Word order is one of the major differences between English and Japanese sentences. And it is also one of the reasons why Machine Translation into (and from) Japanese may — on the whole — be still less successful than it is with other languages.The basic word order in Japanese is subject-object-verb (SOV), while English would predominantly follow the subject-verb-object model (SVO). Japanese is a topic-prominent language, where the basic sentence structure is topic-comment — topic is the thing talked about and comment is what is being said about it — and the topic is systematically indicated as separate from the subject.
Here is an example showing how Japanese and English sentences would differ.
EN: Seven Samurai is a Japanese film produced by Akira Kurosawa. JP: 七人の侍は黒澤明によって制作された日本映画です。You can see that both sentences start with the same word "Seven Samurai (七人の侍)" but word order completely changes in the rest of the sentence.
During translation from English into Japanese, translators must re-order the words to follow Japanese grammar and this is one of the reasons why Machine Translation (MT) for Japanese does not work as well as it may for many other languages.
To improve the quality of MT output, the idea of "Nipponization" ("Nippon" = "Japan"; so it can be also written as "Japanization") has been developed and discussed by several language experts and organizations. The recent
TAUS Executive Forum in Tokyo was one of such venues.
The process of Nipponization is to re-order English words to follow Japanese grammar, without translating them.
The example above can be Nipponized as follows:
Original EN: Seven Samurai is a Japanese film produced by Akira Kurosawa. Nipponized EN: Seven Samurai is Akira Kurosawa by produced a Japanese film.JP: 七人の侍は黒澤明によって制作された日本映画です。 Now the word order of Nipponized English is the same as Japanese sentence.
Even though there are risks of unwanted changes which may result in a negative impact on MT quality, practice shows that Nipponization is still an interesting option for improving MT quality in Japanese.
Interested to learn about other factors to be aware of when translating into Japanese? Download our article titled
Managing Japanese Localization Projects, which deals with both measurable and intangible elements that affect the outcome of Japanese localization projects.
Just about two months before the deadline of July 2, 2012, by which Marketing Authorization Holders (MAHs) are required to electronically submit to the EMA information on all medicinal products for human used authorized in the European Union, using the new electronic exchange format XEVPRM, the agency released a set of updated versions of their controlled vocabularies.
As part of this release, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) published updated lists of organizations, pharmaceutical dose forms, substances (including their translations where applicable), and units of presentations and measurement. The previous versions were originally published on March 5, 2012, along with eight other controlled vocabularies, which remain unchanged.
Two months is not a long time, and the current deadline, which seems legally set in stone, has many pharmaceutical organizations scrambling to get their electronic submissions ready in the updated eXtended EudraVigilance Medicinal Product Report Message (XEVPRM) format, to meet the deadline.
Partly in response to the feedback from the pharmaceutical industry, the Agency also recently published an updated (= reduced) set of mandatory requirements related to this Article 57(2) compliance, citing the "practical challenges of compliance". The expectations are that these measures will significantly reduce the administrative burden for MAHs, in view of helping them meet the deadline.
The Agency will no longer require several data sets to be submitted by July 2012, among them the structured substance information (SSI). In addition, the language requirements specific to the authorization procedure used have been clarified by the following:
The rule is that substance names should be specified as reflected in the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) and in accordance with the national language(s) as applicable, while adhering to the controlled vocabularies. For centrally authorized products, substance names should be specified in all official EU languages. In Member States with more than one official language, the information needs to be provided in each of the official languages. For products authorized through the mutual recognition (MRP) or decentralized procedure (DCP), substance names should be given in the national language of the country of authorization, along with English translation.
The electronic submissions as part of this Article 57(2) compliance also require the respective SmPC to be attached. For centrally authorized medicinal products, the SmPC is to be provided in English only (while the other languages are available via the EMA). For medicinal products authorized through the MRP or DCP procedures, the SmPC is provided in the national language of the country of authorization. However, the harmonized English text of the SmPC is now also acceptable.
