Translation for video games – a “glocal” business!

When someone says that “Gaming is a serious matter”, some still might take that as an oxymoron, but every day more and more people are realizing the truth behind this once popular misconception. With expectations of $74 billion in earnings for 2015 according to a report from SuperData Research, video games have become THE thing, surpassing Hollywood and any other entertainment industry.

The boom of video games is as evident as it is international, and as such, it requires a proportionally huge investment in good translation.

According to Joost van Dreunen, CEO from SuperData Research, “Today, people don’t just consume entertainment but increasingly play an active part in it.” And for this to be possible, language is key. Gamers want to savor their favorite games in their own languages in order to get a complete sense of immersion and identification with the story of the video game as it unfolds.

Translation for video games is definitely one of a kind.

First of all, localization is extremely important. Even if you have all your text translated for a video game, gamers from UK want to hear their characters speak English with a UK accent and use UK expressions; gamers from Mexico want to hear Spanish with Mexican accents and idioms; French gamers will always prefer French accents over Canadian ones. Not taking this into consideration will break that precious “immersion effect” that can easily be the difference between success and failure for a game – and the industry is competitive enough as it is!

Video game translation also tends to be difficult due to technical aspects, such as character limitation and audio synchronization. Also, when a game is very big or has prequels and/or sequels, consistency is a major issue – and you can be sure that if something is not properly researched and proofed, the gamers will most likely express their outrage openly. Such is the industry nowadays: the final customers have as much of a saying as the companies themselves.

Lastly, initiatives such as Kickstarter and the lower costs of video game production in general due to newer, more efficient technologies have caused the emergence of millions of independent video game companies in recent years. This means that small companies need translation done fast, efficiently and at affordable prices in order not to go over budget.

Thus, it seems like a logical conclusion for a small, versatile translation company known for its efficiency, excellent price-performance ratio and delivery speed to be their best option.

Good thing that at inWhatLanguage we have a group of extremely professional linguists ready to work on gaming translation whenever the need arises! At inWhatLanguage, we are proud of our large networks of local translators who “get” the people you are targeting. We want you to become a “glocal” phenomenon – a global company that excels at localizing to needs around the world.

And “glocal” translation is definitely the way to go when it comes to video games!

Honesty – a translator’s most powerful quality

A translator’s livelihood depends on many factors: the quality of their work, their rates, their reliability, the chances they get to demonstrate their skills... It’s not always easy. Competition is fierce. Beginnings tend to be shaky, and it takes a while to build up a reputation. And certain mistakes can be fatal.

In a world where demand for all sorts of translations in all languages imaginable are in higher and higher demand, it is easy to give in to the temptation of exaggerating one’s capabilities.

Obviously, it’s all about the math: if a person says that they can translate from/to one language, that person will get a certain amount of projects. If that person proclaims that they can do translations from/to two languages, the workload doubles.

However, in the long term, truly experienced translators know that it is not about the quantity – it is about the quality.

A translator must be native in one language and fluent in another (at least) in order to offer high-quality translations in that particular combination of languages. Anything less than a native or almost-native level in any of those languages will result in lower-quality translations that, in the end, will leave a dent in the reputation of said translator.

There are special cases, of course, but generally speaking, it is in the best interest of the translator to focus on their native tongue and second language to perform at their best, earn the trust of their clients, and keep getting job after job.

If, as a translator, you feel that you can also do a good job with other languages, feel free to say so – but be ALWAYS honest.

If you have studied French for many years, that might help you work in translations FROM French, but that might not be enough for you to translate TO French. If you are fluent in Latinamerican Spanish, you might have difficulties understanding European Spanish audio recordings.

All of this is important, and it is not undermining your skills – it is stating facts that will be obvious anyway at the end of the day if you decide to omit them. Only then, it will be too late to mention them, and your dependability might be questioned.

A translator must be equally aware of their fortes and of their limitations. We are not supposed to be capable of doing everything – we are meant to focus on what we do best.

That is why translation is all about honesty!

New addition to the iWL Family: Shelbi Anderson, our new Project Manager!

As our number of clients grows, new additions to the iWL team are needed! This week, we have the privilege to say hi to yet another new member of the iWL family: Shelbi Anderson, iWL Project Manager! 

