GTS Blog

Google Translate, Microsoft Translator and similar machine translation tools are unsuitable for most mission-critical translation jobs. But Google Translate can be effectively used as an aid for various translation-related tasks. This includes using Google as a back translation tool for validation and QA of translations (see a post I wrote about it here). In today’s post, I would like to show you some Google search techniques that we have used to much advantage in translation projects. These simple techniques can be used by professional translators, editors, project managers and anyone who wants to monitor the quality of their translations.

Let’s say your translator turned in a job with some pretty specific industry terminology. How do you know that your translator translated the terms correctly? Incorrect translation of terminology or improper use of acronyms can be devastating to your ad campaign, sales brochure, video presentation, etc. Using Google, it is pretty easy to check for yourself even when your knowledge of the target language is limited.

One thing we need to remember is that Google search has some amazing natural language understanding technology that is initiated as soon as you start typing in your search query. I am sure that most of you know this already but it bears mentioning nonetheless. As you type in a string in Google you can see what the most common uses of it are on the Internet. And since the Internet is so huge, consensus is a very powerful factor in determining what the correct uses of a phrase are. This works in all of the languages which Google supports.

The first thing you want to do is familiarize yourself with the various country versions of Google search by going to Google’s language tools page (scroll down to the bottom of the page where all the flags are displayed). Depending on the language you are working in, you will want to access the country-specific version of Google when using it as a lookup tool. If you want to check a term or acronym in Spanish, access Google Spain or Google Argentina; if you want to check a term in German, go to Google Germany. And so on.

When in the country-specific Google version, type in the term you want to check. Use the Google exact match feature by inserting quotation marks around the term or phrase. If there are no or very few matches, then you know that the translation is probably incorrect. If there is a Wikipedia page for the term, chances are that the term was translated correctly and reading the Wiki page will provide further help on the language usages of that term.

Google's Internet language and country options (Spanish version)

To further pinpoint your search, use Google’s Internet options which are displayed on the left-hand side of the browser. You can choose to only display pages in the targeted language, or to only display pages in the targeted country. By using these search methods, it is easy to check on terminology usage and to verify that your translators have done a good job.

Another option is to type an English phrase into the country version of Google and then to only display the pages in the target language or country. This often provides many examples of how the term is translated in the target language.

The Huffington Post announced that it is launching a French language edition of the leading Internet newspaper in partnership with French newspaper Le Monde and calling it Le Huffington Post. The new publication will be headed by Anne Sinclair, wife of the former International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chairman Dominique Strauss Kahn. This announcement comes shortly after the Wall Street Journal launched a German language edition.

The Journal has not said how much of the Wall Street Journal Deutschland will be exclusive and how much will be translated stories from the paper’s main edition. But it has a dedicated team based in Frankfurt working alongside reporters and editors from sister company Dow Jones.

It is unclear how much of an impact Ms. Sinclair will have on the editorial content of the new French publication or how much influence she will have in setting its journalistic policies. Some critics were quick to point out that Ms. Sinclair has not been an active journalist for years and that perhaps she was chosen for name recognition, while the DSK scandal in New York is still fresh on people’s minds. But it is clear that the WSJ, the Huffington Post and other major newspapers see the need to take their content into new markets, either by translating it or by creating unique content specifically targeted to the local readership. These newspapers are spending millions to set up operations in other countries which includes hiring high profile figures (like Ms. Sinclair) to head up operations, hiring local journalists, renting large offices, buying expensive equipment, setting up hosting servers. Smaller publications can’t afford these types of expenses and moreover will be facing new competition from the heavyweights.

The good news for the small and medium size publishers is that they can use inexpensive translation tools and machine translation to test the waters and see if a market exists for their content. Depending on the results of the tests, newspapers can decide whether it is worthwhile to take it to the next level.

Case in point: The GTS translation plugin allows any publisher that uses WordPress to publish in another language, using post-edited machine translation for high language quality. Another WordPress plugin which allows multilingual publishing is WPML. It is estimated that about 15% of the world’s websites are powered by WordPress. Which means that multilingual publishing is a feasible option for many newspapers and that we can expect to see other newspapers follow the WSJ and the Huffington Post in their overseas travels.

My all-time favorite rock band growing up was Boston. I liked them so much that I went to see them in concert twice in one week in Alpine Valley Wisconsin in 1987.

The only problem with Boston is that they took forever to come out with a new album. More than a Feeling came out in 1976. Their next album Don’t Look Back came out in 1978. It took them another 8 years to come out with their third album Third Stage. They released their fourth and last album Corporate America in 2002 but by then I had lost interest in the group.

Why did it take this group so long to release an album? Most people say that it is because Tom Scholtz, Boston’s creator and leader, was a perfectionist and did not want to release an album until it was perfect.

