A computer newsletter for translation professionals

In just a few days we will usher in a new year with the futuristic-sounding name "2012." Can you believe it? To me it still has a little bit of a science fiction feel -- but then, I do have a "thing" with numbers anyway. (By the way, do you know the color of the number 2012? I do and will proudly proclaim it on Twitter once the new year has started.)

Speaking of science fiction, I confess that I'm not really "into" it, aside from a very intense early adolescent Jules Verne episode. But I've long been intrigued by the fascination that some of the sixties' and seventies' science fiction classics hold for a good number of the folks who determine our Internet experience today.

Take Google, for instance. The Googleplex, Google's headquarters, is named after a character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. What was the first building on the Googleplex that Google used? Building 42. Now, if you're either an über-geek or have read this newsletter very carefully, you will naturally know that, according to the Hitchhiker's Guide, "the answer to life the universe and everything" is 42. (If you want to read up on it again, you can find it in the November 27, 2009 edition in the archives). Bizarrely, you can also find this same ultimate answer by typing the answer to life the universe and everything (without quotes) into Google, Bing, or, I kid you not, the very serious WolframAlpha.

I find this fascination (or obsession) interesting because of translation, of course. Do you remember the Universal Translator from Star Trek? Über-hyperpolyglot C0inO of Star Wars fame who spoke six million languages? And the babel fish from the Hitchhiker's Guide? In each of these sci-fi worlds, automatic translation was solved. For good.

If you take a look at the other predictions from these retro classics -- space and time travel, de- and rematerialization ("Beam me up, Scotty"), interaction with alien life forms, etc. -- I have to say that the translation bit may have come a lot closer to fulfillment than any of the others, regardless of how crappy most machine translation still is.

But this may not be the happiest thought to end the old year on. How about this alternative? There have been a flurry of articles on artificial languages lately (you know: Esperanto, Klingon, Elvish, etc.), and I had the greatest time doodling around with a very feminine language called Láadan. I had to wait until our youngest had gone to bed to read some of the words and their meanings to the rest of my family last night, but we certainly had a fun time with it. And if you wondered about the heading above, you might want to check out a translation right here.

There's something else I've been wondering about in the context of artificial languages. Many of you will have read the article on the resurrection of Wampanoag or have seen the beautiful documentary. Here's a humble proposition: Why don't we invest all that linguistic and sci-fi energy evidenced above into restorations of dead languages rather than coming up with new ones? Just asking.

Happy New Year!

I had an interesting talk this week with Niko Papula of Multilizer, one of the more well-known localization tools that also does so much more.

Makers of localization tools -- you may have stumbled on Alchemy Catalyst or SDL Passolo at some point -- are typically quick to explain that their tools really are not translation tools but software development tools. There is a translation component, of course, including the necessary connectivity to translation memories, termbases, glossaries, and, lately, machine translation; however, the software-specific quality assurance and functionality aspects are at least as relevant. And, to be honest, they need to tout these aspects even more if they are to avoid a dire future.

You see, when localization tools were first released, translators (sorry: localizers) had to deal with file formats that were virtually inaccessible using tools that mere mortals might own -- or could afford. And any tools we did have had no language-specific facilities. The file formats I'm talking about include formats like .exe, ,.dll, or .ocx -- all of which can be opened and saved only in specific programs.

Two things have happened in the last few years: First, some translation environment tool vendors have enabled their tools to process those formats as well (including earlier versions of Trados, Across, and Star Transit). Second, and more importantly, these compiled formats have become dinosaurs that are mostly used in "legacy" programs, whereas more modern programs typically use formats that can be processed in virtually any translation environment tool; most are based on XML and other specific formats such as Java .properties or other text-based formats that take away one of the cutting edges of localization tools. Granted, localization tools can also process all of those formats and augment the translation process with additional features, but, considering the high cost and other workarounds to get to similar results, times have been hard for localization tool vendors.

(Oh, how I am looking forward to the many angry emails that I will surely receive! ;-) )

So, what's a company to do when it encounters times like these? One response is to make sure that existing customers find it more costly to change existing workflows than make use of their existing tools. Another is to add features that make the tools stand out in unexpected and innovative ways -- these include additional support for database formats, which many of these tools added awhile back, or support for crowdsourcing processes, something that Multilizer recently added (a happy convergence of product name and new feature). A third response is to sell yourself to another company that can somehow integrate your product -- a feat that both Catalyst and Passolo were able to do. Yet another is to look for new products that can use your expertise and development staff. Which brings us back to Finland and Multilizer.

Awhile back, Multilizer announced a new product, the PDF Translator, that really did not have much to do with its traditional product line. It puzzled many observers, but after talking to Niko and hearing his very honest and straightforward confirmation of my feelings about the shrinking markets for traditional localization tools, it made a lot of sense to me. Make no mistake, the PDF Translator is not for you and me. It's just an interface for machine translating PDF files with the Microsoft/Bing machine translation engine without any way to really change any output. It also includes some automated ways to manage the layout of the final PDF document. So, it's a product for clients who (somewhat miraculously or ignorantly) are happy with that kind of output. Still. I like this story because it showcases an agile company in our industry that has recognized the signs of the times and is cleverly responding.