Young, positive and full of promise, Shelbi is quickly becoming an invaluable part of the team.

Now, it’s time for us to get to know a little bit more about her.

In April 2015, Shelbi Anderson graduated from Brigham Young University in Public Relations, but her career in communications began long before that.

While a student, Shelbi, a Salt Lake City native, took a year and a half off from her studies to serve a church mission in Santiago, Chile, which sparked her interest in other languages and cultures. 

Since returning two years ago, she has worked for diverse clients including Marriott International, NASA, the National Science Foundation, the LDS Church, the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration, and the BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications and BYU Museum of Art.

One of the highlights of Shelbi’s career has been the opportunity to travel around the world.

In 2013, she was one of three on her team that presented research on social media best practices to over 100 general managers at the Marriott Caribbean Latin American annual conference in Cancun, Mexico.

In 2014, Shelbi traveled back to Santiago, Chile as a journalist to do investigative reporting about the student protest movements with a small group of videographers and a graphic designer. The piece, Breaking the Class Ceiling, later won the regional Mark of Excellence Award for Online In-Depth Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Besides travel, some of her hobbies include design, eating ethnic food, staying on top of the latest pop culture, reading and (most recently) barre classes.

Welcome to inWhatLanguage, Shelbi! It’s going to be one fun ride :)

Cost and worth in translation

Looking for a suitable company to handle your translation needs is always tricky. There are many factors that can help you make a decision: availability, experience, client feedback, language range, quality, price... And of course, some of them are easier to “see” than others.

Some companies don’t publish client feedback for privacy issues. Quality can be considered by gathering translation samples, but it’s a fact that each translation is different, and quality measurement can be subjective. Price, on the other hand, is pretty definitive: once you get a price, you can easily compare it with offers from other companies, and base your decision on that.

Is it a good decision, though?

If you are offered two watches, one for $100 and another one for $500, with the guarantee that they have the exact same features and durability, your decision can be based on many factors, and price is definitely a very valid one.

But when it comes to translation, there are no such things as features and durability. The success of a translation project depends on the skills of a linguist or a group of linguists, their reliability and attention to detail, and the efforts of the company that manages it all to make sure that the client receives what they are expecting.

All of this requires people – good, experienced, trained employees willing to commit to your project, willing to make a livelihood out of it.

And, naturally, that level of commitment comes with a price.

Is it all necessary for a good translation? Definitely. If you want to settle for a less polished translation, you can save on extra costs, sure. But a good translation requires investment – financial, personal and professional.

inWhatLanguage is not the cheapest option out there. We offer great prices, yes, but the greatness is based on the price-quality ratio. The quality of our services is hard to surpass, while we keep average pricing levels to make it easier on our clients to invest on good translation.

Thanks to our wonderful new online Translation Management System Unity we can make the whole process faster and more efficient, and that allows us to throw in important discounts for large volume and repetitions in projects.

And of course, let’s not forget that there is nothing more priceless than the tranquility that comes from knowing that your precious materials are in good hands, that you will get your translation done in time and done right, and that we are always there for when you need us :)

It's official... Utah Business is talking about us!

There are times when I don't even need to write anything to keep the blog running every week. This is one of those times: Utah Business Talk has just published a great article about inWhatLanguage. And because a fresh perspective on our services is always welcome, here is the article!

Thank you, Utah Business Talk!

Cody Broderick on the Cutting Edge of Translation Services

A leading company in multilingual translation and language services, inWhatLanguage, has achieved a huge breakthrough in business translation services with its cloud-based translation management platform “Unify.” Cody Broderick, CEO of inWhatLanguage, describes his company as an international translation agency which offers unique client/translator collaboration.

According to Broderick, the company offers fast, accurate and cost-effective ways to translate websites, documents, software and multimedia in more than 160 languages and 120 countries, while continuously managing and maintaining all content in the cloud. The language translation services are delivered through certified linguists who are experts in fields related to the client’s subject matter or industry—everything from medical, legal, IT, technical, engineering, to the hotel industry and e-commerce. Broderick said, “Our industry-specific expertise ensures the translation style and writing tone is correct, and that the message is conveyed with the exact meaning intended.”

