Pursuing the Translation Dream: How to Keep the Phone Ringing

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Have you been following our five-part series on how to assess your readiness to become a successful translator, inspired by ATA’s Self-Evaluation Questionnaire for Translators? If so, we hope your phone is ringing by now! Today we will discuss tips for how to keep the calls coming, based on section 3 of the aforementioned ATA checklist, titled “Professional Relationships (How to keep the phone ringing).”

But before we dive in: if you are just joining, you may want to have a look at the first two posts in the series:

Part 1: Pursuing the Translation Dream: What to Know Before the Phone Rings

Part 2: Pursuing the Translation Dream: What to Know After the Phone Rings

Now buckle up and get ready for the good stuff.

By now your hook is baited and you’re starting to get some bites. How do you keep the catches coming?

As you may expect, there are some no-brainers when it comes to retaining clients and landing new ones: make sure to offer consistent quality, be trustworthy (think honoring deadlines and confidentiality agreements), and, importantly, when it comes to finding new clients, be sure to regularly evaluate and refine your marketing strategies. (Here are some ideas on how to get your name out there, from Carlos Djomo’s post, “6-Step Strategy to Translators’ Visibility.”)

Beyond these foundations for fostering strong relationships, we selected four more tips ripe for the picking, based on the ATA questionnaire.

Do I return phone calls promptly?

Availability and promptness may strike you as “no-brainers,” but as obvious as they may seem, their importance cannot be emphasized enough—hence this being the first of the four tips.

If you take away only one thing from this post, let it be to respond promptly to clients.

If possible, make a habit of replying to new project requests and other important client emails within 30 minutes to an hour. To avoid distractions from work, you may choose to set a reminder to check email every hour. I do this by checking email when my Pomodoro timer goes off (every 25 or 50 minutes, depending on the day or the task at hand).

If you do check email frequently for client messages, be sure to filter out nonurgent emails and tend only to client messages that merit a response. Otherwise, you may end up unnecessarily digressing from work. If you are unable to respond for 90–120 minutes or more, consider setting an autoresponder to let clients know you will reply as soon as possible.

Even if you are unavailable for a job, send a prompt and gracious reply so the client knows they can rely on you next time. You may want to streamline the process by creating an email template (or a “canned response” if you’re using Gmail) that you can reuse and make minor edits to on a case-by-case basis. This limits time spent drafting responses for each individual email, yet allows you to keep clients informed.

Interested in more email hacks? Have a look at this post by Victoria Chavez-Kruse: “Inbox Zero: Forever in pursuit of ‘No new mail!’”

Do I maintain a positive, cooperative attitude? (Are my requests and specific working requirements reasonable?)

You have probably heard the saying, “People work with people they know, like and trust.” In fact, you may have heard it more than a few times. (Clichés are cliché for a reason: they are true!) Successful translators are easy to work with: they have a pleasant, can-do attitude, are willing to cooperate, and have the ability to see things from the client’s perspective. All of these qualities will make you a pleasure to work with.

Here are some questions to ask yourself that will help you reflect on what kind of impression you make: When I am asked to edit a text that was poorly translated, do I immediately complain about quality, or do I try to get to the bottom of why this happened and how to avoid it in the future? When a client cancels a project after it has already been approved, is my response firm and professional, yet friendly, and does it invite the client to collaborate with me on ways to avoid the problem in the future? When I correspond with my clients, do I show them they are valued and not just an email address without a face or name? I like to feel valued by them, and surely the same is true for them!

You may just find that your quest for a positive attitude in your work makes you not only a pleasant collaborator, but a more optimistic person in other aspects of your life, too. Talk about a win-win!

Am I flexible? Am I open to change? (Can I readily admit mistakes and offer to correct them?)

Translation projects are often dynamic. There are last-minute changes, unexpected hurdles, and the occasional impossible expectation. You can minimize the impact of these challenges by accounting for them from the start (for example, add in a time buffer when agreeing to deadlines). When difficulties arise, flexibility and a can-do attitude are key in overcoming them.

As for inevitable oversights and mistakes, what matters most is not their occurrence, but how we face them when they are brought to our attention. It is natural to feel defensive about our work (after all, we put an excruciating amount of care into it!), but we must remember that our clients are our greatest allies. In fact, in the case of agencies, we share the self-same goal of producing an impeccable text for the end client, and as any writer or translator knows, four eyes are better than two.

