread or probe in different medical and pharmaceutical applications and the issues that might arise from these differences).

Terminology bases usually do not include different grammar case forms, often leading to reporting false errors in the quality assurance phase.

However, when done right and in the hands of an experienced and focused linguist team, terminology bases ensure accuracy, appropriateness and fluency of the translated/localized materials that fulfill their ultimate purpose of bringing the medicinal and pharmaceutical products to the global markets.

The post Word for Word and More: Terminology Management for the Pharmaceutical Industry appeared first on Ciklopea.

In other words, time is one of the top problems in the language industry.  In this article, we take a look at the reasons behind this and the measures (or attitudes) that can be taken to resolve this issue.

All good things take time

If you are reading this article, we believe we do not need to emphasize that professional translations for commercial and regulatory purposes are performed by professional human linguists.

The mere fact that linguists are human can mean many things, and one of these is that they need more time than machines to complete their tasks.

Of course, the entire language industry is built around the constantly developing technology that enables translators to perform more work in less time, but technology cannot really lift the eternal boundaries of language and communication that linguists try to open using their knowledge, skills and intuition.

To cut the long story short, different languages work differently – while it may be easy to coin a new phrase or a term in one language, it may take hours to find (or develop) a corresponding term in another language that would cover the entire spectrum of the source meaning, style and tone.

These types of “blank spots” or “freezes” are not exclusively limited to transcreation and adaptation of marketing materials and ads: legal, medical and technical terms can be equally difficult, as every professional translator from English or German to any Slavic language knows too well.

Translator’s main and only task is to convey the meaning, style and tone of the source material, taking into account the material’s purpose, format and target audiences. This is a high level intellectual process that cannot be and shouldn’t be expected to be performed in a heartbeat – if we are looking for the best possible results.

How much time?

To answer this question, we need to take a look at how translations are calculated and charged: in the modern language industry, segmented source words are the basic unit of measurement.

Thanks to the highly developed translation technology, we may calculate new words, fuzzy matches and repetitions within a document or against a translation memory. Segmented new words are, as the name suggests, the words and phrases that appear in segments for the first time and that need to be translated from scratch.

Our professional experience shows that the optimum daily rate of translation clocks at around 2500 new words. To illustrate, a standard page in Word and similar word processors contains approximately 500 words, so we may say that standard translator’s daily output is about 5 pages in Word, not including the repetitions.

Depending on the material, repetitions and the existing digital translation assets, the actual output can be higher – our rate includes only the new segments.

Of course, this rate is meaningless in other types of language tasks (review, transcreation, quality assurance) and in those scenarios we may use only hourly rates.

Click here to learn more about translation technology

How to accelerate?

The cure, as far as the language professionals are concerned, is, once again, in the translation process. The process has been developed as a perfect mix of translation technology and human knowledge and power, with one of the aims being the speed of delivery without it affecting the quality.

Click here to learn more about the Translation Process

Depending on the scenario, the wordcount and the desired deadline, more translators can be assigned on a single task, although it should be noted that this approach also has its downsides – more translators can also mean more personal styles and therefore more coordination, but it is not impossible.

On the client’s side, however, there are some things that should be taken into consideration:

• It has been shown that the client’s input (or, at least, the client’s willingness to provide more information on specific project requirements and terminology) at the early stages of translation/localization project can speed up the process dramatically because the translators do not need to spend time researching for terms or sending queries during the project.
• Translation/localization should be understood more for what it really is – an integral part of a product/service launch and spreading of business operations, than a formality to be fixed quickly right after the product completion and right before its launch – or, in short, client should allocate enough time for translation/localization.

Direction vs. speed

In life, as well as in business, direction is often more important than speed. The first question is what do you want to achieve with localization of your product, service or delivery, not how fast can you get it localized. If you want to achieve quality and appropriate adaptation in accordance with the target culture and market, that will always take some time, even with all the digital and technological wizardry available.

The post Speed of Professional Human Translation: How Much Time Do We Have for Quality? appeared first on Ciklopea.

The conference includes a wide range of topics, including terminology, mobile documentation, technical videos, visual communication and more.

If, by any chance, you find yourself at tcworld conference, please don’t hesitate to say hello to our team. They will be more than happy to chat with you and discuss various localization solutions.

See you there! 😉

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We know that terminology is one of the most important things when discussing quality translation. Do you think this fact is sufficiently well known in our region?

The idea of a regulated terminological activity is not new neither in Croatia nor in other young countries in the region. In the former Yugoslavia there were attempts to define a terminological policy, and specialized lexicography was quite developed in publishing. However, it wasn’t until the start of translation of the European acquis communautaire during the process of accession of these countries to the European Union that the importance of regulated terminology for quality translation was fully understood.

This has been supported by the development of translation agencies and an increased need for terminology support by the translation and localization industry in the last few years. Unfortunately, there are still no separate terminological studies at the graduate or postgraduate level – terminology is taught only as part of the curriculum of several translation studies.

In the meanwhile, terminology has as a discipline both practically and theoretically outgrown the framework of a translation studies course. I believe translators become very aware of this fact when they encounter a highly specialized text for the first time in practice after finishing their studies.

Glossaries, glossaries, glossaries – you have participated in their creation as a project manager as well as a translator. What is the secret of a good, high quality glossary and what are the things every translator (or linguist) should pay attention to?

Good preparation always counts for over half of the work. After that, one should precisely define additional information for the glossary (such as different contexts or term classification) and document it using reliable sources, having in mind the types of projects or translations where this information may be needed again. It is crucial to amend, revise and update the existing and organized lists, instead of creating new ones.

The 21st century brings a new outlook
defined by technological development
and a stronger influence of linguists
in terminological theory and practice.