Broderick explained, “The company has 15 full-time employees and about 60 full-time translators, for a core team of about 75. There is an additional part-time translation team of around 40 to 50. Finally, we work with a global network of a few thousand linguists with whom we have built great relationships over the past few years.”

inWhatLanguage guarantees content is adapted correctly for Asia, Europe, and South America, which in turn ensures the growth of those markets for their clients. Their interpretations are accurate, whether dealing with websites, the legal written word, or marketing. Broderick expanded on how their program works with areas such as marketing: “Marketing is supposed to invoke some type of feeling—whether a brand or a written text, it makes you think a certain way or feel a certain way. It’s very challenging in language and in translation to convey the exact meaning. The company ensures that’s done. They take the time to apply science and workflow methodology to translate content and make sure it’s adapted correctly.”

Unify, the company’s proprietary cloud-based translation management system (TMS), is what makes inWhatLanguage different from other translation companies. According to Broderick, Unify provides an “A to Z ability to translate content very easily and rapidly, and provides control and access for our clients. A client can start the project, see what’s going on in the project, download the project, and interact with our team the entire time.”

Any of the company’s translators throughout the world can access the system and be logged on real-time. Work flows into the system, immediately allowing access to the materials that need to be translated. This process adds to the custom localization services. Broderick explained: “The days of working through email and saying ‘here’s a file and an attachment,’ or going through Dropbox or Google Drive or some other SaaS tool—in our system those days are gone. It’s cloud-based so any translator anywhere in the world can access the system. And they can be logged on live.”

Broderick outlined the client collaboration process: “We get content from our clients—it’s flowing into the system, we can assign it, and they can work within the system to translate websites, documents, and mobile applications. It’s a collaboration platform, because the client can log into the system and check the translation in real-time. The system also provides access to the client’s own subject matter experts so they can give opinions on the work being done instead of waiting until it’s finished. This allows the work to be finished quickly and accurately.” Broderick explained that ordinary project management tools are not customized to language or to the translation lifecycle—the time-consuming process of actually submitting something, getting it priced, having it translated, then emailing and conferencing back and forth until agreement is reached.

Everything the company translates gets archived within the database. Broderick said, “When the client submits new content to us we analyze the new content against what has already been translated. And if there are existing sentences or phrases they get automatically pre-populated. That’s called ‘translation memory.’ It helps us make future content consistent, because it has already been translated in the past. This cuts the cost down for repeat clients since some content doesn’t need to be re-translated when it’s already in the database.” The database is also split by department because the terminology and style for areas such as marketing is different from legal or medical or technical engineering.

In addition to emphasizing the custom localization services and project management virtues of Unify, Broderick also talked about the extent of the service that is provided: “We’re very, very focused on relationships and providing a red-carpet experience—the absolute best service in our industry of communicating, not hiding behind email, but calling and staying active. We send our clients video messages every day. We’re engaged. But I think above and beyond those things we have a technology platform that is very valuable for enterprise clients who need to rapidly translate their websites, documents or software.”

inWhatLanguage has not only a unique system, but also a unique way of giving back. Everyone in the company goes out every month to serve the community. Broderick said, “We’re helping Make-a-Wish Kids with their wishes. We’re helping many different non-profits, families, and veterans; we provide monetary support and help people with cancer; and we turn it into a team-building event.”

Broderick continued, “We’re taking time away in the middle of the day to go contribute to the community. But it’s great because our team loves it. They love knowing they’re making a difference outside.” One of their favorite outreach activities was throwing a Frozen party, complete with Queen Elsa, for a six-year-old girl fighting leukemia. At the end, they gave money and gas cards to her parents to help them get to treatments.

Broderick believes empowering people to make things better is the best way to manage them. He said, “I try to make sure my team has a lot of energy and passion about our shared goals and their individual goals. They clearly understand at the beginning of every single week where we’re going and how they’re going to get there.” He also explained that he follows through on what he says. Theirs is a competitive, dynamic, fast-paced environment. The company has great people who are committed to reaching their goals. Broderick said that it takes strategic thinking and shaping in many good ways, but that “there is no limit, truly, to what we can become.”


Original article

iWL: an A to Z translation service provider, ready to help!

