Translation

Before we begin this story, we need to talk about the elephant in the room – the elusive ROI and KPIs of localization and translation services. Unless you have decided to invest in localization with a very specific objective of such a venture – for example, localizing user manuals/help files to decrease the number of calls to the customer services department – the traditional ROI and KPI measurements will simply not work no matter how you try.

In the previous article How to Localize: The 3 Pillars of Localization Process, I shared my views on how the localization process should be set up to deliver the desired results and how the understanding of localization has been somewhat changed by the current pandemic. This time, I am talking about the things that have not been changed and that are not very likely to change – the benefits of localization.

One of the perks of having been in the industry for decades is the ability to calibrate your laser line and get to the core of things easily.

Surely, the language industry is extremely fragmented and each project is a separate universe with specific aspects and requirements, but when you reach that point where you have successfully executed all kinds of projects, more or less complex, with millions of words and in dozens of language combinations, you inevitably begin to see it more clearly what is really important and the undercurrents that lead to success or failure across the different projects begin to show on the surface.

Machine translation. Artificial intelligence. Neural language processing. Predictive modelling. These fancy terms have been flashing everywhere over the past several years to the point when it seems that all your localization problems can be solved with a double click. As of 2021, they can’t. In this article, we will try and explain the exact role of technology in the translation/localization process in the simplest possible terms and help you understand what it really can and cannot do for you.

Cars. They are complex, sophisticated and ubiquitous. Their build quality and safety features are extremely important in our everyday lives. Yet, much of what we need to know when purchasing a car is contained in its brand – luxurious, family, sport cars, SUVs (and more) are all safely tucked in the brand names whose reputation has been carefully developed for decades. And it is probably true that for most of these decades, the localization requirements of the automotive industry were mostly limited to marketing materials and user manuals. But all things change.

In almost every survey that we have ever conducted in our efforts to learn more about the expectations of our clients, turnaround time is featured among the top 3 challenges that our clients want to see resolved.

Nobody likes the grammar police of the internet. Unless somebody is typing an email or any other material with the purpose to truly make an impression, spellcheckers usually annoy people. Nobody likes being corrected  for something so banal as language because people tend to view language as nothing more than a communication tool and don’t bother with it as long as it works. Fair enough. So why should you even care about the language quality at all?

We have recently had an interesting chat with Nikola Ljubešić, researcher at the Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, on the machine translation research focused on similar languages, in this case Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian.

We may perceive translation in various ways – it may be good, bad, correct, incorrect, fluent, awkward, poetic, mechanical and so on – but it is easy to forget that translation is actually an asset. To be more precise, our painstakingly and successfully localized materials for specific markets are assets simply by virtue of their function – they generate profit, reduce expenses and improve sales.

Editable file is one of the language industry’s magic phrases that activates certain powers such as cost/time optimization. The reason is simple – editable files can be easily imported in CAT tools and thus enable the localization teams to apply the carefully developed processes of linguistic and technical adaptation, quality control and optional DTP. Simply put – there is no localization process and reliable quality control without the CAT software and CAT software can only be used with editable files.

Every serious language service provider has a quality management system in place that may include various steps depending on the project requirements. However, these quality management systems are always built around the two major phases of translation/localization project – translation and revision (also known as bilingual editing) that are performed by two individual linguists or linguist teams.

We are happy to announce that our Managing Director Mladen Stojak  will contribute to the Second European Language Resource Coordination workshop on 12 February 2019 at the European Commission Representation office in Zagreb.

We’re rounding up this year’s cycle of Ciklopea stories with our Miloš Matović. He told us about how he got into Ciklopea and what he was doing before he took over the role of the company’s creative leader and became a marketing manager.

The contemporary business climate encourages you to enrich your portfolio with a few extra services. But the question is what should these added services be? I guess it’s true for any business, but when we are talking about the language solutions and processes, listening closely to your customer’s need might show you the right direction and be mutually beneficial. Being able to offer the solutions that actually help your client grow and that were not available just a few months before is the recipe for success on both sides.

We covered some of the basic concepts of localization in our previous article. This time, we are taking a look at the real stuff – the monetary and non-monetary benefits of localization.

Tcworld conference gathers translation and localization experts who contribute a lot to the language industry community with their innovative ways of thinking.

We are proud to announce that our Managing Director Mladen Stojak and our Chief Operations Officer Marina Orešković will attend this year’s tcworld conference taking place in Stuttgart, 13 – 15 November 2018.

