translation agency

Paris 2024: How translation technology is shaping the event

14.6.2024 by Delingua

With the 2024 Olympics on the horizon, the world is gearing up for a global sporting spectacle that transcends borders and languages. While the spotlight often falls on the athletes and the host city, there’s also another unsung hero working behind the scenes: translation technology.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how translation technology is quietly revolutionizing the Olympics, fostering inclusivity at Paris 2024, and breaking down linguistic barriers.

The unseen role of translation technology

Behind the grandeur of the Olympic Games lies a complex web of communications that often goes unnoticed. Traditionally, the games have heavily relied on the expertise of human interpreters and translators to bridge the gap between languages. These dedicated professionals have ensured that multilingual athletes, coaches, and officials can interact and understand one another. And of course, so that spectators from every corner of the globe can fully enjoy the event.

However, the landscape of communication at the Olympics is rapidly evolving, thanks to translation technology. In the past, the success of the games hinged solely on the formidable skill, speed and precision of human translators. While their skills remain indispensable, they now have a powerful ally in technology, which is quietly but fundamentally altering the way we experience the Olympics.

Real-time translation: bridging the gap

Picture this: an athlete from Japan competing in a high-pressure event, communicating effortlessly with their French official despite not speaking a word of French. This seamless communication is made possible through real-time translation devices. Whilst still in the early days of development and varying in quality, these compact gadgets aim at turning language barriers into mere speed bumps.

Real-time translation devices instantly convert spoken words into multiple languages, allowing athletes and their teams to communicate fluidly. It’s a game-changer that ensures language differences no longer stand in the way of achieving Olympic excellence.

AI and machine translation: handling the vast volume

Beyond the field of play, the Olympics generate an immense volume of text, from official documents and press releases to news updates. This is where AI and machine translation step in. These technologies excel in processing vast amounts of content swiftly and efficiently.

While the debate over machine translation’s accuracy versus human translation persists, there’s no denying the efficiency of AI-powered tools in the context of the Olympics where speed trumps accuracy in a high-pressured environment. They play a vital role in ensuring that information is disseminated rapidly and accurately, keeping everyone informed, regardless of their language.

Accessibility and inclusivity: making the Olympics for all

Olympic translations aim to make the event accessible to a global audience. Beyond the athletes and their teams, spectators from around the world converge at the games, all with different linguistic backgrounds and needs. Translation technology plays a pivotal role in achieving this inclusivity.

In addition to spoken and written translation, efforts are underway to cater to individuals with disabilities. Services such as sign language interpretation and captioning are becoming more accessible, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their language or hearing impairment, can immerse themselves in the Olympic experience.

Challenges and the road ahead

Of course, no technological advancement comes without its challenges. Machine translation, though efficient, can sometimes falter in capturing nuances that only a human translator can grasp. Striking the right balance between technology and human expertise remains an ongoing endeavour.

Nevertheless, the future of Olympic translations looks promising. Advancements in natural language processing and AI continue to push the boundaries of what’s achievable. As these technologies become more sophisticated, we can expect even smoother and more accurate translations at future Olympic Games.

Translation technology’s role in uniting the world at the Olympics

As we anticipate the Paris 2024 Olympics, it’s vital to recognize the role of translation technology in making the games a truly global and inclusive event.

While we celebrate the athletes’ achievements and the host city’s hospitality, let’s also applaud the unsung heroes: the translators working tirelessly behind the scenes and the technology that enables us to share in this international celebration. The true beauty of the Olympics lies not just in the competition, but in the unity, it fosters and the power of language to bridge our differences.

So, as you tune in to watch the games from the comfort of your home, remember the remarkable behind-the-scenes efforts that ensure you can understand and appreciate every moment, regardless of the language it’s spoken in. The language of inclusivity will speak volumes at Paris 2024, and hopefully it’s here to stay.

This article was originally published by LanguageWire Company (Verity Hartley).

Tips for linguistic accessibility

16.5.2024 by Delingua

Accessibility means that everyone has equal access to services. Read our tips on how you can create linguistically accessible content and how a translation agency can help you.

