First Edition
Ten Things to
Consider for
Medical Device
Translation
April 1, 2013
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© 2013, Argo Translation, Inc.
Argo Translation, Inc.
2420 Ravine Way, Suite 200
Glenview, IL 60025
www.argotrans.com
For additional information contact:
Peter Argondizzo
[email protected]
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Text Expansion
1
Most languages expand by
15% to 35%. Make your
layout flexible enough to
allow for expansion of text
into the layout.
Text expansion during translation
Other Considerations:
Most translation projects will result in a longer document than
an English (source) document. Text expansion (or possibly
contraction) should be included in the planning of the source
content.
• Be careful when abbreviating text to fit into small spaces. It
might not be possible to replicate the abbreviations in other
languages. The translations might need to be written out in
full length. In many languages it is not common to abbreviate
text. Forced abbreviations could result in loss of meaning.
Expansion and contraction percentages will vary based on the
language, the size of the area allotted for your text and the
translator’s writing style. Here are some general ranges that will
help you plan the layout of your document.
• Sometimes very short source text, such as “FAQ” results in
higher than expected expansion (“Preguntas frecuentes” in
Spanish). This poses a challenge for space-restricted areas
(i.e. tabs or buttons on a website).
• Many languages including Spanish, French, Italian,
Portuguese, Polish, Arabic and Hebrew, will result in text
expansion of +15 to +30%.
• Some languages like German, Finnish and Dutch use
compound nouns that are much longer than typical English
words. For example, three words in English may result in one
much longer word in German. This poses a problem with
automatic text wrapping features. Here is a German example:
Let’s take the phrase TV marketing strategy. In German, TV
is Fernsehen, marketing is Marketing, and strategy is
Strategie. While our original English term is 3 separate
words, the corresponding German term is one compound
noun: Fernsehmarketingstrategie.
• A few languages such as Dutch and German might expand
+35% or even more.
• Chinese, Japanese and Korean will generally contract,
anywhere from -10% to -55%. In spite of content contraction,
there might be character expansion (increased space
between characters as a result of complex character styles). This means that the horizontal space required to fit the
translated characters could remain the same, expand or
shrink.
• Certain languages like Chinese can expand vertically (an
increase in character height), so spacing between lines of
text might need to be greater than in the original document.
• Try to design your document with as much flexibility as
possible to allow for text re-flow. Avoid small, fixed-width
headers, tabs, buttons and graphics. This will keep your
desktop publishing costs down, avoid awkward translations,
simplify the QA process and ultimately reduce project
turnaround.
3
Useful Resources
• Common ASCII/HTML codes for extended characters
charlie.balch.org.
• Resource for extended fonts Linotype website.
4
Choose your
vendor carefully
2
Choosing a translation
vendor can be difficult. A
good place to start is
learning how to properly
compare estimates.
Top 3 things to remember when
comparing translation provider quotes
2. Does the quote include an independent
proofreader or editor?
Translation quotations can be a bit confusing. The wording of
competing quotes can be similar but in reality what you are
actually getting could be very different. Keep these points in
mind so you can successfully compare “apples to apples” when
shopping for translation:
Often times a quotation might include an editing line item, but
you should ask if the review is handled by an independent
editor and not just another pass carried out by the lead
translator reviewing their own work or even a quick review pass
handled by an internal project manager. It is OK, at times, to
only have one translator working on a project. However, that is
usually only for very small projects or because the client has
requested it. The language used in quotations can be tricky so
just make sure that you understand who is actually doing the
“editing.”
1. Is the quote for human translation or machine
translation?
Typically you will see the lone term “translation” in your quote.
For a long time it has been a given that translation meant
translation done by a human. However, since machine
translation has become more advanced, some vendors are
starting to substitute machines as a first step in their translation
workflows. Instead of a human, they will have a machine run
the first pass of the translation. Then, an editor will attempt to
clean up the machine translation. Machine translation is no
substitute for the quality of a human’s work. If you receive a
quote that is substantially lower than what you get elsewhere,
that is a big red flag signaling the use of machine translation.
Machine translation is acceptable in some instances but
shouldn’t be used for high-risk or important translation projects.
