idioma News
®
The Language Factory
Language is a mixture of
statement and evocation.
Elizabeth Bowen
WINTER 2013
www.idioma.com
News
Quality Assurance
Q
uality in translation is not only
a matter of presenting a correct
translation free from spelling mistakes
and other linguistic errors. It is also
about using correct terminology from
glossaries, making sure text in the
document is unified and that rules
and customs for the language have
been respected.
Quality can suffer in many ways. Short
deadlines, for example, affect the outcome of quality in translation especially
with large volume projects. How can
we speed up delivery without compromising the quality of translation? This
became our mission years ago.
An obvious solution is to check documents more than once, however, when
humans check text, they have limited
capacity, get tired and make mistakes.
We wanted to find a different, complementary and automatic solution, so
we could check more languages and
bigger volumes in less time. It should
detect mistakes like wrong numbers,
untranslated text, misspelled words,
unification issues, etc.
So we put many brains together and
with the help of our in-house programmers we developed a unique QA (Quality Assurance) concept that checks
bilingual files for errors in record time.
The main tool is CrossCheck, a cornerstone in a comprehensive concept
forming a framework of quality that all
translations must adhere to. It departs
from the need to develop glossaries,
e.g. from existing translated bilingual
data such as PDF fi les, website text,
etc., and prepare language-dependent
style guides for translators and verifiers working on projects.
World-leading
QA checker
Find mistakes
before it is
too late!
CrossCheck checks documents according to detailed client-specific criteria
and resources that include client glossaries and customized style sheets.
This way, we create a standard that
everyone must respect to enable us to
produce unified and consistent translations with a clearly defi ned level of
quality.
If glossaries and style guides do not
exist, we will be happy to help prepare
them, and we also assist with client
preferences, such as forbidden words
and other issues.
These contents prepared for the QA
concept are automatically integrated
in our production system. This QA
concept has taken quality assurance
to a new level, especially thanks to
inclusion of morphology and locale settings. With CrossCheck, terminology
and language rules become compulsory
ingredients in the translation and
verification process.
idioma’s QA service is, however, not
limited only to the projects we translate.
We now offer it as an aid to our clients
and anyone else wanting to assure the
quality level in translated documents.
Please read the article below that describes the newly released CrossCheck
service and how companies can get
bilingual documents checked for free!
Or visit www.idioma.com today to
test it yourself.
For more information about the QA
service or to see a demo, please contact
your project manager.
Services
Free CrossCheck online
F
or every translation project we
handle, idioma’s state-of-the-art
QA tool – CrossCheck – performs quality assurance on our iQube
translation server. It checks translated
text for possible errors and reports
them instantly before the translator
or verifier can close a text segment. As
such it is compulsory for the translator
and verifier to confirm indicated errors
before moving on to the next segment.
CrossCheck can check more than
60 different issues, including provided glossaries and customized style
sheets. Here are some types of errors
that CrossCheck can detect:
Completeness
–– Untranslated text parts
–– Text completeness
Terminology
–– Terminology mistakes
Typography
–– Multiple spaces together
–– Missing/superfluous space check
–– Unusual letter case alternation
–– Missing/redundant symbols
–– Punctuation marks
Tags
–– Tag mismatch
–– Inconsistent tag structure
–– Verify tag order
–– Spaces before/after tags
Consistency
–– Translation consistency
–– Symbol mismatch
–– Fences mismatch
–– Number mismatch
and many more!
2012 version
Morphology
Online and free to use
On top of over 60 different checks covered
by CrossCheck, we have developed an innovative morphology feature that makes
this customizable QA tool even more
interesting. In the past, when checking glossary terms, since inflections
and different grammar rules between
languages could not be excluded countless false errors arose. Too many false
errors slow down the checking process
and can lead to delays. This tedious false
error workload motivated us to include
language morphology in CrossCheck,
making it a unique application in the
translation industry.
The newly released CrossCheck 2012
version is hosted at idioma.com and is
available to everyone with an Internet
connection. CrossCheck on the web is
offered as a free online service where
you can check translated bilingual
documents any time of day.
An example of morphology applied in
CrossCheck is the German translation
of House. If House must be Haus in
a German glossary, CrossCheck can still
detect whether the term is correctly used
even if it appears as Hause or Hauses.
The feature filters out and dismisses
false errors saving us significant time,
so we instead can concentrate on the
actual translation process.
Another example below exemplifies how
the morphology feature works for the
English word “red”, which is “červený”
in Czech.
The service works with bilingual files
in for example ttx, xliff and tmx format. The files you upload are checked
instantly, and after a short while, you
will see an error report and be able to
correct the segments. You can dismiss
errors you are not interested in, correct
others, and then save the file back to
its original format. You do not need
the original application that created
the file.
For errors you may not be able to correct
yourself, you can send them via a link
to your own supplier, or for a modest fee
you can request idioma for assistance,
for example to translate untranslated
text.
All the error checks, including morphology, can be used in the free
CrossCheck online service. For more
details on CrossCheck, please visit
www.idioma.com and see for yourself
how QA checking can become a breeze
and improve the quality in your translated documents.
In Czech, the word for red is červený.
It can be inflected in 8 different ways.
Without morphology, a standard
QA tool would generate many false
errors.
With CrossCheck, only two of
these are correctly reported as
errors.
2
Translation
A
t idioma we translate into many
different languages, close to
seventy at the last count, and
in many different combinations. Some
of these languages are different variants of the same basic language. Sometimes they are very similar, at other
times quite different.
For example, for Norwegian, two flavors
exist: Bokmål and Nynorsk. Bokmål
is by far the most common variant in
Norway and is used in the private and
commercial sector, while Nynorsk is
used mostly in some western regions
and in public administration. The two
dialects differ considerably from each
other.