The good news is that while the update of the controlled vocabularies comes quite close to the deadline (and they will continue to be updated regularly), if an MAH has already submitted medicine information to the EMA using the previous version of the vocabularies, they are not required to resubmit this information.
Submitting information to the EMA and need to add translations into the equation? Download our article Finding the Ideal Process for Pharmaceutical Translations, which reviews some of the current issues in pharmaceutical translations related to marketing authorization.
Companies that want to be sucessful globally need good partners in many aspects of their operations: They need banks that can manage their funds in multiple currencies and collect their payments in multiple countries. They need lawyers that understand local regulations. They need auditors that can consolidate financial statements according to the different generally accepted accounting principles. And they need a good localization partner to make their products look and feel appropriate in the local markets.
These two creative TV ads by HSBC convey the spirit of global business and are a good example of localization. The first version is aired in Europe with a Hong Kong woman buying lemonade from the girl. The second version is aired in Asia, with a Brazilian woman buying the lemonade. (Fun fact: the dress that the girl is wearing is from the Swedish chain H&M, another major global player).
Another good example of the complexity of global business was very well captured by the law firm Baker & McKenzie in an advertising campaign at the Arlanda Airport in Stockholm. How much translation do you think was needed in that deal?
In line with these companies, we believe that the role of Moravia in the lives of our clients is to accompany them on their journey to global markets by being endlessly flexible in our thinking and consistently reliable in our delivery.
The sponsoring of global clinical trials has never been more demanding. The amount of clinical trials outsourced to emerging locales is steadily increasing.
Some major challenges to the success of outsourced clinical projects are accuracy and budget. If the tested medications are to be sold later internationally, efficacy must be tested on representative local population groups, not just in the US. The success of clinical trials depends, in great part, upon proper, careful, nuanced translation, taking place in both language and cultural aspects.
More and more sponsors are turning to expert translation services to address these challenges. They have found that project risk can be substantially addressed by choosing appropriate and experienced translation and language services organization to assist with clear and culturally appropriate international communications. Some of the most common success/failure determinants for global clinical trials that must be planned for are:
- Regulatory requirements - Documentation needed to fulfill country-specific regulatory demands, must be accurately translated between English and the official language(s) of the host country or region.
- Physician communication – Planning culturally-appropriate communication strategies for local physicians who may help recruit for trials. To assure proper physician communication, translations must address and respect the cultural differences and unique approaches to the practice of medicine in emerging countries, such as:
- Patients often hold physicians in high regard in most emerging countries and follow recommendations without question. Consequently, patients may enter a trial without complete understanding. Communication tools must be clearly translated so patients get a complete picture of the consequences of their involvement.
- Physicians may censor bad prognoses or negative consequences from patients, perhaps only informing a relative. In this case, full disclosure is often considered to negatively affect the outcome of treatment. Patients may not be informed of all risks associated with clinical trial participation if translations lack specificity.
- Reports of pain or its perception may cause its presence or severity to go unreported due to the cultural perception of pain as a weakness, an unattractive complaint or too intimate to share unless culturally sensitive explanations are provided.
- Recruitment materials - Providing well-translated information will assure potential participants (as well as the IRB and local physicians assisting with recruitment) are given complete and accurate information and are well-suited to participate.
- Informed consent - Creating materials that avoid complications due to a dearth of localized terms for certain foundational clinical trial concepts such as placebo. Many of which may be addressed by accessing translation memory (TM - glossaries of preferred terminology).
- Patient information – Enabling thorough, complete and accurate communication with patient populations, across cultural and linguistic barriers to ensure patients receive (and communicate) information that is accurate and complete.
- Patient-Reported Outcomes – Creating questionnaires that are properly culturally adapted to ensure accuracy. Translation experts must work personally and closely, both with patients and medical professionals, to ensure quality translation, mutual understanding and successful trial outcome.
