After BBC's article "Parlez-vous business?" appeared on the newspaper's web page on june 2011. James Cave tells Bewords more about his thoughts on Translation and Localisation according to his experience with Skycanner.

Like many folks, I spend a lot of my time online and if there's one thing that's guaranteed to drive me crazy, it's shoddy content. Misspellings, terrible grammar, pages that have been poorly translated, all of these things are likely to make me leave a site in moments. While I'd say that overall, most online businesses are on their way to being web savvy these days – the net certainly has higher standards than it once did – there are still plenty of clangers out there, and in the travel industry especially.

It's easy (well, easier!) to optimise your  site for your own country, but if you're selling holidays, hotels or tours to people from all around the world, you really need to broaden your appeal, as we've found out. I've lost count of the number of times I've clicked on a link to an interesting sounding destination or hotel, only to click away again instantly, frightened off by the badly translated and barely understandable copy.

And then there are all of the links I didn't click, because they never appeared in my search results. Why is that? Because the companies have only optimised their pages to target commonly reached for terms in their own country, and not in mine. Any company who's looking to have a global audience must consider the way this audience speaks, the languages it uses and the different ways people construct sentences. This is the difference between 'translation' and 'localisation'.

When entering another market, many companies will simply get the pages on their website translated. There can be some problems with this approach however, as it completely ignores how some countries search. To understand this, you not only need abasic knowledge of the language and a keyword research tool, but market research into the market and people.

 Take'flights to New York' for example. Worldwide, this is one of our most important terms. If you look at our NewYork page (within the English-speaking market) the page is optimised for 'flights to New York'. Within the Hungarian market however, the term we're focusing on is 'New York airplane ticket'.

It wasn't easy to work this out. If you're serious about working in another market it's not enough to pay a student a few quid to translate your pages word for word, you need market insights and a proper understanding of both the language and how people in that market use search engines. Working things like this out can really help you make sure you're not missing out on willing customers.

The occasional misspelled word or nonsensical sentence may not seem that important to you, but believe me it is. Trust is really crucial for all online businesses, and when websites look poorly maintained and are full of copy errors, trust levels plummet. Be sure to not only check your site for mistakes in your own language, but always employ someone to help you do it in all other languages you use too. Firms should always invest in a reputable translation company when they are creating pages for other languages, and some keyword research will go a long way in helping you discover whether you're using the right words for your audience.

Don’t miss out on all of the potential offered by the foreign language internet, invest in your content from the outset.

Discover Skyscanner on www.skyscanner.net and don't hesitate to contact Bewords for your Translation and Localisation projects!

Dear readers please feel free to react and discuss/comment on this interview (here on the blog)

1. Could you kindly tell us and our readers about your personal and professional background in a few words? 

I actually started my translator’s and interpreter’s career path when I was about 15 years old. I used to translate excursions for foreign visitors of our town. I also made different translations for my and parents' friends. Though “formally" I started working as a translator in 2006, when I was already a student of the Translation department in a technical university. Since that time I've been working as a communications manager, technical translator, localization QA and technical writer.

2. Tell us please a bit more about your current professional situation and status. What does it feel to be independent and what are the associated advantages and limits?

Currently I'm an in-house translator. I've also been working as an independent translator, and judging from my experience can say that being independent translator is actually a great feeling,  as you realize that you are in charge of yourself, you work the way you like it and the way you think it right, you become more self-organized, as you feel absolute responsibility for yourself. Though what you lack if you are a totally independent  freelance translator is a real, not virtual communication and involvement in the real translation life. Of course, many  independent translators still visit specialized conferences, participate in translation events. But many of them do not, and I think it is not right, as one stops to develop professionally to some extent.  

3. What can you tell us about your mother tongue, the languages you translate from and the business associated to it (trends, sectors, etc.)?

It is very pleasant to observe now that my native Russian and Ukrainian languages gain much popularity. Though Russian still remains more wide-spread than Ukrainian. In the last years demand for technical translations, oil and gas translations into Russian has raised a lot. 

4. The value chain of the translation business is undergoing a strong evolution. With changes and impacts at different levels (players, tools, processes, customer relationships, etc.). What is or are the evolutions your consider the most important for you on the short or medium-term?

I think the first revolution in the translation industry was made by the Internet itself. It is almost impossible to imagine how translators could do without computers and the Internet about 20 years ago. Internet opens up great opportunities for translators, one should be super lazy not to use them. I also think that translation tools are of a great help for translators – you need to spend just a little time to learn about some tool or translation memory (for example, Trados) but will save a lot of time in the long run.

