Ccaps Blog

The idea for this blog post occurred to me when I was accessing the recently created milengo intranet. milengo Inc. is a company formed by Ccaps and 15 other partner companies worldwide. The goal of the intranet is to allow the people who are part of the milengo family to be at the same place, at least in the virtual space.

The idea behind the company is rather interesting: “milengo is an alliance of leading localization companies situated in the most important global IT markets.” Each member brings in a great deal of experience to the group and follows both a unified and proven quality-assurance methodology and a centralized project management system.

It is clear that, despite the uniform methodology of this “single” company, it is actually comprised of 16 different companies, with their own particular structure and working habits. How then can these “branches” embrace milengo’s identity and work as one company?

Bearing this in mind, I created the following list:

Cons
Different Metrics – Because each language has its own particularities, sometimes it is hard to have a single metric for all languages offered by milengo, making it more difficult for the GPM to elaborate quotes.
Working Methodology – Each company has their working methods established, and these are often different from the unified methodology of the corporation.
Cultural Differences – Since the 16 companies are located throughout Asia, the Americas and Europe, we are in the middle of a genuine Babel Tower.
Long Distance Relationships – Personal contacts are invariably done in the virtual space, contributing for potentially superficial relationships.

Pros
Response Time – despite the variety of time zones involved in the process, the response time of a global company is undoubtedly shorter, when compared to that of independent companies.
Working Methodology – These various methods are acknowledged and often times incorporated into milengo’s unified methodology
Cultural Differences – As GPMs, we have to work exclusively with the partners, which allows us to learn how to deal with such differences and benefit the most from them.
Long Distance Relationships – The impossibility of communicating live with your colleagues is rather challenging, yet when properly conducted can result in long lasting friendships.

Apparently, the pros have been more powerful than the cons as milengo is gaining momentum by the day and has helped me grow both as person and a professional.

People can say whatever they want. Yup, I’m guilty as charged and in no position to deny it. Indeed I am a romantic at heart and love smooth-tongued songs and silly movies with a happy ending. I’ve seen movies like Pretty Woman, Someone like you, Bridget Jones and others thousands of times. And, in many cases, I’m capable of saying the characters’ lines with astounding accuracy. My iPod couldn’t be different – it is stashed with these songs that talk about all kinds of love (whether it’s mutual, lost, wished, stolen, imagined…), which I choose to hear according to my mood at the time. In one of them, called Cinco discos (Five Records), Brazilian singer Pedro Mariano sings:

So many times Have I wondered without knowing Whether there was something wrong Backing away from you The silent reply failed And tricked me I’ve read 200 books And 5 records have I listened to I’ve searched 1,000 dictionaries To know what I did wrong So much time just thinking ‘bout it If I could have another chance You know how much I try To deserve you once again Was it something I did Or said I don’t get it When I came to it You were no longer here    (Translation by Miguel Lopes)

For some reason, when I listened to this song today, the word dictionary stood out and reminded me of our work. Then, I started to imagine a situation that I’m sure Pedro Mariano didn’t have mind when he recorded the song. Here it goes:

A translator completes the first assignment for a company. The project manager confirms receipt with appreciation, pays for the job and simply disappears. Not hearing from the client after that, the translator decides to review the work he delivered to see whether there was something wrong. The translator ends up doing more research and looking terms in “1,000 dictionaries.” The delivered files are read incessantly in an attempt to understand what went wrong. The translator thinks about calling the project manager asking for a second chance. But it is really not worth it.

If I were to follow the author, at the end of my story the translator would be looking for other clients, as that particular one is history now. Yet since this is my story, I get to choose the end that I want. So, I would rather have a happier ending. I tried to write one, but unfortunately writing poems and music is beyond my capabilities. Suggestions are really appreciated, though.

As an English-speaking person, you probably haven’t heard this much, or haven’t even heard it at all. But Brazilians have always wondered when the diaeresis* would be eliminated from our language. I’ve been hearing for centuries that it was bound to be extinguished, but this never actually happened… Now it is official though. According to the new Ortographic Agreement of the Portuguese Language, which has recently been approved by the Portuguese Parliament, one of the changes to be implemented in Brazilian Portuguese is the elimination of the diaeresis.

The second protocol of changes of the Ortographic Agreement puts an end to all the discussion on the unification of the official Portuguese spelling. On January 1st, 2009 the Agreement will be effective in Brazil, which will have three years to adapt to the new writing. Portugal, on the other hand, will have six years to adapt, since the changes there will be in a larger number. The Portuguese dictionary will have to have 1.42% of its words modified, while in the Brazilian dictionary only 0.43% of the terms will be changed.

