translation quality

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).

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)

Validation – high-quality translations are a joint effort

27.3.2024 by Jari Herrgård

Successful translations require teamwork. Although the key person in the translation process is the translator and their tools, they alone are not able to achieve ideal quality. In the translation process, the best possible result always requires input from the translation agency’s other employees as well as the customer. Validation is perhaps the most important tool for assessing the linguistic quality of translations.

If you are a customer, you may be asking why you should contribute to the process – it’s our job, after all. You are correct and, as a customer, your involvement is not obligatory. But if you want the best result, it is in your best interest to participate in the process – especially through feedback.

To some extent, language is a matter of opinion. We are all fluent in at least our own native tongue, and many of us also know several other languages. Therefore, we all have a lot of opinions about language. This is especially true in work contexts if language plays a central role in our work and we put a lot of thought into how a message should be conveyed. We know how we want to address the reader, and perhaps the organisation we work in has even defined common rules for what kinds of images we should evoke.

Even if these rules are self-explanatory within the organisation and come naturally to you, they may not be self-evident to the translator. The translator is always a bit of an outsider and depends on what they are told about your preferred language and its nuances. This is where teamwork comes into play: the ideal translation process involves cooperation to ensure that the translation matches the customer’s communication needs as closely as possible. By providing feedback on the translations, the customer can ensure that each translation is better than the one before and closer to the customer’s ideal.

Validation as a tool

One of the most important tools for the process described above is validation. This means a review by the customer after the translation has been completed. It may often be carried out by an expert whose main work tasks do not include translation. The expert is responsible for checking, in particular, the terminology and style, and assessing whether they are in line with the customer’s brand. Other review work can also be done at the same time.

Validation in itself is a simple step, and there is no doubt about its usefulness, but it is still often skipped altogether. Typically, validation is carried out by sending PDF or DOCX files to vendors or technical experts, for example. The expert will use the comment or track changes functions to add their own comments and corrections to the document. These will be included in the final version and imported into the translation memory by the translation agency. This process is quite laborious and may complicate version control, which are the main reasons why it is often skipped.

Validation with system support

At LanguageWire, workflow and translation work are based on a shared platform used by customers, translators and internal project managers. Using a single platform has many benefits, especially in terms of translation project communications and transparency.

The validation step also takes place entirely on this platform, which makes the process quick and efficient. Usually, the validation step is added as soon as the project is created.

Validation takes place after the translators have done their work. The experts assigned to the project will receive an automatic message from the system and, by clicking on the link, they will be forwarded to the right project. There is no need to search for the project or upload any files, and the expert can start working in their browser right away.

Validation is done in the same tool that the translators use, and the validator has access to all the same information. This means, for example, that they will automatically be able to view the correct terminology if there is a glossary attached. This helps to avoid situations where outdated or otherwise incorrect terminology is used in the text during the validation phase. The validator also has access to other tools, such as proofreading and translation tools. Our user-friendly interface ensures that you do not need to be a professional translator to benefit from the translation platform. Everything you need can be done with basic browser skills.

In addition to possible corrections, the validator can also communicate with the translator, which helps to quickly solve potential dilemmas. Since everyone works in the same digital environment, all corrections are also saved directly in the translation memory, and they do not need to be separately exported at the end of the project.

In order to ensure the best possible translation quality and that the translator and proofreader learn as much as possible, a language specialist will check the changes made by the validator at the end. This ensures that all changes follow the customer’s own standards and, of course, the general rules of the language.

Would you like to discuss your organisation’s language needs? Contact us via email at contact-fi@languagewire.com for further information!

Artificial intelligence – the latest localisation superpower

22.3.2024 by Delingua

5 reasons why integration is a good idea

5.3.2024 by Delingua

LanguageWire’s APIs and connectors are a time- and effort-saving solution, helping you avoid copying text unnecessarily from one place to another and import any changes, no matter how big or small, to all language versions of your website in almost real time.

A connector is a kind of system integration that allows the customer to order a translation of the content through an existing publishing system. In practice, a customer who uses a publishing system to process their website content can use our connector to order website translations from within their content management system. Once the translations are ready, they are imported into the system as localised copies of the original page.

We have listed five key reasons why integration is a good idea.

1. Work in a familiar publishing system

LanguageWire connectors and custom API work with your CMS, PIM or DAM. You can order translations and track the progress of projects directly through the digital platform you are already using.

Integration can be built with nearly any generally used content management system. We have Adobe, Drupal, inRiver, Optimizely, Sitecore, TYPO3, Shopify, Umbraco and WordPress connectors – and many others! If you didn’t find an option suitable for your platform among our connectors, you can use our API to create a custom integration between your digital platform and LanguageWire.

2. Automate your translation management process

Copying source texts from websites and emailing them to be translated is a time-consuming process. A smarter and more efficient way to manage large volumes of website content and numerous language versions is to integrate the systems so that the process for managing the translations is as highly automated as possible. Managing online store product information in different language versions, for instance, is much easier when the processed are automated.

