May 6 meeting recap: Translation 201

by Ryan Matusch

On Tuesday, May 6th, the STC Southwestern Ontario Chapter heard presentations on the relationship between technical communication and translation. The first presentation was from the perspective of a technical communicator-Gordon Varney, co-founder of the Southwestern Ontario STC chapter and current Director of Software Development at Metavera Corporation. The second presentation was given from the perspective of a translator-Abdelkader Daoudi, a senior translator and project manager at Interpro Translation Solutions, a Chicago-based translation company.

The speakers discussed how to manage translation projects and how to create content that can be translated easily and efficiently.

From a Writer's Perspective

According to Varney, technical writers are frequently saddled with managing translation projects because of a shortage of resources. He sees this as an opportunity for technical writers to advance their careers, allowing them to further develop their breadth of skills and experience. Managing a translation project facilitates this by introducing you to issues, opportunities, and people you may not come into contact with in the course of technical writing in general.

Varney suggests that by acknowledging and monitoring several key elements to a translation project, difficulty can be minimized, and returns on your investment can be maximized.

You don't need to speak another language to successfully manage a translation project, Varney says. Though it may seem counterintuitive, not knowing the destination language may actually work to your advantage. This is because you are managing the translation, not performing it yourself. By not knowing the destination language, you are forced to learn to rely on others.

Varney jokes that too often translation tasks are given to unqualified candidates simply because they are familiar with the destination language and are available at a low cost. However, he warns that translation should be done by someone who is familiar with the industry, and fluent in the language, dialect, and industry jargon to be represented in the end product. The skill of translators chosen according solely to the criteria of convenience and cost is probably not sufficient to produce content that is suitable to your market. Because many of the people in a product's development cycle may not be able to accurately assess the quality of translation, it is essential that you find translators you can trust.

Do not underestimate the time, resources, and costs involved in translation, Varney says. Many of the things that obstruct a technical writer in creating content are present for a translator as well. However, because translation can only begin after a technical writer has written a document in the source language, translation suffers from being removed from the development process by an additional step. This is another reason why having a strong translator to rely on is essential. There are enough issues for the manager to concern themselves with that they should not also be required to worry about the quality of the translation.

It is important to recognize that the majority of the decision makers involved in the project will be unable to judge the end result. This is a problem in any field, but is accentuated when a product is released in a language that the team developing the product does not know. Though management may say that translated technical content is good enough to be published, it is actually the end users who will judge the quality of the material. This requires that the technical writer and translation team be especially prudent. You are not likely to receive positive feedback on your translation. However, Varney says, you will be certain to hear if a document is "wrong, misleading, or worse yet, makes the company appear unprofessional".

Translation is a cost of doing business in a global market. To effectively market products in foreign countries (or even nationally, in the case of multilingual nations such as Canada), you should factor translation costs into the development of every product or product update. However, Varney also notes that these costs may be offset by additional sales. Translation should be seen as an investment, not as an expense. "You are buying words," Varney says. "You should get the best words you can [...] and continue to use the words you bought." Maximizing your return on the investment includes reusing previously translated words and phrases throughout a product, and then reusing them again in future updates.

Varney says that in a translation project, you are not translating a product from one language into a different language; you are translating from one culture into another culture. This includes finding out how the destination culture shows dates, times, currency, addresses, names, spelling and units of measure. Managing these aspects of a translation may require you become involved with the actual product developers. For example, the English language reads from left to right. Some languages, however, such as Arabic, read from right to left. If you are marketing a Canadian product in Saudi Arabia, this will likely require modifications to the user interface.

From a Translator's Perspective

Abdelkader Daoudi examined how technical writers can create content with translation in mind. He suggests that following a few general guidelines will allow translators to easily and efficiently represent your original material to a different culture. Not only will this make your translation projects flow more smoothly, but will make them more cost effective as well.

Daoudi separates communication material into two groups: material that is highly dependent on content (such as documentation, training, and online help) and material that depends heavily on structure (such as marketing copy, brochures, and web content). Each category has its own challenges. In general, however, he recommends that technical writers should be careful using rhetorical language, because many metaphors, similes and other devices only function within the context of a specific culture and cannot be easily translated. For example, Daoudi presented an advertisement for a manufacturer of heavy industrial equipment. It contained a photograph of a bulldozer, overlaid with the caption, "Can you dig it?" Daoudi pointed out that this caption plays on a popular North American expression that is unfamiliar to other cultures, and may be nonsensical when rendered in other languages. He also noted that English is a very compact language. In order to convey the English meaning of a succinct phrase like "Can you dig it?" in another language, you may require more words, and consequently, more design space. This is especially important when writing content for user interfaces, where the size of text boxes can impact screen layout. The size of buttons, status bars and menus may need to change to accommodate labels or captions in other languages.

Daoudi also suggests that when writing for translation, technical communicators should keep their sentences as short as possible. Short sentences are generally easier to translate than long ones. This minimizes the time and cost of translation while maximizing accuracy.

Choice of authoring tool also impacts the ease and efficiency of translation. Complex documents, such as those that include tables of content, indices, and busy graphics may require translators to spend time (and money) extracting text from source material before beginning translation. After translation, they may also be required to reincorporate the material into the destination document. Using simple tools and separating text from its context, allow translators to focus on translation, minimizing the time spent in desktop publishing. Using a new or obscure authoring tool may require translators to purchase additional software and training in order to work with your source document. This adds to the expense of the project.

Daoudi recommends Adobe InDesign, Adobe PageMaker, and Quark Express for working with smaller documents. For larger documents, he recommends Adobe FrameMaker. While Microsoft Word is a reasonable alternative to FrameMaker, Daoudi notes that it is cumbersome when working with very large files and that the Master Document feature is unstable.

Door Prize

This evening's door prize was provided by The Economical Insurance Group and won by Ryan Lehmann, our Education Manager.

About Ryan Matusch

Ryan Matusch is an independent contractor and consultant, specializing in documention of software and automated industrial systems.