A2ZTranslate launches Pacifica language translation studies scholarship

The crew at A2ZTranslate Ltd. is pleased to announce that we will launch a scholarship in Pacifica language translation/interpreting studies in conjunction with Auckland University of Technology.

Over the years we have noticed that, while there is no lack of Pacifica translators and interpreters with the requisite Pacifica language skills, there is a need for professionally trained translators and interpreters with good skills in modern translation systems and software. While particular demand in Aotearoa is for English to/from Samoan are Tongan, this scholarship is open to all Pacifica language students.

A2ZTranslate will provide a scholarship from the 2016 academic year for a student in the Graduate Diploma in Arts (Translation) at AUT. The scholarship will be of $3000NZD per annum and open to any student who is studying the Diploma and fluent in any Pacifica language and English.

It is important to note that qualifications in translating/interpreting are not purely for someone who wishes to pursue a career as a translator/interpreter. This area of expertise is also a valuable asset for those wishing to enter the diplomatic corp, to work in international aid/NGOs, or within the Justice, Health or Social Services sector.

For further information please visit this AUT page. Please help to get the word out, we are really looking forward to getting behind a good student keen on pursuing this qualification.

Nga mihi nui
The crew at A2ZTranslate

Computer Assisted Translation, Machine Translation and Translation Memories for beginners

I have written this as a brief introduction for clients who are considering having content translated, and may have heard of these systems before but are not sure what they are and how they can be applied to their particular situation.

Basic terminology

First let’s consider Machine Translation (MT). The simplest example of this is Google’s Translate function. This is a totally software (i.e. “Machine”) driven translation process; no humans are involved, so of course the output is somewhat variable. At the same time most MT systems are constantly accumulating master and translated content for inclusion in their massive databases; the issue is that the MT system has no way of verifying the translation (the old programmers rule "Garbage in = Garbage out" comes to mind). Indeed Google recently admitted that its translation engine is accumulating it's own MT translations as translation data; when someone uses Google to translate their website and publishes the translation online Google may then access the translation and download it to its database, assuming it is an accurate translation! 

Consequently we do not recommend using any currently publicly available MT for any translation that your business will then either rely on for decision making purposes, and definitely not for anything you would put in front of a customer (such as a website or an email).

Next lets look at Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) systems. This is not Machine Translation. At it’s simplest, CAT provides a system that allows a segment of text (a phrase, a sentence etc.) to be translated by a translator and stored in a database, matched to the original text. It is important to note that the translation is still done by a human; CAT just manages the process of translation.

Translation Memory (TM) is the output of a CAT system. This is stored as a database of original segments alongside their matching translation. Think of a giant spreadsheet, with the original content in one column, broken into discreet segments, and the translation entered alongside in the next column. Included with the TM may be a Term Base (TB). Term Bases are used to store information on specific terms, such as industry specific jargon (e.g. “Translation Memory”), an explanation of the term, and the translation of the term into the target language(s).

So to summarise the jargon;

MT: while constantly improving, is still nowhere near good enough quality to use except as a rough guide

CAT: software that assists the human translator manage the translation process

TM: the memory output of CAT, allowing the storage of segments and their translations

TB: a memory of specific terms/jargon, an explanation and their translation(s) 

What benefits do CAT and TM bring?

So why would you use CAT to manage your translation and keep a TM of the output? Well, some of the main benefits are as follows:

• It can speed the translation process up; if a segment appears a second, third or more times (what we call a repetition), the system will recommend the original translation, meaning the translator does not have to re-enter an existing translation.
• It acts as a double-check that all content is translated. The system will alert the translator to any untranslated segments.
• Most CAT programs can import a wide range of file formats, meaning the translator may not need the original software your files were created in.
• Especially when multiple translators are working on a single project, by implementing a Term Base and a cloud-based TM, it enforces consistency of terminology and translation across all translators.
• When a master document is updated, this can be loaded and compared to the TM of the previous translation. The CAT system will then alert the translator to any segments that differ from the original, meaning the translator only has to update the new content, rather than translate everything from the beginning again.
• If you ever need to change translator, the TM is portable. This means the new translator will have access to all previous translations, enabling consistency with earlier translations irrespective of who does the translation.

