The Making of a Professional Translator

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® Localizing for software,

websites and global apps

® The making of a

professional translator

® Localization of

machine software

LOCALIZATION CORE FOCUS Apr il/May 2011

http://www.multilingual.com/



| MultiLingual April/May 2011 [email protected]

C o r e F o c u s

Localizing for software,websites and global apps

Amir Helzer

LLocalizing your product is a great way to

rapidly expand your business. A 2007 paper by the Localization Industry Standards Asso-ciation (LISA), for instance, reported that $25dollars was returned for every $1 invested inlocalization.

More than 78% of internet users are beyond the UnitedStates, in international markets, and in the past decade, the useof Arabic online has increased by over 2500%, Chinese by 12%and Spanish by 7%.

When businesses expand globally, they should invest in fulllocalization of their websites and software. Localization includestranslations and other conversion, and takes into account localpractices and culture, providing a product that is comfortable for use in the target country. Your localization efforts should matureover time (see sidebar).

Localizing softwareThe first step in running a multilingual software business

is to localize the software. Localizing software includes defin-

ing what can be localized, developing localization strategiesbased on expected sales, creating a product schedule for thelocalization process, using professional native translators to dothe translations, closely managing the translation process andfinally testing the translations.

Phase 1 (Preparation): Create a project schedule, develop glos-saries, separate text and prepare resource files. The key to softwarelocalization is separating the application text from the programcode, making software localization possible and easy.

Phase 2 (Translation): Translate software strings, online helpand documentation. Once the software has a resource file, hold-ing all text for translation, documentation is vital to help thetranslators understand what they’re translating. Explain to thetranslators what the application does, who uses it and how they use it. This way, the translators will be able to adapt the applica-tion’s text to naturally fit the new languages.

Phase 3 (Programming): Resize dialog boxes; adapt tips, menuoptions and buttons; compile help files, and localize multimediafiles and embedded graphics containing text.

Phase 4 (Testing): Test the localized software including func-tions and user interface.

Figure 1 shows a brief overview of the linguistic processesthat take place in a typical software localization project.

Localizing websitesJust like software, websites are built using various methods

— some with plain HTML, others with PHP or ASP, and others

using a content management system like WordPress or Drupal.No matter how your site is built, some principles are consistentacross the board. To successfully run a multilingual website, youneed to be able to create translations and maintain them whenthe site contents change; automate the site structure so thattranslators don’t need to edit links and navigation; and let userschoose their language easily. In general, you should understandtrade laws and regulations, as well as the economic and politicalpolicy of the country or region.

Most major payment processing applications feature mul-tilingual-ready checkout functions. When you send clients topay for your product, make sure to display the checkout page

Amir Helzer is CEO and Founder of ICanLocalize,a translation management company that translates software, websites, mobile apps and generic text for businesses of all sizes.

mailto:[email protected]



Core Focus: Localization

www.multilingual .com April/May 2011 MultiLingual |

At its most basic, localization involves adapting software productsfor international markets or rendering technical publications into just five or six languages. Common Sense Advisory has long held thatthis definition is too limiting. Inthe more advanced form of thepractice that we see, localizationbecomes a more expansive topicas companies tailor products,websites, operations andsupply chains to national andinternational needs. Translatingcontent into dozens of languagescomes with the territory.Therefore, localization is notsimply about adapting softwarefor international markets, butmuch more about adapting products, processes, organizations andtechnology to operate in global markets.

In 2006, we began applying a capability maturity modelintegration to the practice of localization in order to address thefundamental issues of total quality management, measurementand process improvement. In our first report on the localizationmaturity model (LMM), we applied information technologysector measurement rubrics to the practice of localization. Weconsidered a range of issues, from governance to strategy toprocess and to technology in our narrative, qualitative analysisof how companies adapt their products, websites, marketing andother operations to work in global markets. For our 2011 revision,we obtained quantitative support for the model, demonstratinghow companies move through the various levels of localizationmaturity.

Consisting of nine levels of localization maturity, the LMMstarts with unsuccessful practices and progresses throughsuccessively more sophisticated levels of process, organization andtranslation automation. Much like in the phases of a lunar cycle,an organization’s full potential for localization maturity is onlyrevealed toward the latter stages. Earlier phases are characterizedby a lack of information and knowledge. In a sense, when itcomes to localization, companies at the earliest levels often findthemselves operating “in the dark.” Our analysis focuses moreon the positive phases of localization maturity, during whichcompanies begin to take an active interest in localization.