Take time to evaluate the alleged mistake with a cool head before deciding how to proceed. If a correction is in order, be gracious and prompt about delivering the changes. Remember to take note of what went wrong for the future. If you truly feel the client is mistaken in their correction, you may opt to defend your translation, but do so considerately and be sure to acknowledge the client’s point of view.

Can I accept the fact that my client does not know all about my profession or its problems, nor my personal difficulties, and that it is not his or her responsibility to learn about them?

Think of the last time you hired someone. Whether it was a graphic designer, lawyer, general contractor, or taxi or Uber driver, what did you want or expect from this person? Did he or she deliver, or were you subjected to woes about professional or personal problems? Imagine, for example, a taxi driver who complains that he needs a new car battery or waxes on about the cause of his crabby mood. Now think of someone you hired or worked with who was a joy to do business with and whose service delivery was seamless.

Be someone you would enjoy doing business with. This means getting the job done well in a timely fashion and clueing in the client to decisions where they should be involved, while refraining from bringing up personal matters or complaints, as poignant as they may be. We are all human, but your client hired you for one reason and one reason only: to translate (or edit, etc.). Never lose sight of that reason.

Now that you have some new ideas on how to nurture strong relationships with clients, we hope you continue to reel in a steady flow of loyal customers. Even once you are sitting pretty with a solid client base, there is always room to fine-tune your business skills and relationships with clients and colleagues. Indeed, we will take it a step further in the fourth (and penultimate) installment of this series, which will touch on professional demeanor.

Get a sneak peek by checking out section 4 of the ATA questionnaire. Want more from Savvy in the meantime? Check out this post by Tony Guerra on getting and keeping agency clients. We would love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

This post originally appeared on The Savvy Newcomer

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Oxford English Dictionary extends hunt for regional words around the world

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From ‘hammajang’ to ‘munted’, lexicographers have issued a worldwide call for regionally distinctive words to define

Wide reading … the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

 Barry ambition … the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Photograph: RTimages/Alamy

The Oxford English Dictionary is asking the public to help it mine the regional differences of English around the world to expand its record of the language, with early submissions ranging from New Zealand’s “munted” to Hawaii’s “hammajang”.

Last year, a collaboration between the OED, the BBC and the Forward Arts Foundation to find and define local English words resulted in more than 100 new regional words and phrases being added to the dictionary, from Yorkshire’s “ee bah gum” to the north east’s “cuddy wifter”, a left-handed person. Now, the OED is widening its search to English speakers around the world, with associate editor Eleanor Maier calling the early response “phenomenal”, as editors begin to draft a range of suggestions for inclusion in the dictionary.

These range from Hawaii’s “hammajang”, meaning “in a disorderly or shambolic state”, to the Scottish word for a swimming costume, “dookers” or “duckers”, and New Zealand’s “munted”, meaning “broken or wrecked”. The OED is also looking to include the word “chopsy”, a Welsh term for an overly talkative person; “frog-drowner”, which Americans might use to describe a torrential downpour of rain; “brick”, which means “very cold” to residents of New Jersey and New York City; and “round the Wrekin”, meaning “in a lengthy or roundabout manner” in the Midlands.

The dictionary has already found that, depending on location, a picture hanging askew might be described as “agley”, “catawampous”, “antigodlin” or “ahoo” by an English speaker, while a loved one could be called a “doy”, “pet”, “dou-dou”, “bubele”, “alanna” or“babber”.

“The OED aims to cover all types of English, including standard English, scientific and technical vocabulary, literary words, slang, and regionalisms. So it’s important to include these words to enable us to present a picture of the English language in all its forms,” said Maier.

The Words Where You Are appeal is looking for more suggestions. These words will go alongside the regional words suggested by members of the UK public last year, when BBC Radio listeners were asked to send in their local turns of phrase, which were later included in poems by authors including Liz Berry and Hollie McNish for a National Poetry Day project.

“We were surprised and pleased by the number of regional words we were able to include as a result,” said Maier. “With the public’s suggestions as a starting point we were able to unearth a rich seam of regional vocabulary.”

Some of the words suggested in the UK date back centuries, such as “zamzawed” – Devon’s term for food or a meal that has been spoiled by overcooking – to more recent coinages such as “jarg”, used in Liverpool to refer to something false or misleading. Other additions now in the OED include “antwacky”, meaning old-fashioned, and “barry”, meaning great, with more to come.