Don’t you just hate it when you have a project divided in several phases, and everything goes smoothly and beautifully until, despite endless hours of work and reviews, a not-so-experienced person/company makes a big blunder and the whole thing looks half-done?

The saying goes: “if you want something done right, do it yourself” (actually, the original saying by French dramatist Charles-Guillaume Étienne was “On n'est jamais servi si bien que par soi-même”, which means, “One is never served so well as by oneself”). At inWhatLanguage, we believe that the way things will always look best is by letting an expert deal with it. With ALL of it.

A project managed by many companies at the same time is bound to look strange and lack consistency. A project managed by one company, on the other hand, has extremely high chances of success.

Of course, certain kinds of projects are not easy to manage by just one company. They have too many steps involved, too many technicalities, specific software, graphics, multimedia resources. Finding a translation agency that can cope with all of this is rare.

But hey, we are not your ordinary translation agency, are we?

iWL rolls with the times. We know that, while document translation is and will always be important, nowadays the demand is tilting towards projects like eLearning courses and websites, full of all sorts of different media. And we are prepared to serve this demand.

What’s more – we are ready to just take the project off your hands and return it completely translated, from beginning to end, without troubling you with project management, resource finding or quality checking. From translation to voiceover, from captioning to video dubbing, we are your ever-present factotum, your answer for every need.

For that same reason, we can take care of each step of the project individually. Perhaps you have an excellent recording studio and you just need a translation done for recording on your end. We can do that. We EXCEL in that. And if you need some extra help with the audio editing, hey, we are here for you as well!

The tranquility of having someone always ready who can do pretty much anything you ask for is priceless, and we pride ourselves in having reached that level. Let us know what you need, and we can assist you in every step of the way!

Superheroes for a super cause!

Despite what comic books say, a person does not need to fly, turn invisible or produce spider webs to become a superhero. As a matter of fact, everybody has it in him/herself to become a superhero. Real superheroes roam the streets every day, and the most amazing thing, we don’t even notice it.

Last April 11^th, The Transplant Buddy Foundation - a non-profit organization for transplant donors and transplant patients- organized the Superhero 5k race to remind us of this. In an effort to "raise funds and awareness for transplant patients and support those superheroes who have selflessly given a gift of life to others”, this event gathered a good amount of people dressed up as superheroes to run 5k in a day full of exercise, good company and lots of fun.

Cody Broderick and Karlie Bodine, to the rescue!

And inWhatLanguage took part in it as part of its latest iWL Cares initiative!

The members of the team that could make it and their families participated in this noble mission “to improve the longevity of transplanted organs, by providing transplant patients with resources to afford post transplant medications and by raising awareness of the financial aspects of solid organ transplant”, as the official Facebook website from the Superhero 5k Fun Run/Walk says.

That, plus the chance to dress up as their favorite Superheroes, was too enticing a chance for the iWL members to pass on!

iWL CEO Cody Broderick dressed up as the Hulk, while his wife Vanessa dressed up as The Black Widow and their two children, Luke and Marcus, wore Iron Man and Thor costumes respectively. Karlie Bodine, organizer of iWL Cares campaign and who once again came up with the idea for this month, dressed up as Wonder Woman. Don’t they all look simply fabulous?

Well, we are not the only ones to think so, actually. There were prizes for the Best Costumes among the participants. And guess who won the “Best Costume” prize for children? Little Marcus!

“We were all very happy to help out for such a great cause,” says Karlie Bodine with a big smile. “And it was even better that we got to dress up as superheroes!”

Say hello to Cyle Adair, the latest member in the iWL family!

Cyle grew up all over the world but claims that Oklahoma is his home. 

Being the son of a Marine, he had the privilege to live in places like Reno, San Diego, Chicago, Washington D.C., Oklahoma, and even Japan. After graduating from High School in Oklahoma, he attended Brigham Young University in Provo, UT and majored in Business Management with an emphasis in Finance and Entrepreneurship. 

During his time at college he decided to go on a church mission to Argentina for 2 years.  He worked during the summers for ADT as a sale rep and then promoted to traveling trainer in the east coast region.

Upon graduating from BYU, Cyle commission as an officer in the United States Army. He served in many positions to include Platoon Leader, Fire Direction Officer, Civil Military Officer, Public Affairs Officer, and Battle Captain. 

