INTERPRETING MACHINES
(BESIDES US)

May 1st, 2008 | Interpretation, NCTA Meetings, Reports | No Comments

The first NCTA meeting of 2008 took place on February 9 and featured—in addition to our election results and news of ongoing projects—longtime NCTA member Hany Farag’s presentation on new developments in machine translation.

BY SARAH LLEWELLYN

NCTA Secretary Stafford Hemmer, standing in for the absent Vice President Yves Avérous, began the meeting with a series of announcements, including details of upcoming NCTA workshops, a call for volunteers to present future NCTA workshops and also to contribute to Translorial, and a reminder about the monthly happy hours that take place the last Monday of every month in San Francisco and Oakland.

Alison Dent announced the results of the recent (uncontested) election, and welcomed each of the new board members, who will begin two-year terms effective immediately. Dagmar Dolatschko will take over from Song White as treasurer; Paula Dieli will take over Naomi Baer’s position as membership director; Norma Kaminsky will be responsible for continuing education in place of the outgoing Mateo Rutherford; and Diane Montgomery will take on a new role of director of marketing. Stafford Hemmer will continue in his capacity as secretary. Stafford thanked each of the departing members of the board for their valuable and often inspirational contributions during their tenure.

The Interpreter Machine

The meeting’s featured presentation was given by long-time NCTA member and former board member Hany Farag. Hany works in the fields of language and technology and is a translator and state-certified Arabic interpreter, as well as a technologist specialized in automation and control systems.

Hany’s presentation focused on recent efforts in the development of an automated, real-time speech-to-speech translation device—an “interpreter machine”— under the auspices of DARPA, the U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. While machine translation in various guises has been around for some 50 years, the development of such a system was hastened by an urgent need for Arabic-language interpreters in Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion of that country.

Iraq: Facts and Challenges

One of the challenges facing the ground forces in Iraq was how to rebuild a nation of 20 million people, while having virtually no knowledge of the native language, Arabic. The number of interpreters needed— more than 5,000, based on U.S. troop deployments—was an unrealistic target, particularly given that in the whole of California there were, at most, 500 Arabic-language interpreters. And using local interpreters posed a variety of problems, not least of which was the reliability of their information for intelligence purposes. In response, DARPA instigated a project entitled Global Autonomous Language Exploitation (GALE) to develop an interpreter machine that could communicate spontaneously in real time in tactical—that is, war or battle—situations.

Competing to Succeed

Three teams of researchers were hired to develop systems: IBM, The Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and Bolt Beranek & Newman (BBN). Each year, their progress would be evaluated, and the worst-performing team could be eliminated—or, the program could be shut down entirely. At any time, up to 200 people have been working around the clock on this initiative: the largest language project in existence.

Due to the fact that the only existing, related technology was machine translation for text, the interpreter machine had to be developed using a series of building blocks. The first was ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition). Machine translation was the second component, involving the creation of a corpora, or body, of words in context to improve the translation. The third building block involved text-to-speech synthesis (TTS), which was already of exceptionally good quality.

By late 2006, two machines were ready for deployment in Iraq: IBM’s MASTOR and SRI’s IRAQCOMM, each using a different technology, and each having an accuracy level for text estimated to be around 75%. R&D is still in progress, with the goal of reaching 95% accuracy—comparable to a human interpreter—by 2010.

Hany concluded his presentation by suggesting that no one can stop the progress of technology, and that we need to embrace innovation by understanding it and contributing to it if we can. Researchers, after all, are not practicing interpreters!

After a brief Q&A session, NCTA presented Hany with a box of Valentine’s Day Joseph Schmidt chocolates, to thank him for his presentation.

Legally Speaking: The December General Meeting

Feb 1st, 2008 | Court Interpretation, NCTA Meetings, Reports | No Comments

By Raffaella Buschiazzo

The December 1st NCTA General Meeting had a bit of everything, from a celebration of our most active volunteers to a presentation on how to become a California Certified Court Interpreter to a lively and pleasant hour of stuffing envelopes, sticking stamps, and general all-around schmoozing as we discussed our plans for the imminent holidays.

NCTA Vice President Yves Avérous opened the General meeting at 1:40 p.m. with a few announcements of upcoming events, and a call for volunteers to replace Alison Dent as manager of the online extension of our magazine Translorial (www.translorial.com). The site will include the full archives of Translorial from its first issue 30 years ago; Alison did a tremendous job putting content online and managing it, and we will all be very sorry to see her move back to Europe. Yves continued his introduction by drawing attention to the fact that 2008 will be a special year for our Association. We will celebrate NCTA’s 30th anniversary with a major event. Suggestions are welcome!

