Ccaps Blog

Hello everyone! After spending some time away from the blog, I want to share with all of you today a tip on a very helpful terminology search tool.

It is called IntelliWebSearch and I found out about it during a lecture by translator Fernando Campos Leza during the 3rd ABRATES International Translation and Interpretation Conference, which took place this year in Porto Alegre. These events are always so good for learning new things. And this is what I will share with you now!

IntelliWebSearch is what Michael Farrell, the guy who developed the tool, calls the “Three Steps to Term Searcher’s Paradise.” This means that you perform searches in three stages only, streamlining your work. The tool is nothing more than a series of shortcuts for your most highly used search sources to guarantee that you waste less time.

This is what it looks like:

You select the word you want to search for in any program and press CTRL+ALT+B to open the program. Then you click the Search number you want to use, granted that all are fully customizable!

By clicking GroupSearch, you search all the sources from a given group at the same time; and in PluriSearch, you search in those that you configure.

There are five groups, each one of which has 10 sources; or in other words, you can include your 50 favorite search sources, separate them into categories (groups) and configure everything in the way that is most convenient for you.

The complete configuration requires a bit of work, but it can really pay off! I am already configuring mine here…

Ah, and here I am at the ABRATES Conference with co-worker Wandrianne and my beloved former boss, Renato Beninatto! =)

How is it possible that no one has talked about Twitter here at the Ccaps Blog? OK then, I will be the first!

It is very unlikely that you haven’t heard of Twitter as everyone talks about it on the Websphere. Yet a lot of people don’t have the slightest idea of what it is.

The Wikipedia describes it as “a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications.” In other words, it’s a way for you to share anything and everything with anyone that has a minimal interest in what you have to say. And the best part, you are not required to follow your followers and vice-versa.

Have you twitted today?

Contrary to what you may think, Twitter is not like Orkut, Facebook or the like! Twitter is a place where you exchange information in real time with various sources, have fun, talk to friends, get in touch with celebrities or receive online promotions. The sky is the limit!

As expected, the localization world is all over on Twitter! There are various companies, professionals and industry magazines with profiles on Twitter that you can follow, if interested. Those who became Twitter-addicted here at Ccaps are your humble writer, Fabiano and Bruno.

Those that cast the first stone at Twitter, thinking that it is silly and useless, are the same who became addicted in the first week!

To follow Ccaps (@ccaps_l10n), click here.

I have not written a post for the blog for a long time now — the workload is crazy and, despite my having good ideas, I simply cannot stop and write. But there has been a topic on my mind for quite a long time now: work under pressure.

When I had my first job interview for a translation agency (the now gone LMI, Language Management International), I was applying for a position of translator trainee. Then the psychologist asked me, “How do you feel about working under pressure?”

I had never worked for a company and did not have the slightest idea of what she was talking about. Yet I said it was OK, that I would be perfectly fine with the pressure.

Overloaded? It is time to stop!

But we know that such situations can be quite frustrating, and this is why each one uses their own methods to let go of the tension. Here are some of my methods: 

1. As soon as I get to work, check all my deliveries for the day to make sure I will not forget anyone.
2. Color flag all pending emails in Outlook, so as not to lose sight of them.
3. Write down on my notepad all the tasks for the day and tick them as I get them completed;
4. Give myself a break to breathe, drink some water and check out on my colleagues;
5. Ask for help! Team work gives me the confidence and ease to complete tasks that seem to be too hard at first glance;
6. Realize that I cannot do miracles. This is key! It is useless to commit to an impossible deadline as you will get nuts in the end! It is important to negotiate with the client a most realistic turnaround, which will eventually benefit all parties.

A few years ago, there was a professional who could come to Ccaps every week and give us tips on workplace exercises. That was quite awesome! For 15 minutes everybody stopped whatever it was that they were doing to stretch out their muscles and try to relax a little. I will have a talk with the boss to bring the stretch break back…

Let us not allow the pressure of the market to drive us crazy! A mentally healthy employee works much better.

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.”

Sorry, no English translation for this post.
This is a celebration party only for Portuguese speakers

I have just completed my MBA course in Project Management and I must say that, although much of what was said in class does not apply to the localization field, I managed to learn a lot on the best practices of risk and time management, human resources, acquisitions, communications etc.

But since we spend 90% of our time dealing with people (clients, vendors, in-house colleagues and others), it is crucial to understand exactly what your client is asking from you, thus measuring the “quality” of your final work. Quality is not what you believe to be good; quality is what your client asked for.

Take a look at the picture below:

In the first part, we see what the client asked for, and in the last one, what he really wanted.

Lack of adequate communication, perhaps?