Since “translation” can technically come from a human or a
machine it is important that you understand what process your
translation provider is using and what you are getting for your
budget dollars.
3. Is this honeymoon pricing?
If this is the first time you are getting a quote from a provider, be
sure to ask if the quote represents their standard pricing. Often
times an initial quote will come in incredibly low, just to get the
client in the door. You might find your costs will increase
significantly in subsequent projects.
6
Useful Resources
• Two guides as provided by the American Translator’s
Association - Translation – Getting It Right and Translation
Buying a Non-Commodity both guides courtesy of American
Translator’s Association. Author, Chris Durban.
• Price per word should only be one of your concerns…. Argo Translation website. November 8, 2010.
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Consider localizing
contact information
3
You should consider
changing the contact
information, toll-free
numbers and mailing
address in your
documentation to serve
your target market.
How will your customers contact you?
Distributors
Typically your user documentation, marketing collateral and
websites list toll-free numbers and addresses. You should
consider listing your distributor’s information or if you have an
office in the target country you could list that information.
If you are using a distributor, you might consider going over the
workflow of customer questions, service requests, parts orders,
issue tracking and resolution.
If you will be fielding the calls from your headquarter’s facility,
you might consider an agreement with a telephonic
interpretation service. This type of service is typically available
24/7/365 and would give your call center the ability to include
an interpreter on customer calls on an “as needed” basis with
no advance notice required.
Look for a service that doesn’t charge monthly maintenance
fees, setup fees or monthly minimum amounts. This will save
you money on low-volume months.
You may also want to put a plan in place on how to address
written questions that come in through your website. You could
ask your translation vendor for rapid response on those
projects. You could also setup your “contact us” forms to
automatically forward to your distributor and/or your translation
vendor to cut down the time on responses. Think of a new country or market as opening a new office. You
should consider properly preparing the distributor to handle
customer requests. Consider preparing FAQ documents and a
simple collaboration site where your service people and
customer service reps can share best practices with your new
office or distributorship.
Useful Resources
• Tips for working with a telephonic interpreter Argo Translation website. October 31, 2011
• Tips for opening offices overseas Microsoft website. Author: Jeff Wuorio. 2011.
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Software projects
4
The proper translation of
your product’s user
interface is a key factor in
the success of your entire
translation effort.
Setting up your user interface (UI) projects
There are a host of file types associated with UI projects (Java
Properties, .net environment, .xml, etc). No matter what type of
software your engineers are writing, there are some key steps
that will help your translation project go smoothly.
We would suggest the translation of your software first,
hardware labels and buttons second and then user
documentation (web, help or print). Doing the project in this
order will ensure that the translation team has a proper list of
the buttons and prompts when translating the documentation.
It is incredibly important to share your software lists with your
translation vendor. A dangerous situation can occur if the
references to software in a user’s manual don’t match what is
actually on screen. Consider the prompts for a defibrillator. The
last thing you want to create is confusion! Prevent this issue by
giving your translation team the appropriate materials.
Project kickoff
During the quotation stage we suggest you verify that the
translation vendor can properly parse your files. A fair share of
translation management tools for UI projects can do “dummy
translation” tasks where random characters from a given
language are inserted into the file with leading and trailing
characters such as “**”. Here is an example of how you might
configure the settings in a program like RCWintrans.
You can also define an expansion factor. This will allow the
engineers to test the ability to support the special characters for
a given language and also test for the probability of overwrites
based on the expansion factor for that language. Please share
this information with your translation vendor! They should be
able to help you plan how to reduce text expansion issues in
the final product.
Useful Resources
• Software programs for handling UI projects
• Passolo
• RCWintrans
• Simple text editor for viewing multiple file types like
XML, .net, etc.
• Notepad++
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Regional
considerations
5
Many languages will also
require you to focus on a
sub-language for a given
country or region. Get a
good understanding of
local considerations for
language and customs.
Local language
It is very important to determine your target market’s language.
For example, it isn’t advisable to just ship one version of
Spanish to all Spanish-speaking countries. Spanish for Spain is
very different than Spanish for Mexico. Similar constraints exist
for French (Canada or France) and Portuguese (Portugal or
Brazil).