Companies at the Level 1 (Reactive) stage respond to businessdemands for international or domestic multicultural opportunitieswith ad hoc measures. There are few, if any, processes, roles

and responsibilities that are unclear, and technology support forlocalization tasks is minimal at best. Firms at Level 2 (Repeatable)of localization maturity are in a discovery phase, during which

companies identify and begin toformalize processes for the corelocalization tasks and events.They also start to identify rolesand responsibilities, recognizethe importance of externalproviders, and often repurposemainstream productivity andproject management solutions tolocalization and translation tasks.

By the time a companyreaches the Level 3 (Managed)stage, it has documented a set

of basic processes and started pushing their consistent use. Rolesand responsibilities have been reasonably well defined, but thereare likely to be multiple points of contact for localization aroundthe company, sometimes in the same division. Increased demandfor translation and localization means a burgeoning list of externalsuppliers. On the technology front, purpose-built and specializedtranslation and localization tools make their appearance, in somecases supporting increasingly complex multilingual workflows. AtLevel 4 (Optimized), core processes are in place and are regularlyfollowed for all standard or common translation and localizationtasks. Efforts to extend the application of these proceduresacross the enterprise get under way, as do initiatives to identifymore tasks that should be formalized and other groups thathave localization needs. Operational roles begin trending towardcentralization in recognition of the importance of localization tothe entire enterprise. As part of this transition, shared technologyservices appear and specialized technologies such as translationmanagement systems become a major part of the automation

strategy.Companies at the most evolved state of localization maturity

— Level 5 (Transparent) — are few in number. They recognize theimportance of globalization to their businesses and have internalizedthe concept into their code and content life cycles, business planningand corporate vision. They undertake a program of continuousprocess improvement with the goal of globalizing every product,employee and customer touchpoint.

— Independent research and anyalysis firmCommon Sense Advisory

Localization Maturity Model (2011)

Localization progresses through various phases until mastery.

in the correct language. Displaying the

checkout pages in a default languagewithout allowing users to change it is a

sure way to lose sales. If you’re sending

clients elsewhere to check out, make sure

to include the language in the checkout

link. If clients are purchasing from within

your application, the program needs to

detect the user’s language and create the

checkout link with the correct language

argument. Clients also need to receive an

e-mail with a purchase confirmation and

instructions for downloading or activating

the program they purchased. This e-mail

must be sent in the client’s language, so you need to record the language in which

the client is using the program.

Every product needs pre-sales and

post-sales support. Providing multilin-

gual support gives you a competitive

advantage and improves the customer

experience. You can get support contacts

via e-mail or through contact forms.

Contact forms would make it easier for

you to route different messages to dif-

ferent supporters based on language.

Localizing mobile applications

According to Google, two-thirds of allpurchases and half of transactions will

occur on mobile devices by 2015. The

company also divulged that 1.9 billion

people globally were active on the inter-

net by the end of 2010, while five billion

people were mobile subscribers. Direct

Marketing News’ January 2011 edition

quoted the internet giant as predicting

that five billion people will be active on

the web by 2020, while ten billion people

will be mobile subscribers.






Developing countries, such as Brazil,Russia, India and China, now account for more than half of mobile growth world-wide. Pakistan, Indonesia, the Ukraine,Nigeria, Vietnam and Bangladesh completethe list of the world’s top ten emergingmobile growth markets. Most end-usersin these emerging markets speak little or no English and will only buy a productor service if it is available in their nativelanguage. With so many using mobiledevices to access the web, companies willneed to translate their mobile applicationsto reach these global audiences. Thereare a variety of tools to translate content,including machine translation (MT).

In 1999, Advanced TelecommunicationsResearch Institute International, based inJapan’s Kansai Science City, introduced asolution that would translate words spokeninto a mobile device and send these as a

voice message to another user’s mobilephone. In 2004, the first commercially-available MT software was introducedfor handheld devices that translated text,e-mail and instant messages.

In November 2005, another Japanesecompany, NEC Corporation, announced

the development of a translation systemthat could be loaded in mobile phones.This mobile translation system couldrecognize 50,000 Japanese words and30,000 English words, and could be usedfor simple translations when traveling.

MT performs substitution of wordsin one natural language for words inanother, but that alone usually cannotproduce a good translation of a text,because recognition of whole phrases inthe target language is needed. Various

techniques exist that lead to better trans-lations, including handling differences inlinguistic typology, translation of idiomsand colloquialisms.