Are there any issues with CAT?

Yes, there are a few potential disadvantages. CAT is primarily of maximum benefit for projects that have a high level of repetition (repeated content throughout a single document, or across multiple documents), a lot of jargon/specialised language, and/or for content that is regularly updated (and so translations need to be updated as well).

• CAT may not bring any benefit on smaller projects. The cost and time involved in setting the project up for translation using CAT can outweigh any benefit in translation productivity.
• Front end marketing copy may not be translated well using a CAT system. Because of its very nature (the system recommends the re-use of existing translations), and the fact that the translator is forced to use a segment by segment approach (rather than considering the entire text and its flow), CAT can lead to translations that are somewhat repetitive.
• If content is unlikely to be updated on a frequent basis one of the main benefits of CAT is lost.
• If there is commercially sensitive information involved, then the client needs to consider security issues of having this content stored long term offsite.
• Editing and proofreading become even more important when using CAT; if there is an error in the initial segment translation, this will then be propagated throughout the entire document. 
• Some languages, such as Japanese, tend to form very long, multi-phrase sentences. These can become difficult to translate using CAT, as it will depend on how the content is segmented.

In short, MT should only ever be used to generate personal, non-critical translations and never for front end business materials; while constantly improving, it still cannot produce natural, error free translations. CAT and TM can be of great benefit in terms of cost and productivity, especially where there is high volume, high repetition, and frequent updates, but it is not the solution for all projects. If you need to know more, give us a call and we would be happy to discuss if CAT can be applied to your translation needs.

The Fake Translator's CV, what is the purpose of it?

As a translation agency, we usually receive around 40-50 unsolicited resumes a week from translators looking for freelance work. Not that I am complaining, I like to think that it implies that we are a desirable translation agency to work with. But recently we have started to see a huge increase in resumes that are quite obviously fake. At the same time we have recently seen a significant number of recurring translation tenders on several online tendering sites where the contractor requests a full CV for any applicants; these contractors are posting multiple projects over several months, all purporting to have pay rates well beyond industry standards, yet the contracts are never awarded. Is this CV harvesting perhaps related to the fake resumes we are receiving?

Before I go into how we are spotting these fake resumes, I wonder what the sender has to benefit from sending me a resume for a task they are quite obviously unsuited for? Several opportunities to profit arise.

1. The sender could hope to get on to an agency database untested (or even if tested they could very well pay someone else to do the test and then present the work as their own), receive some work, pump it through a machine translation tool, send it back, and hope to get paid before they got found out.

2.  I suppose the sender could also be a competitor (although I think it highly unlikely, as if they were in the business their resumes should be of a lot better quality). By getting through the verification and testing process they could learn a fair bit about our systems, as well as if they receive work from us they could potentially identify some of our customers.

3. Or could it be some trojan or virus embedded in the attachment posing as a CV? Yet we run multiple levels of virus detection software, that is constantly updated on the fly, and have never had an infection in 12 years of doing business.

I can't really see what the benefit of it would be? Firstly, we would never use a translator untested and unverified. And every translation has a second editor and a proofreader, so any machine translation would be quickly identified and the perpetrator deleted. So what is the benefit for these people sending me fake CVs posing as a translator???

As to how we are spotting them, while I won't give away all our secrets, here are some of the most obvious errors found to date in a few fake Japanese resumes received recently.

- A translator referred to themselves as "(surname) kun". "Kun" is a Japanese honorific that, like "san", is never used for oneself, only in reference to another person. Straight away I know the person is not Japanese because no Japanese would ever make such an error.

- A translator put their address as "Hamamatsu City, Toyama". There is no Hamamatsu in Toyama, it is in Shizuoka.

- Very poor English and Japanese writing skills, resumes riddled with typos, spelling mistakes and bad grammar.

- Receiving multiple emails from supposedly different people on the same day, with the same subject and body text, but with different resumes.

- Finally, when searching the name of a translator who claims 15 years freelance experience, I found zero reference to them in any of the major online translation freelance portals.

I would love to hear from other agencies who have been receiving such fake emails, really just to try to understand the purpose of it all. Any ideas anyone?