Very often in my day-to-day work are vendors who do not read instructions. Or perhaps read them so quickly that they fail to grasp what is being asked for that particular project. I know everybody has a busy life, with lots of things to do, and that we have tight deadlines and short timeframes. But if the instructions are not read, one cannot know what is being asked. The potential consequence is the delivery of work below the expected quality standards.

And nobody wants that, right?

Frequently asked question: where can one find good translators? Even better, what makes a translator a GOOD one? I have been working with localization for some time now, and what I have noticed is that testing a new, unknown translator is like a shoot in the dark. Contrary to what most people think, merely knowing a foreign language does not make someone a translator. Brazilian universities may offer translation courses, but they do not necessarily form good translators.

Experience and knowledge are key here, but how can anyone acquire experience if they are not given the opportunity to start with? From the corporate point of view, it is hard for us to work with inexperienced professionals due to quality and turnaround. We do not always have the time to redo a task that did not meet the expectations nor can we take such a risk, for quality always comes first.

In the resumes we receive, there are always specialties and personal tastes: orchids, jogging, ice skating! I once attended a lecture by Isa Mara Lando during a conference organized by the Brazilian Translators Association (ABRATES) and learned that, according to some researches, HR teams take, in average, 8 seconds to read each CV they receive. Therefore, the good old recipe of being objective when writing your resume still applies, right?

Good translators, do come forward! We wait for you with open arms!

Quick task: Name someone who has NEVER worked with subtitling, is completely clueless about the process involved but loves to criticize subtitles in foreign movies and TV series. Well, I don’t know who came to your mind, but I certainly fit the description… Hahaha!

I just love to watch the US sitcom Friends, and even bought all the DVDs of the series. I can never forget an episode about “Paul, the wine guy,” someone Monica was going out with. After hearing the expression “Paul, the wine guy” over and over, Phoebe comes up with “Does that mean that he sells it, drinks it, or complains a lot?” You’re probably wondering about the translation, right? Here you go: “Isso significa que ele vende, bebe ou reclama demais?” Obviously, this kind of play on words (wine X whine) is completely lost in Portuguese; and no matter how awful I found the translation to be, I still could not think of a better one.

I know some people who have experience in subtitling and I am quite aware of how tough it is to juggle with time management, character limitation, synchronization and the jokes that only work in English! Especially when it comes to US sitcoms…

This year, Localization World, one of the largest localization events of the world, will happen in Berlin in June. The event is organized by MultiLingual magazine and the Localization Institute and features the most important players of our market.

More information can be found at http://www.localizationworld.com but unfortunately the call for papers has already been closed. However, you can still sign up to be notified about when they will open for registration. Keep yourself posted.

Has your client asked you to translate something in European Portuguese, or even to “review” a European Portuguese text into Brazilian Portuguese? He may have asked you whether it is the same thing to translate a text in one language or the other. Mine has done that as well. I’ll briefly point out here some of the reasons why it is virtually impossible for Brazilians to work with European Portuguese texts and vice-versa.

Phonetically speaking, here in Brazil, we pronounce all vowels to the fullest, whether they are stressed or not. In Portugal, there is a tendency to pronounce only the stressed vowels. But what is more important in our case are the differences in meaning and syntax.

In Brazil, we prefer to use the gerund (e.g. “Estamos trabalhando” when one wants to say, “We are working”). The Portuguese however prefer the infinitive form (“Estamos a trabalhar,” when they want to say the same thing). In Brazil, we use the pronoun “você” for the second person singular; in Portugal, the pronoun “vos” is generally more used. In a sentence like “If I read to you,” you would hear “Se eu lesse para você” in Brazil and “Se eu vos lesse” in Portugal.

Here, the expression “falar consigo” means speaking to oneself, while in Portugal it means speaking to you. It is quite common there to use the comparative form “mais pequeno” (smaller), while in Brazil the grammatically correct comparative form “menor.”

Mute consonants were mostly eliminated in Brazil yet are still widely used in Portugal. Words like “ação” (action) and “ótimo’ (great), for instance, are written as “acção” and “óptimo” in Portugal. The umlaut is still used in Brazil to mark the pronunciation of the “u” in diphthongs, examples of which are words like “lingüiça” (sausage) and “freqüência” (frequency). Only in Brazil.

Stressing is also different in both countries because of the pronunciation: while in Brazil, we write “tônico” (tonic) and “cômodo” (comfortable), in Portugal it is written as “tónico” and “cómodo” with an open “o.”

There are also many differences in meaning. The ocean between us has developed several semantic differences, making each language increasingly distinct. In Portugal, a “bicha enorme” is nothing more than a large queue. In Brazil, however, one would think that you are talking about a very tall gay man.

Do speakers in Brazil and Portugal understand each other? No doubt. Do they want to read in each other’s variant? I don’t think so!

For more information on this topic, I suggest reading Fabiano Cid’s article published in an early edition of the Ccaps Newsletter: Nice country; I’ll take it