The number of translation applica-tions available for various mobile plat-forms has continuously increased since2007. However, in order to best localizemobile content, you must make sure itis linguistically correct and culturally relevant. Everyone knows that just tak-ing content written in one language andrunning it through a translation solutionsuch as Google Translate provides youwith translated words, but they oftendon’t make sense. Google Translate gen-erates a statistical machine translationby looking for patterns in millions of documents to decide on the best transla-tion. However, since Google Translate isgenerated by MT, not all translations willbe perfect and accuracy varies acrosslanguages.

The best method for translating appli-cations, as with nearly any localizationendeavor, is a combination of humantranslators with a computer solution tomanage the translation process. Manag-

ing translations for mobile applicationsis a big challenge for most people, sousing a translation management soft-ware solution is helpful. Follow thesesteps for efficient translation of your mobile application:

First, you need to complete a local-ization audit to determine potential pit-falls in the translation process, such asembedded text and images, character setsupport, date and time format, numericalformats, page layout, country-specific

functions, multi-byte enabling, bi-direc-tional languages, operating systems,improper code and more to prepare your mobile app for globalization.

All iPhone applications are builtusing Unicode texts, encoded as UTF-16.The iPhone simulator supports this for-

mat and will allow you to preview your translated application. Since iPhonesare multilingual by design, once your application is available in multiplelanguages, the phone already knowswhat to do. It will display the graphi-cal user interface (GUI) text in the rightlanguage, according to the phone’s lan-guage setting. Next, get your resourcesready for translation:Q Make resources localizable inXcode. Xcode is the development lan-guage of the iPhone and it needs toknow that your project includes multi-lingual resource files. Move the resourcefile into a new localization directory, andthen drag the resource into the Xcodeproject. Xcode will now recognize theresource as localized in that language.Repeat for all your other resource filesthat you need to localize.Q Localize your interface builder files. First, extract strings from your Interface Builder resource files by run-ning ibtool, included with the standardiPhone developer kit install. Ibtool willcreate object-string value pairings that

you can go through to remove any unnecessary strings which don’t requiretranslation.Q Handle duplicate strings. Theresource file may contain duplicatestrings, such as some of the titles for buttons in different states. Some dupli-cate strings need to be translated justonce but other duplicate strings havedifferent translations. The same buttontitle, in different states, should clearly have the same translation. However,strings can in some places be a noun andin other places a verb. You can remove

redundant duplicate strings (whichshould have the same translation) fromthe resource file or leave them thereand instruct the translator to handle asduplicate strings.Q Collect the embedded text intoresource files. Normally, iPhone applica-tions contain two kinds of text — theapplication’s interface, managed by theInterface Builder, and embedded stringsthat appear inline in the code itself.The strings in the interface are already

Figure 1: Software localization workflow.

Software

ExtractSource

Extract

Reference

Translate Edit Test

Edit

Align

Align

Translate

Softwarereference

Translation

Memory

Help and Doc

Help and Doc

referenceSoftware Documentation




arranged in a resource file and you need

to make sure that the code itself only uses

strings that are read from a resource file.

Go through all your code and determine

which strings are user facing and should

be localized. Don’t localize strings the

user will never see, such as keys in an

NSDictionary — unless, of course, youdisplay those keys.

Now you should have two resource

files — the Interface Builder resource

file created by ibtool and the embed-

ded strings resource file created by

genstrings. You can send both files to a

translator who will translate them into

the appropriate languages.

There are translation management

tools available that will localize iPhone

resource files, allowing for the transla-

tion of iPhone applications without

spending time on technical tasks. These

tools will read your resource files, extract

the text that needs to be translated and

produce translated resource files. Upload

the resource files in UTF-16 or UTF-8

encoding. These tools will extract pairs of

labels and strings, and comments if there

are any. Then, translators will translate

just the strings.

Professional translators who have

ample experience in localizing iPhone

applications will translate the strings.

You should be able to communicate

directly with them to make sure the

translation is not only accurate, but also

adapted to the culture and customs of

other countries. You will need to create

an iPhone translation project, upload

your resource files, choose which lan-

guages to translate into and of course

pay for the translation. Once all this is

completed, you’ll be able to download

the localized resource files and import

back to your application.

Open up the translated file in Inter-

face Builder and go through everything.