5. Do you think (especially in your country) that the cooperation between players (freelance translators, agencies, CAT tools providers) is satisfying and effective?

Here is yet much to be improved, I think. Cooperation between freelance translators, agencies and customers is not that well established.  Also CAT tools are not that widely used yet. So translation industry in Ukraine still has some directions to develop

6. What about Machine Translation in your language? Did you test some solutions? Any feedbacks to share?

Yes, I did test some solutions here. But they all give awful results. They can not be used by a translator, really.

7. In your opinion, with advances in MT, will translators become "mere" proofreaders? Is-it foreseeable? Opportunity or threat?

Yes, I think it can happen in the future that translators will become “mere” proofreaders of the work done by a machine. Though it is still hard for me to imagine that a machine can do the same good translation as a human would. This primarily concerns translation of feature texts, as they need an extremely creative approach in translation, which is hard to expect from the machine translation. For me being such a “after machine translation” proofreader is rather a threat, than an opportunity. 

8. Being an independent translator, what advice could you give to young professionals starting their career? Or, if you are starting your career, what kind of advice are you looking for? (some of our readers may be able to help you!)

The first advice is: never stop learning and develop yourself. You can not know everything and specialize in many fields, but you have to know a lot from your specialization field in order to be a really good translator.  The second advice: never, under no circumstances compromise quality of your translation.  I think one should never  juxtapose sum paid for the translation and the quality of the delivered translation. After all, it is always up to you to decide which offers you accept and which not. And if you make the translation, you should make it properly. 

9. Concerning websites for translators or translation platforms, do you count on them as a primary source of customers (for you personally) or do you see them as an extra?

For me such sites are primary source of customers. 

10. What about social networks (Facebook, Linkedin, etc.)? How do you use them for your professional activity?

Linkedin and xing are helpful, I have some good professional contacts from there. Facebook is not a professional network, I think finding business contacts there is a very rare case.

11. Is there any other topic you would like to talk about here?

Unfortunately there is still a problem with dishonest customers who pay translators very late or do not pay at all. Even though the translators delivered them good and timely translations. I know there are some sites  (not for translators, but for example the freelancers' sites with the software development jobs) that make it impossible for customers not to pay due to their special services and agreements. Unfortunately, until now we did not have such sites for translators, at least I never heard of them. But we have BeWords now, and besides other great features I'm sure it will help translators with its Escrow service a lot

Discover Elena Kravchenko's profile on BeWords.com

We want to Reward you for being a BeWords Ambassador!!

Dear Members,

We are happy to announce our New Online Ambassador Program!!

We are in the process of creating a group of BeWords Online Ambassadors, to help us grow together, improve our networking and allow us to welcome more clients on the platform.  This program aims to promote the BeWords brand and create permanent dynamics among the BeWords community members online.  

If you like BeWords, we'd love to invite you to take part in our online ambassador program.  If you are chosen as a BeWords Ambassador, here's what's up for grabs:

- Free Premium membership: 49.9 €  per year (excluding VAT)

- Profile visits statistics

- Higher ranking in search results

- Partner discount offers

- Profile certification

- A place in a dedicated ambassadors page on Bewords.com

- Google advertising targeted to your BeWords profile (value 25 Euros)

Activities
Your tasks as Ambassador will be to help us with the activities of the site online.

1. Post our widgets on your websites, social networks, blogs, etc. 

2. Spread the news from BeWords online on twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Viadeo, Xing…. as well as to give a thumbs up, report it as interesting, comment on it and invite others to comment on it too…

3. Invite your blogger friends to insert our widgets there and/or to write an article on BeWords or to interview members of the team, or yourself as a BeWords Ambassador!

4. Help us by inviting people to join us to our groups on the different social networks.

5. Socialize directly on the site (inviting BeWords members to your contact lists, chat with them, etc.)

6. Every three months you can create events online in order to bring translators and customers together, you can use the events tool on BeWords or create an event and circulate it on Facebook (we will do it from our page, so you should just tell us which event you want to create and we will do it for you).

7. If you have potential clients you cannot help with their requests, you can invite them to use Bewords.com.

8. Help us with some translations if needed.

Adaptations 

We are very flexible; we can adapt the program to your skills and possibilities. For instance you can help us more with translations than other activities, but please keep in mind that you should be involved in at least four activities to benefit from this program.

Organization

The whole program is designed in such a way that it will require maximum 3 hours/month of your involvement with BeWords. We will work by teams: each week a team will be in charge of the circulation and animation of information online, so that we don’t get tired and everybody can pursue his/her professional activities normally. 

