TAUS - Enabling better translation

You trusted your bank. You trusted your currency. You trusted your government. You trusted your translations.

So what happens now? Your certainties are being unraveled one after another. The system you trusted is leaking. It is unsettling. And even scary… But then you realize: trust is good, and knowing the facts is always the best policy.

You trusted your translations, your carefully chosen terminology, and your translation memories built up with great care, and well protected against unauthorized use. And now, you realize that your translations are as good or as bad as any others, that your customers rarely read your translations and often rely on machine-translated texts - machine translations that, annoyingly, are sometimes surprisingly good. You realize that others are sharing translation memories, perhaps even your translation memories that you have nurtured as your own assets. You realize now that your secure world of translation is leaking. You are losing control. The model isn’t working anymore. It is upsetting, but it is better to face this new reality. Let go of the illusion of control.

New reality

The world is changing and the translation industry is lagging behind. The industry still operates with a 20th century, western world mindset: the developed world exporting its goods and spreading its civilization to customers rich enough to pay. Translation is largely one-directional – from English into the major languages – and one translation per language fits all customers. Translation is priced by the word and managed in projects. A project is traditionally product documentation, or instructions for use, or the user interface. Each project in principle is meant to increase sales in new markets and is measured by ROI. Efficiencies come from an overly simplistic technology called translation memory that was invented in the 80’s of the last century and has hardly advanced since then.

Translation in the 21^st century requires a very different vision. Western hegemony is over. Products and services are developed, manufactured and marketed everywhere and anywhere. Customers are more self-confident and don’t read manuals anymore. They read blogs and peer reviews and pull information from customer support sites when they need it. In fact new generation users don’t need user instructions at all and if new products are well designed, they’re completely intuitive and let the users ‘plug and play’. But new generation customers are also more discerning when they buy a product.

In this new regime, translation is multidirectional, from any language into any language. Quality requirements are different for different users and different usages. Machine translation is good enough for the largest volumes of dynamic web content, whereas pre-sales texts require a step-up in quality from the current one-translation-fits-all policy. Tuning in to the style and sub-culture of niche customer groups makes all the difference in an increasingly global marketplace. Word-based pricing and ROI measurement do not make much sense in this new economic reality. Translation memory software still serves its goals in the shrinking business of manual translations, but it is totally inadequate for the growing volumes of dynamic content.

A Lesson for Translation in the 21^st Century

If you can see even half way through this new reality, your concerns over translation leaks will begin to give way to a growing sense of excitement. Translation is coming out of the dusty libraries. Translation is gaining in relevance and significance as a worldwide service industry with billions of customers. Translation as a feature on every web site and every mobile device is the key to a vital global economy.

It is still unsettling of course when you realize that 90% of the translated words will be generated by machine translation engines, probably at no charge to the end-user. But considering there is a non-stop stream of multimedia information, the translation market will certainly innovate and assert its value in different ways. Naturally there is no need for every business to change and everyone to automate. In fact there will be a growing need for high-quality, tailored translations. But if you are tempted to join the innovation wave, I am sure you will figure out a way to prosper in this rapidly changing environment.

One aspect of the future of translation, however, is easily overlooked: the importance of ‘data’. ‘Data’ replaces the role of ‘translation memories’ as the key to efficiency. A jet engine with a thousand times the power of those 1980s propellers. Data drive translation engines. Data will control the quality and the efficiency of translation in the future. Whoever has access to the data controls the future of translation. Privileged or monopolized access to data will jeopardize the blossoming of a 21st century translation industry. Ownership of translation memories – translation data – is therefore an important and sensitive topic of debate. The legal argument will not help us much longer in this age of translation leaks. Data are mined, scraped, masked, shared and used by everyone from individual translators to large global corporations. Attempting to make a legal case against the unauthorized use of translation data will probably not work. The practical argument is all that counts, and once translations are published, there is no way to control the leaks. And to be honest, wouldn’t you rather turn the whole argument round? If your translations are not confidential, why not simply share these data with everyone who can use them to improve the efficiency and quality of translation as a whole. What stops you from doing this?

Wishing you Wisdom

Here we are, at the start of the second decade of a new millennium, facing some real dilemmas. I know it’s hard to take such a radical step from one world into another. But be aware that while you are puzzling over which direction to go, your translations are leaking.

We wish you wisdom and success in 2011 and the decade ahead. We at TAUS are here to help as the industry think tank, your innovation partner and a safe harbor for sharing your translation memories.