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How do clients "start" translation and other questions from a Web Content Management perspective

Alvin Reyes

I'm coming from an SDL Tridion perspective. suggested I could ask about how SDL clients choose their source and target translation language (pairs).

In SDL Tridion (Web Content Management), our settings are fairly straight-forward and include settings for TMS or WorldServer for where Translation Manager, the connector between Tridion and translation management systems, sends/receives translations to be stored in Tridion items (technically XML that we call Components).

But usually the languages and regions/countries are already chosen (e.g. English for the US as a source with maybe Spanish for the US as an initial target) when it comes time to Tridion configuration. I'm interested in learning about what's practical or common so I can recognize patterns and gotchas when say a US client says they want to "add translation" to their sites.

So some questions I have are:

  1. Where do clients start? Do clients typically know how they're going to handle translation (and market localization)? Do they seek out help from vendors or consultants? Seeing customer examples, I've learned it's not just English, but English for a given country. In addition, customers need to keep in mind everything from localizing a message to a given market or region, as well as handling jargon and product-specific terms (Barbie's expression "Cra Cra" comes to mind).

  2. Is "translation" (sometimes/often) a company-wide project? I see translation from the Web side (specifically with SDL Tridion where target content is sent/saved from XML, but "templated" into appropriate website markup), but noticed at least one customers that wanted to somehow combine their offline, product information translation process with their Web content translation. At least from the Web Content Management side, the internal users select items to translate and based on the (Tridion) "BluePrinting" settings, the translations are sent and come back after being translated into the correct websites.

    Is translation something companies handle from a company-wide perspective? I'd suspect "translation projects" might start in separate silos in business, at least based on how I see content handled (separate systems handle internal content, Web content, documentation, etc.). I'd guess there's some history involved where translation for product manuals and printed materials, for example, have a much longer history than the Web?

  3. SDL software ecosystem? Maybe I should also start with a fairly newbie technical question: are SDL WorldServer or SDL TMS related to the SDL Open Exchange? Or if so, how are these related? I understand "what is this" type questions can be very open-ended--links to resources or documentation are also appreciated. Maybe related to this is where and how SDL software is used. For example, SDL Tridion is used by large corporations to manage their websites with dozens to hundreds of internal system users.

Any feedback, leads, or even questions on the Web Content Management (Tridion) side appreciated. As a Web Content Management "professional" I'm not looking to understand everything, but I do want to be a little more familiar with what SDL clients face when they start "translation" projects.

Alvin Reyes | Product Owner | SDL Tridion DX

Twitter: @Nivlong | Personal Blog: CreateandBreak

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    Hi Alvin,

    Great questions, and happy to help from the perspective of the language/technology side of the business (I'm the Translation Productivity Sales Engineer for US/Canada). My answers may be more oriented to Translation Productivity solutions, but our tools work in conjunction with the Enterprise tools of TMS and WorldServer - maybe one of my colleagues working on those tools can fill in anything I've missed.

    Paul hit the nail on the head for #3, so let me help provide some background for numbers 1 and 2.

    #1
    It would be great for us if all clients started out with translation in the same way! But as you've suspected, it's different for every client. I recently worked with a client who wanted to start using terminology solutions, and they hired a terminology consultant to help them with everything (technology, process, training, etc). Other clients realize a need to translate when they start going global, and they contact a language services provider and outsource everything. Yet other clients have resources internally who either officially or unofficially do one-off translations for the company and then decide to bring technology in-house to help them (and then expand their group to include speakers of other languages). It depends on the size and budget the organization has and obviously the number of clients/users/etc that they have in other countries; once a company starts selling in another country, they quickly realize the need to speak that country's language and culture, so any number of the above (or other) solutions are usually thrown together to make that happen. Local regulation may also play a factor into this; for example, by law in Quebec, everything has to be translated into both French and English, so companies wanted to expand to that geography have to abide by this. Keep in mind, too, that companies may need to mind the locale of a country - for example, a company wanting to expand into Brazil wouldn't (or shouldn't!) use a translator from Portugal, and vice versa; so finding the right resources and understanding the need for why the right resources are necessary sometimes takes an internal "champion" for language.

    #2
    Translation projects usually start in silos. Per the above, a company may need or want to translate into one language, so that project is thrown over the fence to someone internally or externally who can help them get there. Ultimately what organizations realize, however, is that translation can be expensive and time-consuming, so they start looking for tools that can help them do it faster. The concept of "translation memory" becomes key here, because translation memory is a growing database that constantly learns from a translator and - most importantly - allows for the same sentence/phrase to never be translated (and paid for) twice. Using your example, this means that the translations or terms used from a company website could be reused in product documentation. We have tools for translation memory in SDL Trados Studio. We also have MultiTerm tools in SDL MultiTerm. While all of our tools can be used or at least benefit everyone in a company, one of our MultiTerm tools specifically helps companies initiate company-wide terminology efforts involving all of their employees; it's called MultiTerm Workflow, and it's a web-based software that allows users to look up and also submit suggestions for terms (and their translations). This process can involve engineer, subject matter experts, marketers, and other folks who aren't usually tasked with translation or globalization but who may have knowledge into the correct functional or marketing terms that they want others in the company to use.