You would like to join the Ambassadors group? Contact Us to customer-service@bewords.com, we will be glad to welcome you among Us!!

BeWords' News is now available on our platform!

Dear BeWords members,

We invite you to discover our newest feature on our site www.bewords.com. 'Bewords news' is situated on the right side of our logo on the head of Bewords' page. This feature will easily keep you updated with all our news and activities. We are constantly working to improve our platform, services and activities. Currently we work on our Blog's partnership, our Online Ambassadors program, we are constantly looking for new clients and our IT team is fixing some surfing problems in order to provide you a more user-friendly platform! 

We invite you to participate in our discussions here on the blog or on our different groups*. Feel free to share your Bewords experiences, your suggestions or ideas, your opinion is more than important to us as it is one of the main factors helping us to grow and provide you our best service!

* http://www.facebook.com/BeWords

http://twitter.com/bewords

      Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=2838991 

http://www.linkedin.com/company/bewords

       Viadeo

http://www.viadeo.com/groups/?containerId=002vy1q66rp8vt9

Do not hesitate to contacts us for any further information/help you might need, we are entirely at your disposal!!

@: customer-service@bewords.com

Mathieu Marechal, Bewords CEO,  talks about his experience as a Founder and the early stage of development of a platform like Bewords.com.

Dear Readers, please fell free to react and discuss/comment on this article (here on the blog)

The early stage of the development.

The development of the platform was more difficult than we expected. One reason was our low experience, limited budget and wishes to provide everything from the day one of the opening (I must say that we failed in this goal). 

The second reason was that we also had to drive the development of our translation company at the same time…and as we are neither hundreds of people on the team, nor even dozensof collaborators, the load of daily work is far more than 35h per week.  

Many of what are called "details" (I would say hassle…) appeared very quickly. This is the drawback of wishing to do everything by ourselves…due to our limited budget and a bit also by "pride", will of controlling everything and building a strong and real asset (depending on any SAS solution, external code, etc.). 

I don't remember all of them but let me think…

- The terms of use…what a fight…it is not that our lawyer was not as good as we would have needed but the process of       describing every detail of the platform and what it does, doesn't, can not do, should do if, won't do unless…., every little detail   of the features, trying to anticipate every misuses of it, etc…I let you imagine what have been our dreams/nightmare at night…

- The translator database : how it is structured. How to build the algorithm of searching among translators (why translator X appears before translator Y, what are the levers we want to give to the translators to allow them to appear among the first providers in the results, in other words, the structure of the ranking, etc.). How to invite translators to join Bewords? Etc. 

The long road to determine the best compromise between offering a lot of features and keeping the simplicity of use. A daily concern for our team.

- To conclude, it has been a very rewarding experience. Bewords is growing day after day, we’ll keep working as hard as we have done until now to bring clients and translators together, the challenge has only just begun!

About Mathieu Marechal

An entrepreneur with a passion for the Web and languages, Mathieu Marechal has lived in several countries (Belgium, United States and now France) and has launched the translation agency Trad Online, which is headquartered in Paris and also has offices in 4 other countries in Europe.

In 2010, Mathieu launched a totally new and innovative concept which aims to revolutionize how business is done on the translation market: www.bewords.com

BeWords is a marketplace enabling translators and customers to work together directly, with no constraints. The site includes community features, a personal profile for each translator, a project management tool, online payment, etc.

Discover Mathieu Marechal's Profile

Dear Readers, please fell free to react and discuss/comment on this article (here on the blog)

Genesis.

It is always difficult to identify the very beginning of an idea or innovation. Thinking back to the time when we first started talking and brainstorming about BeWords, I believe that two main observations came to us: the first was the value chain of the translation business. The second was our experience as language service providers (as a translation agency in other words) and the difficulties we had to face everyday for every scattered quotation request, one-shot customers (with limited budgets, etc.).

Let me come back to the first observation: typically, the value chain is organised as follows: Customer  translation agencies independent translators. 

Translation agencies have the capacity, experience and tools to manage multilingual translation projects, deal with multi-format files or data, and to insure the final quality of the translation (by basically providing proofreading carried out by a second translator). Basically it’s a “unique provider” which is capable to help customers in “great need”. 

And they also have the power, tools and processes to market/sell their services and find customers. 

But, and this "but" is according to me the key, two trends that can be observed are: 1 – crowd translation, which is the translation by the fans or the community 2 – Internet and the capacity of a single translator (or any expert), based "where ever he/she likes" to be visible and to be reachable by any prospect (anyone can contact/work with anyone else). 