Then for Portuguese, there are also different tongues, and the language used
in Portugal differs from the one used
in Brazil, for example. In spite of the
fact that a language reform has been
signed into law (in Portugal in 2008), in
reality there are quite many differences.
Schools in Portugal now teach the new,
standardized Portuguese language,
which means that in a global perspective spelling and grammar should become standardized. Most newspapers
and magazines in Portugal have also
adopted the reform, which officially
must be applied by latest July 2014.
Language Facts
Language flavors
The biggest obstacle, however, seems
to be the choice of words. Especially in
technical writing, there are numerous
cases where Brazilians prefer different
terms than those used in Portugal,
which is one reason why Portuguese
for Portugal and Portuguese for Brazil
will most likely continue to coexist for
quite some time.
Spanish is another case in point where
differences exist. Spanish in Spain tends
to be quite modern with development in
a different direction from other Spanish
tongues. Most of the Spanish dialects
in South America are quite conservative, and the dialects used in Mexico
and Caribbean are influenced by their
proximity to the United States.
In Belgium, people in the north speak
Flemish, a variant of Dutch. This dialect can’t really be called a different
language as spelling and grammar are
the same as for standard Dutch. Here
the difference is rather in the frequency
in the words used, although all words
exist in standard Dutch as well.
Similar to Flemish, the German vocabulary used in Austria and Switzerland
is also common, however, the preferences, especially in Switzerland are
many times for different words than
those that are commonly used in Ger-
man. Additionally, in Switzerland the
German character “ß” is not used, and
instead people write “ss”.
In our work, we come across the issue of
language flavor daily. We of course translate into the various dialects mentioned
above, and many more, and we will be
happy to help with issues regarding
which language or dialect to translate
into. Many times, it is more important
to know the target market than the
language itself or whether a document
will be used in many different markets.
Steen Carlsson
Prague Production Center
Managing Director
35 years experience in translation
Brazilian Portuguese
B
razilian Portuguese language is
one of the Latin languages. It
is the official language of Brazil and it is very similar to European
Portuguese.
Currently a new international orthography agreement is being implemented
for the Portuguese language. It is an
attempt to unify Portuguese in Portugal
and Brazil as well as other Portuguese
speaking countries, planned for completion by around mid 2014.
Brazilian Portuguese has 181 million
native speakers.
Brazilian Portuguese is a very rich and
complex language due to its phonological system.
Portuguese follows the standard English alphabet, but excludes the letters
K, Y, W.
The following characters also exist:
Á, Â, Ã, À, Ç, É, Ê, Í, Ó, Ô, Õ, Ú, Ü.
They are not regarded as independent letters and do not have separate
entries in dictionaries. The trema on
Ü is currently only used in Brazilian
Portuguese.
Alphabet:
A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R
S T U V X Z
a b c d e f g h i j l m n o p q r s t u v x z
Rio de Janeiro
3
Who is who
Marta
My name is Marta. I come from a small
town in the south of Slovakia, where
Hungarian is spoken rather than the official state language. Originally, I came
to Prague to study Czech, however, I fell
so much in love with Prague during my
studies that I have remained living here
until the present. I have been working
for the Prague branch of idioma since
2003 – if I do not count the four years
on maternity leave. My work here is
to process translation memory (TM),
converting documents and checking
translation quality with our various
tools. It is a great opportunity for me
to explore the diversity of languages.
It is a very interesting job that I really
enjoy, although it is demanding, and
requires maximum concentration and
strong nerves when deadlines are short.
My life has changed since I first met
Prague, not only at idioma but also
mainly with the birth of my son Kryštof.
I devote all of my free time to him. He
is a part of my life in the true sense of
the word. My previous pursuit of studies and intellectual development has
been replaced by an entirely different
interest. However, over time (and with
no time for studies) I find that these
new findings are very enriching. I enjoy
Prague even more now with my son.
Together we discover Prague’s mystique,
we explore its mysterious corners in
search of famous alchemists, watermen
at Kampa Island, or Princess Libuše on
Vyšehrad, and we wait to see whether
Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel finally
creates his Golem.
customers face to face and listens attentively. What needs, issues, or interests
you may have evolve into our priority
and concern. We aspire to be a company
that is at your doorstep when in time
of need or when given the chance to
simply drop by and say hi. No matter
whether you are a long-time customer,
a new customer, or a potential customer,
please keep in mind that we are eager
to learn your needs and work with you
to handle the linguistic processes and
semantic issues you encounter.
Marta Bohušová with Kryštof
Epilogue
Relocation
I
n June 2012 our Tokyo Office
moved to Kojimachi in the center
of Tokyo. Historically, Kojimachi
was known as a merchant town that
dates well back to the Edo period. For
several years now our operations have
grown significantly and encouraged us
to expand our operations and further
develop communication and relationships with our customers in Tokyo.
We aim to be a company that meets its
We hope the year 2013 will be successful for you, and look forward to seeing
you soon.
Best Regards,
idioma team
Contacts
Gothenburg
Sweden
Prague
Tokyo
Czech Republic
idioma s.r.o.
Holečkova 25
150 00 Prague 5
Czech Republic
Japan
idioma Co., Ltd.
Tel.: +420 2 5156 5000
Fax: +420 2 5156 4000
E-mail: [email protected]
Izumi Shoji No. 2 Bldg. 7F
4-2-6 Kojimachi
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
102-0083, Japan
idioma Sweden
Tel.: +81 3 6272 8936
Fax: +81 3 6272 8938
E-mail: [email protected]
Stora Åvägen 21
436 34 Gothenburg
Sweden
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Tel.: +46 31 723 84 50
Fax: +46 31 723 84 99
E-mail: [email protected]