More and more services are consumed online, which is why the accessibility of content has become an increasingly important criterion. The EU has introduced the Accessibility Directive. In Finland, its requirements are included in the Act on the Provision of Digital Services. The act applies to the public sector and certain private companies. Digital services must meet the accessibility requirements. For instance, it must be possible to access the online service with as many different devices and browsers as possible, also by means of assistive devices, if necessary.

By 2025, the EU’s Accessibility Directive will extend to private companies in certain sectors, such as online stores and audiovisual services. Accessibility is becoming the norm, which is why every online company should plan its digital services to be accessible both technically and linguistically – and a translation agency can help in this.

1. Do not ignore linguistic accessibility

The most important thing for accessibility is clear and comprehensible language. Technically well-executed content is of no use if it is linguistically clumsy or unclear. The text may be unnecessarily difficult to read or written in a wrong language. A website is easy to use when there are no technical challenges and the content is easy to understand.

The easiest way to produce linguistically accessible content is to write it in clear standard language, that is, in easily understandable language without jargon. Clear language is not the same thing as plain language, which is language where the structure and the vocabulary have been adapted to make it easier than standard language. The content and the target group are decisive factors in determining if plain language is needed.

2. Subtitle videos

It is a good idea to subtitle videos even if the law does not require it yet because many people watch videos without sound. The text format is not precisely defined, but the most user-friendly method is adding captions that can be easily followed at the same time as watching the video.

At the moment, accessibility requirements do not require videos to be subtitled in other languages. In other words, the guidelines mandate that a Finnish video is subtitled in Finnish, a Swedish video in Swedish and so on. However, having the content translated strengthens the multicultural dimension of accessibility.

Services must also be accessible to those who speak a language other than the language in which the content was originally published. In Finland, public services are designed primarily for speakers of the national languages; however, in the light of accessibility, there is an increasing need to reach immigrants as well. With the help of translated subtitles, you can also reach a wider, international target audience.

3. Transcribe audio content

In audio recordings, such as podcasts, accessibility could be improved by transcribing them as written text. The accessibility requirements of the Act on the Provision of Digital Services require that audio-only broadcasts, such as podcasts, must also be accessible. According to the legislation, organisations affected by the requirements must provide a text version of the recording within two weeks.

For podcasts, this usually means a transcribed text version of the audio recording. As the text version must fulfil the requirements of accessibility, a simple script or summary of the podcast is not sufficient. In practice, the entire content of the recording must be provided in text form, including background sounds, and the text must also indicate who is speaking at any given time.

Creating a text version of the podcast ensures that everyone can enjoy the podcast. In addition, not everyone has time to listen to a 60-minute podcast, for instance: reading the text version is much faster.

If you are reaching for a larger audience, use a translated transcription, in which the podcast is transcribed into another language. You can also use a voiceover to do the entire podcast in a different language.

Corporate language strategy

A company’s language strategy means you decide on which languages will be used, in which channels and how. This raises a few important questions: is all content available in only one or several languages; which language is used on social media; is your website available in Finnish, English or both; and, in addition to Finnish and English, do you need other languages? In addition, the question of who writes, translates and maintains the foreign-language content is also an integral part of the language strategy. Corporate communications should be linguistically consistent, that is, logical. Choose a language strategy and stick to it.

Although the Act on the Provision of Digital Services mainly applies to public online services, accessibility also benefits other digital service providers. Issues such as the equal treatment of customers, a better user experience and access to a wider market should interest all companies and organisations. Accessibility is a key advantage for a company!

11th year of interpreting at Nordic Business Forum

30.4.2024 by Delingua

How generative AI can help elevate your work and boost efficiency

26.4.2024 by Delingua

In the last year, awareness of Generative AI has skyrocketed. The availability of newer and more powerful GPT models has given everyone a chance to benefit from this new technology.

But what exactly are those benefits? How is generative AI really going to change the way you work and why should we be investing our time in understanding these new, powerful tools.

Let’s look at some ways you can use AI to help you work smarter and faster than ever.

Kickstart Creativity

Generative AI is a great starting point for getting your ideas on the page. When working creatively, nothing can be worse than blank page syndrome, where the cursor blinks at you incessantly while you wait for inspiration to strike.