So an observable tendency can be summarize as follow: Customer  independent translators (translation agencies)  

PS: Of course, not all types of companies or customers are willing to be in direct contact with the translators. The life of LSP's (Linguistic Service Providers) is not endangered (or not yet at least…).

Let me describe now the second observation: for a common LSP, to handle small requests, with limited budgets, no-name and scattered prospects and individuals is a real pain, to talk plainly and straightforwardly. One page or less, multiple requests of quotations for a single project and for less than 50 Euros (this is not the margin of the project, but the turnover/amount of the sale …), is a loss of time for a LSP, because LSPs are more in search of recurring business, multilingual projects and basically large volume of source words. 

And we observed the same thing for TradOnline (www.tradonline.fr) my translation agency. When we first created this company, we made sure to answer any incoming request and did everything we could to get the project. Then, a bit further along, we announced a "minimum fee" for any project (representing a minimum of 500 words, then later 1000 words…) and we ended up by declining some requests, for which it was just not profitable to spend time handling the project.  What a shame, right? Declining incoming business…this is not acceptable…And so we created www.Bewords.com: our solution to 1 – surf on a new trend in our business and 2 – capture the scattered business, the thousands and more (probably millions) of small business and individual translation needs/projects and 3 – please our community of translators (that we wish to cherish). 

Discover Mathieu Marechal's profile.

Dear readers please feel free to react and discuss/comment on this interview (here on the blog) 

1. Could you kindly tell us and our readers about your personal and professional background in a few words?

As I have always had a knack for foreign languages, I studied philology in Bucharest, Romania and in 2004 I started to work as an in-house translator and consultant for culture and education at the Embassy of Portugal in Bucharest. After a while, not being able to choose between my passion for translation and teaching, I decided to take on a job as a teacher of Portuguese at the University of Bucharest (2006-2010), while at the same time working as a freelance translator

2. Tell us please a bit more about your current professional situation and status. What does it feel to be independent and what are the associated advantages and limits?

At present, I am a full-time freelancer, translating from Portuguese, French and English into Romanian. I enjoy the liberty of being able to choose when, how much and with whom to work, although I sometimes wish I had the security and steady workflow of an in-house job. On the other hand, I believe that being independent and well organized allows me to be more flexible and enjoy the time I spend with my family.

3. What can you tell us about your mother tongue, the languages you translate from and the business associated to it (trends, sectors, etc.)?

When I started translating from Portuguese into Romanian, there were but a handful of translators for this pair on the Romanian market. At present, their number has increased significantly but quality is still a factor and a very good and reliable translator can survive and prosper. As for my other language combinations, French and English to Romanian, competition is fierce! Unfortunately, rates are low and one needs to first “educate” one’s clients before hoping to get decent pay for a well done job.

4. The value chain of the translation business is undergoing a strong evolution. With changes and impacts at different levels (players, tools, processes, customer relationships, etc.). What is or are the evolutions your consider the most important for you on the short or medium-term?

In my case, I think that a huge step forward is being able to work on large projects with colleagues all over the world. Managing a project over long distances has become a currency and I enjoy passing from small individual jobs to larger and more important projects. It also gives a more social dimension to freelancing. Since translation is about communication and efforts are being made at every level to ensure that communication becomes faster and more efficient, I believe everyone has to gain from the current state of play. 

5. Do you think (especially in your country) that the cooperation between players (freelance translators, agencies, CAT tools providers) is satisfying and effective?

Most achievements for and in the name of translators in Romania have been made by the Romanian Translators’ Association (ATR: http://atr.org.ro/). Apart that, I would have to say that there is good cooperation between freelancers but I’m not sure of the effectiveness thereof, unfortunately.

On the other hand, agencies and translators, although they might appear to cooperate, are each trying to get the best out of a given job, and I suppose this is only natural. Regarding CAT, the advantage of Romanian translators is that they can – still… – buy them at lower prices than in Western Europe and this is where CAT providers have adapted themselves to on-site realities.

6. What about Machine Translation in your language? Did you test some solutions? Any feedbacks to share?

Romanian is a difficult language for MT, as there are inflexions for almost every word you can think of (verb, noun, pronoun, article, adjective etc) and it is difficult to establish rules and patterns even from a structural point of view. Therefore, when applying TM to Romanian, results are disastrous!

7. In your opinion, with advances in MT, will translators become "mere" proofreaders? Is-it foreseeable? Opportunity or threat?

