Large Translation Companies Excluded from CSA's Top 35 in 2010

Last year, T&I Business noted that several large translation companies were excluded from CSA's Top 30 ranking even though they may have been large enough to be included. CSA explained that their hands were tied when companies would not respond to their public call for participation. This year, the same issue is explained in CSA's Global Market Sizing and Ranking FAQs.

Last year, T&I Business noted that CyraCom should have been included on the list, and it was later included on the list of Top OPI firms and now on the current list released today. However, it was also noted that Bennesse/Simul, SAIC, and Wycliffe also could have qualified for the list, but they still choose not to participate.

Update: Apparently Milengo could have also been included at #20 (~$35M), but was excluded because of a technicality. The FAQs state that joint ventures can not qualify as a collective unit.

CSA Reveals New Ranking of Top 35 Language Services Companies

The 2010 rankings of the top language services companies (using financial data from 2009) have been compiled by Nataly Kelly and Robert G. Stewart and have been expanded from 30 to 35 translation, localization, and interpretation companies. You can find the sumarized report and rankings here on Common Sense Advisory's website: The Top 35 Language Service Providers (free registration required).

You'll see new names and shifting in this year's list - even at the top.

Top Languages by GDP or Internet Use

The Weekly Translation Tips by Globalization Group, Inc. have recently included a few lists and charts to help companies prioritize languages for translation. These include the following:

• Top Languages by Internet Usage - chart & list
• Top Languages by GDP (Percentage of GWP) - chart and table
• Top Countries by GDP (Percentage of GWP) - chart, map, and table

Another interesting resource that calculated the top languages based on both $ and internet use was Common Sense Advisory's Beta e-GDP calculator, but that website now forwards to CSA's homapage. CSA, what ever became of that e-GDP calculator?

Update: CSA says they do have plans to bring back the e-GDP calculator...

Update on Crowdsourced Comparison of Machine Translation Engines

T&I Business earlier reported on Crowdsourced Comparison of Machine Translation Engines currently underway at http://www.gabble-on.com/. Ethan Shen has a few interesting updates for us on the preliminary results:

1. At the highest level, it appears that survey takers prefer Google Translate's results across the board.
   - In a few languages (Arabic, Polish, Dutch) the preference is overwhelming with votes for Google doubling its nearest competitor
   
2. However, once you remove voters that have self defined their fluency in the source or target language as “limited”, the contest becomes closer some of the heavily trafficked languages
   - Bing Translator leads in German
   - Babelfish leads in Chinese
   - Google maintains its lead in Spanish, Japanese, and French
   
3. Observing just the self defined “Limited fluency” voter reveals a strong brand bias. If you’re fluency in the target translation language is limited, it would stand to reason your ability to assess the quality of the translation is very limited. And yet…
   - Limited fluency voters choose Google over Bing by 2 to 1
   - They also choose Google over Yahoo Babelfish by 5 to 1
   
4. As I had guess in my hypothesis, Systran and Microsoft’s hybrid RBMT model perform better on shorter passages
   - For phrases below 50 characters, Google’s lead in Spanish, Japanese, and French disappear. And Microsoft’s lead in German widens.
   - Beyond 50 characters, Google’s relative performance seems to improve across the board.
   - For passages that are only one sentence, the same effect is seen, though to a lesser extent than under 50 characters.
   
5. After March 4th, we’ve implemented changes to our survey taking platform to hide the brands and randomize the positions of the results before voting. There has not been enough data collect since then to draw conclusions, but Yahoo Babelfish seems to be receiving the biggest boost, perhaps showing the effects of the recent neglect of that tool

Globalization Group, Inc. Strengthens its Executive Team

Globalization Group, Inc. announces today that Adam Wooten has joined GGI as VP of Strategy and Business Development.

Orem, UT March 10, 2010 – Globalization Group, Inc. (GGI) today announced the strengthening of its executive team with the appointment of Adam Wooten as Vice President of Strategy and Business Development.

With two degrees in translation and an MBA, Adam has experience in all aspects of the translation and localization industry. He began on the linguistic side a decade ago as a Spanish court interpreter and an in-house translator, but quickly moved to the business side and gained experience in translation management, technology, and business development. Adam joins GGI after having previously been at Voiance Language Services as Director of Marketing and at Elanex as US General Manager. While at Elanex, he was responsible for winning and handling the company’s largest multi-year translation contract.

“I am very pleased to welcome Adam to Globalization Group,” said Ernesto Lo Russo, founder and CEO of Globalization Group. “Our clients rely on our linguistic and technical expertise to grow their international customer bases. Adam’s great experience in the industry and expert knowledge of language solutions make him a key addition to our team.”

“Thanks to a great reputation for top quality and customer service, Globalization Group has grown consistently by word of mouth,” commented Adam. “I’m very excited to spread the word even more about such a talented group with solid expertise in everything ranging from software localization to multilingual voiceover.”

