WWMSD?

"What would Microsoft do?" What do you do when you need to translate according to the terms Microsoft uses?

Microsoft has a long, storied past of localization, and a correspondingly colossal corpus of translated material. Until a couple of years ago, they made just about every string in dozens of their products available in .csv files via FTP for free download, subject to copyright. No doubt that became laborious for them - it certainly was for those of us who tried to keep up with them - so they've since switched from making all of the strings available to making 12,000 key terms available in up to 59 languages in a single, 10MB spreadsheet. The file is at www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/MILSGlossary.mspx

The winners in this simplified approach are those linguists creating a term list, or translation glossary, for a specific project that must adhere to Microsoft terminology; e.g., how Microsoft translates "Cross Array Link" in Korean. The losers are linguists who need to know, for instance, how "Completing the Hardware Wizard" or "Windows Security - Verify Publisher" is rendered in Slovak or Pashto.

The term list also takes aim at a long-standing problem with localization at Microsoft (or any large organization); namely, that there was inconsistency in translation among products. While not all translators will agree that these terms are ideal in a given language, at least this is a move in the direction of consistency, and sometimes it's better to be consistent than to be right. It's generally easier, anyway.

If you enjoyed this article, you may like another called "Where Do Your Glossaries Live?"

Low Quotation - Four Questions to Ask

Have you figured out how to add value, even when you don't get the job?

A client asked us to look into quotations on taking some marketing materials in MS Word and Adobe InDesign into Traditional Chinese. Our preliminary word count was around 15,000 total, and we spent time educating the client on how to deal with all of the graphics that had embedded text. Since they were marketing materials for an upcoming trade show, we put on our best neckties and helped the client think through the project as far as possible.

As we were preparing to analyze the files for a proper quotation and statement of work, I received this message:

"I wanted to let you know our Taiwan office has located a local translator that has quoted us $1800 for this job. Do you think your quote will be a lot higher? If so, there's no need for you to proceed. Just didn't want you to spin your wheels."

We suspected our quotation would be 3-4 times higher than that. What would you do? Would you:

1. Doggedly pursue the business, refusing as a matter of principle to be low-balled?
2. Upbraid the prospect for falling for such a low price?
3. Do nothing, considering it beneath your dignity to reply?

You'd have good reasons for any of these responses, I suppose. I gave it a good, long think over last weekend and replied Monday:

"That is quite low. If price is your paramount criterion, then you'd better go with that quote. In any event, you should make sure it includes:

• second set of eyes (besides those of your in-country reviewer)
• translation memory
• glossary (terminology list)
• desktop publishing + PDFs

Let me know how it goes."

We in the industry stand to gain nothing by scaring prospects, but since power in the Web 2.0 age seems to come from a delicate balance between giving everything away and keeping your families fed, perhaps our real value-add lies in helping prospects ask the right questions.

Your thoughts?

If you've enjoyed this article, you might like another one I wrote called "Why Are You Charging Me For That?"

Have you cleaned behind your glossaries?

Don't take this question too personally. After all, I'm not asking whether you've cleaned behind your ears, or behind your couch. But last week I asked the digital question, "Where do your glossaries live?" and this week I'm asking about the state of their hygiene.

One of my client-companies is quite proud (and justifiably so) of the considerable work they did a couple of years ago in building out a 600+ entry glossary in ten languages. They (or their language vendor, really) have hosted it on the Web, with read-only access to any translator who does work for them.

This model of glossary has the inestimable benefits of being universal, up-to-date and centralized - there is only one glossary - instead of being a patchwork of spreadsheets and tables on several different hard drives in several states of accuracy. It's set up for alpha-listed browsing and search, although the search function is not fuzzy unless you use wildcards, so some translators will not derive full benefit from it and may in fact miss terms.

While managing a sample translation for the client, I wanted to export the glossary to review it all at a glance, so I mentioned that. "Nope. That's not possible," the client told me, with more than a hint of pride. "We designed it so that there would be only one glossary in one format in one place. We don't want it exported or circulated unnecessarily."

Now, I'm in business to see my clients succeed, but that kind of mindset is just a tempting challenge to me, and as I managed the sample translation I deliberately looked for reasons why a hermetically sealed glossary like this was a bad idea. Naturally, I found one: The client had not cleaned very well behind their glossary.

Several industry-specific terms occur in the sample, and I knew the translators would be obliged to use the glossary. For instance, terms like "drive" occur in various combinations ("link drive," "offset drive," "drive mechanics," "rack-mount drive," etc.) in the glossary, and as I poked from one entry to another I noticed inconsistencies and contradictions in how "drive" was translated, notably in German. One entry gave "Laufwerk" as the translation, and another entry bore the note that "'Laufwerk' is obsolete."

The online model for hosting this glossary is a good one for several reasons, but it's not amenable to the healthy, periodic scrub that such databases should undergo. If the glossary were exportable, or at least visible in row-and-column format, these inconsistencies would be easier for translators to spot and address.

Interested in this topic? You might enjoy another article I've written called "Where do your glossaries live?"