a n e w s l e t t e r p u b l i s h e d b y i n t e r n a t i o n a l c o m m u n i c a t i o n b y d e s i g n , i n c .

Esprit d'ICD

WINTER 2012v o l . 11 n o . 1

What to Consider When Implementing a CMS ....................}

Numbering in Chinese – Do the Math! .......................................}

P1.cn: China’s Upmarket Social Media Website .................2

How Effective is Translation Crowdsourcing? .............................2

Origins of “Blue Chip” .................2

French Canadian Bagels ...........2

Professional Translation Services or Individual Translators? You Decide: ...........3

Employee Profile .............................3

Country Profile: Algeria ...........3

UniqueWords .....................................3

Suggested International Films ........................................................3

ICD On the Road ..............................4

In This Issue

Features

ICD Travel Tip

in our last newsletter, we talked about the benefits of implementing

a content management system (cms). a cms can be a powerful tool for managing content objects of various types, but there are also challenges and considerations to keep in mind for implementation. We’ve compiled some tips from various organizations.

don’t leave planning and implementation of your cms to just it professionals. Keep users of the CMS involved along the way as implementation decisions are made. Avoid setting complex requirements, and for initial implementation, keep requirements short.

decide up front how you will use the output from the system, including the types of content you will need to maintain, what features you will need immediately and which ones you can customize at a later time. Set measurable goals for output types. set clear standards on how you will use the CMS. In particular, define standards for the metadata of

your content objects, even designing standard patterns of metadata content. Such standards will render the content easier to retrieve for reuse. analyze the content you will place into the CMS and redesign or reorganize the content, as needed, to work within your plan for reusing and delivering content from the CMS. Ensure the structure of the content conforms to your requirements before migration. plan for a pilot of your CMS implementation. Once you’ve installed the CMS, defined your standards, and set up domains, select a group of users to pilot the CMS and record issues. Follow up on those issues before placing the CMS into production.

take advantage of the training your CMS vendor offers, but also plan to develop and write customized training that will explain to your users how the CMS is to be used in your environment.

What to Consider When Implementing a CMS

Shopper’s Paradise

Goods of Desire (GOD)features innovative, Hong Kong-inspired household accessories — many that are easy to pack and make unique gifts for people who “don’t need anything.” www.god.com.hk

The Power of

Second in a series

CMS

Sources: www.campustechnology.com; www.finance.gov.au; www.infomanagementcenter.com

mandarin chinese is a very difficult language for native speakers of european languages to learn. In addition to learning a non-phonetic written system, the concept of using tones — or various inflections in pronunciation — adds a whole new level of complexity.

While, to some extent, French uses mathematics to calculate numbers (i.e., quatre-vingts or “four twenties” meaning “80”), Linguist and Sinologist Carsten Mende explains that, for example, the number 12 (twelve) is represented as 10+2 (or 十二) and 20 (twenty) is represented as 2x10 (or 二十). The Chinese language does, more often than not, use Arabic numerals in written material. However, when Chinese characters are used, there

are characters that represent large amounts such as 千 (qian) for “thousand” and 万 (wàn) for “ten thousand.” Thus 三万三千 is 33,000.

To further complicate Chinese numbers, depending on how the character is pronounced “yi” can sound like the number 1 … or 100,000,000! Although in most cases common sense comes into play even if the word is not toned properly, this is something to note — especially in business negotiations! Source: www.tcworld.info

( “1 + 1 = 2” written in Mandarin )

Numbering in Chinese _ Do the Math!

the stock of companies that have garnered a reputation as being reliable, of high quality and able to operate profitably in both good and bad economic times may be given the title of “blue chip”. The term originates from the game of poker where chips of different colors had different values, with blue chips generally having the highest value.

Used in other context, the word “blue” is also used as a way to denote high quality. For example, the “blue blood” has historically been applied to persons of aristocratic background.

The term “blue chip stocks” has been attributed to Oliver Gingold of Dow Jones sometime in the early 1920s when he noticed some stocks were trading at over $200.

Origins of “Blue Chip”

2

new york is known for its bagels, as is … montreal?! Free of pretentiousness (and their bagels free of chemical additives), St. Viateur Bagel, located off the beaten path in Montreal’s Mile End neighborhood, has been cranking out these carbohydrate-laden delights since 1957. Their unique taste and consistency is achieved

by boiling the bagels in honey

water and then baking them in a wood fired oven.

with increased internet use and the rise of luxury goods consumption in china, the p1.cn social media website, www.p1.cn, was created to keep the beautiful and wealthy connected in the world’s most populous nation. This prestigious social network features member-generated profiles, blogs and galleries as well as information concerning fashion shows, nightlife, and product launch events. The website also features an online “mall” where luxury brand name items are made available to members at discounts.

Users can connect to “Sina Weibo” (新浪微博) directly through the P1.cn site. “Weibo” (微博), meaning “microblogging”, is similar to Twitter in that it is used by

several foreign luxury brands as a social media tool. The buzz created by members promoting products — from gourmet cuisine and electronics to cosmetics and automobiles — increases hype and provides clues to foreign luxury goods manufacturers as to consumer demographics and what “works” in the Chinese market.