Often the lengths of different strings will

have changed significantly. Translation

from English to German and Frenchis often 50% longer than the original

text. You may need to adjust the layout

slightly to make sure that everything is

visible. Your iPhone application should

now run multilingually! But there’s

one more step: testing your translated

application in an iPhone device. To test

it with an actual phone, you’ll need to

change the device’s language. You can

follow Apple’s tutorial for switching

iPhone languages. M


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C o r e F o c u s

The making of aprofessional translator

Emmanuel Margetic

W When consumers encounter localization, they

often hone in on the translation, and how bad or good it is. Thus, though translators are only one

link in the localization chain, they are a crucialpart of the localization process, and becomingone should not be undertaken lightly.

Almost every industry has three types of people: true profes-sionals, incompetent professionals and frauds. Translation is oneof the most obvious examples of an industry containing all thesetypes. Although frauds are intending to deceive others, many people in the “incompetent professionals” category of transla-tion are deceiving themselves and end up there accidentally. Thishappens as a result of a widespread misperception of what isnecessary to be able to make a career out of translation andactually be a true professional.

Many bilingual individuals consider working as professionaltranslators because they think, “Since I’m bilingual, I have theskills to translate.” This seems logical to those unfamiliar withthe profession, but those who know the industry realize thereis much more involved in translating than just being able tospeak and understand two languages. Becoming a professionaltranslator involves passion for languages and culture, educationin linguistics and technology, and expertise in the subject andtype of document being translated.

First, the road to becoming a true professional in the field of translation requires a passion for linguistics and culture, and astrong desire to master a foreign language. While many people

in the world learn a second language, few of them really fall inlove with the language they are learning. Those who do are oftenthe ones who want to make translation a career.

Passion is required because translation, when done correctly,can be a tedious and time-consuming job. As Spanish transla-

tor Christina Ott put it, “Translation is not for people who lovethe outdoors.” Her comment refers to the long hours sitting infront of a computer focusing on the subtle differences in syntaxand semantics that translation projects often require. Such tasksare fascinating to language lovers. They love the culture andthe words and are excited by the challenge of preserving andtranslating them correctly from one language to another.

Even if translators focus mostly on the linguistic tasks of alocalization project, they need to understand how their projectfits into the larger localization process. That process requiresthem to have a knowledge of the people and culture and anunderstanding of what vital, technical information those peopleneed or are about to learn. Knowing those things will allow themto go one step beyond simply transferring information from onelanguage to another; they will be able to naturally phrase their translations in a way that will optimize the reception of the mes-sage by the target audience.

Next, it takes hard work to really master a foreign language.The ability to speak proficiently and communicate well withnative speakers takes a great deal of time and effort for mostpeople, especially those who have not been exposed to thatlanguage as a child. Yet, the ability to translate goes much fur-ther than knowing how to articulate an idea in two differentlanguages. Besides language, translation involves knowledge of culture, software and subject matter. Since all of these elementsare continually changing, if professional translators desire to dotheir best, they must be constantly learning.

Depending on the quality needed and the expectations of the clients, someone who is proficient in two languages may be

able to get translation work and provide clients with a passabletranslation. The limitations of this approach, however, will bequickly realized. Experts in the field and clients with experience(which often includes the clients with big translation budgets)know a real professional from someone who has not had any formal training.

One of the best ways to receive formal training is througha college education. Fortunately for aspiring translators, many schools have linguistics programs that fine-tune linguistic skillsand expose students to translation software.

The translation industry is currently caught in a debatebetween machine and human translation. Translation providers

Emmanuel Margetic is the director of marketing and sales for Utah-based MultiLing Corporation and has been working in the translation industry for more than 12 years.






like Google are already making roughtranslations possible at the click of abutton. Yet, these services often leadto a very poor quality translation. Theaccuracy and judgment required for suc-cessful business translations will alwaysrequire a person.

Human translators, however, areturning to translation software in order to make their work more efficient andaccurate, particularly across multipleprojects. Such software enables transla-tors to save time on repeated text anduse the best possible terminology for agiven project based on the target audi-ence. It also helps translators maintainconsistent formatting between projects.It’s the combination of human translatorsand software that will dominate the nextgeneration of translation.

Translation companies are aware of this too. Because they are interested ingaining quality employees, some trans-lation service providers are partneringwith schools to prime the pump. For example, MultiLing Corporation haddeveloped its own translation software,Fortis, and was thus able to invest infuture translators by providing licensesof it to the nearby Brigham Young Uni-

versity (BYU) linguistics programs. Suchpartnerships between translation ven-dors and educational institutions high-light the need for bilinguals to advancetheir formal training in translation soft-ware. Those tools add authenticity to thestudents’ curriculum and facilitate their exposure to tools they will be using inthe industry.