During his almost 5 years of service he was stationed in Ft. Lewis WA, Ft. Sill OK, Ft. Benning GA, Ft. Polk LA, Ft. Hood Texas and deployed twice to Iraq in 2009 and 2011 receiving two Bronze Star Medals. Before his second deployment, Cyle was promoted to the rank of Captain of which he still retains.

Cyle transitioned from the military and joined Cintas in 2012 as an Advance Management Partner and worked in Indianapolis, IN and was promoted to come out to Salt Lake City, UT to become the General Manager. He worked there for 2 years and decided he needed to make a career change to spend more time with his family. He worked as a Financial Services Professional for Mass Mutual Financial Group helping families and small business prepare for their financial future.

And now, inWhatLanguage is proud to have him as the newest Account Manager!!

Of all the experiences and accomplishments Cyle has received, his proudest moments are marrying his beautiful wife, Athena, and the birth of his son, Kingston 2 ½ years old , and his daughter, Cadence 2 months old.

Cyle enjoys golfing, investing, remodeling, fixing about anything, snowboarding, working out, and most of all spending time having fun with the family. Specially dancing to hip-hop with Kingston. He has got some moves!!!

iWL – Servicing the biggest and best out there

What do Hewlett Packard, Apple and IBM have in common?

Yes, they all are gigantic multinational information technology corporations. Yes, they develop cutting-edge IT solutions, as well as hardware and software for all kinds of users. And yes, they are among the most successful and rapid-growing companies in modern history.

What if we added Motorola to the mix? And Sandisk and Cisco?

We could still be talking about successful IT and hardware companies riding the technology boom and high demand in the modern world, right?

Okay. Throw in The Walt Disney Company. Throw in Lego, and McGraw Hill Education, as well.

Things start to get blurry, here. However, all of these companies rely heavily on the latest software technology to deliver the best possible education and entertainment products for children and adults.

Lastly, add Aecom, the global provider of architecture, design, engineering and construction services; add the health insurance company Humana and the big online and in-store shopping chain Sears.

All of these companies have something in common, other than being big and successful. Can’t see the link?

It’s us – inWhatLanguage!

Despite being young, we have managed to attract some of the biggest companies in the world with our translation services thanks to the unique “iWL experience”, which encompasses not only high-quality translation at affordable prices, but also extremely fast turnaround times and the best customer service you could ever find. 

Every client is our number one client, because it is thanks to them that we can continue working on what we love!

FIFA, Harvard, Montage, Xerox, Aetna... All of them are very different kinds of corporations, but they do share a taste for excellence when it comes to the translation of their precious materials. 

That is why they come to us: with our worldwide network of professional freelance translators, we cover all areas and time zones, and we offer complete translation services that include a careful selection of resources, localization services, proofreading, desktop publishing, voiceover and video editing, if necessary.

Anything we can do to make your life easier!

Translation software: man versus machine?

Translation software has been around for quite some time already, and while we all use it (because we DO, let’s admit it), the debate concerning its “proper” use goes on every day.

Certainly, there are different levels of use when it comes to translation software. It is not the same to use professional translation software -for which a linguist must pay a mighty sum and thus can enjoy features such as Translation Memory databases, automatic segmentation and formatting- as it is to use a free online translator. It is not the same to use a free online translator to get a quick word translated as it is to get a whole sentence “translated” (and let us not even mention a whole fragment). This is when things like this happen.

Image taken from Distractify.com.

Machines are not meant to translate, because translation is not an automatic procedure. It is not a mathematical formula. It is an art, and it requires instinct, imagination and an open mind – all of which are exclusively human traits.

Does this mean that a human will produce by default a perfect translation? Not at all. Humans err, and human error is a common find in translations. How to know whether an error has been done by a human or a machine? Well... Human error tends to be more imaginative. Like this.

Image taken from Distractify.com.

Seriously, though; while human error is common, it is also easily identifiable and fixable. Machine errors, though, tend to be big, multiple and very time-consuming to fix.

What software can do for you

Translation software can be really handy when it comes to website translation!

Like I said before, machines are not meant to translate. But they can help translators make their job easier – for instance, eliminating a good percentage of human error. Typos, repetitions and basic grammar errors, for instance, can be avoided with an automatic corrector, available with any word processor software.

