Archive for Technology

Anthony | January 27, 2012
No comments

Don’t be evil? Is Google flexing its muscle, or just manipulating the marketplace?

Google search engines are the new high street marketplace

Back in June when the online community was talking about Google+ and what it would mean to the world of search engine management, my take on the situation was, that Google couldn’t afford another failure, especially after the flop that was Google Buzz, (and you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking, Google what?)- They had to make it work.

I have previously predicted that despite Google’s supposed “fair” methods of working out which order pages appear in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), Google would have to start prioritising signals from Google+, forcing people within the marketing and online communities to embrace the social network whether they liked it or not.

Low and behold, in early January 2012, Google announced the “Search Your World” update, which prioritises search results based on content that you and your network of Google Plus connections have “+1’d”. This is yet another step to empowering the already super popular (please read – well funded, large marketing budget) brands while pushing down the smaller brands and one-man-band type websites, placing yet another hurdle to overcome when looking to achieve success in the online world. I liken this move by the search giant to the death of the local village high street, caused by the rise of giant supermarkets such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s.

When Google Plus was launched, they did a very good job of creating an air of exclusivity about it, only allowing a certain number of people to join at a time. This left people clambering for an invite and see what all the fuss was about. Within weeks of the release of Plus+, Google was boasting join-ups in excess of 64 million.

What Google haven’t been so forthcoming with is numbers of returning visitors and active users after sign up. I know that after the initial excitement (followed by extreme disappointment) many of the people who signed up, myself included, have never returned to their profile, choosing to continue with their Facebook and Twitter profiles which are already heavily populated with their friends, photos and other key information. So it comes so no surprise to me that Google launched their “Search Plus Update”.

However this still leaves me wondering how successful Google Plus+ will actually be? Like me, SEO and marketing professionals will suddenly start taking an unnatural interest in Plus+ again, fearing the impact on their careers. But will this bear any weight on the average, search algorithm oblivious Google user who frankly doesn’t know or care what their friends think and simply wants to surf the net. If people want to share content with their friends, surely they will continue to publish links on the Facebook walls and Twitter feeds?

It is only natural that the other major social network players are nervous – no doubt their backsides are going like a rabbit’s nose attempting to guess at Google’s next strategic move. So when I read in The Guardian that developers from Myspace, Twitter and Facebook have joined forces to create a browser add-on called ‘Don’t be evil’ not only were my suspicions confirmed, but I also found myself in agreement with their cause.  It would be interesting to see the number of people who install this browser add-on, but again this will most likely depend in the number of people who actually understand anything about the whole search situation, or even care. For people who are none the wiser they probably won’t even notice their SERPs are being weighed up by this, in the same way they don’t understand the hundreds of other intricacies that feed into why search engines present you with the results they do. Therefore I suspect that Google are banking on getting away with making such changes with minimal protest.

So where does that leave people within the translation services sector?  So many freelance linguists rely heavily on Google search results and online profile for the generation of revenue and work, in a highly competitive market. When the online marketplace rules are being changed so frequently, in order to manipulate the results, I have to stress that it is so important that individuals begin to pay more attention to announcements from Google and ask – what does this mean for my business? To finish with the analogy of the high street I used earlier, website owners need to treat their websites like their own shop floor, and constantly adapt it depending on customer feedback, new technology, and to negotiate the state of flux search engines operate in. This is not a passing trend, and many millions of people are already three or four steps behind.

Category: Localization, Technology, Translation, Translation Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Anthony | November 17, 2011
10 comments

Why speaking English might be easier for Northern Europeans in contrast to Southern Europeans

A guest blog from Susanna Cha, recent MSc. Graduate in International Marketing Management:

If you are from Northern Europe and are considering taking an English test, you might find it easier than southern Europeans. This may be explained from a media related viewpoint that I would like to share with you. Please note that it is just a theory that is generalised – and that it obviously depends on the individual, as everyone is different.