- Information gathering and reporting – Developing properly localized software and forms (often including health assessments) for urban patient populations with multiple ethnic sub-groups, often not conforming to the country's official language(s).
- Alternate formats – Planning for accurate and functional communication tools in multiple appropriate formats (including print materials, online and website content, questionnaire software, online forms and even spoken word or audio for low literacy populations).
These challenges can be addressed by partnering with an expert language service provider. Choose an organization qualified to manage the translation project from start to finish and provide the highest level of quality assurance.
Learn more about our multilingual clinical trial translation services, or download our article Finding the Ideal Process for Pharmaceutical Translations, which reviews some of the current issues in pharmaceutical translations related to marketing authorization and finding the optimum translation process.
There is a change afoot in the Russian legislation concerning medical and pharmaceutical products. The much-anticipated new medical device legislation, which was expected at the beginning of 2012, has now been pushed out to around June this year. The new pharmaceutical regulation called ОБ ОБРАЩЕНИИ ЛЕКАРСТВЕННЫХ СРЕДСТВ (On the Circulation of Medicines) was introduced in 2010. It has caused a little confusion since then and led to subsequent updates.
One of the new regulation objectives was to help expand the local pharmaceutical industry, which requires foreign pharmaceutical companies to share their expertise and technologies with local businesses or face trade restrictions.
This has been set against the efforts to support local companies in line with the $4 billion Pharma 2020 Strategy, Russia’s health reform plan developed in 2010, which aims to increase the share of the domestic industry on the total pharmaceutical expenditure from the current 20% to a minimum of 50%.
In practice, there have been a few flaws. The new regulation, for instance, introduces the requirement to conduct clinical trials of new drugs in Russia prior to registration. International clinical trials would be accepted so long as Russian patients were among trial participants.
In the EU, in contrast, there is no requirement for the exact location of clinical trials. Not surprisingly, Russia’s requirement to conduct clinical trials on Russian patients has led to a general slowdown in the number of new drug registrations in Russia.
One thing to bear in mind is that Russia’s healthcare industry strategy concerns the medical device industry as much as it concerns pharma. Specifically, the Russian Federal Target Program (FTP) “PharmMed 2020” encompasses the Pharma 2020 as well as the MedProm 2020 strategies.
The latter has similar objectives as its Pharma equivalent – to promote the development of local production (Stage I - 2011-2017) and to support development of proprietary technologies in Russia (Stage II – 2015-2020).
The new up-coming legislation is expected to help realize that vision, and will have repercussions for every foreign medical device manufacturer marketing their products in Russia, or planning to do so.
Among others, the new regulation is expected to cover areas such as certification, medical device vigilance or clinical trial processes. Will it help or hinder access to foreign-made medical devices for Russia's healthcare and patients? We will find out soon.
Interested to learn more about what it takes to succeed in Russia? Here are some suggested articles:
On March 5th and 6th, we welcomed the third Moravia Partner Summit in Brno, Cz
ech Republic. As usual, this event was a great opportunity for valued Moravia partners to invest in two full days of meetings and workshops. The unifying theme this year was "Achieving Together".
This successful event hosted over 70 LSPs from Europe, Africa and Asia. All the participants appreciated the face-to-face meetings where Moravia’s key partners and language representatives had a chance to connect with Moravia staff (management, partner managers, project managers, quality managers, and process and technology representatives) to share information and experience.
Tomas Kratochvil, the CEO of Moravia, presented the opening keynote. Day 1 included presentations about strategy, quality, business models, case studies, and process and technology. At the end of Day 1, the participants were taken to Černá Hora for a social event. This small town is known for its famous brewery. It was a really enjoyable evening and night.
Day 2 was reserved for individual group and project workshops, where project teams learned about detailed specifications for various tasks.
Moravia’s Business Partner Group, lead by Roman Civin, organized the summit and received very positive feedback from our Partners and from Moravia’s teams as well. See you again in 2014!
