🚀 go-pugleaf

Here are more consolidated answers to the original question from John
Howell (howell@hodgkin.med.upenn.edu):

     I would be curious to hear about experiences of groups doing
     translations to multiple langauages relative to where the translations
     are performed.  I can see arguments for performing translations in the
     country where the software will be used (the assumption is the
     translator is of higher quality I assume) and for performing the
     translation where the software is developed and maintained (integration
     of the translation team with the development team increases awareness
     of issues - speed of releasing translated versions is betteetc.

Jeff
INSOFT-L List Manager

*========================================================================*
 Jeff Bowyer                         EMail:
 Computing Center		     jbowyer@cis.vutbr.cz
 Technical University of Brno
 Udolni 19, 602 00 BRNO
 Czech Republic
*========================================================================*


First, a response from John himself:

Re: Localization Kits

We have also had experience with sending source
code out for translation and found the results to be
unsatisfactory.  We chewed up lots of valuable peoples time
trying to support technical details of how to re-compile,
make masters etc.

Having learned from this process, we are now developing
translation kits that pull the stuff to be translated
out of screens, message files, and reports.  The translator
is sent only the files to be translated and a Visual Basic application
that front-ends the files.  Once the translator is finished,
the files are sent back to the development team, imported into
the application, and incorporated into the base code library.

The application design had to be significantly re-done to support
the (what is now rather obvious, it seems) process above.

Re: Use the Internet for translation

The approach above hopefully will make more feasible the use of
local country and/or native language translators that are geographically
independent from the development team since all the translator needs
is the ability to run the translation kit (in our case a PC with Windows.)
Another benefit we see is reduced cost -- there are lots more
people that can do a translation-only than there are people that know how
to do both translation+technical stuff.

A useful thing to know would be who can do what kinds of translation
on the Internet.


Sender: Mendez Translation S.A <@mcimail.com:BXL/MENDBXL/BG@Mendez_Translations_S+pA+p>
        Brussels, Belgium

This reply is written by Joe Mendez (my boss). Joe is director of Mendez
Translations, which specializes in large-scale localisation projects for
European languages. Clients include quite a number of top software vendors.
Mendez Translations is also involved in research into the use of computers
in the translation process, especially the "translation memory" concept -
That's my line of business (Bart Govaert)

Hi,

I would like to add my point of view to your question "Where to Localize..."

For ensuring strict adherence of translations to the local cultures, it is
definitely better to have translations done in the country where the
software will be used.

Because workloads are generally variable in localization, economically it
makes sense outsourcing to make localization costs variable.

As certain tasks can be done once for all languages, the centralization of
project management and some engineering tasks allows economies of scale
(e.g. one central person can discuss localization issues with the
developpers, otherwise one per language).

For large projects, decentralization allows higher productivity as you can
find more resources in each linguistic region than in any central place.

In our experience,  you can reach high quality, smooth project management
and higher productivity by decentralizing and outsourcing provided that:
 - the original product has been carefully 'internationalized'  and tested
accordingly (ideally a prototype localized product has been built) ,
 - the localization kits are of real help (not always the case because
rarely designed by the localizers, often by monolingual developpers)
 - Product training and on-going tech support is available for external
resources
 - test scripts exists for the localized products
 - reliable and high-speed long distance communications (often problems to
xchange foreign characters!)

Do not hesitate to contact me for further info.


Sender: Troy Rollo (troy@cbme.unsw.edu.au)

I am the development manager of a product that is already being marketed in
Holland by a distributor there. They translated the entire manual into Dutch
before marketing it, and we have recently started work on making it possible
for the distributor to modify the language used by the program itself. We chose
this approach because a distributor should be much better at translating the
software into their own native language than we would be at translating it
into a foreign one.

So basically, the new rules won't really have much impact on us. We regard
internationalisation as an essential part of long term international marketing