Subject Spring Lunch 4/26 | Workshop 4/16 | Happy Hour 4/25 | ATA Cert Exam 5/22
From “Northern California Translators Association” <ncta@ncta.org>

Spring Lunch – Tuesday April 26

Come and enjoy the spring with us for lunch on  Tuesday April, 26 at 12:30PM:

Cafe Leila

1724 San Pablo Ave. Berkeley, CA 94702

Phone : (510) 525-7544

http://cafeleila.com

Parking is available, we will be seating in their nice garden if weather permits.

Please RSVP to Afaf Steiert

Happy Hour in San Francisco – Monday April 25

Join your colleagues for food, drink and chatter on Monday March 28 in San Francisco! Easy access by BART (“Embarcadero” station) or ferry. Details and RSVP information here.

Techniques for Successful Selling Workshop – Saturday April 16

This workshop is aimed at Language Service Providers and linguists who deal with direct clients.  For established LSPs and linguists, capability is a given, so how do you build compatibility and confidence? How can you differentiate yourself or your organization and win a client’s business? How can you get clients to talk about what’s important to them? What questions should you be asking? To find out answers to these questions and more, click here and sign up!

ATA Certification Exam in San Francisco

The next ATA Certification Exam sitting in San Francisco will be held on Sunday May 22. For details, click here.

Become a fan of NCTA on Facebook and follow NCTAorg on Twitter.

Getting ready to translate/localize your company docs?

Common Roadblocks and How to Avoid Them

Do you have a technical manual, medical Instructions for Use (IFU), or marketing document that needs to be translated? Tight deadlines? Complex material? Multiple drops of small batches of words?

The article seeks to explore some of the most common issues that occur when companies look to localize their documentation. From delivering the files to the translation vendor to receiving the files back from your vendor in a fully localized format, we will explore the different potential problems you might find as you navigate this process.

Uploading files: the FTP solution

Many times if your document is larger than 5 or 10MB, it is too big to send via email. The fastest way for you to send it and for the vendor to receive it is to upload the file to a secure FTP site. Ask your vendor about this option to speed up the upload time on your end.

If your vendor does not own his own FTP site, there are also a a plethora of 3rd-party solutions out there for sending large files way over 20MB, the standard limitation of most popular email clients like MSN, Yahoo, Gmail! For more info on these other large file-sending solutions, see  8 Free Ways to Send Large Files Online.

Format of files for translation: prep work you can do to lower your costs and turnaround time

Make sure to deliver the files to your localization vendor in an editable format. This means avoid PDFs whenever possible, and be sure to include layered graphics and all fonts with the files you send. If screen captures are involved, you will want to supply your vendor with a running version of the localized software so they can go through and quickly recreate the screen captures.  The vendor can do all this work manually, but it will cost you time and money that you could save by doing a small amount of upfront work in gathering the source files.

Complex material: it’s glossary time

You have many company-specific terms and phrases that need to be translated right, every time. You want to make absolutely sure that the phrase is saying what it needs to say, especially if your client is very particular. The solution to this type of critical translation: a translated glossary.

Give your vendor a list of commonly used terms and phrases with their definitions, and the vendor can translate this glossary first before moving on to the real translation. Two upsides to the glossary: 1. You and your in-country client reviewer can review the glossary prior to translation to approve the style of the translation, and 2. The approved glossary will serve as a style guide for the rest of the translations, in addition to the core phrases that are translated within it.  The one downside to glossaries is the turnaround time needed, so be sure to budget extra time for glossary approval from your in-country reviewer.

Multiple drops: how to turn the minor tweak syndrome into a healthy habit

Not all documents can be finalized prior to translation, localization vendors get that, and we see it all the time. The question is not how to avoid multiple drops altogether, but it’s how to minimize the negative effect to your budget and delivery schedule. The easiest way to avoid minimum charges and problematic adjustments to cost and schedule is to deliver the drops during translation. Once the files have been put in translation, it does not matter if a couple hundred words are added or tweaked here and there. The costly aspect comes when additions and changes come post-translation, when the document is already in Publishing/Formatting/Quality Assurance stages.