    Hope this helps! Feel free to reach out to me if you have any other questions. (I'm lktaylor@sdl.com in case you post here and I miss it).

    Best,
    Lindsay
  • 0 in reply to Lindsay Taylor
    Thanks, Lindsay--I've coined a phrase called "The Midas Rule" that echoes your responses: "Whoever touches something first and cares the most gets to decide what to do with it." I see how it fits organizations starting on "translation" where whoever has the biggest problem (or maybe resources to solve the problem) might start a translation project.

    We mention Translation Memory when explaining Tridion integrations with TMS and Worldserver. I even seen customer s"warm up" Translation Memory by sending Excel spreadsheets to get matches outside of the CMS.

    I understand Translation Memory is specific to a given organization, right? Would a customer only have one Translation Memory (database?) and does it apply across SDL (or other vendor) products? For example, would SDL MultiTerm's Translation Memory be separate from TMS or Worldserver?

    Nice point on local regulation--this probably explains at least part of the Tridion setup for any SDL customer with content for Quebec (there's always a Publication for English and French. :-)

    Alvin Reyes | Product Owner | SDL Tridion DX

    Twitter: @Nivlong | Personal Blog: CreateandBreak

Reply
  • 0 in reply to Lindsay Taylor
    Thanks, Lindsay--I've coined a phrase called "The Midas Rule" that echoes your responses: "Whoever touches something first and cares the most gets to decide what to do with it." I see how it fits organizations starting on "translation" where whoever has the biggest problem (or maybe resources to solve the problem) might start a translation project.

    We mention Translation Memory when explaining Tridion integrations with TMS and Worldserver. I even seen customer s"warm up" Translation Memory by sending Excel spreadsheets to get matches outside of the CMS.

    I understand Translation Memory is specific to a given organization, right? Would a customer only have one Translation Memory (database?) and does it apply across SDL (or other vendor) products? For example, would SDL MultiTerm's Translation Memory be separate from TMS or Worldserver?

    Nice point on local regulation--this probably explains at least part of the Tridion setup for any SDL customer with content for Quebec (there's always a Publication for English and French. :-)

    Alvin Reyes | Product Owner | SDL Tridion DX

    Twitter: @Nivlong | Personal Blog: CreateandBreak

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  • 0 in reply to Alvin Reyes
    I like that phrase! I may steal it...I'll give you credit though.

    You are right that a Translation Memory is specific to a given organization. Think of a translation memory like any other company-specific database that contains confidential information and which you would consider an asset. However, customers can have as many or as few translation memories as they'd like. You'd have one translation memory per language, and sometimes (often for larger companies) you would have several translation memories broken out by functional area (i.e. an "IT" translation memory or a "Marketing" translation memory). You don't need to have more than one but many organizations do. Other organizations just have one "main" translation memory per language.

    The translation memory can be managed by a company and then used by their language service provider (for example, SDL Services). The customer would coordinate that with their LSP.

    To be clear, MultiTerm does not have translation memory; only SDL Trados Studio has translation memory (on the desktop tools side). On the Enterprise side, WorldServer or TMS users would create/manage their translation memories excelusively through their enterprise technology (so through WorldServer or TMS) and then they would allocate access to that translation memory to their translators or language service providers, who can "plug into" the translation memory via SDL Trados Studio. You wouldn't likely manage some translation memories on WorldServer/TMS and some off WorldServer/TMS; they would all likely be managed on those exclusively on those platforms, if you own one of those tools.
  • 0 in reply to Lindsay Taylor
    Ah, I should have caught that MultiTerm was for terminology.

    I'm seeing there's a lower-cased "translation memory" that refers to the process of capturing and storing translations, as an industry term, and the upper-cased "Translation Memory" specific to an an organization and/or technology. The same distinction applies to a CMS and Tridion-as-a-CMS.

    Borrowing a metaphor from say, dancing, I see a parallel with a ballroom dance syllabus, which is a manual of the dance steps for a given dance studio or franchise. There's the concept of recording steps into some type of re-usable repository, and then there there's the explicit syllabuses from Arthur Murray, Fred Astaire, or DVIDA. :-)

    By the Midas Rule, feel free to use the Midas Rule. It even has an Urban Dictionary entry. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Midas+Rule :-)

    Alvin Reyes | Product Owner | SDL Tridion DX

    Twitter: @Nivlong | Personal Blog: CreateandBreak