From creating article outlines, to writing first drafts of content, Generative AI can help you jump start your creativity and speed up your workflows. Use it to create first draft outlines or give you heading ideas to get you started. If you’re really stuck it can even create a first draft from scratch to fill that first page.

You can use the new wave of AI tools to help break this cycle and start getting new ideas on the page for you to then finesse with your own style, voice and creativity.

Maintain Consistency & Quality

When working on multilingual content, you want to always maintain a consistent tone of voice and use the right business language. This can be tricky when you have content creators or translators working all around the world and often across different languages.

By interlinking your Generative AI tool with your company termbase and other linguistic assets like translation memories, you can ensure that any content your AI tool generates for you will maintain the correct business tone and language to ensure consistency.

You can train your AI model on your linguistic assets to ensure that it knows your tone of voice, what terms you use and how to spell and write them correctly. This will save you time and effort when validating and boost the overall quality of your content.

Personalise Customer Experiences

It can be difficult to provide always-on multilingual customer service, especially on a global scale. However, AI chatbots can help provide a customer service presence even when your employees are off the clock.

With the latest versions of AI models, these chatbots can be programmed to provide a huge amount of personalised interaction with your customers, in their own language.

Always-on AI chatbots can provide friendly, helpful support to your customers at any time of the day and respond in a conversational manner that seems natural. They can pull data directly from customer databases to personalise the experience and make answering customer queries simple in any language.

Boost Productivity

Data analysis is one of the key areas where AI can help make our lives much easier. AI models are trained on large datasets, and they can easily absorb, review and analyse data in a second before returning the results in an easy-to-read format.

One powerful way this can be used is to summarise long texts. AI can quickly read and create a summary of a longer document by identifying the key points and adding them to a bulleted list. It can also create short-form copy from long-form documents, for example it could build social media posts based on blog articles.

You can input large data sets of any variety into your AI tool and asking them to identify trends, format the content in a variety of ways or to extract key information quickly and easily, cutting down on the manual effort required.

Additionally, you can use an AI tool to help you be more productive in other tools such as Excel by asking you to write a formula that will analyse your data for you in that application.

You do need to be careful about where and what data you upload to open and public AI tools as there is no protection on who can see your data once it is uploaded. Make sure you only upload sensitive data to a company you trust who can provide assurances that nothing will be kept or shared after the task is completed.

Make Generative AI work for you

Generative AI is a powerful tool that you can use to enhance your daily workflows. From creativity to communication, the possibilities are endless. Getting the most out of AI includes understanding how to input the right prompt. If you would like to learn more about AI prompting, read our detailed guide.

Interested to learn more about what LanguageWire AI tools can do for you and your business? Contact us and let’s talk more!

This article was originally published by LanguageWire Company (Verity Hartley).

The future of termbase management

18.4.2024 by Delingua

As we have seen recently, things can change very quickly in business technology. AI has leaped into our lives and is now becoming a major part of most of the daily processes and systems in ways we could never have imagined a year ago.

Termbases, critical business tools for those who seek quality and consistency in the content, and their related science of terminology management will be no different.

Peering into our crystal ball let’s see if we can catch a glimpse of a few of the future trends that will be impacting on our termbase management systems.

Cloud network storage

Long gone are the days when termbases were confined to a single desktop, accessible only by the one who created it. With cloud computing becoming much more ubiquitous in business, we can expect to see termbases becoming not just about storage but about accessibility, availability, and real-time updates. As businesses become increasingly global, the need for language experts to access these linguistic assets from anywhere, be it a bustling office in London or a quiet cafe in Kyoto, becomes imperative.

Cloud platforms don’t just facilitate this global reach; they also ensure that backup, security, and updates are managed centrally, reducing the nitty-gritty tasks for businesses, and freeing them to focus on their core operations. It also allows for greater levels of integration with more applications ensuring that you can apply your business language to your content, at anytime and anywhere.

Automation

Imagine a world where the process of updating a termbase doesn’t require manual intervention but is instead a seamless, automatic process. That’s where automation steps in.