Maier said that it can be difficult for the OED’s lexicographers to identify regional words, as they are more often spoken than written down, and the editors require citable evidence to include a new definition.

“In recent years, resources such as Twitter have been a great way for us to monitor the words that people are using informally in particular parts of the world and this, combined with targeted appeals, allows a lot more of these words to be identified and researched,” she said.

“Tarzy”, for example, is a Middlesbrough word meaning a makeshift rope swing used to swing over a river or stream. Lexicographers have so far dated it back to 2003, but Maier said that it is likely to have been used before that, with a colleague’s mother remembering using it as a child in the 1970s. The word can only have arisen in the 20th century, however, as it derives from the Edgar Rice Burroughs’ character Tarzan.

“Regional words indicate that their users come from a particular place and often contribute to one’s sense of identity,” said Maier. “You know you are home when words such as tarzy … can be used in the knowledge that they will be understood.”

Regional vocabulary has been included in the OED since its first edition, with many of the public’s suggestions, such as “ginnel” (an alleyway), “grockle” (a tourist), “far-welted” (describing a sheep on its back), “nesh” (cold, susceptible to cold), “clarty” (very muddy), “sneck” (a latch), “kaylied” (drunk), and “throng” (busy), already listed.

This post was originally published on TheGuardian.com

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The market for multimedia localization services in 2018

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Multimedia is an invaluable tool for business worldwide today, which is why the latest issue of MultiLingual, which just went live, focuses on it.

Multimedia has become an effective and efficient way of connecting with the target audience. Multimedia content includes audio, video, flash movies, animation, eLearning content, rich media and interactive materials. Multimedia localization is the process of modifying media such as audio or video with the aim of adapting to the preferences and the needs of people in various geographical regions across the globe.

Often translation solutions are the key component of multimedia localization. However, multimedia localization providers take additional aspects like cultural differences and local regulations into consideration. By combining both translation and technical skills, they are able to produce high-quality media that reflect both the target audience and the source material. Multimedia localization can be and should be an influential and powerful communication tool — regardless of whether it’s utilized for commercial or informational purposes. Due to high demand, increased need and interest for information, more and more businesses and organizations are turning to multimedia such as eLearning modules and videos as a way to inform, train and educate their customers and employees both locally and globally.

Multimedia platforms such as video have become a major way for the audience to consume information. Multimedia platforms must be localized for the global market so as to ensure they fit with the customs and culture of the region. Localization services include voiceover, also referred to as dubbing, on-screen translation and subtitling. Multimedia localization providers usually employ local media specialists, translators and editors to ensure a seamless transition.

Multimedia localization is a complex process. It often involves:

  • Subtitle/script creation and translation
  • Voiceover recording and syncing
  • Animation/graphics processing and adaptation
  • Video production
  • Testing and quality assurance

Recording professionals work in teams using state-of-the-art linguistic and recording studios to ensure high-quality results. Businesses use multimedia localization services when looking to reach more audience and expand media to other regions in a functioning form that adapts to the local culture, regulation and language. Multimedia localization is best used when a business is trying to expand to a new country. Localization providers will usually modify videos on the business’s website by implementing a new voiceover in a new language. Localization is considered essential since multimedia is accessible for users with different native languages. In cases that don’t involve an overall translation, other forms of localization may still be useful or welcoming to the target audience who are the potential customers. With localization, the probability of a larger userbase is higher.

What 2018 has in store for multimedia localization services

First would be shorter videos with larger language sets and tighter turnarounds. The emergence and expected dominance of social media in the industry definitely changes and affects the kind of content we see. In fact, social media has already done that. People on social media don’t stay on a video for very long, which is why most content on social media platforms are particularly short. Social media users, and users in general, expect a great deal of customization. Marketers now are creating larger suites of videos with slight creative tweaks to appeal more to different users and also as suites of content which users can cycle through. An example could be a slightly different video for a different Facebook timeline visit. Project language sets are expected to get larger and timelines to get increasingly shorter. Expect to see short videos that can work on mute. This trend is affecting subtitling since most of the narration track is recapped through on-screen titles.