A lot of time can be saved on repeated content with a good Translation Memory tool that translates automatically a segment that is 100% identical to a previously translated one, and it can help with consistency when there are past translations that were done by a different translator, as well. Also, it can be a real life saver with certain formats –especially websites.

Unfortunately, translation software does have a disadvantage: it tends to be costly. And awkward (okay, two disadvantages then). Working with a translation software program usually is not as smooth as writing on a Word document, and the prices that one must pay for the use of these tools are, in the opinion of many users, definitely not worth it.

Then again, there are cheaper, or even free alternatives – but these also come with their fair share of bugs, crashes and compatibility issues (the cheaper the alternative, the fairer the share it gets). These programs also tend to work on one computer only, and export of documents can become a real nightmare when a translator is on the move and needs access to their translations from other terminals.

A solution to get rid of all of these problems: is it really such a hard thing to find?

Well, yes. Something like that requires research, lots of money and effort and tons of patience and faith in the product. Not a lot of companies would dare risk such an investment on a project of this nature.

But there is where inWhatLanguage is different: we DO dare take such a step. For longer than a year, we have been working on the ultimate translation software tool for our company, our translators and clients, so that we can all enjoy and all-comprehensive, cloud-based Translation Management System that is available to everyone, everywhere.

Translation industry, meet Unify!

Working with inWhatLanguage has advantages such as high-quality translation, quick turnaround times, excellent customer service, affordable prices... And the use of the powerful Cloud-based Translation Management System Unify, a platform where you will find everything you need for the most efficient translation services EVER.

For clients, it will mean constant control over the status of their translation projects, the possibility of adding information, terminology and style guides at any time, and constant dialogue with the translators working on their documents.

For translators, it will mean an automated translation and word processing tool with the latest technology to help them save on time and effort, while guaranteeing the maximum level of consistency and accuracy.

This is not fiction. This is us, inWhatLanguage, amplified. Upgraded. Ready to rock the translation world.

We can hardly wait to prove it to you!

Books for everyone! - iWL organizes a Children Book Drive

Our iWL Cares monthly initiative has taken place a little later than usual this month, but the results are well worth it! This month, we decided to do a Children’s Book Drive – we collected all sorts of children’s books from the iWL team, friends, relatives and other people interested, and donated them to the non-profit organization Big Brothers Big Sisters of America!

Nearly two-thirds of low-income families in the U.S. own no books. As iWL Cares organizer Bodine discovered this shocking fact, she rushed to initiate one of our most successful iWL Cares campaign so far.

Road sign - donate here!

“I thought it would be awesome if we could provide more kids with books at their homes,” she says. “Many studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between how often children read/are read to at a young age and how well they will do in school. Children who start off behind with reading often stay behind. Reading is obviously a huge part of education and children's learning and development! Not to mention a big part of inWhatLanguage too!”

Yes! We gathered so many books that we
needed a forklift to carry them!!

As a company focused in translation, interpreting and transcription services, literature is definitely part of our everyday culture, and thankfully has been since a very young age. That is why it is our sincere conviction that everyone should enjoy a good book anytime – and especially children!

After doing some thorough research, Karlie Bodine was completely sure that a Book Drive was definitely a must for inWhatLanguage. “Reading expands vocabulary and writing skills, promotes healthy social and emotional development, helps build up longer attention spans that translates to better retention in school, and enhances imaginative and critical thinking skills and improves memory and concentration,” she explains.

Karlie, enjoying the success :)

“Growing up, I was constantly reading. At the dinner table, in the car, at recess, everywhere! I always had access to books” she adds. “I had never realized that it was something I was taking for granted and that not everyone has the same opportunity with something as simple as books.  Once I learned that many children in the U.S. don't have access to them, I immediately knew I had to do something about it.”

And the initiative was a resounding success! In fact, iWL gathered so many books that a forklift was needed to carry them all - seriously!!

Karlie admits that books were a huge part of her life as a child, and wishes nothing more than to give other children the opportunity to experience this special link with literature as well. With these ideas in mind, she organized a Book Drive in which we would then donate the books to the national non-profit organization Big Brother, Big Sister. “They were beyond excited and appreciative over there - they couldn't say ‘thank you’ enough,” Karlie remembers fondly.