In order to show full consideration of your target audience, you
should advise your translation vendor which countries are in
your target audience. That will help determine the appropriate
sublanguages for your markets.
Local customs and norms
The content of your documents should be reviewed for issues
that are only relevant here in the United States (we are
assuming US-based companies). Some of those issues
include:
• Slang, humor or catch phrases that may not translate well or
could lose meaning in translation
Some marketing messages also have to be carefully thoughtout. A customer once created a brochure with a sub-heading
that read “The Art of Cardiology - Redefined.” Well, our
translators didn’t think the reference would work in
translation....and they were right. The Italian office was the first
to react.
Their feedback was that physicians would be offended when
compared to artists. No problem, we adjusted the message to
read “Cardiology....Redefined.”
Useful Resources
• Ethnologue - an encyclopedic reference for the languages of
the world
• Top ten spoken languages of the world Argo Translation website. July 11, 2011.
• Units of measure
• Toll-free numbers
• References to local authorities (e.g. Dial 911 for assistance,
TSA, FAA, FDA, HIPAA)
• References to social programs or benefits like (Social
Security, 401k, Health Insurance, IRA, Section 529 Plans)
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Proper register
6
Comprehension of your
message is imperative. Set
the register of your
document at the proper
level.
Adjust the register of your document
Useful Resources
We have many clients that create IFU’s (Instructions for use) or
ICF’s (Informed consent form) for specific segments of the
population where the education level might be lower than
average.
• How to use MS Word to test your document’s readability This is a set of instructions on how to run a readability test on
an MS Word document. The article also explains how the
scores are calculated. Microsoft website.
It is incredibly important to communicate this requirement to
your translation vendor. The content you create should be
easily understood by your audience. The difficulty level of the
content should be set at or below their reading level.
• Use short, simple, familiar words - keep it simple.
• Use simple graphic elements like bulleted lists and numbered
steps.
• Avoid overly complex medical jargon.
• Use language that is culture and gender neutral.
• Use simple sentences, active voice and present tense.
• Begin instructions in the imperative mode by starting
sentences with an action verb.
These points are key for both your source and target
documents.
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Website and app
translation
7
Proper preparation and
consideration of your web
and app projects will help
you define and limit the
scope of your project.
Proper definition of the
scope will allow you to
request quotations with
confidence.
What to provide for a quote request
when translating a web site
Here is a simple sample of what your script might look like:
When seeking a quotation for the translation of web content, it
is important to tightly define the scope of the project.
We get many quotation requests for website translations. The
conversation usually starts with, “Can you give me a quote for
the translation of our site? Here is the address
{www. mycompany.com}.” This is a mistake.
By approaching your website translation estimate in this way,
you will get different scopes and prices from every vendor you
contact. When translation providers are faced with a quotation
request like this, they will either build a site script by manually
cutting and pasting the content into a text editor or by using a
website capture tool like Blue Squirrel’s Grab-a-Site or
InSpyder’s Web2Disk. These processes will lead to a variable
source for your quotations. You won’t really know if you are
comparing the vendors properly.
The best approach is to ask your webmaster or developer for a
proper export of your site in some form of XML or HTML. If that
isn’t possible, then you should create your own text-based
script of the content or even a subset of your content so that
you can fairly measure the cost of each vendor against the
same source document.
App Translation
When documents are highly formatted with special fonts and
embedded text within graphics, they require a certain level of
pre- and post-translation project preparation. Website and app
translation projects require special project preparation. Just as
a design document might need special attention to graphics
(especially those containing text), websites and apps might also
have graphics in the form of icons, buttons and screen shots
containing text that needs translation. Similarly, web and app
files may need to be converted into formats that are compatible
with translation tools.
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As with any translation project, there are cultural differences
that must be taken into account when publishing websites and
apps for global audiences. For example, the colors used and
the shapes of icons might not be the best option for the
countries in which a company plans to launch sites or distribute
apps. Other areas to be reviewed include spacing rules, text
direction, date and currency formats, etc. Even the size of the
font should be considered. Imagine how difficult it would be to
read intricate Asian language characters in the equivalent of 6
or 8 point font. For more information on internationalization and
multilingual web standards, visit the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C).