LanguageWire’s APIs and connectors make full automation of the process possible. Simply connect your application to a tech-enabled translation management tool, and your translations can be imported directly from the translator to the page.

3. Save time and reduce workload

By using integration, you can publish content in every language as simply as in one. Integration is a better option than time-consuming manual work, and you receive ready translations right into your own publishing system. Managing translation orders is quick and easy with a user-friendly interface. This allows you to save time and money and, above all, gain additional peace of mind when the most monotonous part in the language version release process can be eliminated. With aid of a connector, you can import any changes, no matter how big or small, to all language versions of your website or webstore in almost real time.

4. Minimise risks

Furthermore, the likelihood of making mistakes increases when a large number of files are sent back and forth, with internal editors’ modification proposals. With LanguageWire, you don’t need to make any compromises on security. HTTPS-encrypted transfer of data increases security and you can manage the integration between LanguageWire and your system with modern access control.

Our APIs are built to be very stable so you don’t lose any jobs or complete translations in the event of a network outage. With integration, you can send texts for translation securely without a flood of emails and a need to worry about human errors.

5. Higher translation quality

We work as an extension of your business by building a permanent team of project managers, linguists and engineers. By connecting your digital platform to LanguageWire’s system, you will have access to our network of over 7,000 language experts. Our experts translate more than 450 million words per year, in 500 different language pairs. No matter what languages you are looking for or what sector you work in, we’ll bring you in touch with a language expert who best meets your company’s needs.

Interested? Contact us – let’s make translation management easier!

The importance of linguistic quality assurance in translation

10.1.2024 by Delingua

What is the true price of linguistic quality?

In today’s global marketplace, it is increasingly important for businesses to be able to accurately communicate with customers, partners, and employees from across the globe.

Poor quality translations could cost your business in revenue, access to global markets, business reputation and in some worst cases scenarios even result in physical harm or loss of life.

Linguistic Quality Assurance (LQA) is an essential component of the end-to-end translation process. It plays a key role in making linguistic quality a measurable and achievable goal by ensuring that translations consistently meet the necessary defined standards protecting you, your customers, and your business.

In this article, we will dive a little deeper into how Linguistic Quality Assurance (LQA) can help your business take the quality of your translated content to the next level.

What is Linguistic Quality Assurance (LQA)?

Linguistic (or Language) Quality Assurance (LQA) is a system of processes for evaluating and verifying the quality of translations across a project. It ensures that the translations are accurate, clear, and convey the intended message. LQA should always be performed by professional linguists who are also subject-matter specialists. They must be experts in target languages and cultures. This includes any language variants such as French and French Canadian.

It is usually in the final stage of a translation or a localization project and endeavours to find and correct all the mistakes, mistranslations and style guide irregularities that may have been overlooked at earlier stages. LQA is an often overlooked project phase but it can make the difference in turning your translated content from good to excellent.

What is the Purpose of an LQA Review?

Adding a linguistic quality assurance review stage to your translation projects ensures the highest quality in your final products.

Some believe that editing and proofreading are enough to catch the majority of errors produced within the translation process. While they do help detect mistakes, some will often slip through undetected. This is often due to a difference of opinion on subjective translation errors and the lack of a standardised ruleset. That is why fixed guidelines on translation criteria are an essential part of a quality assurance system.

How does Quality Assurance differ from Quality Assessment?

Quality assurance and quality assessment are related but not the same. Typically quality assurance (QA) refers to the system or process that helps optimise the quality as a whole across a project, such as the translation of an app, a product or a large document.

A quality assessment is a step added to evaluate the quality of a translation against a pre-defined set of standards. For example, a quality assessment can be performed by a third-party linguist who evaluates and scores the translation for completeness and correctness.

After a translation is completed, another additional step, the review, is added to ensure the overall linguistic quality of a project. While a review can also look at individual pieces of translated content, for example checking only some specific parts of the translation, it also allows you to take a step back and look at the final product as a whole.

The review should be carried out by language experts who have not been involved in the process so far, to provide the greatest level of objectivity. This will ensure the content achieves the highest standard of linguistic quality and cultural consistency.

In addition to the above, there is also Localization Quality Assurance to consider. This looks at the bigger picture beyond simply the translated content and makes sure the necessary tools are in place to assess the layout, formatting, imagery and even UX functionality of content such as websites, video games, documents or software applications. It can also be used to assess the entire process end to end and find workflow improvements.

However, all of these systems and processes are working towards the same goal: providing high-quality translations and localized content for your audiences.

Linguistic Quality Assurance: An Essential Workflow Step

Certain industries, where translation quality can result in legal ramifications or even potential harm to an end user, cannot afford to not include quality assurance in their translation workflows.

Poor quality translations will reduce a company’s credibility and reputation and can often prove to be a costly mistake to fix. They can delay or even prevent a product’s access to the global markets resulting in lost business going to your competitors.

At LanguageWire we hold quality at the centre of everything we do for our clients and within our internal processes. You can learn more about our commitment to our quality policy here.

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