With the Agreement, the Portuguese alphabet will now have 26 letters, including once again the k, w, y. In the Brazilian Grammar, there will be the following eliminations: the (illustrious) diaeresis; the stress marker for open diphtongs in “ei” and “oi” of paroxytone words (such as “idéia” and “heróico”); the stress marker on “oo” hiatus (appearing in “enjôo” and “vôo”) and verbal forms such as “crêem,” “lêem,” “dêem.”

As for Portugal, mute consonants, such as the “c” in “acção” or in “director” and the first “h” in words such as “húmido” will be suppressed. The differences regarding stress markers between Brazil and Portugal will be maintained: “econômico”, as we pronounce it here, will remain in Portugal as “económico.”

What I enjoyed the most was what José Saramago had to say about the Agreement: “I’ll keep on writing the same way. Now it is up to the reviewers.”

Answering the email from the GPM – do I have to do it right away?

The answer is ‘yes.’ As soon as possible!

In a five-language project, apart from the internal resource (localization engineer), the Global Project Manager (GPM) deals with at least five different contacts in the respective offices. This is because the person who responds to the initial email might not be the one who will communicate with the GPM after the project has been approved.

I have managed projects in which I received emails from three different people in the same office who were in charge of a single language. Moreover, the GPM exchanges messages with the client, sometimes with the client’s developer, and often with the translators, who should communicate only with the LPMs. Here is a rough calculation: if there is only one translator per language, we will have 12 people writing compulsively and only one, poor GPM to answer them all.

Therefore, my dearest LPM, whenever you receive a heads up or handoff email from your GPM, make sure you answer it asap. It may seem a trivial matter, but your answer can make a whole lot of a difference in the success of a project planning, especially if there are 25 languages involved and a list of additional activities and resources that you had no idea they existed.

It may sound a bit obvious that a translator, having completed the translating process, carefully reviews the text he or she has just produced, right? Wrong.

From what I have seen in my work as a translator/reviewer, a considerable amount of translators doesn’t even bother to read attentively the final text, so as to, at the very least, detect typos and common mistakes resulting from a simple lack of attention.

The ideal scenario is when the translator first re-reads the final, translated text and compares it to the source. The aim here is to see whether there is a part that remained untranslated (unintentionally overlooked) or whether something was misinterpreted, resulting in mistranslations. In Portuguese, we call this “cotejar”, which roughly means to compare.

Next, the translator should do what we would call a final review: read once again the whole translation, setting the original aside for a while, so as to catch grammar mistakes, confusing structures, tone, word repetition, and so on. This ensures quality in the final text; it is quite similar to what we call Quality Assurance (QA) in localization.

Last, but not least, it is crucial that the translator places him or herself in the position of the reader, and decides whether the text “sounds like English”; in other words, whether it can be read as if it were produced by a native speaker, with adequate elements to that particular language. I believe that is precisely what makes the translation process a hard nut to crack. However, it is an essential aspect if we are to obtain a text with high quality – it determines whether the translation will be a fluid, easy-to-understand text, with structure and vocabulary choices compatible with the target language.

Sure, after lots and lots of research and “brain knots,” necessary to translate a more complex text, one can’t help but feel a bit lazy and decide not to read the whole thing and review it in every detail. In fact, when I was in college, my translation professor had to call my attention time and time again for having made silly mistakes, due to – yeah, you’ve guessed – lack of a good review. I was lazy myself when it came to reviewing my own translation. However, with the encouragement I was given to improve my text and my willing to produce perfect translations, I started to get used to reading what I wrote and became surprised with the amount of mistakes one can find with some good old review.

The result is that, today, besides using the MS Word spellchecker – a useful resource, often overlooked by translation students and even some experienced translators! – I have developed the habit of re-reading my text, at least once. And I must say that I always – I mean “always” and cannot emphasize that enough – find something that can be improved, changed or fixed.

This is my encouragement, then. Want to improve the quality of your translation and add value to yourself as a translator? Then, by all means, review your text!

I started using Babylon back in the days when I was a freelance translator. However, after opening Ccaps and dedicating my time to make sure its steady growth was achieved, I no longer (or hardly) needed the help of online translation tools and dictionaries.

Of course, every now and then I have to make use of these fantastic resources that made my old dictionaries on the shelf look like a museum piece (just like my Imperial and Hermes typewriters). Yet, for some reason, probably because the need for such tools was no longer as intensive, I somehow discontinued their use and Babylon became one of those pals of which you keep a good memory. 