They are currently working on yet another product that might very well hold a lot of promise for translators, but I had to swear on the life of my firstborn not to talk about it yet. (Though considering that he'll graduate from high school next summer, and with the immense cost of college tuition looming, that might not be a bad exchange . . . JUST KIDDING, Hannes!)

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The one book that impressed me more than any other when I was 10 or 11 was the Guinness Book of World Records. I know, I know, this does not make me particularly unique -- but I almost memorized it. Three records impressed me the most: the longest time standing in one place (17 years), the farthest distance peeing (I'm not going to share that with you, but it was something that would make all 10-year-old boys proud), and the greatest polyglot of all. This last record holder is the one I've mentioned most often throughout the last 37 years: Cardinal Mezzofanti (1747-1849), who "spoke" more than 70 languages. A hyperpolyglot.

The famous cardinal is also the starting point for Michael Errard's recent investigation, retold in Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learner. Michael's book, to be released on January 10,traces his quest to nail down the criteria that define and motivate a hyperpolyglot (someone who speaks, reads, writes, or translates anywhere from six to eleven languages). 

What I found most enjoyable about this book is its honesty and intellectual integrity. The author takes his readers by the hand (and to make sure that you don't let go, he continuously manufactures nail-biting cliffhangers) and leads us through his own puzzlement: How is it possible to learn huge numbers of languages? What is actually "real" about it? How can "fluency" be defined and measured? His questions lead him to an ever-widening circle of geographical locations and scientific approaches in an attempt to find more clues and explanations. And at the end of the book he is actually able to provide some intriguing answers, which you'll naturally have to read to discover for yourself!

I was also very happy to find that Michael's focal point is not only the "Western" hyperpolyglot who lives (forgive me: "studies" more accurately describes most hyperpolyglots' lives) in North America or Europe. Instead, he also spends time in southern India where hyperpolyglots abound and investigates Cameroon with its incredibly large concentration of languages. The answers he finds there differ from those of folks like Ken Hale, the shy and modest hyperpolyglot and linguist from MIT who became my hero of the story. (Ken is quoted as saying, "The truth is, I only know three languages and one of them is English!" However, he had competencies in approximately 50 languages, one of which was Wampanoag, which he helped to revive.) But I was glad to see just that disagreement: Michael helps us to understand that there are many answers to this particular quest that are influenced by many different variables.

Oh, you'd like to know whether you have what it takes to become a hyperpolyglot? (Chances are that some of you already are.) Here are some characteristics that might predispose you to "hyperpolyglotism": left-handed would be good, gay would be good, and if you are into personality profiles, especially the Myers-Briggs, INTJ would be good as well. As for what it specifically takes and whether it is actually such a rewarding way of life, I encourage you to read this fascinating book for the answers.

And one more thing: Perhaps you should talk to your spouse about your aspirations. Michael retells this story of one hyperpolyglot:

In the stairwell of Gregg Cox's house in Bremen, Germany, I'd seen the plaque from The Guinness Book of World Records: "Gregg M. Cox of Oregon, USA, the Greatest Living Linguist, is able to read, write and speak 64 languages, 11 different dialects, speaking 14 fluently." It had once hung in the hallway, but his wife, Sabine, moved it to the staircase because her clients (she's a cosmetologist) always wanted to talk about her husband. "You don't want to tell every customer your entire history and who you're married to," Sabine said. "I mean, I'm proud, but . . ." Her sentence trailed off.

I love
Paris in the
the springtime

In the last newsletter I wrote about voice recognition -- an article that garnered many responses, as usual with that topic. I was glad that Larry Schofer reminded me to also mention text-to-speech technology again, i.e., the technology that makes your computer read text back to you.

Now, this is not a technology that makes sense for everyone. But for those who translate readable texts (as opposed to those who translate cryptic error messages, etc.) and need a second set of (virtual) eyes, this is a great way to catch errors that you tend to overlook -- especially when you edit your own translations with automatically limited error-catching abilities.

One way to do this is to use Windows' internal TTS (text-to-speech) technology. Outside of MS Office I'm not particularly impressed with it, but within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint it works well. To make access more user-friendly, you should probably add the Speak button to the Quick Access Toolbar (in Office 2007/2010 applications).

To do this, you can select the little dropdown arrow to the right of the toolbar and select More Commands. Then select All Commands under Choose commands from and add the Speak command to the Quick Access Toolbar field.

Now you can have whole documents read to you, or you can highlight specific parts by clicking the Speak button. And if you need to change the speed of "Microsoft Anna" (sorry, I didn't come up with that name) in Windows 7 or Vista, you can do that by typing "text to speech" in the Windows Search field (just click the WinKey and start to type) and then select Change text to speech settings.

If you need to have your texts read to you outside Office, or if you don't like Anna for English or Lili for Chinese -- the only languages that are available -- you can also use one of the many third-party applications. If you already have Dragon NaturallySpeaking for voice recognition, you're set -- it contains a decent text-to-speech engine as well. Otherwise, Larry recommends TextAloud, or you can look into the many other programs that are available for your language and taste.