Awards

NCTA gave free one-year memberships to four members who distinguished themselves in 2007 by their contributions to the Association’s activities. Karen Tkaczyk played an instrumental role during the ATA Conference in San Francisco by working at the NCTA table and providing a storage place in her hotel room for all the association’s collateral materials. Patricia Ramos, who served as a board director from 2000 to 2002 and hosted the board retreats at her house several times, made the trip to San Francisco to attend the ATA Conference from Spain, where she currently lives, and helped at the NCTA hospitality table every morning. Tatyana Neronova has managed all the Translorial mail meticulously for a long time. And last but not least, Paula Dieli was presented with the Volunteer of the Year Award for her involvement in the ATA Conference and for setting up and maintaining the NCTA wiki page on the Conference.
Interpreting in the Courts

The NCTA board wanted to have a presentation giving an overview of the role that court interpreters play in the court system, and what is required to become a certified or registered court interpreter in California. The goal was to offer specific information to those translators interested in expanding their careers and to interpreters who are thinking about adding this specialization to their resume.

The two speakers selected for our presentation by the San Francisco Judicial Council of California complemented each other thanks to their different profiles. Cannon Han is a Court Services Analyst with the Court Interpreters Program. Prior to joining the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), he was an attorney in the non-profit sector and in private practice. As an attorney, Mr. Han addressed language interpretation and quality of care issues in the mental health system and assisted low-income clients on a wide range of legal issues, ranging from public benefits to patients’ rights violations. Dr. Patricia Kilroe is a Linguistics Analyst for the Court Interpreters Program. Prior to this position she taught linguistics, French, English expository writing, and ESL for many years. Her degrees are a B.A. in French, an M.S. in linguistics, and a Ph.D. in Romance-language linguistics.

Mr. Han opened the presentation by quoting from the California Constitution’s mandate that “[a] person unable to understand English who is charged with a crime has a right to an interpreter throughout the proceedings.” For this reason courts must provide specially trained language interpreters whenever a party involved in a proceeding understands little or no English. The Judicial Council is the organ responsible for certifying and registering court interpreters. Currently, court interpreters can be certified in 12 languages: Arabic, Armenian (Eastern and Western), Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. Only interpreters who pass the Court Interpreter Certification Examination and register with the Judicial Council are considered as “certified court interpreters.”

Exams

Part of the examination tests writing skills in English and in the target language for vocabulary, reading comprehension, and grammar. The written examination consists of 155 multiple-choice questions to be answered in four hours and 20 minutes. If the candidate passes, he or she goes on to the oral component to test skills in simultaneous and consecutive interpreting and in sight translation. Interpreters of spoken languages for which there is no state certifying examination are called “registered interpreters of non-designated languages.” They must pass an English proficiency examination which consists of oral and written tests. In both cases, after passing the examination, the interpreter must submit an application to register with the Judicial Council and pay an annual fee. To maintain the certification, the interpreter must attend a Code of Ethics workshop in the first two-year compliance period, and submit proof of 30 hours of continuing education and 40 recent court interpreting assignments for every two-year period.

Dr. Kilroe explained what kind of knowledge, skills, and abilities are needed in court interpreting. She distributed a very long list of linguistic, speaking, listening, reading comprehension, interpreting, and behavioral skills required for this profession. These include language fluency and interpreting skills, such as the ability to concentrate and focus, to process linguistic information and choose terminology quickly, to think analytically, to conserve intent, tone, style, and utterances of all messages, to reflect register, and to self-monitor and self-correct. There are several colleges that provide training, but Dr. Kilroe offered some tips on how to prepare the for the exam with self-study techniques: expand your vocabulary, develop your own glossaries, develop interpreting techniques for consecutive and simultaneous interpretation and sight translation, develop memorization techniques and practice effective listening. She suggested the exercise of “shadowing” to improve one’s interpreting techniques. This consists of having somebody record passages from magazines and newspapers on tape and repeating everything the speaker says including writing out any numerals from ten to 100. We tried this exercise in groups of two people. For more information on becoming a court interpreter or on official workshops, you can visit http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/courtinterpreters/becoming.htm

Thank you to Mr. Han and Dr. Kilroe for their very comprehensive presentations and for staying with us until the end of the general meeting to answer our multiple questions. They certainly provided a lot of information and good suggestions for those courageous enough to follow their path!

The Transmug Report

Feb 1st, 2008 | Business Tools, NCTA Meetings, Reports | No Comments

By Yves Avérous

It’s a Mac Macworld

After the big “Year of the iPhone,” in 2007, it was past time for Apple to give the star treatment back to the Mac in this year’s Macworld Conference and Expo held in San Francisco last month. More than ever, with all the recent product introductions, Mac users have an exciting choice of deft machines offering the best productivity a freelancer can get.

On the software side, the Apple suites iLife and iWork—having been refreshed last June—had to yield the center of the productivity stage to the big suite that finally could: Microsoft Office 2008! (The one that doesn’t support macros …) The good news there is the price, with a competitive $150 Home & Student version. Ars Technica’s first look (http://snipurl.com/1wum2) and Macworld’s review (http://snipurl.com/1y9q4) will show you all there is to like and dislike in this release.

Facing the possibility of no longer using Word on the Mac, I have given more consideration to Pages 2 (part of iWork ‘08) and got to really enjoy the elegant new version.