Few weeks ago, talking to Miguel, our up and coming language expert, he told me that he was using this brilliant online free dictionary called… Babylon! That had been a recommendation of our senior project manager, Adriana, who can find these Internet pearls like no one in the office.

dictionary @ a click

But could this be the good old Babylon that had helped me so much when I struggled with some more complicated terms? Were they still there, after more than 10 years? Absolutely! There it was: the same old logo, improved resources and a much more complete dictionary to help me write eventually truncated messages to clients or have them deciphered.

Coincidentally or not (as I believe everything has a purpose), we have been recently approached by lovely Ursula Ron, from the Babylon content management department. She made a proposal to have their name listed on the Ccaps Blog in exchange for some licenses of the full software version. Yet Babylon is such a nice tool and can be so helpful to fellow translators and company owners that I would have recommended it here regardless of her offer. Do you know why? Babylon 7 features include:

• Automatic Spell check of your online text entries
• Smart dictionary to and from any language
• Auto completion of your query terms.

Babylon’s online translation and dictionary software offers results from a database of 1,300 sources in 75 languages. The database includes 25 professional dictionaries in 14 different languages developed by Babylon’s team: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Hebrew, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, Russian, Korean and Swedish.

In addition, Babylon offers add-on premium content from world-renowned dictionary publishers, including Oxford University Press, Britannica, Merriam-Webster, Larousse, Vox, Langenscheidt, Pons, Van Dale, Melhoramentos and Taishukan.  

So why don’t you try it yourself?

Official homepage: Babylon Dictionary and Translation Software.

And if you contact Babylon, tell them you heard about the tool after reading this post. I am sure they will like it…

July – a month traditionally associated with vacations is also a month that brings working mothers like us a problem: who is to take care of our children?

This is not just a problem for the ones who work in an office. Those who work as freelancers also need to manage the contracting work and the art of motherhood. However, with a great deal of patience and flexibility, we manage to fulfill our tasks and still find some time to catch a movie.

Enjoy your holidays!

Sorry, but no English post
This refers to the directions the Portuguese language is heading through popular use.

The process of simultaneous interpretation at the UN allows each representative to speak in their native language and have their speech translated as they speak. A mistranslated word, a misunderstood sentence, some poor translation – all this can turn an innocent speech into an international catastrophe. And we are not short of examples.

In the course of development of African countries, delegates often have a tendency to highlight the fact that ancient tribal traditions are no longer observed. A French-speaking African delegate once stated that “Africa no longer builds altars for the gods” (L’Afrique n’érige plus des autels aux dieux). However, because the interpreter thought that the word “autels” was in fact “hôtels” and that “aux dieux” was “odieux,” his translation was “Africa no longer builds horrible hotels” (L’Afrique n’érige plus des hôtels odieux).

During the decolonization period, a representative of the then British Empire reported the activities that took place in the African region under British rule. When he spoke of the local attempts to fight the plague of rhinoceros beetle, the Russian translator did not understand the word “beetle;” only “rhinoceros.” The Soviet delegate, under the impression that the region was being flooded by countless rhinos, asked what kind of equipment the natives were receiving to resist such a terrible invasion. When told they received a broom and buckets with chemical products, this obviously sounded to the Russian delegate as a lack of willingness from the colonizers to distribute decent weapons to the local population, who could not protect themselves against the hordes of rhinos. Wait, there’s more: as a demonstration of unheard of ecological concern, he asked why the last hundreds of rhinos should be eliminated from the region. The British delegate joyously replied that this was not a concern, since there were still millions of such animals there. “Every spring they fly in large swarms and eat tree coats,” said the Brit.

When an interpreter tries to improvise or adapt a very well-known proverb, he or she occasionally creates some rather interesting situations. One such interpreter, while trying to translate from English to Spanish the saying “there is more than one way to skin a cat,” was suddenly inspired to adapt the core meaning to a bullfight. Excited with his creativity, he made up a saying and thought it worked well in the Spanish language: “One can catch a bull with more ways than by the horns.” The session was interrupted by the loud laughs of the Spanish-speaking delegates. They were afraid that anyone would think of grabbing the animal by some place other than the traditional horns of the obviously well-hung “toro.”

Interpreters have been used for hundreds of years to make sure that people who speak different languages can communicate. There is the well-known case of an ambassador from the Swiss cantons in the court of Louis XIV who knew enough French to understand that what was being said to the French ruler in German was being translated as excessively flattering and servile compliments. After the speech, the ambassador reprimanded the interpreter saying he could understand some French and what had been translated was not what had actually been said. The interpreter’s swift reply was as follows: “Indeed, ambassador. I just translated what should have been said.”