I am quite sure that we’ll still have a lot of work to do. While some MTs could be useful in given circumstances (private use, information, etc.), I don’t think they are ready to replace translators. A good translation is done by a qualified Person. Nevertheless, I look forward to MTs that could ease our job, as I am sure that our expertise will always be needed.

8. Being an independent translator, what advice could you give to young professionals starting their career? Or, if you are starting your career, what kind of advice are you looking for? (some of our readers may be able to help you !)

My advice is… to look for advice from the very beginning! Even if it might seem a solitary profession, there are lots of communities and colleagues willing to help. Also, if one wants to gain experience, voluntary work (performed at the highest standards) is better than poorly-paid work (for which one tends to deliver poor results…). And don’t forget marketing!

9. Concerning websites for translators or translation platforms, do you count on them as a primary source of customers (for you personally) or do you see them as an extra?

They are my primary source of customers. A good profile on a portal is a translator’s shop window. If properly rearranged and dusted every so often, it brings good clients in.

10. What about social networks (Facebook, Linkedin, etc.)? How do you use them for your professional activity?

I find it difficult to think of Facebook as a professional network, I could just picture my linguistic findings floating in the midst of Farmville accomplishments, food recipes and angry thoughts about one’s boyfriend… However, I use LinkedIn and I can say I made some good contacts there.

11. Is there any other topic you would like to talk about here?

I have mixed feelings about the “translation tests”. While some of them got me good projects and clients in the past, I’m wondering if it is common practice in other professions and who is entitled to ask for and to evaluate such a test: the agencies or the clients as well? I mean, one wouldn’t ask one’s dentist to do a free “test filling” before proceeding, would one? Or a plumber to just fix the water tap for free in the hope of getting a bigger job later?

Discover Laura Février's profile on Bewords.

Dear readers please feel free to react and discuss/comment on this interview (here on the blog) 

1. Could you kindly tell us and our readers about your personal and professional background in a few words?

Italian citizen for marriage, Italian residency, 12 years experience of teaching English and Hungarian languages, as well as translating and interpreting from and to these languages. 7 years experience of translating technical, general, commercial, IT documents from Italian, English to Hungarian.

2. Tell us please a bit more about your current professional situation and status. What does it feel to be independent and what are the associated advantages and limits?

I am a freelance translator and Interprete, my working languages are: English, Italian and Hungarian. When you are independent you schedules are more flexible, working with an association it is more comfortable to find clients.

3. What can you tell us about your mother tongue, the languages you translate from and the business associated to it (trends, sectors, etc.)?

My mother kanguage is Hungarian. I translate form English, Italian to Hungarian, my fields are: technical fileds, medical, tourism, marketing, education, literature etc.

4. The value chain of the translation business is undergoing a strong evolution. With changes and impacts at different levels (players, tools, processes, customer relationships, etc.). What is or are the evolutions your consider the most important for you on the short or medium-term?

It is considerable that today internet has a very important role in this process regrading the players, tools (a translator can use many different cat tools, online dictionaries, resources), the process is faster than ever, and the costumer relationship is detachable and safe.

5. Do you think (especially in your country) that the cooperation between players (freelance translators, agencies, CAT tools providers) is satisfying and effective?

In Italy it is difficult to get up-dated information because there few possibilities offered for freelancers in public administration way. The freelancer translator it has not a very defined professional –administrative position. Thus there are many possibilities to be more stressed. But as I tell it before the internet helps a freelancer translation to find new translation agencies, new costumers and to be up-dated with cat tools, etc.

6. What about Machine Translation in your language? Did you test some solutions? Any feedbacks to share?

There always the need to controll the translation given by a machine translation device because there can be not punctual.

7. In your opinion, with advances in MT, will translators become "mere" proofreaders? Is-it foreseeable?

Opportunity or threat? I think it is foreseeble,

8. Being an independent translator, what advice could you give to young professionals starting their career?

Or, if you are starting your career, what kind of advice are you looking for? (some of our readers may be able to help you !) How to create your own customer system. I have to learn more about it. 

9. Concerning websites for translators or translation platforms, do you count on them as a primary source of customers (for you personally) or do you see them as an extra?

I count them as primary source of costumers. I do not have the possibility to have direct, local contacts.

10. What about social networks (Facebook, Linkedin, etc.)? How do you use them for your professional activity?

I have tried to use them, but for me did not get any positive experience. 

11. Is there any other topic you would like to talk about here? For now there is not anything to add.

No answer

Discover Eniko Jano's profile on Bewords