Adam has taught translation technology courses as an adjunct professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, the nation’s top graduate school for translation and interpretation. This fall he will teach a similar translation course at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Adam is a frequent speaker at language industry events and maintains the popular language industry blog called T&I Business.

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ABOUT GLOBALIZATION GROUP, INC.

Globalization Group, Inc. (GGI) is a leading full-service provider of linguistic solutions. Founded in 1998 by a seasoned team of language professionals, GGI provides industry leaders with the language support, expertise, and customer service they need to remain competitive globally. GGI clients include JVC, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Microsoft, Cardinal Health, other Fortune 500 companies, and small businesses. GGI supports over 200 languages and dialects from its headquarters in Orem, UT and its offices in Asia and Europe.

For more information regarding GGI’s services for document translation, website localization and testing, software localization and testing, multimedia localization, conference interpretation, global marketing, and multilingual staffing, please call +1-801-225-6959 or visit us at www.globalization-group.com.

Update: New L10nCafé is Now Public

The L10nCafé announced a few weeks ago is now public. Naturally, people still need to register to post items and fully participate, but casual browsers can now read what is going on without registration here: http://www.l10ncafe.com/.

One very interesting post on L10nCafe, by Michael Cox of Worldify, shows the Top 10 Recent LinkedIn Topics

Dilbert: Product Name Translation

At a meeting with Dilbert, Asok, Wally, and Alice in attendance.

Pointy-Haired Boss: (looking at a memo) We've just been informed that our product's name means something bad in the Elbonian language.
Pointy-Haired Boss: (looking at a memo) It means "the intense pleasure derived from giving yourself a wedgie."
Narration: Thus was hatched the greatest prank ever perpetrated by Elbonia.
Pointy-Haired Boss, Asok, and Dilbert: (thinking) I gotta try that.

Although this product name's bad meaning in Elbonian is fake (even in Dilbert's world), this problem really does come up too often in real life. One of my favorite examples is the Japanese PPPhone (pronounced 'pee pee phone').

Scott Adams has created some great Dilbert comic strips related to translation. Here are a few more:

• Tina's Chinese Translation
• Minor Translation Issues
• Spanish-English Translation from the "No Help Whatsoever Desk"
• Translating Documentation from Elbonian

Press Release: Globalization Group, Inc. Announces New Blog, The Global Edge!

Globalization Group, Inc. announces today the online publication of The Global Edge!, a new translation and localization blog.

Orem, UT March 2, 2010 – Globalization Group, Inc. (GGI) announces the online publication of The Global Edge! The new blog contains helpful, informative, and even funny resources for translation clients at http://www.globalization-group.com/edge

Since the launch of the Weekly Translation Tips service in January, hundreds of localization clients, linguists, and competing localization companies have signed up to learn from the ‘bite-sized’ help provided by GGI’s experts. Even more have subscribed to receive a good laugh from the real life anecdotes in GGI’s Weekly Translation Bloopers. Access to these tips and bloopers continues to be available by email subscription. Thanks to the new blog, The Global Edge!, the tip and blooper archives are now also available online.

Popular bloopers in the archives already include mention of the Japanese product called the PPPhone (pronounced “pee pee phone”) and the classic anecdote of former US President Jimmy Carter’s overly “friendly” Polish interpreter. Popular translation and localization tips in the archives already include a chart of the top 10 internet languages, links to free online language identifiers, downloadable localization glossaries, and clues for finding original editable source files that were previously only visible in PDF.

The Global Edge! also includes additional news and announcements from GGI and the language industry. Read The Global Edge! online at: http://www.globalization-group.com/edge

# # #

ABOUT GLOBALIZATION GROUP, INC.
Globalization Group, Inc. (GGI) is a leading full-service provider of linguistic solutions. Founded in 1998 by a seasoned team of language professionals, GGI provides industry leaders with the language support, expertise, and customer service they need to remain competitive globally. GGI clients include JVC, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Microsoft, Cardinal Health, other Fortune 500 companies, and small businesses. GGI supports over 200 languages and dialects from its headquarters in Orem, UT and its offices in Asia and Europe.

Contact GGI for a free translation quote or for more information on document translation, website localization and testing, software localization and testing, multimedia localization, multilingual voice-over, conference interpretation, global marketing, and multilingual staffing.

Dilbert: Translating Documentation from Elbonian

It usually pays off to ensure your technical writers are well trained long before documentation needs to be translated.

Somewhere in Elbonia

Dilbert: I've been assigned to check the software you're writing for us under contract.
Elbonian #1: The documentation is written in our own Elbonian language.
Elbonian #2: Is that a problem?
Dilbert: That's better than I'd hoped. I was afraid no one here knew how to write.
Elbonian #1: Writing is easy. Someday we hope to read too.

