Diversity In Localization. Olga Melnikova, speech at Summer School for Novice Translators and Interpreters (Riga, Latvia). July 4, 2017

1. Diversity In Localization
Olga Melnikova
Summer School For Novice Translators And Interpreters
July 4, 2017

2. About The Speaker: Russian Experience
 Degrees: MA in Creative Writing from Gorky
Literature Institute and MA in Teaching French and
English from Kaluga State University
 2007-2014 – translator for Russian Translation
Company (Ru, En, Fr)
 2010-2012 – court interpreter (Ru, Fr)
 2010-now – futureactually.com - volunteer

3. About The Speaker: US Experience
 May 2015 – MA in Translation and Localization
Management, Middlebury Institute (MIIS), Monterey,
CA, US
 May 2015 – August 2016: Localization Project
Management Intern at Venga Global, Inc.
 September 2016 – now: Localization Project Manager
at Moravia, Monterey office

4. About The Speaker: US Experience
 2015 – Amateur Winner of LocJAM, a non-profit
worldwide game localization contest
(www.locjam.org)
 2016 – Pro Winner of LocJAM
 2015 – now – performs with the O’NO band that
plays songs in 10 languages.

5. Send Your Questions To:
• Email: olgamelnikoff@gmail.com
• Website: olgamelnikoff.com

6. Resources
• Multilingual.com
• Slator.com
• CommonSenseAdvisory.com (CSA)
• TAUS.com
• Companies blogs (e.g., Moravia)

7. Goal Of This Localization Class
Explain why localization is
important and introduce
the audience to main
localization areas

8. Agenda
1. What is Localization and Why Is It
Important?
2. Patchwork Localization (CAT Tools and TMS;
Websites, Software And Mobile Apps;
Games, Videos and Voice Recognition;
Machine Translation and Crowdsourcing)
3. How To Become Successful Translator In The
Modern World

9. Part 1: What Is Localization
And Why Is It
Important?

10. Is localization a part of translation or T9n is a
part of L10n?
Localization involves taking a product or service and making it linguistically and
culturally appropriate to the target locale (country / region and language) where it
will be used and sold. It can mean “translation”, but not always. Localization is bigger
than translation and it is related to technology.
(M. Troyer, L10n Professor)
Key words:
- product or service (business)
- culturally appropriate (take into consideration who are target users)
- technology (we live in the age of technology)

11. Is localization a part of translation or T9n is a
part of L10n?
L10n
Internationalization
Engineering
Translation
Transcreation
In-Context Review
(Testing)
DTP

12. Is localization a part of translation or T9n is a
part of L10n?
Translation
Localization

13. Three Localization Pillars
Language Business
Technology

14. Localization Is Language

15. Localization Is Business

16.  A company has a product that it is successfully
selling on one market (US)
 Silicon Valley startups want to go global to
boost profits (1 market vs 50 markets)
 Google services, Facebook, Instagram, Airbnb,
Uber, etc. now exist in many languages –
those companies went global!
 Many want to follow their examples
Localization Is Business: Going Global

17. Localization Is Technology
Translators face many challenges
because the profession is changing.
The only way to cope with these
challenges is to become tech savvy
and learn how to use and combine
different translation technologies to
keep up with the growing demand for
high-quality translation.

18.  The key term is Technology; we now live in a
world of technology
 Today’s reality: if you do not know how to use
technology as a professional, you will not be
successful at the translation market
 L10n is where language (arts) and programming
(science) meet
 Do NOT divide people into 2 groups of
‘humanities-bent’ and ‘science-bent’
Localization Is Technology

19. Overview Of Part 1 (What Is Localization And
Why Is It Important?)
Language Business
Technology
L10N

20. Part 2: Patchwork
Localization

21. Agenda
 Language Industry: Past, Present, Future
 CAT Tools and Translation Management Systems (TMS)
 Website, Software, Mobile Localization (Concept of Content
Management System, or CMS)
 Game Localization
 Video Localization
 Voice Recognition
 Machine Translation And Crowdsourcing