What does this have to do with Word Lens? In today’s high-tech world, time-to-market is a key factor. A year is an eternity when you’re talking about mobile phone apps. Yet since Quest Visual first released Word Lens one year ago with only Spanish language support, it took them a whole year to release the second language, French.

But is it just a matter of perfectionism? Or was this product release timed for the holiday season to capitalize on indiscriminate Christmas shopping (just like the first product which was also released days before Christmas). Since I wanted to check out the product myself, I bought the French-to-English language pack on my iPhone.

Well the product is NOT perfect, but works well nonetheless. It renders comprehensible translations of simple signs that one would find in public areas. However, it does not do as well with more extensive texts. Some people may complain about the $10 price tag per language pair, but once you get over that and install the product, it is definitely nice to have. I will surely use it on future travels to French-speaking countries.

But why did it take so long to release another language? One of the reasons may be just lack of time. It seems that the creator of Word Lens Otavio Good was busy working on other things, including a project for DARPA which yielded a prize of $50,000 (read more here). Another reason may have been to release the new product in time for the holiday season. Will we need to wait for next Christmas for Italian or German? Let’s wait and see.

To all my Canadian buddies,

It’s hockey season, eh? So let’s crack open a couple of cold Molsons and go into deep hibernation until the temperature gets back into positive territory. And while we’re at it, let’s talk about our favorite Canadian translation product: Ortsbo.

Ortsbo issued a press release a few days ago that they are going to sue for libel people who bad-mouthed the company. Well, here I am. I am not hiding behind a fake name and in every one of my posts I asked the folks at Ortsbo to refute my remarks with some hard facts. I never received any information from them and instead received comments from people who called me a crook and a paid basher. I even received some comments that had to do with my Mother but I decided to trash those in the interest of good taste. In the USA we have something called “free press” and I can write whatever I please. After all it is my blog. Everything I wrote is based in fact and clearly is not in violation of any laws. But heck, if they want to sue me than so be it. I have been to court before and know the way there.

Now let’s get back to facts:

• Ortsbo is now using the Microsoft Translator API in its real-time translator. They were previously using the Google Translate API V1 which was terminated on December 1, 2011. The problem is, Microsoft only supports about 35 languages which is about 20 less than Google. So if you select a language (like Yiddish) which is not supported by Microsoft, Ortsbo does not translate it. I know this because I myself installed the Ortsbo app on my iPhone and tested it.
• Ortsbo ranks #3 in in the US iTunes store. Does it now? According to XYologic, a company that specializes in mobile analysis and metrics, the Ortsbo iPhone app has been downloaded a total of about 50,000 times worldwide-83% of those in Canada. Click here to see it yourself. It has a total of 111 user ratings to date. Does that sound like a high ranking app? Not to me.
• Intertainment purchased a share in Israeli company Lexifone. This company has solid technology and patents. Which is good. But what is the synergy with real-time, multilingual text messaging? And will Ortsbo be able to compete with such small companies like IBM, Microsoft and Google who are spending Millions on speech-to-speech translation? This looks like a Hail Mary pass in a lost Football game.
• The Ortsbo WordPress plugin. They announced its release two months ago. Where is it? I can’t find it.
• INT.V stock price is tanking. It is worth much less than it was when I started writing about the company. Is it my fault? Can suing people for libel bring the stock price up?

The people at Ortsbo excel in a lot of things: in raising money from the public; in promoting products with gimmicks and shtick; in selling a dream. But in technology? I give them an F, a failing grade. And you can sue me for saying it.

On December 1, 2011 Google shut down the free version of its Translate API (v1) and informed that all users would have to switch over to the paid Translate API version (V2). As many of us have anticipated, this ended the party for many companies that enjoyed free translation services. Here is a partial list of websites/products that have discontinued free translation services to at least some extent.

• Ackuna, the Cloud Translator. The website is still there but the free translation has not been working in the last 24 hours. (Ackuna is owned by Translation Services USA, see next on the list).
• Translation Services USA. This company switched over to the Microsoft Translator API so some of the languages work. But some of the languages (like Welsh and Yiddish) which Microsoft does not support are not working.
• Ortsbo. This company also switched over to the Microsoft Translator API and some languages work. But some of the languages don’t work even though they remain as menu selection options.
• Lingo24. This company has discontinued its free online translation services.
• AsiaTranslate.net. This company has discontinued its free online translation services.
• ToLingo. This company has discontinued its free online translation services.
• Transperfect Transimage. This is an iPhone app developed by Transperfect which ran on the Google Translate API. It no longer works. I am betting that there are more free translation apps for smartphones that no longer work.

There are also a lot of websites that used free widgets that were powered by Google Translate V1 or that used scripts that called the deprecated API. You will be able to see some of them by doing a search on “Unable to perform Translation: Please use Translate v2.” Google terms this as a Terms of Service Abuse, click here for more details.