The Mac marketplace is now flush with applications that are as helpful as affordable. In the recent weeks, members of the TransMUG list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transmug) were made privvy to a few amazing online deals. On my short list of tools that you may want to try and find via Macupdate.com, I highly recommend content managers such as Yojimbo, Yep!, and Together; password managers such as Wallet or 1Password; and a fresh crop of “Getting-Things-Done”-inspired applications, from the basic TaskPaper, to the powerful OmniFocus, or the elegant Things.

With so much to discover on the Mac lately, do not miss our next TransMUG meeting, on Saturday, February 9 at 11 AM, just before the Annual Meeting, at The Center’s café. This time, it’s tech support (and switcher) extraordinaire Emmanuel Lemor who will MC the meeting. Don’t miss it.

The ATA Conference Preview

Dec 1st, 2007 | ATA, Conferences, NCTA Meetings, Reports | No Comments

By Sarah Llewellyn

With the 2007 ATA Conference taking place in San Francisco for the first time in 10 years, the event was an obvious choice for the theme of the September 15th General Meeting. Take a panel of past convention-goers sharing experiences and advice, throw in a free conference pass as a door prize, and you’ve got all the makings of a lively and informative get-together.

Before Yves Avérous called the meeting to order at 1:45 PM, board director Naomi Baer sat down with a small group of new NCTA members to conduct a half-hour orientation session. When it came time for association business, the focus, needless to say, was on the conference. Yves Avérous requested resources for print material, Paula Dieli asked for contributions to NCTA’s conference “wiki site,” and Naomi Baer solicited volunteers to sign up for shifts at NCTA’s conference table.

The General Meeting began at 2 PM. Yves welcomed the panel—Renate Chestnut, Robert Killingsworth, Paula Dieli and Karen Tkaczyk—and introduced each member with a summary of their respective biographies.

The veterans’ perspective

First to share her conference experiences was Renate Chestnut, the panel’s self-confessed “conference veteran.” Renate is a German freelance translator who attended her first ATA conference in 1988 and has been attending alternate years ever since.

A specialist in medical/pharmaceutical translations, Renate now enjoys most of all the social aspect. However, she was keen to stress the opportunity for making industry contacts. And she should know: one of the first contacts she made outside her freelance business was at an early ATA conference, and ultimately led to a position at the esteemed Monterey Institute of International Studies. Renate recommended attending as many sessions as possible and also praised the Job Exchange, which she said was a good way to see other people’s resumés and pick up tips.

Next to offer conference advice was Robert Kllingsworth, a freelance French-to-English translator who specializes in financial and business texts, and who will be presenting a session on “Getting the Terminology Right in Financial Translations” at this year’s conference. Another regular conference attendee, Bob attended his first ATA conference in 1996 and has missed only two since.

While little direct business has come Bob’s way from the conferences, he has found them enormously beneficial in terms of getting to know fellow translators. Of the contacts he has made over the years, many have been translators he had interacted with only in online forums. Bob also reminded audience members who are ATA certified that the conference is a valuable way of accumulating continuing education points.

For Paula Dieli, this year’s conference will be her fourth. Paula’s background is in IT, and at the time of her first ATA conference she was considering leaving her job as a software engineer to become a full-time translator. She therefore viewed the conference as a chance to explore the field of translation before deciding whether to go into it permanently.

By her third conference, Paula was working full-time in translation. Her advice to first-time delegates: be prepared for some serious networking, have plenty of business cards and resumés, practice a 30-second self-introduction in front of the mirror, and introduce yourself to as many people as possible. She also recommended sitting in on sessions that are “different.”

Thoughts of a newbie

Last to share her thoughts on attending the conference was Karen Tkaczyk, who translates from French into English in the highly specialized field of chemistry and its industrial applications, and whose experi¬ence comes from last year’s event in New Orleans.

The New Orleans conference met some of Karen’s expectations, failed to meet others, and exceeded some she didn’t know she had! The orientation and general business advice sessions were particularly helpful, she found, and the opportunity to network with colleagues was an excellent way to build relationships. Like the other panel members, Karen enthused about some of the sessions she had attended that were outside her area of interest.

Q&A—and a winner!

Before beginning the Q&A session, a ticket was drawn for the door prize of a free conference pass. The lucky winner was Norma Kaminsky.

The Q&A session turned out to be an opportunity for audience members to share their own tips, such as checking to make sure publicized sessions are still going ahead (cancellations and substitutions are not uncommon) and not being afraid to walk out of a session if it does not live up to expectations.

Before the meeting wrapped up and Naomi reminded everyone of the events NCTA would be organizing during the conference, each panel member was presented with a fancy box of Joseph Schmidt chocolates. The ATA conference: how sweet it can be.

Language to the Fore!