Useful Resources
• Tools for “grabbing” or capturing a website
• Blue Squirrel Grab-a-Site
• InSpyder Web2Disk
• Interesting adjustment for text-to-speech ability for Spanish
app translation Argo Translation website. December 4, 2012.
• World Wide Web Consortium
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Internal review
8
Getting “buy-in” or
approval from your
distributors or global
offices is important. Setting
some guidelines on the
internal review process will
help you get valuable
feedback without hindering
the process.
Key requirement for client review of translation
Some clients require an internal review of external translation
work before the approval or release of a project. This is a good
step; however, if one key component is missing, the review will
actually decrease the quality of the final translation.
The reviewer must have a deep knowledge of the topic. This is
essential, not optional.
I know this seems trite. Why wouldn’t the reviewer have
knowledge of the topic? After all, the client has made their
choice based on the ability of the reviewer to add value to the
translation, right?
Far too often clients will choose their reviewers based on
language ability alone. Here is a good way of thinking about
this. Let’s pretend you are a technical writer and you need input
on a technical specification. Let’s also say you you have two
choices within your organization for help. Would you choose an
engineer that worked on the product or someone from the
accounts payable team? I would guess most of you would
choose the engineer.
Why is this discussion not applicable to translation? More often
than not, internal reviewers are not properly vetted or screened
to evaluate technical translation. Typically clients are very
diligent about making sure that authors of their content are
properly qualified. The same level of diligence should be used
for reviewers (of course translators, too!) .
We recently handled a technical project that required approval
by the client. When we received the markup the reviewer asked
what ETO (ethylene oxide) and DOP (dioctyl phthalate) were?
Since the document was technical in nature, we would have
hoped that the reviewer could add some value during the
review phase. The fact that she did not understand two very
common chemical names key to the client’s technical
specifications disqualified her as an appropriate reviewer of the
document.
The client review process should add value to the process not
detract from it. Please choose your reviewers carefully. If the
client reviewer is qualified, he or she will be a valuable part of
the workflow.
Guidelines
• Ask your reviewers to only markup errors and/or terminology
changes. Stylistic changes should not be made.
• To save your reviewer time, allow them to suggest global
changes rather than markup every single instance of a given
term. The translator can easily make global changes within
the translation management system.
• Use the track changes feature in Acrobat or MS Word to
clearly show all changes.
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Useful Resources
• Bilingual does not equal professional translator Argo Translation website. November 29, 2012.
• Choose your translation reviewer carefully Argo Translation website. October 11, 2011.
• Four reasons your distributor shouldn’t handle your translation Argo Translation website. March 1, 2010.
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Proper reporting
and documentation
9
All translation vendors will
profess their quality
process, but digging a little
deeper will help you find
differentiating factors. Ask
your vendor how costs and
regulatory compliance
efforts are documented.
Regulatory Compliance Reporting
Medical device manufacturers typically face stringent
requirements for reporting who completed their translation
projects and the process used. Product releases are dependent
on the accurate and timely reporting of this information.
While most companies have different SOP’s related to
translation, you will find some common requirements like the
requirement of an audit trail or the ability to identify the
translator, independent editor and project manager.
It would be a good idea to understand how your vendor reports
this information and how quickly you will get the report after
project completion. A sample report from our system is
displayed in the next panel.
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Budgetary information
Detailed information about your translation budget will help you
understand the efficiency of your vendor’s utilization of
translation memory. It will also help you create your budgets.
Your vendor should be able to provide this information. Here is
a breakdown of the type of reporting we provide our customers.
The next section is a bar chart illustrating the amount of money
spent by language.
The list of completed projects section features key information
organized by project such as the number of words, gross cost,
translation memory deductions, net cost as well as project
duration and an on-time delivery indicator.
The next section lists all open estimates and projects awaiting
approval.
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The last section lists the total expenditures by year along with a
percentage increase or decrease year over year. We also
feature a column listing the amount of money saved due to
translation memory discounts.