Scott Adams has created some great Dilbert comic strips related to translation. Here are a few more:

• Tina's Chinese Translation
• Minor Translation Issues
• Spanish-English Translation from the "No Help Whatsoever Desk"

1st North American Summit on Interpreting

It's rather easy to find national and international industry conferences that focus on translation or localization. Unfortunately, it has been a little more difficult to find national and international conferences focused on interpreting. As the interpreting marketet is smaller, this is certainly to be expected. Fortunately, interpreters have something big to look forward to in June. The 1st North American Summit on Interpreting will be held June 17th in Washington, DC.

Now interpreters and interpreting companies can attend a serious conference where presentations on interpreting are billed as the main event instead of being included as almost an afterthought. The organizers, Barry Slaughter Olsen and Katherine Allen, have lined up some big sponsors and good speakers including Diane DeTerra of the National Foreign Language Center and Nataly Kelly of Common Sense Advisory.

Crowdsourced Comparison of Machine Translation Engines

Ethan Shen and Gabble On are "harnessing the wisdom of he crowds" to compare and evaluate the quality of three machine translation engines: Google, Bing (Microsoft), and Babelfish (Systran). As an incentive, participants will have the chance to win a new Apple iPad.

The system is very simple. You can participate and start comparing at http://www.gabble-on.com/. Participants simply enter in text, view the three resulting translations, and rank them accordingly. Check it out and rank translations in any combination of the following languages:

• Arabic
• Bulgarian
• Chinese Simplified
• Chinese Traditional
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Greek
• Haitian Creole
• Hebrew
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Thai

It would be interesting to learn the following from this research project:

• Which language pairs will draw the most participation?
• What will be the self-declared fluency of the evaluators?
• What subject matter will be entered for translation comparison? Or will that even be included in the results? This could be an important element as SMT engines and RBMT engines will each fare better with different subject matter and different types of language. It appears an additional field to identify subject matter was sacrificed for the sake of simplicity.
• Will the prize (and possibly the novelty) motivate enough crowd participation to provide useful evaluation data?
• And, of course, which engines will fare the best in each language pair?

It will also be nice if the results take into account the instances in which engines produced equal results. Currently, the survey only allows for the selection of a single "best translation" and does not allow for a "tie," so the first engine listed (Google) will naturally be favored to win.

L10nCafé: New Collaboration Platform for the Localization Industry

I've just been checking out L10nCafé, the new collaboration platform created by Michael Cox and Worldify. Here is where you too can find out more about the L10nCafe, "the free collaboration platform for the localization industry:"

1. Read the press release about the L10nCafe
2. Sign up for the L10nCafe (and receive your login info via email)
3. Login to the L10nCafe

So far, this appears to be a welcome upgrade for those who already enjoy collaborating on existing localization-related communities that have popped up on LinkedIn, Ning, and other forums. At the very least, it will be refreshing to have a forum with more flexibility and organization, as Michael describes it in the press release:

The L10NCafe facilitates the debate of technologies, standards, strategies and processes. This, in turn, accelerates progress in our industry. By employing rating systems and other methods we can organize and summarize community opinion. This information will feed strategic decisions made by tool and service vendors. It basically helps us get everyone onto the same page more quickly.

L10nCafé is currently built with SharePoint, so it is indeed very flexible. Unlike other localization forums that have appeared and quickly lost life, L10nCafé has a very clear opportunity to grow and progress into a truly useful collaboration platform that will keep us coming back for a long time. The platform is stil in its early stages and will undergo some fine tuning in the next little while; however, if you have an idea for what you want to do with L10nCafé, then its a good opportunity to join early and help form it into something great! Michael and Worldfiy have quickly implemented a half dozen of my suggestions, and they are looking to implement many more!

Weekly Translation Bloopers by Email

As a more light-hearted contrast to the helpful Weekly Translation Tips Email announced last week, Globalization Group, Inc. (GGI) has begun emailing Weekly Translation Bloopers to companies (clients) that procure language services. Subscription is also free.

The press release says that the emails will try to exclude all those urban legends about mistranslations that never really happened.

Whenever possible, emails will include a link to the evidence that the blooper-of- the-week really did occur. Efforts will be made to exclude overused myths like Chevrolet’s allegedly disastrous marketing of the ‘Nova’ car in Mexico (‘no va’ means ‘it doesn’t go’ in Spanish) and the allegation that President John F. Kennedy’s statement, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” was misunderstood to mean, “I am a jelly donut.” Instead, the weekly translation bloopers will include real world examples like the offensive German-to-English brand translation of the Audi “White Power” sports car and the more light-hearted English-to-Russian technical translation of “hydraulic rams” as “wet sheep.”

Read more in the press release or subscribe here.

Update: the archives of these translation bloopers are now available online.