The iWL team, celebrating another successful iWL Cares campaign! Congratulations!!

iWL goes on a sledding trip!

Exciting things happen every day at the inWhatLanguage offices, but sometimes we need to just take things slowly and relax in good company!

With this in mind, the inWhatLanguage team went on a sledding trip last week. Taking advantage of the last days of the winter season, the group enjoyed a day of fun and healthy exercise in this exciting, group bonding activity. 

No need to say much else – the pictures speak for themselves!

From left to right: Abel Atwater, Brian Palmer, Maurice van Zutphen, Naalie Herrera, Karlie Bodine and Veronica Johnson.

Montage Case Study

Copyright: Montage Kapalua Bay

Montage is a chain of luxury hotels and resorts “devoted to delivering an elevated guest experience”, as one can read in their official website. In their properties, “guests can expect impeccable hospitality, exceptional epicurean experiences, world class spas and an elegant yet welcoming ambiance with the goal of creating lasting and cherished memories.” They undoubtedly have some of the loveliest five-star hotels and resorts in the world in the some of the most beautiful spots of North America.

Montage came to us after recognizing our work in the Sunnylands website. They heard that we had taken care of that amazing project, and they needed their website translated to Asian languages: Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese. Since we had done such a great job at Sunnylands, our reputation preceded us. Montage knew they wanted to work with us.

Their website is heavily focused on properties, since they have so many different hotels and resorts. We translated the content for their hotels in Beverly Hills (California), for Los Angeles and for Park City (Utah). Three locations in three languages: Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese.

While they needed the project to be done quickly, it wasn’t a rush project. Quality was more important than anything in this case. They wanted a very high-quality translation. We are talking about hotels that charge between $400 and $1000 a night, aimed at clients with high levels of disposable income. They needed a translation that matched this degree of sophistication, following the style and tone of our work with Sunnylands.

Copyright: Montage Beverly Hills

They didn’t push us for a tight deadline because they knew that our level of quality was enough to make up for it, and we had a proven record of translating for other important hotel chains such as Hilton, Marriot, as well as travel agencies and hospitality companies. They knew we would do a great job.

From a technical standpoint, we had to work very closely with Montage to translate and input their content directly into Wordpress, the content management system that hosts their entire website. We had to adapt our own technology tools to integrate and work with this system: we had to archive all of their previous translations in order to make sure that our memory banks were accurate and that our translation was consistent with their previous content. Our technical team was in constant contact with the client to ensure that things were moving forwards in the right direction.

We translated and published the content, but not before three whole rounds of proofreading to make sure that the format was correct for the Asian languages, with their different scripts and writing directions.

Ever since, they have had wonderful feedback about our translation, and they currently are a long-term client of ours. Thanks to this and other big projects, we already have a sizeable databank with their specific terminology and information that helps us work with them much faster and much more efficiently. Translation keeps getting better overtime, and costs go down.

For that and many other reasons, they keep sending us a lot of work, and we’ll surely translate content for other properties of this great chain of hotels and resorts!

Language Nerds: this is what we are at iWL!

Brian Palmer, Cody Broderick and our nerdy model. Looking good!

Ladies, gentlemen, it is about time we come clean. Yes, there comes a time when you just cannot deny your own nature anymore, and one has to admit what one is. And this is it.

We, the people at inWhatlanguage, are language nerds.

We love languages so much! We are so passionate about them that we pretty much live for them, we work with them, and we help others deal with them. Languages are in our everyday conversations, language jokes are our idea of sidesplitting comedy, and whenever we read or listen to a translation, our eyes are trained to check for quality and find typos at lightning speed. Nerdiness to the max.

We are language nerds – and we are so proud of it that we have created a whole website about the concept. Check it out: http://www.translationnerds.com/

Is that awesome or what?

A staff member at the conference
who couldn't resist the nerdy appeal!

Furthermore, language nerdiness is infectious! Last week, the iWL team brought the “Language Nerds” theme to a local networking event organized by the Utah Technology Council –an open house where they invited all of their members, about 400 people-, and guess what: people loved it!

