Medical Translation Insight

Wow! Seven short months after launching our blog, we have been named as one of the top 100 language blogs by Lexiophiles.

Writing Medical Translation Insight is a tremendously rewarding experience. We communicate with lots of new people, are engaged in some really interesting discussions, and learn something every day. A big Thank You to all of our readers, our contributors, and everybody who voted for our blog.

And be sure to check out the other 99 top blogs in the areas of language learning, language teaching, language technology, and language professionals. There is some great content there!


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This year, we have been inundated with RFPs from medical device and pharmaceutical companies. It seems like everybody is getting the idea that they should be managing their translation spend better. And RFPs are often seen as the way to accomplish that.

Be that as it may, from our perspective some RFPs are clearly better than others. (By "better", I mean that they are likely to give the client company the information they need to make a good decision.) We see some RFPs where we pity the folks on the client side who have to wade through the responses, trying to make sense of them.

If you are interested in improving your RFPs (translation-related or otherwise), the folks at Marketing Profs posted a list of seven tips and tricks for better RFPs:

1. Prequalify recipients
2. Create an RFP that's worthy of your brand
3. Value brevity
4. Answer questions from all recipients
5. Set a realistic response schedule
6. Provide clear evaluation criteria
7. Follow up with all bidders

While this is a concise and obvious list, plenty of drug and device companies struggle with just these seven items...

For more in-depth information on RFPs, check out the following resources:

• 3 Steps to Successful Translation Management
• Optimizing RFPs: Simple Steps to Better Responses
• Budgeting for Translations
• Writing and Responding to RFPs & RFQs

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I recently came across Susan Hoekstra's blog The Service Journey. Her weekly posts provide actionable customer-service tips - the kind where you say "that makes sense, I should try that".

While customer service is relevant in any business, it seems that folks involved in translations could generally use a good dose of help with customer service. Whether somebody is a translation manager at a medical device company, a project manager at a translation company, or a freelance linguist, everybody has customers and, from time to time, everybody has challenges around their service.

It's funny how every translation service provider says they're service-oriented. (It's right up there with proclamations of how good everybody's quality is.) It's troubling to see how few organizations and people are truly committed to delivering service.

Not that it's easy to be really, really service oriented. To make it work, you have to hire service-oriented people and you have to constantly think about what you say and write.

Do you have any examples of excellent or abysmal customer service in the translation industry?


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The Economist's recent article Smother of invention is a somber read for any company filing patents in Europe. The article provides a couple of medical examples and concludes that the European patent system is highly ineffective.

One of the key reasons: Translations add no value but add plenty of expense. European patents cost up to 900% more than those in the U.S., Japan, China, or South Korea.

While there is plenty of support for a single "Community" patent, there is also plenty of opposition - primarily from member states and MPs who view this as one more substantial loss of sovereignty.

The article concludes that "resistance may be starting to melt" but it seems that we're still far away from a patent equivalent to the central procedure.

[Thanks to Renato Beninato for the tip!]


ForeignExchange translates patents and other IP for medical device and pharmaceutical companies into 40+ languages. Ask us for a detailed proposal on your next translation project.

As part of drug and device companies' efforts streamline translations, machine-translation and translation-memory technologies deserve particular attention. While these technologies will not completely eliminate the need for the human translation and localization support, they are appropriate in some instances.

Following is a brief overview of the two technologies and an assessment of their usefulness to medical device and pharmaceutical companies.

Translation memory (TM)
TM software is designed to enhance the human translation effort. The software stores matching source and target language segments that were translated by translator in a database for future reuse. As the translation effort progresses, the translation memory grows. Newly encountered segments are compared to the database content, and the resulting output (exact, fuzzy or no match) is reviewed and completed by the translator.

Machine translation (MT)
MT software aims to replace the human translator. The algorithm analyzes the grammar and syntax of source segments according to previously defined rules. It then queries a dictionary to produce a translated segment without human intervention. MT output is generally not good enough to be published without extensive human post-editing.

The primary reasons for implementing either technology are speed, cost savings, and consistency:

• Speed - Machine translation and, to a lesser extent, translation-memory technology can significantly reduce the time required to translate large volumes of text.
• Cost savings - By reducing the need for human involvement, both technologies can reduce overall translation costs from 5 to 50%.
• Consistency - Because the systems draw on pretranslated dictionaries and databases, respectively, both technologies allow for significant gains in translation consistency.

Depending on the languages, content volume, type of source text and publishing timeframes, either one or both of these technologies may improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of publishing multilingual support content such as email messages and clinical research documents.


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Our post on how most pharmaceutical companies avoid social networking efforts was widely read and discussed. In the two months since then, the situation seems to have improved a bit.

The Impactiviti Blog last week gave an up-beat assessment of pharma's use of social networking tools. In reporting from the MDRx conference and the Social Communications and Healthcare Case Studies and Roundtable, the author says that more and more companies (or at least company representatives) are jumping in. Pfizer's Ray Kerins, Boehringer's use of their Twitter account to interact, and Brad Pendergraph of Novartis are all mentioned.