In case you have heard about localization, your coworkers are telling you about its stellar benefits and its differences from the good old translation, but you are still struggling to grasp the full story, this mini series of articles is for you.

Today we are introducing our QA/digital marketing specialist Juraj Močilac who shares details on his unique set of skills and a very interesting story about how his strengths were discovered at Ciklopea.

Ciklopea offers you work on dynamic and interesting projects, continuous education, professional growth and development and regular payment.

Ciklopea offers you work on dynamic and interesting projects, technical and linguistic training, professional growth and development and regular payment.

Ciklopea is looking for freelance English ­– Croatian translators with experience in translating medical and clinical trial materials.

After several years of successful cooperation, we decided to learn more about Marija Omazić, full professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Osijek and the chair of the master’s programme in translation at the Department of English. She shared with us the joys of working with students and the details about many projects she was involved in.

This time we had a chat with terminologist Siniša Runjaić. He shared with us how one becomes an expert for terminology and glossaries, and told us a little bit more about his past work experience and memorable projects.

We asked our project manager Nikola Đorđević to tell us more about website localization, the importance of client’s feedback and the tools he uses on a daily basis. He also gave us some information about his life, hobbies and interests outside the office space.

Our QA Specialist Nikolina Škof shares her Ciklopea story, some details on her job and how her professional and academic experiences blended into one.

We have recently had a chat with Mr. Santiago García-Agulló Goded, Msc Civil Engineering, from Grupo TYPSA who kindly shared his experiences of working with Ciklopea.

When I first started writing this article, I had to decide how I’m going to style the head noun of the title. Is it e-Learning with a hyphen or without it and what’s the difference anyway? So, I did a little research and found out that the former was used in the earlier days when the concept was still new and unfamiliar to many. But as it was rising and slowly becoming a regular part of our lives, we dropped the hyphen so we could save ourselves from pressing one more key of the keyboard. That’s how I got to learn something new, even if it’s as banal as learning how to style a word.

That dreadful phrase bad translation has two distinct meanings – first, there is the obvious one, a text (or any other material) replete with errors in meaning, style, grammar and orthography and second, the more serious one, including delayed and cancelled product launches, loss of time, resources and energy and, most dreadful of them all, negative representation on a foreign market, which is also the price of a bad translation.

How to prevent it?

The amount of textual materials used before, during and after clinical research is often massive as they include a wide range of documents composed by healthcare professionals, legal and financial experts and patients. If any of these documents needs to be updated or changed for any reason, amending and updating the translated versions may be difficult and time-consuming.

Luckily, there are processes and technologies designed to make these actions painless.

Preparation of requests for proposal (RFP) is a serious and painstaking task that – when translation is included – may easily become even more complex. We might have a few tips for you that may help you avoid this being a challenge, find a reliable language solution provider and run a successful RFP.

The global markets require content that anyone can understand, which is why website localization is necessary. It is not only cost-effective, but it can also be a time-saver, since processes are optimized and automatized. It can also be a way to connect with your customers and build strong relationships with them.

Transcreation is most definitely not one of the things that spring to mind when we talk about the medical translation or localization of pharmaceutical materials. With all the seriousness of study protocols, summaries of product characteristics and correspondences with the regulatory bodies, we tend to forget that medical and pharmaceutical companies also need marketing solutions to propel their business and reach their customers and clients.

Ciklopea offers you work on dynamic and interesting projects, technical and linguistic training, professional growth and development and regular payment.

It can sometimes take a lot of time and effort to adapt to working with a new client – particularly on complex projects for a mature client with established and strict procedures that need to be followed – but good coordination, patience and understanding of the client’s requirements ultimately yields positive results.

Travel and hospitality industry requires frequent updates of content, changes of target audiences and the advertisement media and therefore represents one of the most active areas of the language industry. The particular challenges of the industry can be overcome easily if the clients and providers of language services work together and, of course, if they both have a clear understanding of the nature of the industry and the benefits of language solutions to its growth.

Ciklopea offers you work on dynamic and interesting projects, technical and linguistic training, professional growth and development and regular payment.

The task of language professionals is essentially the same across industries and can always be summarized as helping companies and organizations communicate their messages to the target audiences, partners and clients. In this article we take a look at what medical translators need to know to make this communication possible in the vast and the diverse world of life sciences.

