Posted on Tue, Dec 15, 2009
Today Lili provides her perspective on how terminology management and glossaries impact language Quality...
Unfortunately, terminology is not recognized for its true worth as a Quality Tool. Terminology is very powerful: it helps transmit expertise, knowledge and culture locally within a company, as well as globally.
I see terminology like a gateway or an entry gate into the different worlds inside a company. It is important that these worlds understand each other since they all work towards a common goal: customer satisfaction and growth of the company.
Correctly used terminology leads to reduced costs caused by unnecessary communications and misunderstandings, and it guarantees appropriate translation into different languages.
Thus, the necessity to use the right term at the right place!
Glossary Creation - The Client's Perspective
Quality of the source documents on which the glossary creation will be based. These documents should be correct linguistically speaking, conforming to the rules of the source language.
Quality of the term candidates for the glossary. The client must keep in mind that to be efficient, the glossary creation work must be based on the following process:
- Terminology collection: the first step is to gather all communication material available inside the company pertaining to the field concerned by this terminology work.
- Analysis: this step consists of analyzing the data in order to extract the relevant term candidates. In other words, we will need to identify recurring terms and concepts, whether domain-specific or customer-specific terms with their meaning (definition and context).
The use of extracting tools is very helpful, but keep in mind that often words are extracted on their ownwithout any context. So if an extracting tool is used, the list of terms extracted would need to be reviewed by a language specialist, a terminologist for example, and that all the more since the list goes to translation.
If the glossary creation is the first step in a translation process, it is important that the client understands that the translatormust be provided with reference material (contextual information) and that validation of the glossary is essential before translation starts.
Glossary Creation - the Vendor's Perspective
Vendors should pay attention to the points described in the previous two sections (understanding quality of the term candidates), with the work being done by a terminologist or a language specialist.
If the vendor has to create the glossary prior to translation, he should ask for all the reference material relevant to his task. This can include marketing and sales documents, specialized documentation, etc. Then he should analyze the data to identify the terms to be included into the glossary. If an extracting tool is used, the same steps as described above should be followed.
What to Watch For
To sum up and to add a "technical" viewpoint, I've asked our terminologist, Fabrice Chabot, about the points he would watch out for when creating a glossary. He says:
- The frequency of the term in the analyzed documents
- The field concerned, ensuring the term belongs to that field
- The grammar category of the term: most terms extracted are nominal groups
- The meaning of a term: if an individual term belongs to a longer term (one that is several words long), it would probably be more relevant to choose the longer term as candidate for the glossary. For example: if "mask" is extracted as well as "subnet mask" and "character mask," it would be more relevant to take "subnet mask" and "character mask" as candidates, not "mask", since "mask" alone does not represent the same concept in both cases.
Posted on Thu, Sep 24, 2009
Another great blog by Lili Kachakhidze...
Every time you shop, you evaluate quality. You check the expiration date, look at the brand name, the place of origin, etc.
The same applies when you buy Translation and Localization services. You evaluate the quality of the translation service provider (or "LSP," which stands for Language Service Provider in this industry) using specific criteria, and then you measure the end project against specific goals:
- Accuracy: Faulty translation; omission; overtranslation.
- Compliance: Unacceptable terminology or usage according to your corporate standards.
- Linguistic: Violation of language norms; incorrect or inappropriate style; unacceptable punctuation, syntax, or usage according to dictionaries and other established standards; lack of fluency.
In order to get the best in accuracy, compliance and linguistic quality from your translation provider, you're responsible for ensuring they have (and know how to use) all the materials necessary: a glossary, style guide, instructions, language rules, translation memory (TM) from a previous project, reference documents, software when applicable, etc.
Best Practices
- Always be sure your translation provider reads your instructions and the style guide before starting a new project and make sure they stick to them during the whole process. Work with them on anything they think is unclear before starting the project!
- Review the terminology in the glossary or the terminology database with your translation provider. If the Project TM is linked to a Master TM, the Master TM prevails. If there are inconsistencies between the TM and glossaries, take the time to discuss and clarify with your translation provider before the project begins.
- Don't expect a literal, word-for-word translation from an experienced, high-quality translation provider. They will convey the meaning using natural phrases from your target language, so that it is engaging and flows well.
- Make sure your translation provider runs a grammar and spell-check on your files, and ask them for a thorough review after the translation work is complete.
This should give you a good start, and if you'd like more ideas, my Lionbridge colleagues have recently published a free whitepaper, "Ten Translation Best Practices: How to Turn Your Efforts into Strategic Advantage." It's a great paper, I encourage you to check it out (and no registration required)!
Posted on Thu, Sep 03, 2009
Today Lili explains the genesis of Lionbridge's Language Quality Services (LQS) and provides a little more background about that part of the company. Watch this space next time for insight into language quality itself.
Back in early 2000, Berlitz It launched their Language Quality Services (LQS) division to support Microsoft's International Language Services group. Two acquisitions later, in 2005, this service was acquired by Lionbridge and established as a completely independent entity within the company.
The quality and reliability of the LQS model has since been well proven by many companies in the IT, Electronics, Life Sciences, Healthcare and Lifestyle sectors, all of whom outsource (either totally or partially) the Quality Assurance of their translated products and content.
The LQS vision is to engage in strategic partnerships with clients:
- to offer them a long-term customized model for outsourcing content review and linguistic Quality Assurance
- to ensure that their products reach the marketplace with both linguistic and content integrity built in
- to provide an ongoing consultative service that consolidates brand image through consistent quality products and marketing materials
We act exclusively on behalf of, and under the instructions of, our clients. LQS does not work for other divisions within Lionbridge, either directly or indirectly. This allows us to preserve our impartiality and avoid any conflict of interest.
Posted on Fri, Jul 31, 2009
Please welcome Lili Kachakhidze, Lionbridge's Language Quality Services (LQS) Operations Manager, who kicks off her part of the Lionbridge Team Blog with an introduction to LQS.
LQS is like...
Air... One can't see air, can't feel it, can't touch it, and can't hear it. But all one's senses will notice if there is not enough air.
Blood... Heart beat and a pulse are the only normal signs that blood is circulating in one's body. The severe problems start as soon as blood circulation stops.
Imagine you have just bought new plasma TV. It is a really great piece of equipment with a lot of state-of-the-art functions and amazing remote controller. You are going through user manual and in a couple of minutes you are fluent in operating your new TV.
Or imagine you are visiting your dentist. The doctor uses various equipment to smoothly do all necessary actions to examine your teeth.
You could have a great time with your new entertainment equipment or you could feel comfortable in the dentist's chair if everything goes properly. But any issues with your TV user manual or any doubts about the injection could be painful. These are cases where quality counts.
In fact, each time you are receiving information from your environment and it is understandable, it is easy to think it is normal. It is normal because someone done his or her job very well. So, if something is normal, it begins to be unnoticeable. Like in the case of LQS.
Quality assurance delivered by LQS is unnoticeable when a customer reads nutritive information on the snack pack. It is unnoticeable when the mother follows the instructions on how to use nappies for her child. And it is unnoticeable when you switch on the microwave in a proper way. Thanks to quality assurance, ordinary people get confident with other people and things surrounding them. High quality becomes so unnoticeable like air and blood are in your daily life.
The next time you face high quality information in any form in the press, on the internet or any product and service, you may be seeing the work of LQS...
Next up from Lili... a brief history of Lionbridge LQS.