Workforce Language Services

While WLS adamantly and singularly advocates human translation (that is, translation done by a professionally trained person, not processed by a computer), there is a case to be made for machine translation in select circumstances. A NYTimes editorial disputes the advantages and limitations, looking at Google Translate in particular.

When Haiti was devastated by an earthquake in January, aid teams poured in to the shattered island, speaking dozens of languages — but not Haitian Creole. How could a trapped survivor with a cellphone get usable information to rescuers? If he had to wait for a Chinese or Turkish or an English interpreter to turn up he might be dead before being understood. Carnegie Mellon University instantly released its Haitian Creole spoken and text data, and a network of volunteer developers produced a rough-and-ready machine translation system for Haitian Creole in little more than a long weekend. It didn’t produce prose of great beauty. But it worked.

But the editorial’s author David Bellos concludes that beyond emergency or wartime scenarios, machine translation doesn’t have much hope. No Google translation should ever be accepted as a “correct translation.” “Google Translate gives only an expression consisting of the most probable equivalent phrases as computed by its analysis of an astronomically large set of paired sentences trawled from the Web.”

And where do those probable equivalent phrases come from? Human translators!

The data comes in large part from the documentation of international organizations. Thousands of human translators working for the United Nations and the European Union and so forth have spent millions of hours producing precisely those pairings that Google Translate is now able to cherry-pick. The human translations have to come first for Google Translate to have anything to work with.

So, we must give credit where it is due. Credit to the astonishing advances in machine translation technology since Cold War spy games, and even more credit to the hardworking human minds that transform language and culture without having to manually compute a lexicon.

Click here to read the full editorial.

Google has refined its translation tool to a point that “can make the language barrier go away,” as one of the principal scientists of the company’s machine translation team said. Now handling 52 languages, Google is yet again a visionary in an area most internet/computer companies have ignored over the years.

Remember those funny Babelfish translations you’d get at the dawn of the internet age, the computer translator that would give you “They are a small potentiometer, short circuits and a beer of malzes of the tea” for “I’m a little tea pot, short and stout”? Google has made those roundabout interpretations all but extinct.

How does machine translation work? And what makes Google’s so good?

Creating a translation machine has long been seen as one of the toughest challenges in artificial intelligence. For decades, computer scientists tried using a rules-based approach — teaching the computer the linguistic rules of two languages and giving it the necessary dictionaries.

But in the mid-1990s, researchers began favoring a so-called statistical approach. They found that if they fed the computer thousands or millions of passages and their human-generated translations, it could learn to make accurate guesses about how to translate new texts.

It turns out that this technique, which requires huge amounts of data and lots of computing horsepower, is right up Google’s alley.

Let’s be clear, no computer translation program will ever be able to capture the linguistic and cultural nuances beyond  the text. Only a thinking human can interpret text that way, and as we’d always prefer, a professional one with lots of experience. Google recognizes this too, but for anyone needing a quick translation of a news article, Google translations certainly will capture the “essence” of the story.

The New York Times reports: click here.

An online article on eCommerce discusses the importance of translating your website. It’s not a simple as you might think—and definitely not as easy as sticking your text into a machine translator and hoping for the best.

First, everyone needs to understand the value of hiring a human vs. machine translator. A human translator will pick up the idioms and intricacies of the target language in a way that a machine could never do. To use one example of an idiomatic translation, “never judge a book by its cover” would be most appropriately translated to French as “l’habit na fait pas le moine” (”the clothes don’t make the monk”).

The goal, especially in the advertisement world where words sell, is a natural-sounding and never literal translation.

The eCommerce article recommends rewriting and reducing content before having it professionally translated, not only to reduce costs but to reduce idioms as well.

Let’s take a look at a descriptive example:

Like they say, you can’t judge a book by its cover. This humble looking pocket knife has every feature short of the kitchen sink, including two cutting blades, a corkscrew, a can opener, and a global positioning system.

This product description (which I realize is not necessarily an example of a well-written paragraph) includes an idiom, a metaphor, and other figures of speech that would be hard to translate. Now, we rewrite it:

This folding knife has two cutting blades, a corkscrew, a can opener, and a global positioning system.