An open letter to Freelance/Contract translators

I kid you not, we get at least 10 emails a day from freelance translators looking for work. Of those 99% of them go straight in the trash bin (we would reply to maybe 3 a week), yet maybe a lot more are actually quite good translators?

It is actually quite infuriating to see how so many professional translators are so inept at the business side of the relationship. At the same time I don't want to waste your time asking you to fill out a profile, enter skill-sets and qualifications etc. if I am not likely to have work for you in the future. In many language pairs we have a really good hard-core of people who we use constantly. Yet other times we will be looking to add to our existing crew.

So I thought I would write this up and give you some pointers; if you want to approach translation companies for work as a freelancer/contract translator, here are what I would consider the basic minimums.

1. State your language pair. Honestly, I cannot count the number of cover letters I get on a weekly basis that DO NOT mention the language pair, or if they do it is as a footnote at the bottom of the CV.  Quite literally, WTF????

2. State your specialities. Anyone who says they can translate any field and any subject goes straight into my trash bin. Impossible. I am a reasonably well educated and well read English speaker, fluent in Japanese. But I cannot for the life of me understand a real estate sales and purchase contract, nor could I comprehend a nuclear facility evacuation protocol, let alone translate one. Get real, people.

3. State your rates in a format you are comfortable with. Pick A: a measure (e.g. source words), B: a currency, C: a ratio for rush rates D: a lower and an ideal rate, and state that clearly. Understand that different markets have different rates, and if you overbid I am not going even look at that.

4. Finally, spell check and proofread, and get your terminology right. Last week (and I kid you not), I got a letter from a translator in China promising perfect EN-CN translation, because she was fluent in "Margarine". Now we all know she meant Mandarin, but the unfortunate fact is Mandarin is not a written language, it is a spoken one. The scripts are called Traditional, Simplified etc. Chinese. There is no such thing as written Mandarin (or Margarine).

Can I suggest to all contract translators sending out resumes that they use the following format for the first three lines of the cover letter:

Language Pair: e.g. EN>ES, or EN< >ES for both directions
Specialities: spell it out! Marketing, Nuclear engineering, genetics etc.
Rates: >0.06, =0.12USD. i.e. the minimum acceptable is 0.06, the ideal is 0.12USD

Then both you, and the agencies, will save a hell of a lot of time and effort filling out forms, creating log-ins etc. that you will never use again.

Are Malaysian and Indonesian the same?

Lesson #2 for Kiwis: Malaysian vs Indonesian.

We often get the question, "Aren't Indonesian and Malaysian the same language? I mean, they both use the term "Bahasa" don't they?"

Short and simple, they aren't the same language. Strongly related, mutually comprehensible in certain situations, yes, but not the same.

"Bahasa" just means language in both Malaysian and Indonesian. It does not imply any mutual comprehensibility. In fact the word "bahasa" has a Sanskrit base, and is used in languages as diverse as Javanese, Thai and Khmer to mean the same thing; "language".

So where, and when should you be using these different languages, and what, if any, other languages should you be considering?

Let's look at Malaysian first. Malaysian of course is the first language of Malaysia, yet which confusingly originated in Sumatra. It is also an official language in Singapore and Brunei, and is widely used in Western Sumatra. Historically Malaysian was the trade lingua franca of South East Asia and across the Indian Ocean; there are still communities speaking dialects of Malaysian as far abroad as Southern China, Vietnam and Cambodia, while Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa, is of Malaysian origin.

Indonesian, by contrast, is linguistically termed a dialect of Malay. It is the official language of the nation of Indonesia, used in government, trade and education. Yet of a nation of 240 million only 23 million call it their first language; over 140 million people designate themselves as second language speakers (although they may well be fluent in Indonesian as well as their first language). This leaves some 60 million Indonesians who either term Indonesian as a third language or who cannot speak Indonesian with any degree of confidence.  Compare this with Javanese (the language of Java, the main island of Indonesia), which boasts as many as 85 million native speakers. However, given that Indonesian is the official language of education, expect that over time the use of the national language will increase.