If you are still having trouble figuring out what is localization (L10n), or even worse globalization (g11n), you came to the right place. Many people seem to think these are just fancy words for translation, but it’s not really the case. Even though these terms are interconnected, they have their own specific definitions, applications and scopes of meaning.

Localization of a website to one or more markets is always a serious task that takes time, resources, smart project management and a good deal of patience to be performed the right way. Thankfully, there are technologies designed to optimize the L10n process and integrate it into website development, regardless of the scope of content or the number of locales.

Copywriters use a variety of stylistic devices to create catchy and effective marketing messages. Most of the time, though, these devices only work in the source language and can easily get lost in translation. This is where transcreation or creative translation comes into play.

Translations are one of those things that you only really notice once they’ve gone wrong. The internet is full of jokes about bad translations, which although may be funny, are actually a very serious issue for all stakeholders. Quality Assurance (also known as QA) is one of the steps taken within the language industry to prevent translation errors.

Companies in the life sciences industry invest huge amounts into keeping their businesses growing, especially when moving into a new market. Behind the scenes lots of work goes into keeping these companies afloat, and it couldn’t be done without localization.

Terminology management is a powerful tool that saves time, energy, and money, especially when used in conjunction with translation memories and CAT tools.

“From top floor to shop floor” is a phrase used to describe a business organization in its entirety

Serendipity is frequently listed among the most beautiful English words, as well as among the ones most difficult to translate to other languages.

“So you see that a MacGuffin is actually nothing at all.”

“Mad as a hatter” is an English phrase meaning “crazy” and although its origin is unclear, it actually has nothing to do with Lewis Carroll’s memorable character from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”.

The Atomic Era conviction that computers will eliminate the need for translators – or even the need to learn foreign languages at all – within a few short years still persists. But will it?

In addition to its numerous obvious benefits, professional management of translation assets preserves the integrity of PILs and similar medical and pharmaceutical documents.

The Pareto principle or the 80-20 rule in its simplest form states that, for better or worse, roughly 80% of the effect comes from 20% of the causes.

Every startup has essentially one advantage when compared to big companies – a clean slate and the possibility to create a unique corporate identity and write a whole new success story, without being burdened by the failures or successes of the past. Beginnings are always exciting and promising, but for these very reasons they are also risky and that is why the examples of big companies should not be ignored. This article features some of the translation and localization lessons every startup can learn from the big companies.

The price of a bad, awkward or inaccurate translation is too steep, making the price of a good, professional human translation the long run reasonable and low.

The world is big and replete with possibilities. The Internet is constantly growing more multilingual by the hour and reflecting these possibilities. Yet, picking the right one for your business may be tricky.

The main benefits of this language services model are process optimization and the reduction of costs and time, as well as improved translation quality and consistency.

Тhere are substantial differences between working with freelance translators and an LSP. This article is about the most important of these differences. TEP process

Translated and localized website is speaking to people on the local market. A multilingual SEO strategy is required to make it speak to the search engines on the local market as well.

The massive amount of life sciences texts being translated to almost every written language of the world every day is essentially an active exchange of information on the cutting-edge life sciences products, procedures and development that are constantly widening the lexical stock of the target languages and thus make a valuable contribution to the scientific arenas of the target territories.

The continually rising e-commerce websites that represent one of the most vital segments of online business may benefit the most from the advantages of the translation proxy.

This type of translation services uses proxy servers to render multilingual versions of a website

These words hide the exciting story of their origin, stretching back to the days of Ancient Greece and Rome, and include layers of religion, astrology, mathematics, and astronomy

There are many ways to learn a foreign language. This article features several real-life tips from some us who speak several languages.

Online store localization is one of the language industry fields where the differences between translation and localization truly come to the fore.

As a follow-up to our article 10 Questions Good Translation Companies Will Ask You, we bring you an article on information you should share with your LSP before your translation project starts.

If your potential translation provider asks you some of these questions, it means that you are dealing with a company that truly knows the business.

Internet and SMS communications have helped in the creation of a specific type of informal written communication.

Even if the figures of speech are not something we think about too much, there are oxymorons we tend to use unconsciously.

Ciklopea held a translation and localization workshop for the students and teachers at the translation studies department of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek on February 2nd, acting in its capacity as the Western Balkans regional coordinator of the ELIA Exchange Initiative. This is the first university to join the ELIA Exchange […]