Having removed the idiom, the metaphor, and the term “pocket” which may not make sense in other languages, we have a matter-of-fact sentence that is ready to translate.

The article’s additional pieces of advice include: hire a professional translator, check the translation for errors (which a professional translation services should provide), hire a professional writer, and consider translation memory (also something a translation service should provide).

Note: the article cites some rather pricey costs for professional translation services. You’ll probably find better prices out there among the more competitive companies.

My best advice: discuss your options and goals with the translation service you choose from the very beginning. You can figure out how to cut corners from the start without having unknown costs spring up down the line, especially if you foresee lots of changes to your eCommerce website in the future.

Read the full article and recommendations here.

We can help! Contact WLS for a free quote for website translation.

Just a few years ago, you might not see anyone logging onto Facebook on the remote island of Boracay in the Philippines—much less clicking “buy now” to purchase a product they saw on a Web site. An online article explains that because of rampant corruption in the country, consumers didn’t always trust online transactions.

But all of that is changing, says the article’s author Greig Holbrook, who’s an expert in international SEO. And the Philippines is the not the only country that’s beginning to buy online. Holbrook asks:

What does all this mean for online businesses?

It means that having an English-only website is no longer sufficient. For those under the illusion that their potential customers are all surfing the web in English, it is time to realize that the language of the web is multilingual.

People prefer to search and interact online in their own language: it’s natural and comfortable. And the more relaxed a potential customer is when they’re browsing an online store, the more likely they will make a purchase. That is, of course, if they even find your site in the first place.

Holbrook’s insight is invaluable for companies of all sizes hoping to reach out to international consumers. For example, it’s not enough just to translate your Web site (although that’s a great start!). It’s also important to know how people in a particular country search. Knowing, for example, that French people commonly misspell “holiday” as “holliday,” and modifying your keywords to get more hits.

To read the rest of the article and learn about what to consider when marketing internationally, click here.

In a post on the Future of Media blog, Maria Lopez-Knowles opines that the election of Obama illustrates what demographers have predicted: that we as a nation are becoming a hybrid of various cultures and that shortly those historically in the minority will become the majority.

Lopez-Knowles goes on to say that advertisers must become savvy about the unique characteristics of Hispanics and be aware of the differences between generations to effectively market to this powerful demographic:

Taken from the blog post are her thoughts on Hispanics across generations and language use:

Most advertisers bifurcate the Hispanic market by linguistics – if they are immigrants, we’ll market to them in Spanish, if they are US born, we’re reaching them with our current English-language general market campaigns, so we’re covered. That assumes reach alone is enough to make an emotional connection that will lead to brand awareness/consideration.  More importantly, it erroneously presumes that assimilation happens in two generations; the reality is the path to assimilation takes three generations.  So if you think you are reaching the second-generation in a way that resonates with them via English-language alone, you are mistaken.  This target lives in two worlds.  It’s not about either/or (Spanish/English), it’s about AND. We’re hybrids.

To read the entire blog post, click here.

Closed Caption Latina is a Florida company which provides simultaneous dubbing and subtitles for Spanish-speakers and the hearing impaired.  Maria Victoria Diaz, a Colombian immigrant and co-ounder of the company makes the case that their services help non-English speakers and the hearing impaired participate more fully in public life in America:

“Whether it is the visually or hearing-impaired, or the immigrant who doesn’t speak English, we’re not going to be able to fully participate in this society unless we understand how things work here,” said Diaz, a Colombia native. “Television, videos and DVDs are a great way of getting those cultural and social nuances.”

Diaz moved to Longwood from Bogota in 2005 with her mother and her then- 8-year-old daughter.

“I have felt the weight of isolation, the absence of friends and family,” she said. “We have to become more integrated to the American experience to overcome these things. But if you don’t understand what is being said on TV, it becomes that much more difficult.”

Diaz got her start with grant money from the Department of Education to provide video description of Plaza Sesamo (the Spanish-language version of Sesame Street) and from that start, more clients signed on for her services.

To read the entire article, click here.