Second is text-to-speech voiceover. Text-to-speech is widely accepted now for making visual and written content accessible to sight-impaired and blind persons. This is because text-to-speech has been used widely in accessibility services for almost a decade now. This was the first field that adopted text-to-speech, users are more familiar with the voices and their uniqueness. English has the most advanced text-to-speech voices. However, several companies around the world are now working on creating multilingual sets. Languages like Spanish are phonetic, the linguistic makeup of such languages lends themselves to text-to-speech. Text-to-speech voiceover is becoming the acceptable standard for accessibility. In 2018, there will be increased development of multilingual text-to-speech voices, particularly Spanish voiceover.

Third is social media. 2017 wasn’t a great year for social media. The clouds are just clearing, and marketing opportunities will solidify over time. Brand safety, reporting and analyzing the performance of marketing pushes were a major concern for social media. Particularly brand safety became a primary concern for the multimedia localization industry and translation in general as marketers were constantly expressing their concern on the likelihood of their content getting paired with offensive or violent content. There was much confusion over how efficient and effective ads on social media were. The same concerns are expected early on in the year. However, growth is expected later in the year. Currently, Facebook is pitching inserting mid-roll programmatic ad breaks, that is, commercials in videos, same as YouTube and other streaming sites such as Hulu. A heated competition is expected as social media takes on streaming ad revenues. Over time marketers will have a real sense of the opportunities social media ads can provide with brands and companies. This means a more sustainable growth in the sector, and in turn, it will drive up video dubbing and subtitling. In a nutshell, continued disruption in both media production and distribution will, in turn, affect the look and feel of online video and how it’s translated, localized or transcreated.

Fourth is an establishment of virtual reality localization standards and technologies. Virtual reality videos are also known as VR videos or 360-degree videos. There isn’t an accepted standard or an implementation technology for the localization of virtual reality videos. However, there are a couple of promising leads. YouTube has enabled traditional captioning in the platform’s viewer for VR videos. The BBC is also working on developing standards and technology to make its VR content accessible to hard-of-hearing and the deaf. A debate over how to implement captioning when the video has multiple points of focus to which the user can navigate is expected, particularly over how to localize voiceover elements of this content.

In general, 2018 is an exciting year for voiceover, dubbing and subtitling. This is the year that eLearning software will fully adopt standard captioning formats such as SRT. This is expected particularly with new Adobe Captivate releases later on in the year. A turbulence is brewing in the subtitle and captioning industry as the market is likely to get saturated with providers of varying quality. The continued online streaming dominance will affect timelines, delivery methods and pricing. Online dominance streaming will affect user’s language-support demands as well.

Multimedia localization services tips to remember in 2018:

  • Size is becoming a crucial factor as the changes continue in the localization industry. The global market is increasingly expanding, and the business side of localization systems is also evolving. Businesses and companies now will be looking for larger localization partners with an impressive portfolio and a wide range of capabilities. Large technology companies like Google and Apple are extending their activities into the localized arena. With their capital and new forms of technology, it is inevitable that localization is inevitable.
  • Digital content is the way to go. The demand for localized digital content is exponentially increasing. Social media and dynamic website content will require localization into an increased number of local languages. Including localized apps, eLearning content and multilingual videos.
  • There is an influx of language requirements. Businesses targeting audiences globally should see an increased selection of supported languages. The increased digital content and localization of apps and websites means more focus on smaller local markets in Asia and Africa with customized transcreation or translation. Medical device companies will be impacted by the regulatory changes in Europe. The new European Union medical device regulations set to take effect in 2020 require instructions, labeling and packaging for use to be translated into a total of at least 32 standard languages. In a few instances, geopolitical changes are impacting language in 2018.
  • Translation tools and technology. The primary driver of innovation in localization industry is speed to market, since the primary focus of the industry is technology and automation. Computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools are incorporating adaptive machine translation. Introducing more post-editing into the standard translation process allows translators to work faster and reduces cost. Voice recognition, text-to-speech and automated interpreting solutions will revolutionize localized audio output.

Today, there are higher standards of produced content than in the yester years. The audience today expects content localized in their native or local language to be released simultaneously with the English source. They also expect content localized to the highest quality despite whether they are viewing the content on TV, social media, streaming sites or any other distribution platforms. This is perhaps 2018’s greatest challenge as well as the greatest opportunity to multimedia localization industry.

This post originally appeared on Multilingual.com

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