“We had a small stand at the conference, we got a mannequin and dressed him up as an awesome nerd, with glasses and one of our T-shirt (Language Nerds, with the motto ‘talk nerdy to me’). We were also wearing the outfit, and giving out ‘nerd’ candy,” explains iWL CEO Cody Broderick.

David Kasteler and Cody Broderick, nerding out :)

The ‘nerdy’ bug didn’t take long to spread. “It was a fun conference,” says Broderick. “The idea was to have people walking by the booth and stopping to learn what we were on about – to grab their attention. There were other translation agencies, but they were kind of boring and non-descript in comparison. Our goal was to make people remember us, and it seems like it is working.”

The team took pictures with some of the attendants to the conference.

“The ‘nerd’ theme is good. People perceive ‘nerds’ as smart yet funny individuals, and it is definitely a good way to attract the audience, have them ask questions, laugh, break the ice, make them comfortable.”

And it just happens to suit the team so well. I mean, look at those pictures. Don’t they look just... Nerdorable?

Time and organization, the E-Learning Course translator’s best friends

(Image from http://bayyinah.com/)

E-Learning Courses are becoming increasingly popular. Thanks to the Internet and new technologies, education has never been more available to everyone. Ironically, now the only barrier that many find to study new fascinating subjects is the language. Generally speaking, E-Learning Courses are available worldwide, as they are located in the worldwide web. But the world is full of different languages and cultural contexts. That is why E-learning Course Translation is nowadays one of the most demanded, successful fields in any translation company that is up to date.

E-learning Course Translation is, however, a very special service that requires specific subject-matter expertise and high technical skills from all of the parties involved. From the translation company’s standpoint, there are certain practices that must be followed for a smooth completion of any E-learning Course translation service.

From the onset, there is one thing that must be crystal-clear about effective E-Learning Course Translation: it is a time-consuming process. It takes many different steps, and it cannot be rushed. Not unless you are willing to settle for a mediocre final result. It takes vast amounts of time to make sure that a final deliverable up to the client’s desires and expectations is produced - especially when the translation is done in many different languages.

It usually entails compression and expansion issues as well – for instance, a 100-word E-Learning Course in English usually ends up with a word count of 125 when translated to Spanish or any other Romance language.

An e-Learning course can include all sorts of materials and formats,
and all of that must be reflected in the final translation!
(Image from www.e-learningstudios.com)

It is thus important to remember that the original content in English will not have the same length as the resulting translation. This has to be factored into the final result in online displays, as well as the voiceover services that tend to go with these courses. If there is dubbing services included in the translation service, the audios must be adapted to the videos (or vice versa) in order to achieve exact synchronization between image and sound.

Overall, it is quite a long and tricky path that must be trodden carefully and methodically.

That is why an iterative, agile approach is the best option for this kind of translation:

• ·        Start with a testing phase to round up a pool of capable, fit linguists for the project. Text samples must be sent to the client for their consideration.
• ·        It is also important to gather any translation memory files from past translations that the client may have, as well as glossaries, style guides and terminology specifically related to the current project.
• ·        The real translation begins with a “pilot” segment –or a “proof of content”-, send it to the client and wait for feedback.
• ·        Once this initial step is done, the translation can proceed with a second segment based on the comments and suggestions from the client. This process will continue until the whole course is translated.
• ·        Once the translation is completed, the client must sign it off before moving on to the recording phase.
• ·        Start the next stage of the project with a testing phase to round up a pool of capable, fit voice talents for the project. Audio samples must be sent to the client for their consideration.
• ·        Get approval from the client on a specific number of voice artists, and record all the audio bits step by step, taking the feedback from the client as a guide at all times.
• ·        Insert the audio on the videos / presentations, adapting them for perfect synchronization.
• ·        If the client asks for it, the translation company can also take charge of the insertion of the translated and recorded material right into their online platform for a perfect, all-encompassing service. This involves text editing and formatting to achieve best online-viewing results, as well as other adjustments to make sure that audios and videos are in the right places and play when they are supposed to.

For all of these steps to be taken seamlessly, careful organization and a strict plan are the best tools. A smart and efficient investment of time is vital to obtain the best possible E-Learning Course translation. Just like Aristotle said – “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”