One more note on speech recognition: Another reader, A.S. Marland, retold his experience with improvements in Dragon. These improvements were not so much associated with different release versions of the software program but with a Plantronics Bluetooth microphone that comes with some of the latest versions of Dragon. According to him, the improvements of recognition were immense across different versions of Dragon.

Oh, and you were wondering about the little note on Paris at the beginning of the article? Not only is A.S. from Paris, but if I'd used text-to-speech technology, I never would have had a duplicated "the" in there.

Here is a great way to energetically start the new year: The Canadian Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters Council (CTTIC) launched a few online classes for translators that you can find right here. One of them is taught by yours truly on translation environment tools (yes, I called them CAT tools in the title of the talk). I hope that this will contribute to a higher level of understanding and appreciation of the technology that most of us need in our daily work. I will also be doing a couple more video classes for CTTIC that I will announce in due course.

And here is a great way to end the old year: The Poetry Translation Centre in London translates "contemporary poetry from Africa, Asia and Latin America to a high literary standard." It does this by holding Poetry Translation Workshops: someone prepares a literary translation of poems, which then are rendered into the final poetic form as a group effort of all the workshop participants. These poems are then published on the Centre's website.

A couple of weeks ago, Nataly Kelly traveled to London to work on three poems by the Ecuadorian Spanish/Shuar poet Maria Clara Sharupi Jua. If you want to end the year feeling all fuzzy and warm, you might want to read some. My favorite is this one.

And it's the same Nataly Kelly, publisher of the Interprenaut newsletter for interpreters, with whom I've joined forces this month to ask you just a few brief questions about what you love about your work. It'll take just a minute or two and it will be fun to read the results when we report about them in our next newsletters. You can access the questions right here, and it would be just about the greatest way for us to end the old and start the new year.

Marie Lucchetta - e-translation services ltd:

memoQ is so incredibly cool:
when you export and there's a problem, it solves it for you!
Bliss.
This is what CAT should be like.

To learn more visit www.kilgray.com

Vladimir Kukharenko, formerly of AIT (more on them in the next newsletter), has joined another Ukrainian provider, Technolex Translation, which just released a very helpful little tool called ChangeTracker. It's a free little utility that allows you to compare bilingual documents in most of the popular formats, including .xlz, bilingual .doc/.rtf files, .tmx, Trados .ttx or .sdlxliff, and Wordfast .txml files, with additional formats on the horizon.

It provides a very seamless way of comparing files before and after editing or of comparing different versions of the same file. It's super-easy to use -- the whole process essentially consists of dragging files that you want to compare into the tool's interface, and the results of the comparison can be read right in the tool's interface or exported. And it's simply a must-have for your tool box.

It IS still in beta, which means that it crashes here and there, but not much harm is done. It's easily restarted, and since it requires minimal effort in setting up projects, there is not much loss if you have to occasionally redo it. 

I can't tell you how impressed I've been with the many little heroes I've encountered in the last few months. And really I shouldn't even call them "little" heroes. I have been talking to a lot of different kinds of folks in and around our industry who have discovered or carved out areas that they have taken on and committed themselves to wholeheartedly.

One is the saintly Debbie Folaron, who has created an incredible resource for Romani, a language group that slips under the radar for most of us.

When she first sent me an email a few weeks ago with a link to the Translate Romani site, I briefly looked at it and thought it looked impressive. But honestly, I didn't really get it. Now that I have spent more time on the site, I "get" it and am truly impressed.

The site -- which comes in 10 languages -- offers an intelligent and sensitive introduction into Romani for the outsider, the non-Romani. For the insider -- the Romani -- it provides a place to network and to identify and find the tools that they need to join the professional translation or interpretation community. Sadly, this is often difficult for the Romani -- in fact, even the European Commissioner for Human Rights relied on voluntary Romani translation until recently. Yes, you read that correctly: voluntary, unpaid translation, for documents that needed to be translated into Romani.

What exactly is Romani, especially the Romani used on Translate Romani? Well, I will let Debbie speak to that on her site -- and the story itself is a worthwhile read.

One thing that we all share as translators is a love for language (or for the less hot-blooded among you: a strong interest in language). Romani is an example of a language (or languages) laden with fascination and intrigue. By looking at the language and "decompiling" it, linguists could actually reconstitute where the Romani originally came from, what route its speakers took, and how long they stayed at each place. It's a mystery that is worthy of a good Stieg Larsson novel -- only better.

When you visit the site, make sure that you also look at some of the resources in the TR Database section. This will give you a glimpse of the literary output in Romani and through translation.

And if you find all this inspiring, you might even want to listen to the CD put together by Ronald Lee, the Romani translator of the site.  

Professional associations are important; sometimes they can even be lifesaving. One instrumental member of such an association in Nevada has been going through a series of medical calamities. Combined with the calamity of living in a country where health insurance is not a given, this has presented a challenge that's too large to conquer if we don't help. The Jenner twins have done a write-up on Álvaro Degives-Más' situation on their blog and are providing avenues to help out financially if you'd like to pitch in.

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© 2011 International Writers' Group