Blog

... in which we celebrate Google's global initiative (again), blabber on about Yammer's future translation capabilities, get lost in app translators, and wheel our way to Xbox glory. All in a day's work.

In this morning's headlines comes news that Bing Translate will now include Klingon, the fictional language of the Star Trek franchise, among its more than 40 language pairs. How do you say "how cool is that!" in Klingon? Oh, Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam! (It is a good day to die!)

This is a pretty big deal for a language that consists of little more than 2,000 total words. Where did the Klingon language start? And where does it all end?

There are 26 Spanish-speaking countries in the world comprising 469 million speakers. There is a distinct version of Spanish to match each locale; the cultures are not homogenous and the Spanish spoken in each place has marked differences as well.

No matter where Spanish-speaking users come from, companies need to make sure that their products are understandable and that no legal issues might arise for using a non-neutral term or concept.

As a translation company, we are often asked about the differences in these dialects of Spanish, and when to use one over the other. Most often, we are asked for advice on how to choose a Spanish that is 'good' for all Spanish-speaking countries, so as to incur the cost of translation only one time.

Ask just about anyone about what the best, fastest-growing market in their specific sector is, and more often than on, you will run into the BRICs at some stage. But in the pharmaceutical and medical device space, there is one brightly shining, yet often overlooked, star – Japan.

Why not? I’m not qualified! Once someone finds out that I work in the translation industry, they often ask me if I’m a translator. I’m not. Definitely not. People scratch their heads about that because I have a master’s degree in Romance language linguistics. I was born in Peru, and have lived in Ecuador and Chile. I could maybe translate a recipe, game instructions, or a personal email…but not much else.

What does it take to be a translator, then?

So here we are. You started out with translation projects as a way to earn a bit of cash in college and, yeah, you were pretty damn proud of yourself. But now, many years and a career climb up the localization ladder later, you're dealing with the big data. We're not talking about a couple of pages and one from-this-language-to-that-language translation job anymore. And, let's face it, you know Excel spreadsheets and Microsoft Project cannot do the job.

You need power. Lots of power.

You know why. Now that you've made it to the big leagues, understanding big-league tools will make the difference between a work day with challenges you can bear and a work day that ends with you curled up in the fetal position on your desk, calling out for mommy. Seriously, you do not want to go there.

So what's all this talk about translation management systems and, real talk, how can you persuade your bosses that it's a better investment than therapy?

With the passing of noted Nigerian author Chinua Achebe back in March, we are aptly reminded of how powerful literature can be in transforming the world. We have a soft spot for literature in translation. Besides being our introduction to some of the greatest thinkers and dreamers on the planet, we think the translation of fictional works brings our diverse experiences together. We're better for it.

True confession, we are a translation service provider to the life sciences industry and we are interested in winning business. That doesn't mean we will — customer acquisition is not an automatic process that connects your expense budget to our income accounts. And by rights, it shouldn't be.

This brings me to today's post. How can you, as a medical device- or pharmaceuticals translation services buyer, distinguish between the greats and the not-so-greats?

"Even the KFC menu was just in Chinese," reported an Indian man traveling in Shanghai and expecting to be able to communicate in English, what he had always believed to be the international language of business. The Wall Street Journal and many other agencies have been covering Mandarin's rising star. They suggest that as Mandarin flourishes not only in the business capitals of its homeland, the rest of the world is deciding that there may be more benefits to learning the language than just ordering an American chicken burger in China. 

Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. This massive generation of info is a new thing: most of the data in the world today has been generated in only the last two years.