22. Language Industry: Past, Present And
Future
Past Present Future (No one knows)
Products Books (Novels, short
stories)
Poetry
Press
Documents / Legal
Technology:
Websites, desktop and mobile apps
Marketing Materials (online / printed)
Cloud-based services
Videos
Technology will continue
boosting
Main
Actors
Publishing Houses
Translators
Clients
Language Service Providers
Freelancers
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Machine Translation (MT)
Post-Editors
Tools Paper Dictionaries
Typewriter
Online Dictionaries
MS Word
CAT Tools
Translation Management Systems (TMS)
Content Management Systems (CMS)
MT Engines (Neural MT
technology)
CAT and MT Combination
(LILT)
Unit A word, a page String, segment String, segment

23. 1. CAT Tools And Translation Management
Systems (TMS)

24. CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) Tools
 CAT means “Computer Assisted Translation”.
 This is a translation technology that assists
humans in their translation.
 HOW? - Using automation. Automation helps
increase productivity and ensure consistency.

25. CAT Tools Are Based On Two Main Concepts
 Translation Memory (TM)
 Terminology Database /
Base (TD or TB)

26. CAT Tools: How It Works
1) You translate a segment (sentence) in a CAT tool:
2) This segment pair (source and target) is automatically saved in Translation Memory.
3) Next time, if you start translation and get the same segment, you will re-use translation,
meaning that the translation will be automatically added to the target column so that
you do not have to translate the same thing over and over again.

27. 4) However, if the new segment is slightly different, the TM will show <100
Match (known as Fuzzy match), and the unmatched words will be highlighted
so that you could replace them.
5) Apart from Translation Memories, CAT tools also contain terminology databases, or
glossaries. If you translate a word from the glossary, it will automatically pop up.
Thãnksgîvïng
CAT Tools: How It Works

28.  Never translate the same thing twice
 Consistency (of translation, terminology,
style across projects, products, translators)
 You can finish your translations sooner
(=time saving)
 Cost saving: if you outsource translation to
someone, you will pay less (exact matches
pay only 0-25%, fuzzy matches pay 25-75%
compared to the basic 100% per-word rate)
Main Benefits Of TMs And TDs

29. CAT Tools Overview
SDL Trados Studio
(paid)
memoQ (paid) Memsource (free and
paid)
Wordfast Anywhere
(free)
SmartCAT (free and
paid)
MateCat (free and
paid)

30.  Project creation
 Analytics
 Vendors DB
 Communication
 Status management
 File exchange
 Finances (POs, Invoices)
Translation Management Systems (TMS)
Example: XTRF

31. Translation Management System

34. TMS Overview: Only Few Examples
SDL Worldserver XTRF
Plunet Crowdin

35. 2. Websites, Software, Mobile Apps
(Concept Of CMS)
 Before: Websites, Software (desktop apps, or clients), Mobile
Apps – different things
 Now, those are just “different platforms”, but each product is
existing on all the three platforms
 Two separate worlds: online (servers, websites) and offline
(desktop, mobile) are now being synchronized
 Localization is being done in Content Management System
(CMS), and then the translated strings get pushed to all the
platforms

36. Concept Of CMS
 Websites, desktop apps and mobile apps are managed via Content
Management Systems, or CMS (the ”engines”), examples:
WordPress, Drupal
 CMS is where you manage the content that gets pushed to all the
platforms
 You can manage content (of your website, for example) even
without being a programmer

37. CMS: What Does The End User See?

38. CMS: How Does The Backend Look Like?

39. CMS Overview: Only Few Examples
WordPress Drupal
Joomla Prestashop

40. CMS: How Is Content Extracted For Translation
And Localized?
 Identify strings in CMS (most often – upload strings that are
the content updates)
 Send them for translation to the Translation Management
System (TMS) and / or a CAT tool
 Once they are translated in a CAT tool and/or TMS and
submitted by linguists, they are automatically uploaded to the
corresponding part of the CMS, under the corresponding
language

41. CMS: How Is Content Extracted For Translation
And Localized?
Content that needs to be localized is pushed
to TMS

42. Translation Management System
Our Association was represented by its President,
Christiane Vdovenko.
Notre Association a ete represente par sa Presidente,
Christiane Vdovenko.
Note importante
TMS (XTRF)
Content pushed to CAT
CAT Tool (Memsource)
File with “Our Association was represented by its
President, Christiane Vdovenko” loaded to XTRF.