Northern Europeans, such as the Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian people are, in my opinion, generally better at speaking English compared to our Spanish, German and French compatriots. This is an opinion that is also shared by others. The main reason for this is the media.

The Northern Europeans listen far more to the English language than the Southern Europeans. How come, you might wonder? Well, we all love to watch TV and in countries such as the Netherlands, all series, shows and films that are recorded in an English speaking country (mostly America) are not dubbed or synchronized. Instead, the Dutch listen to the English language constantly and receive Dutch subtitles. In Spain, for example, all series and films that are American are synchronised by Spanish speakers, as this case study in Translation Journal shows. This is the same for Germany and France.

Now you might think that the media, somewhat, has an influence is not fully responsible for someone’s English as education plays a significant role as well. This is true, but considers that you are listening to the English language since you were seven years old. Ask any Dutch child what the English for “yes” and “no” is and I bet that 90% could tell you.

There are, however, exceptions as not everyone can speak a different language easily. Surely there are Dutch and Swedish people who cannot even form one sentence in English! But do I think they’d understand more English than your average Spanish or French person? Yes.

There is also a difference between young people and old people. Young people are generally more exposed to the media, which may suggest that only young Swedish people are “better” at understanding English. This could be true, but a Dutch show whereby a Scottish psychic called Derek Ogilvie is helping Dutch people with the loss of their friends or family, is also proving that old Dutch people can understand English very well – as this clip demonstrates!

So to sum up, I believe that Northern Europeans are better at speaking English because of their greater exposure to English in the media, specifically, their exposure to the television.

Let us know your thoughts!

Category: Accents, Languages, Technology | Tags: , , , ,
Emma | October 6, 2011
No comments

Torres blames incorrect translation

Torrez at Chelsea

Fernando Torres might be starting to regret the things he said about his Chelsea Team mates.

English football is saturated with international players, arguably more than it should be (but that’s a conversation for another time and place), and clubs face a number of challenges when it comes to dealing with such players.

I have written before about language barriers in football, with particular focus on Carlos Tevez’s refusal to learn the English language. This time it’s current Chelsea player, Fernando Torres, who has caused controversy at the club, having recently given an interview in his mother tongue of Spanish. He has since blamed the English translation of the interview for wrongly implying that he said his team mates were ‘old and slow’.

It has been reported that the club is now requesting a copy of the original interview to see if the information has indeed been translated poorly, but I for one will be very interested to find out what the results of the investigation will unveil. Putting my interests of football to one side I want to know just how easy it is for people to blame an incorrect translation when they find themselves in a potentially embarrassing situation.

Of course I’m not saying that translations are always perfect; there are hundreds of examples of incorrect translations. But do people sometimes play on these to their own advantage? If it turns out that the translation of the Torres interview is indeed correct, he’s going to be doubly embarrassed about what he allegedly said and then for subsequently trying to wriggle out of it. If you’re going to say something controversial then surely you should be prepared to stand by what you’ve said when you come under criticism?

When asked how he was going to deal with the situation, Chelsea manager Villas-Boas said, “We’d just talk. Just talk to share opinion. If it was unauthorised, I’d fine him, of course. Anyhow, it’s one player’s perspective.”

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I don’t think there is a person alive that hasn’t said something negative about their place of work at one time or another. It’s just that if the translation turns out to be accurate, Torres should have thought twice before airing his views on such a public platform.

Torres isn’t the first and most likely won’t be the last person to potentially be caught out saying something they really shouldn’t, but whether he is at fault or not will remain to be seen; watch this space…

Update

scapegoat

A good scapegoat is almost as good as a solution

 

Just 3 weeks after writing this blog it would seem that Kia Joorabchian, the agent of Manchester City striker Carlos Tevez is frantically using the ‘incorrect translation’ defence for his prize asset!