Alan Melby, professor of linguistics atBYU, commented on the need for poten-tial translators to be proficient in suchtechnology: “These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find a translator who doesn’tuse technology to improve their produc-tivity and consistency.” A bilingual try-ing to become a professional translator without fine-tuning language skills and

competency in the use of translationsoftware tools is like someone trying tobecome a scuba diver without learninghow to use a mouthpiece or knowinghow to swim with flippers.

Finally, for translators to be areal asset to an employer or a futureemployer, they need to have an areaof expertise and an understanding of the unique requirements for specificdocument types. With more than enoughwell-trained translators available to do

the work, translators can set themselvesapart from the crowd by having not only the necessary knowledge with regard tolanguage and technology, but also anarea of expertise and experience withspecific types of documents. This exper-tise and experience can be gained both

in college and on the job. If someoneknows two languages and how to trans-late them but does not have experiencein translating technical documents in aspecific area, they will lose that transla-tion work to someone who does.

The need for translation is growingin today’s international environment,and the range of translation subjects andtypes is vast. For example, a company thatmanufactures electrical equipment may need training materials, patents, shippingorders and instruction manuals translatedinto another language. A translator withknowledge of electrical terminology andprocesses would be particularly valuablein ensuring the quality of those trans-lated documents. A chemical company may need the same types of translations,only it would involve a completely dif-ferent expertise to understand the subjectand terminology. Although a translator with expertise in the technical area beingtranslated will be able to translate many different document types, a translator who has also been trained in translatingspecific document types would be evenmore valuable to a employer.

One area that illustrates clearly theneed for experience with specific typesof documents is patent translation. Pat-ents utilize such unique, non-colloquiallanguage that the linguistic nuancesrequired to adequately protect a com-pany’s intellectual property would be

totally overlooked even by someone withan understanding of the patent’s subject.

While it may seem overwhelming togain these additional proficiencies, they can be acquired and maintained througheducation, experience and continuallearning. A professional translator will

always be researching to stay up-to-dateand knowledgeable about what he or sheis translating.

There is one type of knowledge thatis extremely hard to learn and that atruly professional translator or localizer would never profess to have, and that isa complete knowledge and understand-ing of a second culture. Even completely immersing oneself in another culture willnot always give a person sufficient under-standing to make the best judgments aboutwhich terms to use in a given situation.

Cultures are engrained into risinggenerations from birth. History, legends,government, geography, slang andidioms are just a few of the things thatnatives of a culture learn from child-hood, but which foreigners may never fully understand. For this reason, mosttranslation agencies or potential clientswon’t even consider hiring translatorsunless they are working from a secondlanguage into their native language.

All of these factors play into whogets the work in the translation industry.Professional translators will always havework because they have a deeper, morespecialized knowledge than any of theother less-competent translators aroundthem, and clients have a way of findingthe best qualified translators to do their work. Because professional translatorsare just following their passion, thatworks out well for everyone. M


http://www.hermestrans.com/





C o r e F o c u s

ties are quite large. The result is that many manufacturers of numerically controlled machines, plants or equipment often gobackwards over themselves in time-consuming and costly waysto localize their software. Translators have their difficulties withmachine texts as well. This situation is partly due to a lack of awareness of the internationalization and localization processon the part of the software engineers, and partly due to thefact that generally accepted localization concepts are missing inthis area. Many manufacturers standardize the programming of

their applications, though, as it is the case with the IEC 61131-3or with the ISO 14649 (STEP-NC) standard. When it comes to the localization of machine software,

companies are facing development, linguistic and organiza-tional challenges. In order to better understand what distin-guishes the localization of machine software from “normal”localization projects, let’s first summarize the classical local-ization process.

Traditionally, or at least ideally, software would be devel-oped right from the beginning for international use. How thisis implemented may differ somewhat depending on the pro-gramming language, but the basic principle is that the texts of

T

Localization of

machine software

François Massion

François Massion earned his Ph.D. in lexicogra-phy at the University of Erlangen (Germany) in1986 and is owner and general manager of D.O.G.GmbH. He has a teaching assignment in terminol-ogy at the Hochschule Anhalt (Germany).

There is really no lack of literature aboutsoftware localization. Many interesting articles

describe at length what it takes to localize aprogram, starting with the globalization of soft-ware in the development phase to make it matchthe requirements of different countries and lan-guages, up until the production of multilingual

online help. These contributions deal mainly

with office applications running in a Windows,Linux or Mac environment.