43. CMS
TMS
CAT
CMS, TMS And CAT: Possible Integrations
Source
SourceSource
Source
Target
Target
Target Target

44. 3. Patchwork Localization: Games
 Games are designed to be unique (very
creative, a lot of artwork)
 Games are also being designed for
different platforms (online, game consoles,
desktop, mobile), but unlike software, the
same game may look very different at
different platforms as if these are different
games.
 In case of games, there are game engines
for game development and there are
localization kits

45. Game Localization Kit
Game Localization Kit:
 Strings in xml format (to put to a
CAT tool)
 Context is very important
 Handwritten text, signs, artwork
 Sound, music, spoken text

46. 4. Patchwork Localization: Videos
Subtitles Voice-over Dubbing
1 Translate the text and
produce a script
Translate the text and
produce a script
Translate the text in such a way
that the words used match the
lip movements of the actors (lip
syncing) – a very expensive
translation
2 Produce a subtitles file
with an appropriate time
coding and formatting
Record the voice-over track
using voice talent’s services
Comprehensive recording
process (involving qualified
actors and recording technicians)
3 Produce finalized subtitled
video (localization
engineering)
Sync the video and the audio
(localization engineering)
Comprehensive localization
engineering – putting everything
together in one video

47. 5. Patchwork Localization: Voice Recognition
(PAs)
 Apple: Siri
 Microsoft: Cortana
 Amazon: Alexa
 Google: Ok
Google

48. 6. Machine Translation And Crowdsourcing: Are
They Enemies Of Professional Translators?
 Neural Machine Translation (NMT) - a giant leap in quality improvement compared
to SMT
 MT engine – any company and even a person can train their MT engine
 Big companies each have their MT engine trained (Google, Facebook, Amazon,
eBay)
 99% of all the translation volume is being done by the machine
 Will translators disappear soon?

49. Neural Machine Translation
MT coupled with AI (artificial
intelligence) represent a new
paradigm in machine learning
that is not based on flat data
collection and analysis, but
rather on mirroring the
complex, multi-layer structure
of a human brain and its
learning models.

50. Machine Translation Is Not Your Enemy!
 Ray Kurzweil and the concept of singularity (human levels of MT by
2029)
 To the question of whether or not NMT means the end of the
translation profession, the answer is “Not Yet”
 Business / Marketing content still needs to be localized / transcreated
by human beings who are experts in target culture and its nuances
(and how to make people buyers)
 MT can be a powerful tool to make you highly productive; it is a base
for emerging technology like LILT (adaptive machine translation,
combination of MT and CAT tool).

51. Crowdsourcing
 Crowdsourcing –
what is it?
 Examples: Skype,
YouTube
 Voting system
 Impact on Quality
 It is not your enemy because
the contributors are not
professionals, thus cannot
ensure a high level of quality
 In modern world, quality is
important as corporations
do not want their products
to look bad or funny to
other markets (which can
have huge negative impact
on their reputation and
profit)

52. Part 3: How To Become A
Successful Translator In
Modern World

53. 7. How To Become A Successful Translator In
Modern World
 Platforms: LinkedIn, ProZ
 Credentials (degrees, certifications)
 Specializations (marketing, legal, HR)
 Resume (detailed experience)
 Tools (CMS, TMS, CAT Tools, good with technology, ready to learn)
 Skills (hard skills and soft skills)
 Endorsements and Mentions (including clients reviews)
 Keeping names of your clients confidential
 Membership in Professional Associations, networking
 Readiness to take many non-paid tests and spend a lot of time on self-
promotion

54. What Matters To USA Companies (Your
Clients)?
 4 main things:
• Excellent target language skills
• Excellent English skills (to
understand the source correctly)
• In-country, not out-of-country:
culture nuances, transcreation
• Excellent product knowledge
 Some other considerations:
• Work hard while you are a student
• Use business language (know how to
write good emails in English)
• Be responsive
• Be reliable
• Be flexible
• Be professional

55. Conclusion: Where Art Meets Science
 As far as the language industry goes,
there is nothing but localization in
modern world, and if you combine
old-fashioned love for words (arts)
with being strong in technology and
CAT tools (science) and reinforce this
combination with great business
skills, you will be successful in-
demand professional.

56. Recap: Three Pillars Of L10n And Resources
Language Business
Technology
L10N
• Multilingual.com
• Slator.com
• CommonSenseAdvisory.com
(CSA)
• TAUS.com
• Companies blogs (e.g., Moravia)

57. Questions
• Email:
olgamelnikoff@gmail.com
• Website: olgamelnikoff.com