Useful Resources
• Video on regulatory compliance platform
Argo Translation video channel on Vimeo.
By surveying our clients we discovered that this data is
extremely helpful for building budgets, gauging costs of
entering into new markets (new languages for products) and
generally understanding the level of activity for each quarter
and each year.
The goal in keeping very granular data on each project is to
extract as much useful data for our clients as possible. Our goal
is to continue to simplify the pricing and budgeting process for
translation services.
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Translation
memory
10
Every translation vendor
should be using translation
memory technology.
Having an understanding
of how this technology
works will help you save
money on projects and
ensure you are getting
consistent content across
all your projects.
How translation memory works
Translation memory technology has been around for quite
some time now, but we still run into clients that are not quite
sure how translation memory (TM) benefits them as a buyer of
translation services.
Translation memory serves two basic purposes.
1. Saves money for clients on updates and revisions of
documentation
2. Increases consistency across projects
Translation memory can help to achieve these goals by storing
translations on a sentence-by-sentence basis in a large
database. When a new project is requested, the project
manager analyzes the files to determine the amount of total
words, repetitions, 100% matches and fuzzy matches that
are in the project. This data will help determine the client’s final
cost. Here is a sample of what the analysis report looks like.
It is also helpful to understand the difference between the three
types of matches.
• Repetitions are identical sentences within the same project.
In other words, this would be the same sentence occurring
more than once in the same project, which can occur in one
file or multiple files. An example would be having the same
warning appear multiple times in the same manual.
• 100% matches are identical sentences as compared to the
translation memory. In other words, a sentence in the current
project is an exact match to a sentence in a previous project.
• Fuzzy matches are similar sentences as compared to the
translation memory. In other words, a sentence in the current
project is a close match to a sentence in a previous project.
A fuzzy-match example would be:
NEW: Please select the print option to print out all selected
reports.
OLD: Please choose the print option to print out all selected
reports.
Notice that the sentences are slightly different as indicated by
the bold words in the NEW version versus the OLD version.
This would generate a fuzzy match.
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Discount levels typically differ for the three levels of matches.
Please consult with your language service provider to
understand how these matches are illustrated in project
estimates.
Useful Resources
• What is a context match relative to translation memory? Argo Translation website. May 8, 2012.
• Three questions to ask your translation vendor about data security Argo Translation website. January 18, 2011.
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Contact us
Argo Translation is a Chicago-based Translation agency providing specialized language translation services for the medical and
healthcare industries. We provide efficient, world-class language services and solutions for foreign language translation, software
localization, website translation, multilingual desktop publishing, interpretation and project management.
Think big – the entire world is your potential customer. To reach prospects effectively, your business needs a dedicated partner who
will help you extend your presence across multiple markets and languages.
Argo Translation Inc. makes the foreign familiar by removing the barrier of language, connecting you to customers from around the
world. We offer unmatched translation capabilities based on our principles of responsiveness and efficiency, allowing your business to
better engage with your customers.
Argo Translation, Inc.
2420 Ravine Way, Suite 200
Glenview, IL 60025
www.argotrans.com
Phone: 847-901-4070
Twitter : https://twitter.com/ArgoTranslation
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/argo-translation
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LSP
Language service provider - an acronym typically used to refer to translation vendors.
Related Glossary Terms
Translation memory
Index
Find Term
SOP
Standard Operating Procedure - a set of steps that define a given process. Medical
device manufacturers are typically required to keep very detailed SOP’s.
Related Glossary Terms
Drag related terms here
Index
Find Term
TMX
A standard file format used for importing and exporting translation memory databases
to and from multiple translation management systems.
Related Glossary Terms
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Index
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Translation memory
Refers to the database that makes up all of the memorized translations that are stored
by your language service provider. Typically the material is stored in complete
sentences or segments as separated by full stops (period, comma, exclamation point,
semi-colon, colon, question mark or hard return). Commonly called a TM in our
industry.
Related Glossary Terms
LSP
Index
Find Term
UI
User interface - refers to the software that makes up your software product.
Related Glossary Terms
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Find Term