translaticker

Anabel Pérez is one of our Senior Project Managers here at ForeignExchange Translations. She has been involved in the medical localization field since 2004 in a variety of roles from freelance translator to in-house proofreader and localization project manager. Over this period, Anabel has gathered a lot of know-how around EMA submissions. She understands that translating product information

Russia is expected to release new medical device regulations within the next few weeks, according to the Massdevice website. The article states that the new regulations will be clearer and have more specific requirements than current ones (e.g., by providing reporting timelines and requirements for post-approval reporting). The updated regulations are also expected to cover the clinical trial

This image was posted up on Facebook. We are unable to locate the source, so if the source locates this please get in touch so we can give you the credit.

It’s a great insight for those who find the British communication style puzzling at times. We tend to beat around the bush a lot, rely on others to interpret what we are really trying to say and be as polite as we can. For more info on this topic visit our British Culture and Customs page.

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Ein neuer Übersetzer- und Dolmetscherverband hat seine Tore geöffnet: der Deutsche Verband der Übersetzer und Dolmetscher. Die Ziele des DVÜD lassen sich in einem Satz zusammenfassen: dem Trend zum Image und zur Bezahlung auf Putzfrauenniveau entgegenwirken.

Dieses Ziel ist fraglos verfolgenswert und das nicht nur aus Sicht der Übersetzer. Es liegt im ureigenen Interesse der Unternehmen, die Sprachdienstleister wieder als gleichberechtigte Partner wahrzunehmen und von Anfang an in ihre Geschäftsabläufe einzubeziehen. Das grundlegend Neue am DVÜD ist meiner Meinung nach aber nicht dieses Ziel, sondern die Tatsache, daß der Verband aus einem Kontaktportal – einer Xing-Gruppe – hervorgegangen ist. Anders gesagt, ist der DVÜD ein Produkt des Web 2.0, des auf Austausch, Gegenseitigkeit und Zusammenarbeit ausgerichteten Internet. Damit ist er seinem Wesen nach in einer guten Ausgangsposition, ein Ziel, das einen intensiven Dialog voraussetzt, nicht nur zu setzen, sondern auch zu erreichen.

Insofern bin ich begeistert. Allerdings hege ich auch gewisse Zweifel. Zum einen war bislang keines der mir (virtuell) bekannten Gründungsmitglieder des DVÜD auf einer der etablierten Übersetzer-Mailinglisten vertreten. Sie sind auf Xing, auf Facebook und Twitter, das schon, aber auf pt, ufor, zahlungspraxis, den Mailinglisten für einzelne CAT-Programme usw. habe ich noch von keinem von ihnen je etwas gelesen. Zum Teil scheinen sie dieses Medium, das seit vielen Jahren das Hauptkommunikationsmittel der übersetzenden deutschen Einzelkämpfer ist, nicht einmal zu kennen. Auch ein Blog scheint keiner von ihnen zu schreiben oder je in einem zu kommentieren. Dadurch drängt sich die Frage auf, wie weit die DVÜD-Gründer tatsächlich in der Übersetzerwelt verankert sind. Sie wissen, was die Xing-Gruppe »Übersetzer-Lounge« bewegt, aber was wissen sie über die Anliegen, Probleme und Bedürfnisse der großen Mehrheit der Übersetzer, die dort nicht vertreten ist?

Der zweite Ansatzpunkt meines Zweifels ist die Satzung des DVÜD, die in krassem Gegensatz zum Gemeinschaftsprimat des Web 2.0, in dem der DVÜD wurzelt, steht. »Die Amtsdauer des Vorstands ist unbegrenzt,« ist dort zu lesen. Abgewählt werden kann der Vorstand »nur aus wichtigem Grund« mit Drei-Viertel-Mehrheit der Mitgliederversammlung, die allerdings nur alle zwei Jahre stattfindet. Der Vorstand hat zwar einen Beirat, der aber keinerlei Entscheidungsgewalt hat. Die Mitgliederversammlung scheint eine reine Abnickerversammlung zu sein. Kurzum, die Satzung des DVÜD erweckt den unguten Eindruck, daß die gesamte Entscheidungshoheit vom Tagesgeschäft bis zu Satzungsänderungen einzig und allein beim Vorstand liegt – einem Vorstand, der, wie erwähnt, nicht gerade tief in der Übersetzerwelt drinzustecken scheint.

Ich bin in keinem der beiden älteren Übersetzerverbände (BDÜ und ADÜ) Mitglied, weil beide Übersetzern ohne Übersetzerdiplom in ihrer Mittelalterlichkeit unzumutbare Bürokratiehürden entgegenstellen und mir vor allem der BDÜ immer das Gefühl vermittelt hat, daß er nicht die Übersetzerinteressen, sondern nur seine eigenen Verbandsinteressen vertritt. Die an der Realität und Qualität vorbeigehende Bürokratie scheint der DVÜD in die wohlverdiente Tonne treten zu wollen, doch die Frage, wessen Interessen er tatsächlich vertritt, bleibt offen.