Sep 1st, 2007 | NCTA Meetings, Reports | No Comments

By Stafford Hemmer with Barbara Guggemos

The NCTA General Meeting took place on May 12th at San Francisco’s LGBT Center. The event featured a few familiar elements, from new member orientation to our traditional networking and schmoozing, as well as an extraordinary guest speaker, renowned linguist Geoffrey Nunberg.

As at each General Meeting, the main event was preceded by new member orientation, this time coordinated by Board Director Naomi Baer. Then, NCTA President Tuomas Kostiainen officially called the meeting to order at 1:45 with opening announcements about the association’s upcoming workshops and events, and particular focus on the year’s major event: The 48th Annual ATA Conference in San Francisco.

NCTA Wants You!

Tuomas and Vice President Yves Avérous outlined the results of a February brainstorming session hosted by NCTA Member Christine Lemor-Drake, involving 18 member volunteers. Because NCTA will be the host chapter of this year’s conference, both officers encouraged all NCTA members to consider volunteering, to help the association implement its many ideas and fulfill its host responsibilities once the conference starts on October 31st.

Yves also announced the launch of NCTA’s very own wiki site, which will be a nexus of information for all ATA conference participants. The site was warmly received by meeting attendees, and both officers encouraged members to submit contributions and ideas to the site. In addition, as the host chapter, NCTA will have its own information table staffed at all times during the conference. So, both officers encouraged attendees —and all NCTA members—to contact any board member if interested in participating in the ATA conference on behalf of NCTA in some capacity, and especially to help staff the NCTA table. Working the table is also a great way to connect with old friends, meet new colleagues and network with potential clients—while helping the chapter at the same time.

Nunberg on language

NCTA member Francisco Hulse kindly delivered an introduction to his very own Spanish pupil and celebrated linguist, Geoffrey Nunberg, as our featured guest speaker. An adjunct full professor at UC Berkeley, linguist, researcher and consulting professor at Stanford University, regular contributor to National Public Radio (including Fresh Air with Terry Gross), Geoffrey Nunberg addressed our general meeting with refreshing insights into the intersection of language and politics, with wit and impeccable expertise.

Nunberg intended to “talk as a linguist about ‘language attitudes,’ and what linguists do that bear on this.” He asked attendees to contemplate a recent report from the BBC on the world’s most difficult word to translate, the Tshiluba word ilunga, which means “a person who is ready to forgive any abuse the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.” The word gave Nunberg a perfect foil for the linguistic equation that he explored in the rest of his presentation: does language “x” have no word for the concept “y”? How do interpreters and translators convey, or fail to convey, the proper meaning in the absence of an available foreign language correlate?

Language and nation

For instance, it may be a “false, misleading or irrelevant” endeavor to explore the notion that German has no corresponding word for “humor,” or that Arabic needs a “companion,” or that Russian is bound by a lack of “freedom.” Yet historically, this tendency fostered a “romantic nationalism” and a sense of identity intrinsically tied to the “geist” of the language, time, geography and its people.  As the English language spread to other parts of the British Empire, people wanted to find a unifying theme, which yielded, for example, the Oxford English Dictionary.

A similar situation arose in the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s: With waves of immigration, laws were passed to restrict use of the immigrants’ languages. Nebraska restricted foreign language study until 9th grade, for example. Iowa voters had to read the constitution in order to cast a ballot. A most recent wave of language restrictions in the 1980s and 1990s was accompanied by claims that English was the guardian of democratic ideals. These claims, which were also made in literature, were based on the idea that, as Nunberg put it, “only if you have the words can you have the concepts, and hence the embodiment of national ideals and identity.” If a language doesn’t have a word for a concept, then the concept cannot be understood.

This idea can be traced to the Yale linguist Benjamin Whorf, who argued that humans organize nature in their minds by assigning terms. According to Whorf, language lays down a grid, and its speakers cannot think outside of that grid. But Nunberg disputes this notion, saying it cannot be proved experimentally. Moreover, the opposite can be proved: As evidence that people are capable of thinking outside the categories of their language, Nunberg notes that English does not have a one-word translation for German Schadenfreude, but English speakers nevertheless unquestionably understand the concept of malicious joy at someone else’s misfortune.

Word association

Differences in the ways languages categorize nature can pose problems for translators. In English, a single verb can describe both a manner of motion and a change in location. Sentences such as, “She danced down the stairs” are hard to translate into Romance languages, because Romance languages categorize motion differently. Two verbs are needed in Spanish to convey the exact meaning of the English sentence. Often, one verb is left out in the translation.

Word associations also present problems for translators: For example, when the English term “empowerment” is translated into German, a dictionary search might turn up the German word Ermächtigung. From the dictionary definition, Ermächtigung would appear to be a very close translation, but actually it is not because the two words have vastly different associations. “Empowerment,” a term from the US civil rights movement, has such positive associations for Americans that it has been appropriated by right wing conservatives in the USA. Ermächtigung, on the hand, has very negative connotations for Germans, who associate it with the events of 1933 that brought Hitler to power.

