Localizing the Client´s Website Using the Client´s Strongest Resource
mar 13 2023Clique aqui para ver este artigo em português
How could our translation agency handle updating a site with thousands of files while minimizing the price we charged the client?
About 15 years ago, our translation agency was approached by Vagas, a Brazilian company that operates a site offering employment and career services (vagas.com). I had already met the company’s founder when we both worked at a Brazilian computer factory, and I knew that he was a professional who was deeply interested in technology and dedicated to quality. For this reason, I went to the meeting fully prepared for some type of challenge.
Basically, the problem presented was the following: the site had a great volume of text that was all conceptualized and written in Portuguese, and the company was prepared to go international. In order to do so, they needed to make their site available in English and Spanish. Moreover, because they were in an extremely dynamic business sector, the content was subject to frequent updates, and the translated sites had to reflect these updates as quickly as possible.
We decided to propose a solution based on our translation memory tool (see our article about translation memory).
In a typical job using this type of tool, when requesting a translation of a system that has just been updated, the client simply sends to the translation agency the original updated files. Then the agency performs an operation called analysis, in which the translation memory tool compares the files to be translated with the existing translation memory and identifies the new text, which may be spread across different files. This new text is translated and the same tool inserts the text back in the files, merging it with the parts that were already in the memory. The agency then delivers the complete updated set of files to the client.
However, in this case, the number of files was very large (thousands) and the updates, executed on a higher level of the structure, could affect any of them. The standard solution for each update then would be for the client to send us thousands of files, and for us to analyze the material, translate the updated parts, and generate a new complete set of translated files. We would be responsible for handling thousands of files, which would have to be compensated in some way, thus increasing the cost.
This led me to ask: why does this procedure of handling the entire set of files need to be done by us? After all, the company was a producer of software. And for a company that has the human resources needed to create software, operating a tool designed for translators should be akin to asking an Olympic cyclist to make a bike delivery.
Based on this, we presented them with the following proposal:
– They would buy a license for the translation memory tool and learn how to use the module that performs the file analysis;
– Each time they wanted to translate their updates, they would perform the analysis of the set of files themselves and export only the unknown segments, meaning they would export just the text that is not in the memory to a single file. This exported file would then be the only thing they would send us;
– We would then just translate the unknown segments and send the same file back to them, translated;
– Then they would import the translated material into the total set of files, output the updated files, and implement the system update.
The solution, then, optimized the costs involved, making use of the best resources of each of the two companies: we would handle the linguistic aspects, which was to do the actual translation, while they would contribute with the software operation.
The proposal was accepted.
— And then? How did it work out?
Perfectly. Along many years, the solution worked without a hitch, allowing us to perform dozens of updates to the site.
Marcos Chiquetto is an engineer, Physics teacher, translator, and writer. He is the director of LatinLanguages, a Brazilian translation agency specialized in providing multilingual companies with translation into Portuguese and Spanish.