While both languages have absorbed many Sanskrit and Arabic terms, Indonesian was strongly influenced by Javanese and also Dutch languages, the Dutch having ruled Java and many of the islands of Indonesia since the 16th Century. Malaysian, by contrast, received more influence from Tamil and Hindi, and also English.

So should NZ exporters consider one translation for Malay and Indonesian speaking customers? If your translation is for front end marketing purposes, then short answer is no. Aside from the actual language differences, as with all close neighbours there is always a certain amount of tension, and using a Malaysian translation in Indonesia (or vice versa) may not go down to well. And be aware, that particularly in Indonesian, a very strong slang exists often using word plays and borrowings from other native languages (Madurese, Javanese etc.). For documents such as operating manuals etc. then if cost is a serious consideration, then possibly it can work.

Postcript:
On a further review of previous customer enquiries, please don't confuse Malaysian with Malayalam. Malayalam is the language of the Kerala state of south-west India, and has nothing to do with Malaysian.

Language Lesson #1 for Kiwis

Right Kiwis. After more than 20 years living in various places in Asia, and more than 10 years running a translation business, I am constantly amazed at the lack of knowledge Kiwis have on foreign languages. So forgive me for preaching, but time to issue some lessons.

Lesson #1. Mandarin is a spoken language, NOT a written one.

Given the FTA with China and the focus on both selling to China and receiving Chinese investment, I am constantly gob-smacked by the general lack of knowledge in NZ about the Chinese language.

I constantly get asked for a translation from English to Mandarin, the assumption being there is one written language for all Chinese speakers.

Guess, what? We cannot translate to Mandarin. No-one can. Mandarin is a spoken language, not a written one.

Yes, Mandarin is the official spoken language of mainland China (PRC) and Taiwan (ROC), as well as amongst the diaspora in Singapore, the USA, here in NZ etc. Note there are multiple dialects and separate languages as well such as Hakka, Pinghua, Cantonese etc. but most NZ exporters need not worry themselves with those as they will be focussed on translating their written materials.

Can I make it clear that Mandarin is NOT the name of a written language.

There are in fact two written scripts for Chinese, with one of them having two different main "flavors".

Script#1 - Traditional Chinese (TR-CN): This is the old script of Chinese, pre-Communist era. It is used in Taiwan (ROC), Hong Kong, Singapore, and amongst most of the older Chinese diaspora (some Chinese language newspapers in NZ use Traditional script).

Flavor: TR-CN-HK Variant: While in Hong Kong TR-CN is the core, there are some unique characters used in writing not used in Taiwan (in tune with the Cantonese spoken dialect). At the same time, colloquialisms, difference in phrasing etc. can mean a translation done for Taiwan may be inappropriate for Hong Kong, and vice versa.

Script#2 - Simplified Chinese (S-CN): after the revolution, the Communist party went about "rationalizing" the Chinese script (written language). They removed a lot of characters and made others much simpler to write and read, and introduced Pinyin; the use of Roman characters to represent Chinese sounds, whereby literacy went from <50% to almost 100% within 30 years (not a bad effort for one generation eh?). So "Simplified Chinese" is the script used in Mainland China (PRC).

So what is "Mandarin"?

Mandarin is the spoken language. So people from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore etc, can speak the same language, but they write their language differently. Kind of like I spell "colour" with a "u", but an American spells it "color" (no "u"), but on a whole different level. A person in China will say a word e.g. "Green", and a person in Taiwan will understand them. But they will both spell it differently (i.e. use different characters).

What does this mean for you preparing your materials for your Chinese speaking audience?

Well, first you have to decide where your audience is. Mainland China? Hong Kong? Taiwan? Where your audience is will decide what script you use. But note also that as languages stay apart, they diverge. So there are different "turns of phrase", different styles of saying things, different phraseology, so you need to have translators who are au fait with the current local lingo.

One word of warning. There are various software applications out there that claim to be able to convert Simplified to Traditional and vice versa. Few do it well, and they forget that as time progresses, the "style" of writing diverges. Use with caution.

Here ends Lesson #1. Like for Lesson #2: Malaysian vs Indonesian.

Oh dear

This is what happens when you rely on computers to do your translation for you.