If you do have to tweak a document once it’s in the final stages of formatting, expect to pay more for the changes in both time and money. The best way to avoid that extra charge is to let your vendor know as soon as you can that there will be extra sentences or paragraphs coming or changes being made, so we can postpone translation and delay formatting until the files are finalized.

In the document: super-size boxes

Often documents have text boxes or call-outs within the layout. These boxes generally depend on and refer to the surrounding text. If you are not careful, the text expansion due to translation could be too much for your text box to accommodate, and you will end up with truncated text, or worse, having to over-abbreviate the translation to compensate for lack of space. Avoid this common pitfall by creating text boxes with plenty of room for growth and expansion.

International style: writing for a global audience

Remember that certain styles of writing in English will not come across the same in a foreign language.  It is important for you to remind your technical publications or marketing communications writers to keep the global audience in mind when writing the document. Avoid colloquial expressions, strive for neutral English, and remember that simpler is generally better.

Deliverables: it’s time to get specific!

When asking for deliverables from your vendor, the more detailed you can be with your preferences, the better for everyone. Do you need the files to come with both high-resolution and lower-resolution PDFs?  Do you have conditional text and need two different outputs as deliverables? Did you give us the files in InDesign CS3 and need the delivered files in CS5? Perhaps you’re writing for European audiences and need A4 sized paper. The best way to get what you need back from your vendor is to be as specific as possible when requesting the translation.

The more you know about the localization process, the smoother the project will go for both your team and the localization vendor. So just remember, when in doubt, ask your localization Account Manager or Project Manager for best practices. Chances are, the issue or question you’re facing has come up many times before, and there is a practical solution that will save you precious time and money.

Dear Friends,
Looking for free ways to send large files (over 20MB) online or via email?!
Here are some great solutions, since we all know Gmail, Yahoo, MSN and other email providers do not allow users to send large files over 20MB by email.

Wanna learn how to get around this limit, read on:
http://www.friedbeef.com/8-free-ways-to-send-large-files-online/
(Even more solutions offered in the 34 Comments below!)

Awesome article to pass on!
Btw, for those using Thunderbird out there, what do you use to send large emails directly from your Tbird email client? Love to hear your thoughts about which one of these you used, your review and other similar tools you used that you recommend to us all! Let the sharing begin!

Hi All,
A client of mine has requested a number of Japanese legal reviewers to do
document review onsite in San Francisco, LA, and New York City for next 6
months, full-time. The project is expected to start next Wed, March 9, 2011 and
will require several reviewers working on it.

Seeking: Native Japanese speakers or anyone (even non-translator) who can read
JP fluently and quickly. who are able to quickly read through boxes of Japanese
business and legal documents to identify those that would be relevant to the
case at hand.

The client has now requested 50 document reviewers!
So pls contact me ASAP this week if you are interested or know some qualified native or
non-native JP linguists/speakers who may be interested in this job.

Thanks,
Thomas

Thomas I. Shou
Principal/Asian Translation Consultant
SinoTrans International
Phone: 650-856-0749
Skype ID: thomasshou
translate@thomasshou.com
http://www.sinotransintl.com

“Translate your business to Asia”

Baby Talk

17 Feb
1


Check out this video and find out who the Other Linguistic Genius in your house is!

Love to hear your thoughts and experiences talking to the genius in your home!

For more info, visit linguistic genius of babies

Dear Friends,

I love articles that affirm we are in the right career for 2011 and beyond! Read and be encouraged!

Best Careers 2011: Interpreter/Translator – US News and World Report.

So please send me any similar articles you find online, so we can all lift each other up in these hard economic times.

Dear Friends,

Welcome to my first blog article about one of my new target market focuses in 2011: the EB-5 US investor. I am helping to promote Invest in America 2011 (Guangzhou) Summit – a trade show for US investments and services. Please forward http://www.investAmerica2011.org to anyone who might be interested, especially law firms, CPAs, financial services, real estate companies.

We are currently looking for interested exhibitors and sponsors for this show, don’t miss this great opportunity to promote your business to thousands of Chinese investors this year. For all referrals, I can even give $100 commission fee for each referred exhibitor and $500 for each referred sponsor to our show!