The rapid progress in the automation of industrial produc-tion, the widespread use of electronics in everyday life, andthe internet as a communication and cooperative platform haveput some strains on traditional localization approaches. Thisevolution brings new challenges for translators and softwaredevelopers alike. About 50 years ago, the first numerical controlmachines appeared on the market. Today, you can find softwaretexts in as diverse situations as cars, operating rooms and com-mon home appliances. And, of course, the user expects to readand understand all the messages and commands in his or her

mother tongue.So far, the localization of machine software and embeddedsystem software has attracted no or little attention from thelocalization industry, even if (or rather because?) the difficul-

Machine Display






various programming objects are storedin separate files (usually called resource

files) together with some meta informa-tion such as the object type (messages,menu items, buttons, dialog titles,field names and so on) and possibly the object ID. In the case of Windows.NET applications, programmers gener-ate so-called satellite assemblies, whichinclude translatable strings. In other programming languages, the softwarestores these strings in similar files, suchas ResourceBundle in Java applications.Once the resource files have been gener-

ated, they can be processed with local-ization tools such as SDL Passolo, VisualLocalize or Alchemy CATALYST. Theseprograms use a parser (filter) for binary source files (DLLs or EXE files) and for other formats (XML files) and import thetexts to be translated into the translation

editor with some additional informationif available. In the case of programminglanguages such as Visual C++ or C#,these localization tools offer a preview of the dialog in the translation editor. Thetranslator can adjust the length of a fieldor object if he or she needs more spacefor the translation.

Several applications for machinesand devices are also programmed inlanguages such as C++. Whenever thedevelopers have adhered to commonly accepted localization concepts, theseapplications can be localized “normally,”as it is the case with other programs. Inpractice, though, not all developers of machine software are familiar with thelocalization process and its methods anddo not use all possibilities offered by their programming language. Therefore,they sometimes choose complicated andnot always reliable approaches to localizetheir machine software.

Many machine applications are writ-ten in specific programming languagessuch as EXAPT, COMPACT, Siemens S7,

APT or in high-level languages like Cfor the programming of microcontrollersand use their own compiler. It is thereforeparticularly demanding for the develop-ers and the translators alike to processthe translated texts. The issues involvedare manifold.

First, the text must be made avail-able to the translator in an editableformat. Once translated, the text must beimported back into the machine software.

The encoding of special charactersshall be supported for many languages,such as Spanish, French, Asian lan-

guages or bidirectional languages suchas Arabic and Hebrew.

Due to length restrictions, the spaceavailable on the screen or on the machinedisplay often only allows a limited num-ber of characters. Depending on the situ-ation, some applications work with one

or more lines of text per message. Themaximum text length can be specified asa number of characters or in pixels.

Programmers insert variables, short-cuts and line breaks as well as escapesequences in the text to be translated,and the translator should deal with allof them. These should also fit in thelinguistic context of the target language.

Many documents can hardly beunderstood without contextual informa-tion or additional explanations. In mostcases, the translator never sees the finalresult of his or her translation (for exam-ple, all texts and objects displayed in thesame dialog) and has thus no possibility to check the translation in context.

What would be the typical workflowof a localization project for machinesoftware? The developer first exports thetext to be translated. This text is thenprepared for translation by the translator or by an agency. After completion of thetranslation, the quality assurance is per-formed, which both checks technical andlinguistic aspects of the project. Subse-quently, the translation is exported back into the original format and sent to thedeveloper, who imports it in the machinesoftware and, if necessary, makes adjust-ments to the translated strings in lengthand so on. Unfortunately, many compa-nies do not always take the necessary step of testing the localized version of the machine software to make sure thatthe translation is correct, both from atechnical and linguistic point of view(Figure 1).

In an ideal world, developers wouldhave planned the localization of the

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machine texts right from the beginning.The programmers would have separatedtext and code and provided additionalmeta information. This is a prerequisitefor a cost-effective localization process.However, in reality, companies oftenexport the strings to be translated line

by line, which makes it difficult for thetranslator to understand what belongstogether and what the real meaning of certain expressions is. Some companieshave recognized this problem and givethe translator additional metadata tohelp. This work is time-consuming andsometimes requires a complicated seriesof conversion steps. Some programmerssort out and group the software stringsaccording to their object, module, topicor function and save them in separatefiles or as Excel tables or spreadsheets.This means additional work both for thedeveloper and for the translator, whichcould have been avoided if the developershad made their software localizable fromscratch.