To add to the exclusiveness of the website, access to many sections of the P1.cn website is by invitation only. Invitations are extended through P1 staff photographers who scout potential members at fashion events, stylish nightclubs, high-end shopping malls and on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai.

the ever-changing landscape of tech-nology has been dramatically affecting the translation and localization industry over the past decade and as such, crowdsourcing is now an option to save on translation costs. But caveat emptor; there are pros and cons to consider when exploring translation crowdsourcing.

Clients can definitely take advantage of the lower costs of crowdsourcing. This method allows for casting a wide net and can attract seasoned professionals to carry out the work. Other advantages include a free flow of content creation, without having to deal with organizational constraints — plus there are communities of native speakers who can review work and give feedback.On the other hand, using crowdsourcing for

translation work can be a potential game of Russian roulette in that content may not be translated by competent translators and there is no guarantee of deadlines being met. In addition, there is little to no control over sensitive/confidential source material. It is also difficult to guarantee quality and consistent translations since some and not all translators will use a translation memory.There are definite advantages to using crowdsourcing for translation work, but translation agencies who use human, native-speaking, certified, industry-specific and dedicated translators prioritize and personalize the messages each client wishes to convey to various cultures and markets.

French Canadian Bagels

P1.cn: China’s Upmarket Social Media Website

How Effective is Translation Crowdsourcing?

Source: www.stviateurbagel.com

3

Suggested International Films

GainsbourgFrench (2010)A glimpse at the life of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, from growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s to his death in 1991 at the age of 62.

Au Revoir, TaipeiTaiwan (2010) Kai, a lovesick young man, is ready to leave Taipei and go to Paris to be with his girlfriend and spends long nights in a bookstore studying French, where Susie, a girl who works there, begins to take an interest in him. After one extraordinary night of misadventures, Kai finds the excitement and romance he was missing right there in Taipei.

Vincent will MeerGermany (2010) A young man suffering from Tourette’s syndrome escapes from an institution, with two other inhabitants, and travel to Italy to fulfill his mother’s last wish.

UniqUe WORDS

ParalegalThe French word for “paralegal” was created in much the same way as the English. The Greek stem “para” meaning “similar or near to”, combined with the French word “juridique”, meaning “legal”, gives us the word “parajuridique”.

if your company is thinking of using an individual translator rather than a professional language service provider (lsp), consider some of the advantages of using a professional translation company before taking that next step.Although individual translators can sometimes offer better prices, a professional translation company can offer competitive prices while still ensuring quality.

Professional LSPs may be more likely to provide a comprehensive solution from translating your documentation to creating you localized software and training videos.

A professional translation firm is far more likely to have set standards to ensure translation quality and document management. LSP’s have secure FTP sites that allow easy uploads of large files, as opposed to an individual translator where file transfer is usually done over e-mail.

Unlike individual translators who may or may

not have experience in a given discipline, professional translation services will typically offer subject matter expertise in a much broader range of specialities, such as automobile manufacturing, medical content, and telecommunications.

Because of their more extensive experience and body of work, LSPs usually have comprehensive glossaries and terminology lists as well as the experience in ensuring consistency of terminology across a wide range of documents and outputs.

For any translation work, a critical component to success is good project management and a standard translation process. Professional translation companies are able to offer technical support and technical expertise to translate and localize complex files such as XML documents that require customized filters in order to translate the content.

Finally, a professional translation company should have the financial resources to ensure their work product and to invest in sophisticated translation memory tools that can help your company save time and money, project after project, by reusing translated content.

Professional Translation Services or Individual Translators? You Decide:

1. U.S. ............. 23.2%2. Italy .............17.2%3. Spain ........... 10.8%

1. France ......... 19.7%2. China ........... 11.7%3. Italy ............ 10.9%

export partners import partners

country proFile

(2010) (2010)

Land area: 2.4 million sq.km.(¼ the size of the continental U.S.)PoPuLation: 36.4 million (2010 census est.)LanguageS: Arabic (official); Berber Major induStrieS: Petroleum; natural gas; agriculture

Source: The CIA World Factbook

People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria

employee proFile Adriane Kangas Project Manager

a proud yooper, being born and raised in michigan’s upper peninsula, adriane attended michigan technological university where she earned a bs in scientific and technical communication. As part of her studies, Adriane attended a summer study abroad program with the University of Tartu in Estonia, where she focused on Business Marketing.

Adriane has used her skills at ICD to manage translation projects and ensure client satisfaction by consistently providing high quality work. One of her favorite aspects of her job is being able to communicate

with translators and clients from across the globe.

In her free time, Adriane enjoys reading, playing with her two dogs and traveling. In the future she has plans to visit family in Finland, as well as travel to South Africa and Turkey.

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International Communication by Design, Inc.

13040 West Lisbon Rd. Suite 600 – Brookfield, WI 53005 (262) 781-1644 fax (262) 781-1654icdtranslationtrans2evolve.blogspot.com www.icdtranslation.com

Esprit d'ICD is published three times per year by

volume 11, number 1

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ICD on the Road

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AHR EXPO Jan. 23-25Mc Cormick Place Chicago, Ill.www.ahrexpo.com

IPE (International Poultry Expo)Jan. 24-26, 2012 Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Ga.www.ipe11.org

World of ConcreteJan. 24-27Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, N.V.www.worldofconcrete.com

PUMPER Environmental ExpoFeb. 27-march 1Indiana Convention Center Indianapolis, Ind.www.pumpershow.com

PITTCONmarch 12-15Orange County Convention Center Orlando, Fla.www.pittcon.org