Another example is “ownership society.” Half the time, translations keep this term in English. When “ownership” is translated with a term meaning something like “stakeholder,” the English meaning is not conveyed because of different associations.

Theme words

There are certain theme words in every political society. In the U.S., every political issue is framed in terms of “freedom.” Roosevelt’s “economic freedom” meant freedom to do something, but in the editorial pages of newspapers on both right and left, “freedom” means freedom from government interference. Other societies have different theme words with symbolic significance that cannot be easily rendered in another language. “Freedom” in a sense is untranslatable.

Q&A

Dr. Nunberg wrapped up his presentation with a question and answer period with the audience. Here are just a few highlights:

• The fact that English “just” and French “juste” are descended from the same Latin word us irrelevant to their current usage. Each language has had plenty of time to evolve separate meanings for both words.

• According to Chomsky, recursion is the characteristic feature of human language. When speakers of different languages marry and speak a pigeon language, within one generation relative clauses develop: This is the paper. Jack read the paper. –> This is the paper that Jack read. The pigeon language has turned into a creole.

• Comments on “homeland” vs. “nation” and “country”: Traditionally, English has not had any word for “nation” or “country” that has the same connotations as “la patrie” or “das Vaterland.” “Homeland” as in “homeland security” borrows from the European concept of Vaterland. It suggests that nationality is a matter of blood relationships.

• Recommended authors/books for translators:
1) Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct (refutes Whorf’s theories)
2) Daniel Slobin

• Machine translation is enormously better than it was 20 years ago, but nobody notices because it still only gets 20% right. Proponents currently estimate that it will be 25 years before it machine translation becomes practical. Twenty years ago, the estimate was 25 years as well, so not much has changed.

After a short, but informative Q&A session with the audience that closed Dr. Nunberg’s presentation, the general meeting ended with a brief round of networking and schmoozing.

The February GM: Taxes, Awards, and Elections

May 1st, 2007 | NCTA Info, NCTA Meetings, Reports | No Comments

By Raffaella Buschiazzo

A particularly eclectic lineup of events greeted attendees at the February General Meeting. From discussions of amendments to praise (and requests!) for volunteers to the appearance of a special guest—and these were not even our main subjects—the meeting provided information and inspiration to all.

The NCTA General Meeting that took place on February 10 at The Center was particularly rich in events and information. We also had a special guest attending, ATA President Marian Greenfield. NCTA President Tuomas Kostiainen opened the meeting at 1:45 pm with an announcement of the association’s upcoming events and workshops. He then called for volunteers, stressing the importance of their role in an association that currently counts over 600 corporate and individual members.

Recognized members
NCTA gave awards to three members who distinguished themselves by their zeal and good work for the association: Barbara Guggemos received a lifetime honorary membership for her four years as Treasurer and several years as a very active volunteer; Brigitte Reich received a one-year honorary membership for her great contributions as Webmaster and her willingness to help out over the years; and Afaf Steiert was awarded Volunteer of the Year for her personal initiative in organizing a monthly NCTA lunch for all of 2006, and also received a one-year honorary membership.

Tax Presentation
The highlight of the meeting was a presentation on an excruciating topic: taxes. Elizabeth Shwiff, a CPA in the firm of Shwiff, Levy & Polo, LLP, has been in the public accounting business for over sixteen years. Now, as Senior Partner in the firm, she focuses mainly on the company’s business development aspects. Among her many talents, Elizabeth speaks fluent Russian and German. She has years of experience in due diligence and fraud investigation.

Winners all around
Before concluding another successful general meeting, there was a drawing for a $150 gift certificate for services at Shwiff, Levy & Polo, LLP, won by Stacey Ramirez. We ended with a delicious buffet of refreshments, organized for the first time with the help of new member and new volunteer Paula Dieli, who is supporting me in this task.3

The December General Meeting:
Candidates, PDFs, and Door Prizes!

Feb 1st, 2007 | Business Tools, NCTA Info, NCTA Meetings, Reports | No Comments

By Raffaella Bushiazzo

Almost sixty people attended our General Meeting on December 2nd, “… the last event of a great year,” in the words of Vice President Yves Avérous. We closed 2006 with 56 corporate members and 507 individuals, for whom we provided a variety of workshops, presentations on practical topics, Happy Hours all over the Bay Area, and other social events.

NCTA President Tuomas Kostiainenopened the General Meeting at 1:30 with a few announcements on upcoming events and introduced the candidates for NCTA board elections: himself for President, Yves Avérous for Vice President, and Raffaella Buschiazzo, Afaf Steiert, Alison Dent, and Michael Schubert for Directors. Those elected will serve on the board of directors for two years.

PDF and Conversion Software
Representatives from three different companies participated in this presentation. Dealing with PDF files is problematic for translators. When we receive source files in this format, we need to convert them to a format in which the text can be edited. There are some conversion programs on the market that work pretty well, while others don’t. In this session we tried to present the best solutions available today.