A recnt article in NJ.com compares the services to Spanish-speakers that Latino-focused retailers provide to those provided by big box stores.   Stores such as Best Buy are hiring bilingual sales associates and linking their staff to online help when they need to communicate with limited English speakers.  Stores like La Curacao are taking customer service to another level by truly focusing on the things that make a difference to Latino customers:

For example, La Curacao offers to send staffers to the homes of first-time computer buyers for two hours of in-home training in Spanish if they buy a warranty package.

In stores, signs in Spanish — such as one hawking a remote control that reads “No se complique la vida — Todo en un solo control universal” (Don’t complicate your life — everything is one universal control) — are scattered across the sales floor.

The company also recognizes many of its customers don’t have established credit or hefty checking accounts, so it will work with them on payment terms. La Curacao can’t always keep up with the chain stores on prices, but that kind of flexibility helps the store compete, Fux said.

When buying his TV, Turan opted to pay $99 each month over nine months instead of $77 each month for 12 months. To be approved for the loan, he was required only to produce an ID from the Mexican consulate, not a California driver’s license.

To read the entire article, click here.  

A fascinating article in AZ Central’s online newspaper describes the history of movie dubbing and voice overs and how Mexico City is no longer the nexus for this field.  Mexican Spanish has long been lauded as being the most “generic” with regard to accent and speaking conventions.  This, along with Mexico’s rich movie and TV history, had once made it the capital of the dubbing industry.

But now the world’s second-biggest metropolis is losing this distinction. More and more, studios are sending work to other countries, drawn by lower costs and a new generation of Venezuelan, Colombian and Argentine actors who have mastered the generic Spanish accent.

From 1999 to 2004, profits from Mexico’s dubbing industry fell 73 percent, from $11.2 million to $3 million, according to government figures. Although Mexico is still the location of choice for film translations, TV work is going elsewhere, said Magdalena Questa, managing director of Grabaciones y Doblajes, S.A.

The article also highlights some of the challenges to dubbing films, how Mexico has lost a good deal of dubbing and voice-over business, and the countries which have been picking up this work in recent decades.

To read the entire article, click here.

Language Lines is often mentioned in articles about strategies for working around language barriers.  But this particular article about Pasco County’s demographic shift shows the impact that Language Line has had on communicating with non-English speakers at County offices. 

The article also provides a brief history of Language Lines Services and how heavily it’s currently being used:

Language Line Services, based in Monterey, Calif., has been around since 1984. The company’s first client was the police department in San Jose, and it has had cops and courts as clients ever since. Language Line now has approximately 25,000 clients, according to spokesman Dale Hansman, including hospitals, airports, grocery stores, credit card companies and 75 percent of the Fortune 500 companies. The company has 5,000 translators who speak 176 languages.

The economy is hurting. Not Language Line. Language Line is growing. The number of calls is going up. The number of clients is going up.

“It’s not a novelty,” Hansman said last week. “It’s a necessity.”

In Pasco, public transportation uses language line, the libraries use it, the 911 call center uses it, the sheriff’s office uses it.

To read the entire article from the St. Petersburg Times, click here.

Some New York schools are expanding their course offerings to give students a competitive edge in an increasingly multinational and technologically advanced world.  These include: Arabic, Mandarin, and nanotechnology. 

In line with the thinking that the earlier the better, the Albany City School District is starting a dual-language immersion class for four-year olds this fall:

There will be nine children whose native language is Spanish and nine whose native language is English in the new dual language pre-K at the Delaware Community School. It had been offered for K through grade 5 students since 1996.

“The parents have been asking for this for years,” said Spanish teacher Melanie Pores, who helped develop the program. The new pre-K teacher will be Ana Banda-Wemple, who had been a bilingual teacher in Peru.

“We’re piloting this approach for pre-K,” said Pores. The students will alternate languages for half of each day. The little tykes will attend a full day of instruction, from 8:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

“Our schools are becoming more multi-cultural and bilingual at a fast pace,” Pores said. “Our English speakers and Spanish speakers learn from each other, working in the same classroom.”

To read the entire article, click here.