After the reported ‘confusion’ that led to Tevez not appearing for City in their Champions league fixture against Bayern Munich, Tevez’s adviser now claims that mistranslation is to blame for the post match interview in which Carlos supposedly stated that he “did not feel right to play, so he didn’t”. After initially claiming that the noise within the Allianz Arena was responsible for the misunderstanding that took place pitch side, Tevez’s agent has now had to come up with an explanation as to why the post match interview failed to show the Argentine striker in an angelic light.

I can’t help thinking that sometimes it is far too easy for people in these situations to use translators as a scapegoat. Are you in agreement?

Category: Technology, Translation Mistakes | Tags: , ,
Emma | January 28, 2011
No comments

Bing taps in to Asia’s love of Karaoke to help teach English

Bing Crosby

You'd be forgiven for thinking of this Bing when it comes to Karaoke.

Despite the KTV feature having been available since September 2010, Microsoft has started to actively push a new karaoke style language tool on China’s Bing search directory, in an attempt to help users improve their pronunciation when learning the English language.

The company’s delay in plugging this innovative tool is due to months of X Factor style auditions to find a model with clear pronunciation, a pleasant smile and friendly personality. With winner Cissy Wong ticking all the boxes they now have their ‘mouth model’.

As it would obviously be impossible to record every single sentence and phrase that users may want to practice, Microsoft has developed technology to record a wide range of sounds, mouth and facial expressions. These are then put together in various sequences and syndicate millions of translations. The current library of sequences is around 10 million, with several thousand more being added each week.

Bing currently trawls the internet seeking accurate Chinese-to-English translations from a variety of sources. In turn Microsoft gathers current examples of translations to give users the most up-to-date uses of the words and phrases they are learning. The directory currently receives over 1 million hits per day; and with the recent publicity and growth of information, this figure is set to skyrocket.

Microsoft has also announced its plans to make this technology available to Japanese speaking people sometime in the near future and undoubtedly it will not stop there.

Category: Free Translation, Languages, Technology, Translation | Tags: ,
GavinWheeldon | December 1, 2010
2 comments

Machine Translation in the Real World – a Dell Case Study

Register now

Space is limited. Register now.

Many companies are talking about machine translation but the number of organisations that are actually putting it into practice and carrying out live trials is still relatively low given the excellent results that this translation method can now deliver.

With the developments in machine translation and the increasing popularity of post edited machine translation there is a lot of noise about the service, but with this comes debate around appropriate content, volumes, quality and investment versus long term cost efficiencies which will be addressed by our webinar panel.

Join us for a Machine Translation Webinar on December 15

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/884796078

MT in the Real World will communicate the benefits, address the challenges and dispel the myths surrounding this rapidly evolving translation technology solution and will feature Wayne Bourland, Senior Manager in Dell’s Global Localization Team talking about the company’s reasons for using MT, how they use it and for which content types.

John Dixon, Strategic Solutions Director at Applied Language Solutions will present on the results gained from building a bespoke engine for Dell and will be joined by Professor Andy Way, esteemed MT expert from Dublin City University and consultant for Applied Language Solutions, who will talk about our roadmap for MT based around the MOSES tool.

Title: MT in the Real World – a Dell Case Study
Date:Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Time:4:00 PM – 5:00 PM GMT
To read more about machine translation visit http://www.appliedlanguage.com/translation_services/blended_approach-.aspx

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

Category: Machine Translation, Technology, Translation | Tags: , , ,
Anna | September 14, 2010
5 comments

Post editing – getting out what you put in

Spreading the word on healthy living

Spreading the word on healthy living

As a communications professional I’m always impressed by the volumes of live information available and how it’s all compiled in the first place. In fact, any marketing professional who claims not to have used Wikipedia as a general information source in recent years, when writing press releases or articles would, in my opinion, be hard to find.

This is why I was particularly intrigued to read an article about Google.org launching its Health Speaks crowd-sourcing initiative recently, which calls upon volunteers to edit machine translations of health information found on sites such as Wikipedia into Arabic, Hindi and Swahili.