Joel Geraci, who has been working for Adobe Systems (www.adobe.com), maker of Adobe Acrobat, in a variety of roles for as long as the company has been around, opened by explaining that Adobe Acrobat was designed as a publishing tool. It was not meant to be used for extraction of text and it is not a data interchange application. Even though the new Adobe 8 handles files far better than previous versions because of its improved optical character recognition (OCR), the product was still not originally conceived for this purpose.

ABBYY (www.abbyyusa.com), maker of PDF Transformer and FineReader, is an OCR company that specializes in converting images into text. Ilya Evdokimov, Business Development Manager at ABBYY USA, showed us how its main product, PDF Transformer, works. In three simple steps, by pushing three buttons on a screen, the program converts PDF files into editable files and reproduces the original PDF page layout. The accuracy is up to 99%, which can become 100% with good quality documents. PDF Transformer is currently available in 177 languages.

The third speaker was Robert Weideman from Nuance Communications (www.nuance.com), maker of OmniPage and PDF Converter. He presented PDF Converter Professional, which is a full PDF client application. This product simplifies the process even further because it opens a PDF file directly without having to export it. Once opened, the PDF file is ready to be edited. Another advantage of this product is that captions and graphs can also be edited. It is also able to read a PDF file aloud thanks to its text-to-speech technology function. Mr. Weideman presented another useful piece of software called FormTyper, especially designed to fill the fields of forms in PDF files. He specified that it is a good companion program to Adobe Acrobat.

The discussion continued with a long and prolific Q&A session during which the audience raised very specific issues from their everyday professional experience in dealing with PDF files as translators. In one of the questions, Robert Killingsworth summarized in a couple of lines the translator’s dilemma: “As a translator all I need is a text!” However, if a PDF file is locked with a password, it is practically impossible to unlock it. Both ABBYY and Nuance Communications are careful to follow Adobe’s security policy to the letter. So, as translators, we may need to investigate other means to get at the source material necessary to do our job.

Other goodies
NCTA also provided the audience with copies of tips and suggestions from Jost Zetzsche’s Tool Kit. They were very helpful, as we have come to expect from Jost’s presentations.

The meeting ended by raffling off seven excellent products from our corporate presenters as prizes. The lucky NCTA members were Donald Couch, Ed Tsumura, Alison Dent, Sylvia Korwek, Raquel Brewer, Steve Goldstein, and Christian Rozotto. After the presentation we had a delicious buffet, and then worked as a team to stuff and stamp the December mailings to members as we networked and made plans for future projects and events.

Three Events in One Weekend!

Dec 1st, 2006 | ATA, Medical Translation, NCTA Info, NCTA Meetings, Reports, Translation | No Comments

By Raffaella Bushiazzo

This year our fall general meeting was a very special event, as translators and want-to-be translators were able to dedicate an entire weekend to increasing their professional knowledge and exchanging business cards and tips with fellow translators and agencies in an elegant environment.

To coordinate with ATA’s Medical Translation Seminar and our own NCTA MultiTerm Workshop for Trados users, we moved our quarterly meeting to Sunday, September 17^th at the Embassy Suites Hotel in South San Francisco. The NCTA general meeting started with the traditional New Member Orientation, to help those who have recently joined NCTA learn more about the association.

Trials and questionnaires
Since the ATA seminar was on medical translation we chose to present on a connected topic. We invited David Himmelberger from Health Outcomes Group in San Francisco (http://www.healthoutcomesgroup.com/) to explain how clinical trials and health care questionnaires are designed and translated for multinational use; the translators role in this process; and what is expected from translators. Dr. Himmelberger’s presentation was rich in practical examples, detailed guidelines, and, not least, hilarious anecdotes.

Since the mid-1970s, Mr. Himmelberger has been involved in analyzing the results of medical treatments in terms of cost and quality of life. After many years as a biostatistician at Stanford University and experience in the pharmaceutical industry in strategic planning, international marketing research, and outcomes evaluation, Mr. Himmelberger founded Health Outcomes Group in 1987.

Today, there are no medical tests to prove that a treatment for a disease is working. For this reason, questionnaires are needed, to calibrate medical procedures to a common standard. But often these questionnaires need to be translated before they can completed by patients in different environments.

The translated documents must be absolutely true to the source, but at the same time in readable, natural-sounding language. Typical projects involve twenty countries at a time, where English is almost always the source language translated into other target languages, and adapted to each culture. The translation process is usually lengthy, involves a number of people, and presents difficult challenges to be solved.

The person who writes the original questionnaire, the source author, has an interest in staying involved at each step of the translation process—both to ensure accuracy and to make sure he or she shares in any additional fees. Two translators will then translate the text, working independently of each other. The resulting translations are sent to a linguist living in Italy who combines the two versions into one. This version is then back-translated back into English. At this point the translation is reviewed by the author, as well as by doctors and experts for a linguistic validation.

They take a small sample of users and conduct a dialogue with the patients to see if they fully understand the questionnaire and all of its nuances.