How important do you think technology is in your everyday work? What is new in the modern approach to the development of terminology and terminology projects on the whole?

I believe technology is of the utmost importance. My work in the field of terminology started with designing the technological solution for the implementation of a national terminological database, and now I encounter new tools daily in the course of my practical work and resources improvement. In the second half of the 20th century, terminology was considered a supporting discipline in the standardization of individual languages. That’s why it was approached in the traditional, the so-called “engineering” way, most often in cooperation with organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization or national standardization bodies.

But the 21st century brings a new outlook defined by technological development and a stronger influence of linguists in terminological theory and practice. On the one hand, the most modern approach currently is the development of highly specialized terminological databases which, in addition to providing definitions and foreign language equivalents, examine semantic and syntactic connections between terms in specialized texts and offer the possibility to improve computer assisted translation through developed semantics.

On the other hand, technology enables the development of aggregate search engines which don’t use only one terminological resource, but try to connect all the available resources for a specific linguistic community. This is not limited to an individual country, but also includes wider communities, e.g. the IATE termbase on the level of the European Union.

Can you tell us a little bit more about how one becomes a terminologist? Seeing as you are a linguist by profession, we are wondering how you chose that job. Or can we say that it chose you instead?

That expression holds completely true because of a specific set of circumstances in my career. I would even say terminology did not chose just me, but the entire team of terminologists at the Department of General Linguistics. Even though the department was established in 2005, at first our focus was more on corpus linguistics. A national program for the development of a special field terminology database called Struna was initiated in 2008, and the team gradually started turning in that direction both in the professional and scientific sense. This is how I started working as a terminologist on the project of developing marine engineering terminology.

Alongside my work on this project, I completed an advanced terminological course at the post-graduate level at the Institute for Applied Linguistics at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. I would like to emphasize the crucial role of Prof. Maja Bratanić, PhD, a world-class linguist, lexicographer and expert and the chief coordinator of the Struna program at the time, who arranged such education, provided guidance to us and brought out the best in us.

I became the lead terminologist on many projects on Struna in 2011, while also designing and developing the Croatian Terminology Portal, a contemporary terminological resource aimed more at translators that has been publicly available since July 2015.

If we were to compare other countries and international projects in which you have participated, would you say that Croatia and the Croatian language follow global trends? Are you a member of an international association of terminologists and what does that entail?

There is certainly a disparity between our work and the work of our colleagues from the Scandinavian countries or the technologically more advanced German and French projects. We can hardly compare ourselves with them, but for around ten years now we have been developing excellent links and cooperation with colleagues working on other close Slavic languages, such as Slovenian and Slovak. I was strongly influenced by terminological database projects that aim to revitalize long neglected higher levels of language awareness of its speakers (due to the influence of the dominant English and Spanish), such as Irish, Catalan and Welsh.

In addition to our active participation in the work of the TO 37 Terminological Board at the Croatian Standards Institute, we are members of the European Association for Terminology (EAFT). Every two years EAFT organizes a summit to keep up with the newest trends in the terminological practice. This year we will present our new ideas to colleagues from Europe in San Sebastián.

I would like to point out that our active membership in EAFT helped us receive organizational and financial help for holding important professional and scientific terminological conferences in Croatia in 2013 and 2018.

You are working on a truly noteworthy project – the Croatian Terminology Portal. How many people use it and have you received any feedback from readers?

We conceived this project as an upgrade because, in addition to the search results from Struna, as an aggregate search engine it also shows results from other available terminological resources, which the authors of special field dictionaries and glossaries kindly shared with us. Information about visits from Google Analytics shows that people still turn to Struna, an older and better known resource, significantly more than the portal. However, the involvement of people, who often contact us and offer us their own glossaries, speaks to the fact that an increasing number of translators think of the portal as a useful resource.

Last year the Translators’ Association at the Croatian Chamber of Economy asked us to create a search engine for them based on a similar model where they could include their own glossaries. Since this summer those glossaries can also be searched on the portal. The number of Croatian terms with synonyms on the Croatian Terminology Portal has reached 100,000, with around 175,000 foreign language equivalents (mainly in English, but also plenty in German, Italian and French).

Among the projects you have worked on so far, which one is the most interesting to you and what makes it stand out?

Projects developed as part of Struna, which are financed with the practical aim to create a terminological database for a certain professional domain, also have an additional research dimension because of the need to form a joint team of experts and linguists to find solutions for that practical part of work. I have cooperated with scientists from many Croatian universities and institutes, but cooperation on the maritime terminology project stands out especially in my mind.

The project was coordinated by Prof. Boris Pritchard from Rijeka, a highly esteemed expert and experienced lexicographer who has selflessly shared his knowledge with me and taught me how to approach the terminology of a particular special field in the beginning of my terminological work. Furthermore, the maritime field is truly fascinating because of the range of topics it covers – from history and shipbuilding, maritime law and insurance, over danger and safety at sea to meteorology and sailing.

Such a rich conceptual system is also very interesting in the linguistic sense since seamanship has been one of the most important human activities since ancient times, so its terminology was influenced by many different languages. I can safely say that working on this project has enabled me to finally understand the role of linguists in terminology work.

The post A Talk with Siniša Runjaić: “Terminology Has Chosen Me” appeared first on Ciklopea.

Following the successful professional training organized by Across Systems GmbH, Ciklopea has been accepted in the inner circle of global language services providers.

Our knowledge and professional competence, as well as this valuable certification, are the proof of our orientation toward values such as excellence and leadership

We use the acquired knowledge in our everyday work to provide our clients with the linguistic services of high quality and to provide our partners and collaborators with support and competence.

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