Crowd sourcing is obviously becoming more popular across many industries to gain opinion, share knowledge and collate information, and it was only a matter of time before translation would actively come into the mix.  But audiences need to bear in mind that the information collated in Wikipedia, the source from which the Google Translator Toolkit and volunteer linguists will provide the translations, won’t always be factually accurate.

While I applaud this method of generating content from community contributions, there is a particular risk in relation to the translation of health information.  Incorrect medical translations could lead to embarrassing mistakes.  Worst case scenario; a poor translation could potentially become a health risk.

Machine translation has gained real traction in recent months with major organisations putting their trust and their budgets into a post edited version, where the translation output is amended in terms of spelling and grammar and glossaries are applied to ensure it makes sense to the intended audience.

Any professional linguist, which I assume the volunteer editors will be, is trained to rely on the accuracy of the source material.  As a translation company, we spend a lot of time ensuring that we on-board customers properly and this includes checking the quality of the source material and simplifying it where necessary in order for the translations to make more sense.  We also insist on having target language glossaries in place to ensure technical terms are accurately understood and therefore translated by the linguist.  I would be interested to know how much source checking will be done by Health Speaks as the initiative builds momentum and more languages (and more detailed health material) are introduced to the initiative.

It looks as though Google is sticking to the right kind of content to avoid any of these problems for now – with a focus on health tips, disease prevention and dietary advice, rather than symptom-driven diagnosis.  We can expect more organisations to jump on the crowd sourcing bandwagon and use machine translations rather than human linguists, which could present a quality issue that may need to be addressed further down the line.  When translating medical information it’s critical that the translations are accurate and, as we say time and time again, a translation is only as good as the source material. Google has done the right thing and only selected pages that have been reviewed, but is it being verified by a medical professional?

Risks (which I am confident Google has taken into account) aside, this is a really interesting project with a genuine opportunity to help local charities through donation incentives.  So, as long as the audiences remembers that the information published is not necessarily from a qualified medical practitioner then the initiative will provide a good starting point for people looking for health advice.

So, let’s watch this space for now and commend Google on its contribution.

Category: Free Translation, Languages, Technology, Translation, Translation Mistakes | Tags:
MariaNenova | June 18, 2010
No comments

What language is the most spoken?

what langage is spoken the most?“The world is small”, or so they say, but while that may be true in a figurative sense, the world is of course very big and complex.  So too is the answer of “what is the most spoken language in the world?”

6,767,805,208 – that was the estimated global population at the end of 2009 according to studies by Miniwatts Marketing Group. Thanks to Wikipedia (whether you trust mass user-generated content or not) we know, roughly, the approximate numbers of native speakers from the world’s languages.

According to Wikipedia and a few other sources, the most spoken langage in the world is Mandarin Chinese, with 845 million native speakers. The second and third most spoken languages are Spanish and English, with around 329 and 328 million respectively.

Of course, we could think of other categories and the top ranked languages. What is the result, for example, if we want to know which is the most spoken language on the Internet?  The world wide web’s population is currently around 1.8 billion – that’s nearly a third of everyone on the planet! Wikipedia, this time quoting a Global reach study from 2004, says that most Internet users speak the English language as a native or secondary language – but English still only accounts for less than half of all the Internet’s content.

After English, Chinese is the second most-used language on the Internet, with Spanish (including the European and Latin American variants, among others) a close third. This was also confirmed in research findings by Byte Level published in 2005, which revealed that English-speaking web users are a minority on the Internet – with less than 30% of the world’s Internet users being native-English speakers.

And what’s the most used language for writing web pages? A study on the presence of Romance languages on the internet, published by the Latin Union in collaboration with FUNREDES, showed that as of November 2007, 45% of all web pages were written in English, 4.41% in French, 2.66% in Italian, 1.39% in Portuguese, 0.28% in Romanian and 5.9% in German.