Lately I needed to open and review huge files that take as much as 5 minutes to open. The waiting exercise was so frustrating that I was about to buy a new CPU...And then I realized what was actually happening in these pauses: planning the day, thinking on the best way to perform the next action, responding to emails, and updating status sheets... making the waiting time really productive time. Once the file was opened: strong focus on the task. 

I was lucky to receive a copy of  HOW by Dov Seidman.
The read was really inspiring. I'll try to share just a few important concepts of the book. The basic idea is that how we do things matters today much more than what we do: In the highly transparent and interconnected world we live in, there is small room for secrecy and coercion. Leaders need to generate power through people and not over people. Corporate cultures matter more than ever, much more than rules. Corporate values are what make companies and individuals succeed no matter how difficult the situation is. The TRIP acronym: Trust leads to Risk leads to Innovation leads to Progress. There is no progress built on innovation if risks are not taken. In order to chose people to work with, vendors and clients and take risks together, trust needs to be there. Your behavior means everything. The Wave concept: a wave is a powerful analogy of how we can share, communicate, relate to other people. A simple email or message can start a wave that could sweep old behaviors and build new type of relationships and collaboration environments. The surrounding of our personal and professional worlds is dependent on trust, values and relationships which need to be based on sustainable values. We are all part of a global supply chain. In order to "outbehave" competition, we need to consistently exhibiting the values and principles that differentiate us. These are just a few of the interesting ideas expressed in the book. 

A few people have asked me recently about translating content into other languages, and what functionality Confluence provides to help that process. This post is a summary of what I know, in the hope that it will give people pointers to follow up on. It’s also an invitation to share what you know about translating technical documentation.

We don’t translate our own documentation yet, so this post is based on conversations with people who need to translate their documentation, on my subsequent investigations, and on a couple of presentations I’ve attended. The presentations focused on content translation in general, and had nothing to do with Confluence.

If you’d like to add information about the requirements and process of getting documentation translated, please comment on this post. I’d love to know more about this area of technical writing.

Getting the documentation to a translation company

Translation companies need the documentation in a specific format. For example, some companies work with Microsoft Word, others with XML. So you’ll need to find out what formats work best for them, and then check if you can convert your Confluence content to that format.

Using core Confluence (that is, without adding any plugins) you can export your content to

• A proprietary XML format – useful for backing up your content and for transferring content from one Confluence site to another.
• PDF.
• HTML.
• Microsoft Word –a basic single-page conversion done via HTML and CSS.

The Confluence documentation has the details.

Plugins provide additional export formats:

• A more flexible export to Microsoft Word via Scroll Office.
• More PDF options via Scroll Wiki PDF Exporter.
• Export to DocBook XML via Scroll Wiki DocBook Exporter.

Getting translated content back into Confluence

You may want to provide the translated content on a Confluence site, as well as the original-language content. In some scenarios, you may want to do the following:

1. Send the initial English content for translation. (Let’s assume the original language is English.)
2. Upload the translated content into a Confluence space.
3. Update the English content for the next product release.
4. Send the updated English content for translation.
5. Also include a copy of the current version of the translated content, for updating by the translators.
6. Load the new version of the translated content into Confluence.

Looking at steps 1 and 2: When sending the English content to the translators, it would be best to send the Confluence XML, so that you can retain the formatting and macros that are part of your content. Then you can upload the translated content into Confluence without having to reapply the formatting and macros.

Looking at steps 5 and 6:  If you need to put the new version of the translated content back into Confluence, then the only available option is to use Confluence’s proprietary XML format. These are the steps to follow:

• Export the current version of the translated content from Confluence to XML.
• Send it to the translators and ask them to update the content embedded in the XML.
• Import the updated XML back into the wiki.

Getting rid of page history in the Confluence XML export

The problem with the current XML export is that it includes all the page history, so it is difficult to isolate the current content from the previous versions of the pages. This is troublesome when you are sending your original-language content to the translation company, because the content will probably have been through multiple reviews and releases. Each page will therefore have many versions.

There are two rays of hope here:

• One of the awesome Confluence developers is working on an update which will allow you to exclude page history when doing the XML export. I don’t know yet when this feature will be available, although I have promised him chocolate if he gets it into a release soon.
• A suggestion: You can use the Copy Space plugin to copy your content to a different space. This will exclude all page history. Then you can do the XML export from the new space. Note that the space key will be different too.

Optimising your content for translation

Here are a couple of references about optimising your content for tranlsation. They discuss content in general, not specifically Confluence-based content .