Instead of combing vast amounts of content to identify and add new terms, automation tools, driven by AI, can detect, classify, and even suggest terms for inclusion. This not only streamlines the process saving you time and money, but also reduces the chances of error that manual processes can introduce therefore producing a much higher-quality final product.

AI data enhancement

Large Language Models thrive on data. The richer and more diverse the data, the more adept these models become by training the model with your specific business language. Termbases, teeming with linguistic intricacies, provide a golden opportunity here. By integrating termbases into AI training data, businesses can ensure that their AI tools are not just linguistically aware but are also culturally and contextually astute.

For businesses aiming for global resonance, this is a game-changer. A chatbot trained with a comprehensive termbase, for instance, would not just communicate; it would connect, understand nuances, and deliver a richer customer experience. Generative AI models would be able to produce content in your business voice using correct product names and ensuring consistency across the board.

Collaborative platforms

The beauty of collaboration is that it captures a myriad of perspectives. In the context of termbases, this means a more robust and diverse linguistic database. Collaborative platforms are set to revolutionise termbase management by enabling teams, irrespective of their geographical location, to contribute to, refine, and leverage a centralised termbase.

This collective approach ensures that the linguistic spectrum captured is broad, nuanced, and immensely valuable and specific to your business needs.

Looking forward in termbase management

The great news is that many of these exciting changes to greater improve and simplify termbase management are already here and improving day by day. You just need to understand and take advantage of them.

This article was originally published by LanguageWire Company (Verity Hartley)

Why accuracy is critical to medical translations

16.4.2024 by Delingua

In medical translations, there can be no room for error. A wrong word can sometimes even mean the difference between life and death.

In the tragic case of Willie Ramirez from South Florida, USA, it was the misunderstanding of one word, ‘intoxicado’, that caused his treatable brain bleed to be missed with devastating consequences.

In Cuban Spanish, ‘intoxicado’ signifies an illness brought on by something you have eaten or drunk. Willie wrongly assumed that his intense headache was being caused by something he had consumed at a restaurant earlier that day. This was misinterpreted by the hospital staff as a drug overdose, and he was treated as such. By the time they realised their mistake, it was too late.

The results tragically left Willie a quadriplegic for life. The hospital was sued for $71 million dollars, and Willie’s mother, who took her son to the hospital, has chastised herself ever since for using the ‘wrong word’.

What are medical translations?

This example highlights the risks of not having professional translators available in medical facilities. But within the sphere of life sciences, there are lots of types of translation that require professional medical translation services.

Interpreting

In health centres, hospitals or doctor’s offices, non-native speakers may need a professional hospital interpreter to help them understand what critical information the doctor is relaying and make the patient fully understood.

Labelling and inserts

Pharmaceutical manufacturing companies need to ensure that the right information is printed on their labels, including dosage, instructions for usage, and side effects. Medical devices and surgical equipment would also fall into this category as they need to be properly labelled to avoid malpractice.

Scientific and technical translation

Research reports, studies, clinical trials and interpreted data all need to be translated by an expert medical translator who understands the terms and the data represented exactly in both languages.

Medical documentation

Any leaflets or information documentation, both online and in print, that is needed to keep the public well-informed must be accurately translated into numerous language variants. This includes any marketing or advertising materials for new drugs that must accurately represent the product.

Educational material

Scientists and medical professionals require continuous ongoing training to keep their skills in their prime. Educational textbooks and eLearning materials must be kept up to date and accurately translated to ensure the highest standard of training is maintained.

The consequences of inaccurate translations

Inaccurate medical translations could have wide-reaching consequences that heavily impact people’s lives.

Loss of life, permanent disability or impact on a patient’s lifestyle
Malpractice lawsuits and loss of licenses to practice or manufacture goods
Delays in the clinical trials that halt scientific progress
Reputation damage for companies and individuals

Expert translators can help both individuals and businesses avoid these serious consequences of medical mistranslations.

Work with a medical translations expert

For high-quality medical translations, you need to ensure that you work with a Language Service Provider who can team you up with the best experts in their respective fields. Experts not only with scientific expertise but also a deep understanding of the culture and the language.

This article was originally published by LanguageWire Company (Verity Hartley)