You probably clicked onto this page perhaps thinking there might have be only one “most spoken language  in the world” and I did, too.  However, what is plainly obvious is that internet has distorted the concentration of languages throughout the world and changed how language is used – both for personal and business use.

Category: Cultures, Languages, Technology | Tags:
Matthew Connaughton | June 1, 2010
No comments

ALS in Top 100 Language Blogs

Stopping short of giving a Gwyneth-esque Oscar style speech – we did it! We are one of the web’s Top 100 Language Blogs! Thank you very much to everyone who voted for us in this year’s  poll.

Getting carried away: Not us.

Getting carried away: Maybe, but not this much.

In the end we were placed 33rd in the overall blogs poll and got seventh place in the Language Professionals category – all of which, for a website that is less than a year old, is excellent progress indeed.

It’s also testament to both our contributors and the kind of content we’re bringing to the blogosphere.

Over the next six months we’ll bring you a few new developments with more webinars, video content and best practice guides for all things language and language services related.

Also, because we don’t assume to know it all, we’ll also be including some guest articles from other notable language bloggers, extending the range of expertise you regularly find on here.

Thank you all again, we hope you keep coming back!


Stopping short of giving a Gwyneth-esue Oscar style speech, we did it – we are one of the web’s Top 100 Language Blogs!
Category: Business Management, Cultures, Languages, Localization, Technology, Translation |
Matthew Connaughton | May 21, 2010
One comment

The state of language skills in the UK…

Just read a hilarious article on The Times website, which I’d urge you all to have a look at (quickly now, while it’s still free!). It’s obviously an exercise carried out, in jest, to make a sobering (but potentially valid) point.

Said point being that language skills among us Brits, according to this article, are not of a high standard. Also, judging by this article our standards can be quite funny, too – though admittedly not always as bad as the example as this picture, below, paints of some native English speakers.

Language wit. Or half of it, at least...

Expectional: Language wit. Or at least half of it.

That said, wouldn’t it be nice to see language checks on similar signs in another country to see if we really are that bad compared to, for example (and to add to our sense of self-loathing, obviously) one of our close European neighbours?

However, if a non-English speaker was to call ALS, we could make use of our Instant Telephone Interpreting service, which opens the call to a live (human) interpreter. This service is widely used by many of our public sector clients.

With Instant Telephone Interpreting, you don’t actually need to learn any other languages, and you don’t need to demand that your callers speak English. So, while that might, to some, keep our stereotypical reputation intact, it does ensure that people can converse with others speaking another language – and do so with ease.

Calls for the most frequently requested languages can be connected within 30 seconds, so you never have to refuse a call from a non-English speaker – not to mention never having to wind up in some smarmy piece in the Times.

What are your experiences of language awareness?

Category: Cultures, Interpreting, Languages, Technology | Tags: ,
john_dixon | April 16, 2010
5 comments

Post Edited Machine Translation – The New Industry Standard

Post editing of machine translation will become the defacto standard before long. There, I’ve come to terms with it and I’ve said it, but can everyone else?

As the rise of machine generated translation keeps increasing at its current pace, the translation community must recognise that this may very well become the normal starting point for human linguistic involvement.

Whilst some translators adopt the “head in the sand” approach – and we know who you are – others are beginning to embrace the technology and get ahead of the game, and everyone involved is cutting costs in the process.

Most localisation companies will have to create a Post Edit Machine Translation option, while the linguists supporting them will also have to support this proliferation of technology.  The time for filibustering has to stop.  Customers are demanding it – and as the old adage goes, the customer is always right.

I am not saying human translation will become redundant (far from it), but it will find its place in the right solutions – one of which will be something you cannot avoid, PEMT.

Are you on-board the PEMT bandwagon?

Category: Languages, Localization, Machine Translation, Technology | Tags:
Page 1 of 3123