To be effective, a translation of this kind needs to meet two nearly paradoxical requirements, which is what makes the task so challenging. First, the source text is fixed and unalterable; since the developer doesn’t want to change the questionnaire in the original language, the linguist has to work around that to come up with solutions. Second, the translation also needs to sound natural in all the target communities and cultures!

How do we know what patients understand when they answer a questionnaire? Several techniques are used, often involving putting the patient at ease, listening to the vocabulary he or she uses, watching for visual cues, having questions prepared that address issues identified in the translation process, and the use of different interview techniques. Lastly, the translation is sent back to the target language linguist for a final approval.

Networking and goodies
Dr. Himmelberger’s fascinating talk was followed by a treat—a buffet of delicious cheeses and exotic fruit, elegantly served on the hotels fine china. It was a landmark weekend for NCTA, because we were able to offer our members so many professional enrichment events in such a short time. I was pleased to see the enthusiasm shown, as well as the number of first-time NCTA attendees and attendees from outside Northern California who joined us for this first-class event and presentation.

Voices Everywhere!
The May General Meeting

Sep 1st, 2006 | NCTA Info, NCTA Meetings, Reports, Voiceover | No Comments

By Raffaella Buschiazzo

Spring flowers in bloom means it’s time for our May General Meeting. This year’s session had at its core two presentations that couldn’t have been more different: a talk on the important business of insurance products for Association members, and a panel discussion on the wide and interesting world of voiceover. Add some lucky door prize winners, and you’ve got a successful meeting.

As it has become a staple of our regular meetings, NCTA’s new member orientation opened up our spring General Meeting. NCTA Membership Director Naomi Baer opened the proceedings by answering questions and helping our new members find out more about the Association. The gathering also served as a pre-meeting networking session, where new members could get to know experienced NCTA-ers.

NCTA President Tuomas Kostiainen opened the General Meeting at 1:30 p.m. with a few announcements of upcoming events. Then he introduced Mr. Myron Gomes from Mutual of Omaha who provided us with extremely helpful information on disability income insurance and other benefit products that Mutual of Omaha offers to NCTA members at discounted membership rates. For our members, it was a chance to learn about this type of insurance policy without having to spend the time and energy to research it on their own.

Voiceover Panel Discussion

The core of the meeting was a panel discussion on voiceover presented by David Sweet-Cordero, Francisco Hulse, and Ines Swaney, and moderated by NCTA Events Director Raffaella Buschiazzo. The three speakers introduced us to a specialized world within our profession that involves not merely translation and interpretation, but acting skills as well! In addition to presenting practical examples, the speakers offered excellent tips that would prove invaluable to any of our colleagues who wish to try their hand at this specialty.

David Sweet-Cordero is the owner of InterCultura, an agency that specializes in multilingual media production including video, voiceover, and translation. He currently combines work as both a voiceover talent and a producer. David opened the discussion by explaining what voiceover is and what kinds of projects and applications it is used for. He talked about the qualifications needed for voiceover work, the market for this specialty, and trends and directions in the voiceover industry. As both an actor and producer, he offered a unique perspective on the two roles.

The panel continued with Francisco Hulse, interpreter and translator of Spanish and English, who successfully stumbled into voiceover work in the late ‘90s. Francisco is a member of SAG, the Screen Actors Guild, and AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. In addition to telling us all about the expectations producers have of actors at the microphone, along with many tricks of the trade, he also provided us with important information on SAG and AFTRA—including how to join, what to expect as a member of these unions, and pros and cons of belonging to them.

Francisco also brought some recorded excerpts of his advertising work for us to listen to. These were perfect examples of exactly what voiceover means, and how a voiceover talent must be trained not just to speak a foreign language well but also to play a role. As Francisco pointed out, many skills are required at the same time. He is a translator-interpreter-actor who needs to adapt the tone of his voice again and again until the producer is satisfied.

Our third presenter, Ines Swaney, enjoys a variety of assignments resulting from her work as a Spanish translator, interpreter, and voiceover talent. She is also a columnist for Intercambios, the quarterly publication of ATA’s Spanish Language Division. Ines particularly likes sharing anecdotes of the adventures that she has encountered in the language field, along with personal experiences and suggestions for those who want to get started in the field.

Lucky Members

Even after a twenty-minute question and answer session, people were fascinated and eager to learn more. For that, we had our three talented speakers to thank: they presented the subject from all the important angles, answered questions with practical tips and examples, and kept us engaged with funny and illuminating anecdotes. The panel discussion had a very sweet end: Tuomas gave each of the three panelists a box of chocolates, a simple gesture to let them know how much NCTA appreciates the input and time that they give to the association. Thank you again David, Francisco, and Ines!

At the end of the meeting, five door prizes were drawn. Karin Seeman, Kathleen Davis, and Luis Salvago-Toledo held the lucky numbers to win AnyCount Software, a word-, character-, and line counting software package, donated by www.AnyCount.com. Jessica Bazzoli won Translation Office 3000, administrative and accounting applications for freelance translators donated by www.translation3000.com. Ines Swaney won a framed original artwork print by conservationist Betsy Fowler.