• A while ago I attended an excellent presentation by Sarah Forget. I blogged about it here: ASTC-NSW day 2: Preparing your documentation for translation.
• Cherryleaf recently published an interview with Jill Fifoot of Lloyd International: Translating and localizing documents – Cherryleaf interview with Lloyd International

Content reuse

One aspect of optimising your content is to employ content reuse. This helps to ensure consistency of terminology, which makes translation easier and the results more reliable. Content reuse can also reduce the number of words to be translated, thus reducing translation costs. In Confluence, you can use the include and the excerpt include macros to reuse content across pages. I’ve written a few posts about content reuse which may be useful.

Any more?

Over to you.

The South African Chamber of Mines needed to address health and safety issues for their employees. Most were illiterate, so the decision was taken to give instructions pictorially. One such image was that below; the purpose of which was to keep tracks clear.

Henry Dreyfuss’ “Symbol Sourcebook”

The tracks were not kept clear and in fact they became blocked. Why? The miners were reading it from right to left!

The explosion of international trade has resulted in new markets, new languages, new cultures and more importantly new ways of thinking. What the above example demonstrates is that cultural differences can impact the simplest of things when it comes to platforms of communication. Whether it’s a website, a health & safety manual, a graphical user interface (GUI) or signage, all in one way or another need to be adapted according to their audience.

Much is written online about the need to localize. Whether it’s locally appropriate translations or the correct use of currencies/units of measurements, the message is clear that designers, marketers and businesses generally need to “act local” to ensure maximum success. However, one area that gets little attention is imagery, graphics, icons and pictures.

Although graphics and imagery do pose certain challenges, they do also present a massive benefit perfectly captured in the well known phrase, “a picture can speak a thousand words”. Graphics have the ability to save on words, bridge languages and timelines. One only needs to think of the globally recognised ‘no smoking’ sign to appreciate its simple power. Using graphics can reduce translation costs, allow for easier understanding and improve comprehension.

Failure to communicate accurately is potentially disastrous. When using images, pictures and graphics, designers need to think about the audience or ‘readers’. One very basic consideration is how someone reads; not everyone in the world reads left to right. Within images it is therefore useful if one uses arrows to direct the eye in the correct order.

So what are some common pitfalls?

Region Specific Symbols

Try to avoid the use of letters, punctuations and other verbal symbols that might only make sense where you come from. The symbol below may very well make sense in Western Europe, but what about in China?

Analogies

Try not to be too clever with verbal analogies. A simple example would be using an image of a mouse to represent a mouse (for your PC). It’s not called a mouse all over the world. Actually try and avoid animals unless you research the associations within a country or culture. In some cases it could be a positive.

 

Colours

Be aware of colours as their symbolic meanings differ from culture to culture. The Japanese interpret red as anger/danger whereas       the Chinese relate it to joy/festivities. This doesn’t mean colour should be avoided; simply researched and used wisely.

 

Human Figures

Care should be taken with human representations. Some cultures are sensitive to this; others will interpret images in their own particular ways. In the Islamic world there are protocols around how both men and women are portrayed. If using human figures try to go for neutral, simple outlines of people.

Hands

 

Following on from the above, hand gestures can also be tricky. One culture’s thumbs up is another ‘**** you’. Hands though are really useful when used alongside objects to illustrate how to open or operate something.

 

As one can see, there are a few potential stumbling blocks to the use of icons, images, graphics and pictures internationally. However, this should not put people off using them. The message is, ‘use them but take care’. A simple way of ensuring your icon can be internationally recognised to use ISO recognised symbols like those below. They have taken the time and trouble to test them internationally so you don’t need to worry about them.

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After a small break following our busiest year ever, 2012 has started with a bang for us here at ForeignExchange Translations: new team members, new clients, new Learning Unplugged seminars, and new content on Medical Translation Insight. In case you missed them, here are the posts that received the most attention in January:Is Google Translate accurate enough for professional use? - It looks

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When someone is upset, it is difficult to negotiate or get the interlocutor understand your point of view or why a situation has been blown out of proportion.

Arguing at that point will lead nowhere.

Patience and finding the way to get the other person back under the red thin line that marks the frontier between "being open to discuss" and "not wanting to hear a word" is the way to go.

Accepting errors can have consequences and trying to put yourself in the position of the other person is the main strategy.