In general, the exported data willbe translated with standard transla-tion memory (TM) programs after thelanguage service provider has separatedtext and code. This is where the firstdifficulty starts, depending on how theprogramming has been done and onhow the data has been exported. It isnot always a trivial task to separate the

text and code from one another becausea uniform standard pattern is requiredto discern the translatable text from theprogram code, which has to be protected(Figure 2).

Some exported files cause additionalproblems for the translator. A typical

case is the dividing up of one singlesentence over two or more lines, whichare saved separately in the machine soft-ware. Example:

21066, OBJECT MUST BE IN THERELEASED OR

21067, IN TRANSPORT STATUS.Since not all languages have the same

syntax, such sentences will in many caseslead to errors when TM systems insertmismatched units into a translation.

The next issue is the limited spaceavailable on the machine display for the translation. The translator receivesinstructions not to exceed a set number of characters or pixels per display line(s).But how to implement this? Either thetranslator manually checks the lengthof the translation line by line, which isquite complicated, or he or she can use ascript, a macro or a dedicated applicationto ensure that the maximum availablelength hasn’t been exceeded. The toolsused for that purpose range from simpleExcel formulas that output the length of a text in a cell to complex routines cal-culating the width of text in pixels with

parameters such as the letter type (smalllike i or large like m) and font size.

A particular problem arises when thelength restrictions rules constantly vary.Here is an example of instructions for thetranslator:

“At the end of the lines there is an

abbreviation and a number, e.g.: (sl/72).The abbreviation -sl- means that thelines must nor exceed one single line.The abbreviation -ml- means that thetranslation may be spread over multiplelines. The number indicates the maxi-mum line length in characters (in thisexample 72 characters). Spaces betweenquotation marks should be kept.”

The translatable string may look likethis:

1873 : (‘xmessage’,’search failed’,’’’\nsearch operation could not be performedbecause: %(reason)s.\n’’’)(ml/80)

Fixing such problems is doable, butit is time-consuming, costly and requiresprogramming skills not every individualtranslator has. Scripts or macros will tellthe translator and the proofreader whenthey have to modify the translation inorder to meet the developers’ require-ments. If such requirements are notcomplied with, there is a risk that sometexts will not be visible, which in turnmay lead to a faulty operation of themachine/device or would trigger a costly round of corrections of the translation.How can a programmer recognize thatthe decisive word for on or off at the endof a German sentence has not appearedon the machine display because thetranslation is too long?

A particularly tricky space problemoccurs when the client requires thetranslator to stick to the indentation of the source language. In older machinesand tools, unproportional fonts are used,meaning all the characters have thesame width, and columns in tables arecreated simply by using blanks. Due tothe differences in the length and number

of words between languages, this typeof requirement is particularly difficultto implement. Again, a translation service provider with know-how in dealingwith scripts and programming tools isrequired to automate the compliancewith such instructions.

The last major technical problem is thecorrect representation of special charac-ters in foreign languages. Not all machineprograms use Unicode. They are thus notable to handle double-byte characters

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like Chinese or Japanese. Many systemscurrently support at least all Europeanlanguages, including Russian. However,some are still working with different codepages, so programmers and translatorsneed to clarify beforehand which fontsand which encoding will be selected.

From a linguistic point of view, thelocalization of machine software is notan easy task either. Many software devel-opers just send simple word lists to their translators. They expect them to churnout a good translation quickly even if the context is missing. If a word such asdevice or support stands alone, the task of translating is like playing Russian rou-lette. The first issue starts with the qual-ity of the source text. Unlike traditionalsoftware or software documentation, thetexts are generated by software engineerswith no or little linguistic training. Itis not uncommon to find grammar or spelling errors. To make it worse, thesoftware has generally been developedover a certain period of time by severalprogrammers, and again and again thereare inconsistencies like Compressed Air

Valve On and Switch On Air Pressure

Valve with the same meaning.In software projects some terms are

written differently depending on theprogram object they are used for (dialogtitle, field, message), are shortened differ-ently or even have different meanings, aswith the word support . In such cases, tra-ditional TM systems can cause mistakes if existing translations are taken over fromthe TM in an uncritical manner.

In some situations, it is impossibleto determine the exact meaning of anexpression without context. What doesthe expression search term really mean?Is it a noun (term searched for) or a com-mand (search for the term)? It would behelpful if the developers would exportinformation to help the translator iden-tify the object type associated with thestring and to see which texts belong

together. In any case, it is important andnecessary for the translator to be able toask questions (and to actually ask them)and that the client names a contact per-son with a good knowledge of the soft-ware and of the product who can answer these questions in a competent manner.

