TRANSLATION AND LOCALIZATION MARKET IN THE US Olga Melnikova Translation Forum Russia-2015 DIFFERENCES FROM RUSSIA

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About the Speaker: Olga Melnikova – translator for Russian Translation Company (Ru, En, Fr) Russia Experience

About the Speaker: Olga Melnikova Russia Experience – court interpreter (Ru, Fr) – volunteer for futureactually.comfutureactually.com

About the Speaker: Olga Melnikova May 2015 – MA in Translation and Localization Management, MIIS ( Monterey, California, USA ) US Experience

About the Speaker: Olga Melnikova June 2015 – now: Localization Project Coordinator at Venga Global, Inc. US Experience

AGENDA What is L10n and why is it important? L10n workflow Differences between T9n and L10n markets in Russia and the US *L10N = LOCALIZATION (10 LETTERS BETWEEN L AND N) T9N = TRANSLATION (9 LETTERS BETWEEN T AND N)

L10N: Websites Software Desktop apps Mobile apps Videos (subtitling, voice-over, dubbing) Computer games CAT tools Machine Translation engines Crowdsourcing DTP

GLOSSARY Linguist – translator, editor, proofreader L10n engineer – technical (IT) guy Vendor – translation / l10n agency (it “vends” its services to clients in need of t9n and l10n) QA – testing (linguistic and functional) CAT tools – tools using Translation Memory (TM) DTP – desktop publishing (=design) – Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator (Adobe)

L10N IN THE US: GOING GLOBAL High-tech companies: Silicon Valley, WA, NY Cloud-based services and other products A lot of clients and a lot of vendors

EXAMPLE: COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW

1.Internationalization 2.File Prep 3.TEP – T9n, Edit, Proof 4.Adaptation 5.Transcreation 6.DTP 7.Embedding strings 8. QA (linguistic and functional); game testing -> bug report 9. Client Review 10. Finalization 11. Release COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW

1.Internationalization (i18n) Thinking of l10n in advance, while designing the game or before starting l10n process Making necessary changes in the code (externalization of hardcoded strings) I18n makes subsequent l10n much easier and cheaper COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW

2. File Preparation L10n engineers extract strings from the code Word Doc / CAT tool Translator COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW

3. TEP (Translation – Editing – Proofreading) Word / Excel Document COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW CAT tool

4. Adaptation (changing the code) USD -> RUB °F -> °C 1,000 -> /28/15 -> pm -> 14:00 COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW

5. Transcreation and Culturalization: COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW Все в восторге от тебя, а ты – от Maybelline Maybe She’s Born with it. Maybe It’s Maybelline Example from a commercial:

6. DTP (desktop publishing) Image with Text Photoshop - image without text - text layer (to translate into target languages) COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW

7. Embedding translation back into the code L10n engineers embed translated strings, localized images, transcreated stuff, etc. back into the code COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW Result: code should not be broken; everything should be displayed in a new language

COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW 8. QA (Quality Assurance) Linguistic QA (= proofreading) Functional QA (buttons, links…) Game Testing Bug report

9. Client Review 10. Making Final Changes: Test-Test-Test 11. Game Release COMPUTER GAME L10N WORKFLOW

RUSSIA Status of linguists – not high (but high rates) High status of linguists (but low rates) USAvs Almost all the content that goes global is created in English => people in the US do not need translations, unlike people in other countries

RUSSIA 1 Source (almost always English) Targets 1 Source (not always English or Russian) 1 Target USAvs

RUSSIA Very few linguists in the market A lot of linguists in the market USA vs

RUSSIA In-country linguists for all targets (native speakers based in Russia, China, Japan, Germany, France.., NEVER in the US) Russia-based (or in-country) linguists USA vs

RUSSIA T9n into English – non-natives (natives are too expensive) SIMILARITY!!! USA vs

RUSSIA high degree of automation no or very little automation USA vs Tools

RUSSIA PM tools (TMS) integrated with CAT tools use of CAT tools at best, no TMS USA vs Tools

RUSSIA huge savings on huge projects; huge volumes => standardization small volumes; every translation is unique USA vs Speed vs Quality

RUSSIA speed is primary; quality is secondary => MT is acceptable word is valued; style and grammar are important => no Machine Translation (no “garbage out”) USA vs Speed vs Quality

RUSSIA Linguists get the smallest portion of the pie (30%,20%,10%,5%…) Other “eaters”: Tools (TMS, CAT) PMs L10n engineers DTP resources Vendor (=Gross Margin) Linguists share the pie only with PMs and the Vendor They get a higher share (30% and more) USA vs DIVIDING THE PIE

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It Was FUN!