Another NCTA General Meeting ended with delicious refreshments and relaxed networking, where old members enjoyed chatting with new ones, all sharing in the camaraderie of a profession like no other!

The February General Meeting:
Different Venue, Same Spirit

May 1st, 2006 | Business Tools, NCTA Info, NCTA Meetings, Reference, Reports, Web services | No Comments

By Raffaella Bushiazzo

On February 11th, the NCTA General Meeting was held for the first time at the Mechanic’s Institute Library, where in the past we have traditionally held our workshops. Whether because of the cozy wood-paneled room or the anticipation of meeting new board members, the meeting was well-attended and successful.

NCTA President Tuomas Kostiainen opened the General Meeting with a few announcements of upcoming events.He then gave the final vote counts for the annual board election, and introduced newly elected board members Andrea Wells, Song White, and Stafford Hemmer, and re-elected board members Evan Geisinger and Naomi Baer. A heartfelt thank you went to outgoing Treasurer Barbara Guggemos, Webmaster Brigitte Reich, and Membership Director Tetu Hirai for all the work that they had done for the Association. It was a real pleasure working with people as professional and reliable as they are! Dear Barbara, Brigitte, and Tetu, thank you again from all of us.

Advanced Search

The highlight of the meeting was a panel discussion on advanced Internet search techniques and news gathering strategies, presented by Scott Gatz, Yahoo! Senior Director of Personalization Services, Tom Corbett, and Yves Avérous, NCTA Vice President in charge of Publications and founder of TransMUG, who moderated the panel as well.

Tom Corbett, a Healthcare Information Technology Specialist who is now applying his healthcare industry knowledge to the world of translation and localization, gave us an introduction to advanced search and provided useful tips. He also warned us of multiple dangers on the Internet such as false endorsements, rumors about false news, self-promotion, surveillance, and vandals who modify the information available on normally reliable news sources like Wikipedia.

He also suggested three websites that help translators make better searches: www.ohiotranslators.org/research.htm, where one can download a presentation by Chemali & Sommer held at the annual ATA Conference; www.lai.com/companion.html, a good site for translators’ search tools; and www.searchenginewatch.com, which allows you to find more detailed information about particular search engines.

Yves Avérous added more advanced search tips specifically for translation professionals. He gave us a few hints for terminology mining: try to guess your source term translation and verify your assumption in websites written in the target language; compare the number of results obtained by different possible translations; enter the source word that you want to translate and look it up in pages that are written in the target language; identify the word context in web pages written in the source language, then translate the context terms and enter their translation in a query made in target language pages.

RSS feeds and blogs

The panel continued with our third presenter, Scott Gatz. Among his many accomplishments, Scott has introduced My Yahoo!, opening the entire Web to millions of homepages. Scott presented the concept of RSS, Really Simple Syndication. This was developed to deal with the huge amount of information on the Web. It is a family of web feed formats used for web syndication, where live information from one section of a website is made available for other sites to incorporate. This allows users to create their own dashboard; a personalized web page like My Yahoo!, where they receive web feeds coming straight from the sites they choose. My Yahoo! was the first portal to provide users with a personalized page for receiving RSS feeds but today other sites offer a similar free service. And then there are the popular newsfeed aggregators like Bloglines, or the standalone newsreader applications for users who wish to keep their updates.

With all these solutions, there is no need to visit the sites containing information that you want to access multiple times a day, because you can automatically receive their content directly on your personalized page or your newsfeed aggregator. Millions of sites are now supporting RSS; their homepages present a little orange RSS icon that you can add to your method of collection. There are already more than 10,000 sites displaying the orange Yahoo! RSS icon. If you click on that icon, the site will be added automatically to your personalized page in My Yahoo!. The RSS concept not only saves time and makes it easy to manage a huge amount of information but also reduces spam because you get updates without providing an email address.

Yves concluded this interesting presentation by explaining the differences between the old and the current perception of blogs. Until not so long ago blogs were limited to personal usage, whereas today a blog is seen as a platform to instantaneously spread articles and information. For instance, under www.proz.com/forums translators can subscribe to several feeds, each on a very specific subject, and receive the content on their personalized page.

Finally, there is the wiki concept. A wiki is a collaborative site, ideal for virtual teams. Someone posts one article and somebody else can complete it. From there, the concept can build eventually to its most famous illustration: the free online, multilingual, encyclopedia Wikipedia.

On a lighter note

At the end of the panel there was a drawing to win two books: Yahoo Hack went to the youngest member in the audience, Ajita Sherer, and Google Hacks went to NCTA member Sjamsir Sjarif.

The official General Meeting ended with refreshments and networking. Tuomas invited everybody to join the board members at a nearby Hunan restaurant to celebrate the Chinese New Year together, sharing delicious dishes. Our afternoon ended watching the long parade on Market Street to welcome the Year of the Dog.