Translators have to adapt their naturaltranslation to make it fit into the techni-cal requirements of the client. Languagescommand different word orders, and thissometimes influences the way software

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texts are translated. For example, thedeveloper may have inserted in the middleof a sentence an escape sequence such as\n to stand for a line break. The translator must then guess where to put the escapesequence for the line break in the transla-tion. In some situations, the programmers

are unaware of the linguistic rules of thetarget language and have inserted the

variable erroneously. This can be the caseif the neighboring words like adjectivesget different treatment depending on thegender of the noun, for example.

Because of the limited space available,it is often necessary to use abbreviationsor to juxtapose a series of words. How is it

possible to shorten the expression Shutoff Valve Not Closed to only ten characters?This leads to constructions like ShOffV-lvNc that even the machine operator hasdifficulty understanding in the originallanguage. Some abbreviations take dif-ferent meanings depending on the situ-ation, such as Pos, which was used in aspecific project both for positive and for position.

For the same reasons, words or com-mands are juxtaposed with no clearly visible sense. An expression such asDedusting Solenoid Valves On DurationTimer Setpoint (x0,1s) remains a closedbook even for some clients. Here thetranslator needs a clear understandingof the way such expressions are created: What is the pattern? Which informationcomes at the beginning and at the endof the message? Have typographical ele-ments like capital letters been used tomark a group of words? In order not toconfuse the final user with different pat-terns, the client should define in a styleguide linguistic rules as how to generateand coin strings, and write messages ina uniform way. The same applies to thecoinage of abbreviations.

These technical and linguistic require-ments mean a tedious chore for the aver-age translator, and often requires many hours of manual work. The developmentof appropriate scripts or checking routinesis often an effective and reliable techni-cal solution. However, this is only pos-sible with associated development effortsand can only be done for projects witha certain volume. Unfortunately, smallmachine software projects will continueto require substantial manual work.

Several aspects of the text can bechecked with the quality assurance fea-tures of TMs or with independent quality assurance programs. These items are theconsistent use of a predefined terminol-ogy, provided of course that a terminol-ogy was created, and the correctness of numbers in the machine software. Butnot everything can be verified with theassistance of software. Since some of thetranslations have been produced withoutcontext information, the final output

should normally be reviewed after thelocalized version of the machine softwarehas been compiled because a sizeablepart of the strings is context dependent.

Few clients have thought carefully about the entire localization process andhave therefore not planned sufficient

time or budget for this step. This unfor-tunately leads to the fact that the trans-lated texts are corrected at a later stagewhen there is a complaint or when thetranslated strings have already reachedthe final customer. Some manufacturersof machine software have recognizedthis problem and developed their ownapplications to visualize the localizeddialogues during the review process.This indeed allows the reviser to see allthe translated texts that appear simul-taneously in a dialog. Whenever clientshave developed dedicated applicationsto localize their machine software andtranslate the software strings, the per-formance and functionality of theseapplications lay in general far behindthe scope and performance of profes-sional localization tools, which havebeen developed over many years just for that purpose.

For all the reasons above, oneshould consider the use of localizationprograms for machine software andembedded systems as an alternative totraditional TM systems. These localiza-tion programs, for example, offer thefollowing functions:Q Read available metadata from thefiles generated by the machine software(CSV, TXT, XML) such as the maximallength of the string in characters or pixelsQ Check the maximum number of characters or pixels per display lineQ Develop custom checks or file con- versions with the help of the integratedmacro editor Q Provide context information tothe translator in the form of metadata,

images or links to external sitesQ Associate translation units withIDs (when available) and therefore makethem more suitable for context-depen-dent multiple translations.

Repair is always more expensive thandoing it right the first time. Translatorsand developers can save much troubleand work when they cooperate in along-term perspective and plan together all phases of the localization process of amachine application. M


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April/May 2011 • www.multilingual.com


he ever-growing, easy international access to information,

services and goods underscores the importance of language

and cultural awareness. What issues are involved in reach-

ing an international audience? Are there technologies to help?

Who provides services in this area? Where do I start?

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MultiLingual’s eight issues a year are filled with news, techni-

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TranslationTranslators are vital to the development of international

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InternationalizationMaking content ready for the international market requires

more than just a good idea. How does an international developer

prepare a product to be easily adaptable for multiple locales?

You’ll find sound ideas and practical help in every issue.

Language technologyFrom systems that recognize your handwriting or your speech

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Managing contentHow do you track all the words and the changes that occur

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— a wide array of current topics from the world of multilinguallanguage, technology and business.

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The Making of a Professional Translator

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