Improving Initial Translation Quality: Correlation of
Context
Intended Audience: |
Content Developers, Managers, Software Engineers, Technical
Writers, Translators, Project Managers |
Session Level: |
Intermediate, Advanced |
Intended audience: Intermediate with knowledge of the software
development cycle and familiarity with translation and verification
of software. In this presentation I describe a method of improving the
initial translation quality that will accelerate the product
schedule. Using this method can improve the initial translation
quality so that a translation verification testing would not be
necessary prior to product release. This saves a large portion of
the cost of software product translation and removes weeks from the
translation and test schedule. It is a radical approach, though one
that we have begun to implement. If one were translating a novel the context for creating an
accurate translation is derived from the work and the translator's
understanding of the novel's setting; the historical, cultural,
location and the socioeconomic strata of the novel. Context is the
all important aspect for understanding the work to be translated,
and the basis from which an accurate translation arises. The
translation of software products is more difficult than a novel;
compounded by a number of factors. The setting of the application
is a creation of the interface designer the translator has little
experience in this 'setting' to relate to and that context is
derived from. The translator may understand software and be
conversant with general computing but lack specialized knowledge of
the product area such as systems or IT management. Translation
difficulty is also compounded by the developers' use of good
internationalization practice. By moving the human language out of
the program interface and into resource files the text that is to
be translated is disassociated from the interface. This leaves the
translator to guess which text string in a file will be associated
with which interface element. To solve this problem and to create a good initial translation
some context must be provided to the translator. Most methods for
presenting context to a remote translator present major
difficulties. However, if we were able to provide accurate and
understandable contextual reference for the application text and
provide a means of relating text in resource files to the program
interface the initial translation would be of higher accuracy. With
an initial translation of higher quality the remaining defects in
translation would likely be spelling and grammar related. Use of
automated spelling and grammar checkers followed by an editorial
review would be sufficient remedy to enable the production of a
high quality translation. The translated output from this process
could be of high enough quality for integration into the product
for general release without further testing. |