Error Typology is a venerable evaluation method for content quality that’s very common in the modern Translation & Localization industry. Despite having been popularized for translated multilingual content, it can easily be applied in a single-language context just as well, with only minor changes. Here’s how to use it.
A summary of the TAUS DQF Manufacturing Industries Workshop hosted by John Deere
There are a few things that really make a man's heart beat faster. One of those is a 250 horsepower 6R tractor produced by John Deere. As I walk through the entrance gate of the flagship factory of the manufacturing giant in Mannheim (Germany), the lyrics of Rodney Atkins' Friends with Tractors come to mind ("I got everything I need 'cause I got friends with tractors"). Founded in 1921 and spread over more than 40ha, the factory produces a new tractor every 3 minutes. The place, just like the machinery, oozes quality, making it the perfect location for the TAUS DQF Manufacturing Industries Workshop about translation quality management (QM).
On March 22-24 (2017), fifty people came together in a former clandestine church in Amsterdam to break their heads on the question how the translation industry will have changed in 2022. The story that came out can be read as an ordinary battle between man and machine, with a victory for the latter. But at a deeper layer, there is a fascinating intrigue with many threads about game-changing technologies and trends and an outcome that is perplexing even for all of us who think that they are behind the wheel today. Be careful what you wish for.
This article is the first in a series we'll be posting, exploring the topic of machine translation. Powering the SmartCAT ecosystem with flexible third-party integration capabilities, we’re preparing to enter the Convergence era, in line with the insightful outlook* Jaap van der Meer presented on TAUS in 2013. Not just evolve with the industry but take the lead in this process, that’s what we’re up to.
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*Read Jaap’s article on TAUS here.
TAUS has kindly requested a blog series on current topics in automatic translation. As an opening salvo, here’s a sneak preview of the forthcoming TAUS report on speech-to-speech translation (S2ST). The report, co-authored by Alex Waibel, Andrew Joscelyne, and myself, will attempt a broad view of the field’s past, present, and future. For this appetizer, though, we’ll restrict our view to a brief snapshot – a selfie, if you like – of selected technical accomplishment at the current state of the art. (The report will include interviews with several additional participants.)
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Get a text. Write the same thing in a different language. Done. If only... Translation is a simple task that evolved into a monstrous process - dozens of roles, hundreds of steps and workflows, thousands and thousands of people. Why does it get so complicated? Simply put - four main structural flaws compromise everything.
In my quest to better understand the opportunities and challenges of the African translation industry, I recently traveled from West to East Africa. Because the global demand for African language translations continues to increase, I felt it was important to assess and demystify this market.
On 11 November, Daimler hosted an Automotive Translation Roundtable organized by TAUS and berns language consulting. Translation managers from eight large automotive and three large IT companies participated in the one day meeting. Goals for the day were to get the pulse of the translation sector and learn from each other. What do we have in common? Where do we differ? It comes down to this: we are not so different. And what’s more: we must work together across the translation sector to create a common ecosystem.
What makes a good conference? If you ask me, the answer is: purpose, people and program. As simple as that. Let’s start with ‘purpose’: you have to have a good reason to make people travel from all over the world to a single location and have them spend a few days of their precious time together. As Eric Liu, General Manager of Alibaba Language Services, said in his keynote at the TAUS Annual Conference in Portland last week: it all starts with a mission - “Preparing for a future that is without language barriers”. The same goes for TAUS and the TAUS Annual Conference. Why do we have a conference - what is the purpose? Because we want to work together to help the world communicate better.
The amount of time and money you spend on quality management easily constitutes 20% of the total translation time and costs. A large part of this percentage consists of translation review (or quality review). You can reduce translation review time by streamlining the review process. In this post, we’ve listed 5 ways to do this.