The EudraVigilance Medicinal Products Dictionary (EVMPD) was developed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to aid pharmacovigilance activities in the European Economic Area and was designed to support the collection, reporting, coding, and evaluation of both investigational and authorized medicinal product information in a standardized manner. On July 1, 2011, as a step in implementing new

ForeignExchange has a strong history in the translation of Japanese regulatory and clinical documentation. We have a strong team of qualified native-speaking Japanese linguists and a technical services staff that is experienced in the nuances of PAL-compliant documentation for both the medical device and pharmaceutical industries. We have not only expertly translated content for our clients but

In medical translations, the ability to track changes is a key component of delivering quality to clients. And it's not just about the quality per se; for regulatory submissions or some clinic trial work, all changes have to be documented and approved, which means that change tracking is an everyday task for many medical translators, editors, and project managers.ChangeTracker, a new tool for

Leigh Van Bryan and his friend Emily Banting are not the first people to fall afoul of the linguistic differences between us Brits and our cousins over in the USA. Although we both speak English, we don’t always share the same English, especially when it comes to vocabulary.

The tourists were booted out of the country after the Department of Homeland Security flagged Leigh as a potential threat when he posted a tweet to his mates prior to his trip to Hollywood which read: ‘Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?’  What the Department of Homeland Security didn’t seem to appreciate was that in the UK, within his generation, he didn’t plan to ‘destroy’ America but to party very hard. (Read more about the story here)

So in honour (yes, honour not honor) of Leigh we thought we would spare travelers either side of the Atlantic their blushes with a quick fire guide to Anglo-America words that don’t mean the same.

If you know of anymore, please send them our way to add here (details at end).

• Rubber (USA = condom) – Rubber (UK = eraser)
• Football (USA = rugby with lots of body armour) – Football (UK = what the Americans call “soccer”)
• Fag (USA = homosexual) – Fag (UK = cigarette)
• Bum (USA = homeless person)  – Bum (UK = your bottom)
• Fanny (USA = your bottom) – Fanny (UK = women’s genitalia)
• Knickers (USA = short trousers) – Knickers (UK = women’s underwear)
• Pants (USA = trousers) – Pants (UK = men’s underwear)
• Pot plant (USA = marijuana plant) – Pot plant (UK = plant in a pot)
• Suspenders (USA = braces) – Suspenders (UK = Straps worn to hold up a woman’s stockings)
• Pissed (USA = angry) – Pissed (UK = drunk)
• Power-bang (USA = type of fringe [hair]) – Power-bang (UK = does not exist but would be interpreted as very vigorous sex)
• Chippy (USA = a woman of suboptimal morals) – Chippy (UK = fish and chip shop)
• Tomayto (USA = red salad vegetable) – Tomahto (UK = red salad vegetable)

If you know of any more “tricky” words people should avoid, please email us (info AT kwintessential.co.uk) along with your name and we will publish them here.

For those interested in some more UK-USA vocabulary, please check out these websites:

• Wikipedia – British-American English
• The BG Map – Driving specific differences
• The American’s guide to speaking British
• Dictionary of Slang
• A British slang dictionary with audio pronunciations

written by +Ben Lewis

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Am 11. und 12. Mai bietet die StudyWorld 2012 einen Überblick zu Studienmöglichkeiten in 25 Ländern. Abiturienten, Studierende und Absolventen auf der Suche nach dem passenden Bachelor- oder Masterstudiengang, einem Auslandssemester oder einem internationalen Praktikumsplatz können sich bei 170 Ausstellern im persönlichen Gespräch informieren. Die internationale Hochschulmesse findet im SprachenNetz-Redaktionnoreply@blogger.com

Die Erasmus-Geschichte ist eine Erfolgsgeschichte. Mehr als 250.000 Studierende verbringen im akademischen Jahr 2011/12 einen Teil ihres Studiums im europäischen Ausland. Bis heute haben insgesamt 3 Millionen Studierende ihre Auslandserfahrungen während des Studiums im Rahmen des Erasmus-Programms machen können.Dieses Jahr wird Erasmus 25 Jahre alt. Unter dem Motto "25 Jahre Erasmus: prägende SprachenNetz-Redaktionnoreply@blogger.com

Das Forum Berlin der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung beschäftigt sich in dem Projekt "Gesellschaftliche Integration" mit den gesellschaftlichen und politischen Herausforderungen der heutigen Zeit mit dem Ziel, den Dialog zwischen verschiedenen gesellschaftlichen Akteuren zu fördern. Zudem möchte das Projekt engagierte Praktiker zusammenbringen und zivilgesellschaftliche Netzwerke aufbauen. Durch SprachenNetz-Redaktionnoreply@blogger.com

We've got some great educational offerings in the next few weeks.Translations 101Translation is an arcane discipline, where state-of-the-art technology comes together with a very human process. Done well, medical translations can save lives by getting products to market faster with the vital information needed for safe, correct use. But it can be expensive and time-consuming and translation

For the eleventh year in a row, clients of ForeignExchange Translations say they are very satisfied with the quality and service they have received, and an astonishing 96% say they would gladly recommend ForeignExchange to other companies looking for a translation and localization provider. Since the year 2000, ForeignExchange has conducted a comprehensive annual survey of its clients, to assist