Feedback from participants:
“Thanks so much for such an interesting and helpful event! It was as much helpful as inspiring for me personally and for all the rest of guests, I'm sure. I've handed over the information I got there to our team and they are absolutely happy to know they deal with such a serious and also friendly partner. Thanks again to every Moravia's person involved in the event, who welcomed and presented to us!”
“I am very impressed with Moravia vision and Moravia people’s passion. Thank all of you very much for organizing fantastic Partner Summit!”
Every once in a while another case of a brand name that means something offensive or funny in a foreign language pops up.
This week, the victim is Kraft foods, which chose Mondelez International, as the potential new corporate identity that for its global snacking business (The new name is the subject of a shareholder vote on May 23. If the change is approved, the company has already reserved the ticker symbol “MDLZ” and the Web site address www.mondelez.com).
Mondelez (pronounced "mohn-dah-LEEZ") in Russian sounds like the local slang for an act of oral sex. Not a good name to be associated with Oreo cookies.
This brand now joins the Hall of Fame of brand snafus with the Chevy Nova (which is actually an urban legend), Buick Lacrosse (meaning masturbation in Quebec), Mitsubishi Pajero (meaning an onanist in Spanish), Avaya (meaning boo in Portuguese), and Tegro (meaning "you are fat" in French).
A very good practice when it comes to brands in international markets is to perform a linguistic brand assessment to ensure that the words mean what they are supposed to mean. You want to make sure that the written and pronounced words don't have any negative or derogatory connotations in foreign languages.
Moravia provides Linguistic Brand Assessments for international companies in all markets. Contact us if you don't want your brand to be famous for the wrong reasons.
You can also read the article "Cracking the Russian Market" by Libor Safar.
The 2012 Internationalization and Localization Conference was held in Santa Clara, CA on March 14th and 15th. It featured a stand-alone, full-day, technical internationalization training followed by the main conference.
In the intense i18n training class, attendees worked together to build an understanding of how to create world-ready products that could be made specific for any locale. The main conference featured a full day of internationalization and localization presentations, panels, and roundtable discussions led by industry veterans from companies like Adobe, Autodesk, Cisco, Intel, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yahoo!, and Zynga.
With about 150 attendees, the event provided an intimate setting for open and free form discussions in and outside of the conference sessions,imug which was enjoyed by many. Moravia joined Lingoport, Acrolinx and VistaTEC as the key exhibitors and sponsors of the event. At the highly anticipated raffle drawing at the Moravia booth, Shun Mori, director of Japan R&D at Citrix, became the happy winner of the coveted Kindle Fire! The event concluded with a networking and discussion evening with IMUG, the International Multilingual User Group.
Check out where you can win a Kindle Fire from Moravia this month.
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) just announced the recipients of the 2011 Microsoft Preferred Supplier Program (MPSP) Excellence Awards. In addition to Moravia, companies like Accenture, Chinasoft, Hyatt, and Zones were given special recognition for their performance, exemplary service, and innovation.
The purpose of the Microsoft Preferred Supplier Program is to build long-term relationships with a select group of strategic vendors that create long-term value for Microsoft. Moravia has been a Microsoft Premier Vendor for the last 10 years.
Moravia was very proud to receive the prestigious Quality Excellence Award for localization services based on its performance in FY11. Microsoft mentions that Moravia delivered exceptional value by providing competitive pricing and service excellence as well as by consistently scoring an 85 percent performance rating on all deliverables. During the past three years, Moravia has supported more than 100 Microsoft product launches in over 100 languages, achieved consistent service excellence and efficiency gains, and surpassed Microsoft’s Localization Community Language Quality Assessment by 10 percent.
Congratulations to the Moravia Microsoft team and to our Partner Network for the consistent localization quality in delivering some of the most used software products around the world. If you use a Microsoft Product in languages other than English, it is likely that you are seeing a job done by Moravia.
In the wake of the announcement for the New iPad, we have looked at some interesting numbers related to Apple.