The upshot? It's not just consultants and agencies talking about it but social networking hasn't yet reached the tipping point amongst pharmaceutical companies.


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Is English a difficult language? As we know, English seems easy but is notoriously tricky.

Yesterday, we offered-up Shufra's Simplified Technical English training sessions as one solution for authors and writers who write not just in English but with an eye towards translation. But the realization that a good source text is key for a good translation isn't a new insight.

Several years ago, Curtis Brautigam explained that there are certain peculiar characteristics of the English language which cause problems for translators and non-native English speakers. Let's see if the same list still applies today:

1. The verb-adverb combination is peculiar to English, as illustrated by constructions such as "turn on," "turn off," "mark up," or "mark down". In other languages, single specific verbs are used in place of the English verb-adverb combinations. A construction such as "turn off" is highly problematic because in English, it has numerous meanings. You can turn off a light, or you can use the word "turn off" in the sense of something being repulsive. For example, if you want to translate "turn off" in the sense of turning off a light in other languages, in French, it would be "eteindre"; in Spanish, it would be "apagar"; in Russian, it would be "vyklyuchit'"; in Hebrew, it would be "le-kabot." You would use a different verb in the sense of turning off a computer. This is one peculiar aspect of the English language that non-native speakers have a hard time grasping.
2. Split infinitives seem to have become accepted English usage. In other languages, the verb infinitive has a specific form that identifies it as such. The adverb would be used after the infinitive.
3. English syntax is very inflexible compared to other languages. English goes by a very strict subject-verb-object structure. Other languages are much more flexible. For instance, in Hebrew or Russian, the object can precede the verb for the purpose of emphasis (in Russian, the object is identified as such by means of the cases indicating direct or indirect object). Also, pronouns must be used with the verbs; this is not the case in other languages. For instance, in Spanish, Italian, or even Polish, you do not need to use the pronouns with the verb because the verb endings indicate the person. Then, of course, the syntax of German and Dutch is in a category of its own, with verbs coming at the end of sentences under certain circumstances.
4. Many languages do not use articles. Virtually all Western European languages use articles. The Slavic languages (with the exception of Macedonian and Bulgarian) do not use articles - this causes difficulties for people with Slavic mother tongues learning English. Hebrew and Arabic have definite articles, but not indefinite articles. Some languages do not use the present tense of the verb "to be", such as Hebrew and Russian.
5. Another difficulty for non-native English speakers is the fact that English is not a phonetic language. It is probably one of the most unphonetic languages in the world (French probably comes close to English in its lack of phoneticity).
6. Some English vocabulary is peculiar. Most European languages have two verbs with the sense of "to know," one meaning to know a person in the sense of friendship or acquaintance (French, connaitre; German, kennen; Spanish, conocer, Russian, poznakomit'), and other meaning to know facts (French, savoir; German, wissen; Spanish, saber; Russian, znat'). There are two words for "law" in most European languages, one in the sense of a piece of legislation (French, loi; German, Gesetz; Spanish, ley; Italian: legge; Russian, zakon) and the other in the sense of the discipline of law (French, droit; German, Recht; Spanish, derecho; Italian, diritto; Russian, pravo). These two distinctions are even found in Hebrew, a non-Indo-European language.
7. While English does not have as many grammatical inflections as other languages (thus simplifying the grammar enormously), English verbs can pose problems. The problematic areas are the enormous use of auxiliary verbs to convey modes (subjunctive and conditional) that are indicated in other languages by simple verb endings, and the large number of irregular verbs in English. It seems that English has more irregular verbs than other languages with which I am familiar.
8. American English especially has a tendency to convert nouns to verbs. This is problematic for speakers of other languages who cannot as easily convert nouns to verbs. Noun combinations such as "light emitter diode", as well as compound nouns, also pose problems for speakers of other languages.
9. Another peculiarity of English is the verb "to do." In many languages, the verb "to do" and "to make" have the same meaning (French, faire; Spanish, hacer; Russian, delat'; Hebrew, la-asot). In English, they are separate. In addition, the use of the verb "to do" in such constructions as "Do you speak English?" causes problems for non-native English speakers. This even causes difficulties for speakers of Germanic languages such as German or Dutch, which have separate verbs for "to do" (German, tun; Dutch, doen) and "to make" (German, machen; Dutch, maken), but do not use the verb "to do" in this manner. Instead of the verb "to do," all of these languages simply use the appropriate form of the verb.
10. Much humor has been made of Japanese renderings of the English language. Even though I profess ignorance about Asian languages, it must be stated that the grammatical rules of Asian languages are very different from those of English. The more distinct the grammar is from English, the more difficulty non-native English speakers will have in producing materials in good English. In one job interview, one of my exercises was to render a paragraph that was written in "Japanese English" into proper English - it wasn't easy. I am sure that native speakers of Chinese or Korean also have a problem with English.

Yep, it seem like all of them still apply. And all of these peculiarities of English grammar do make it difficult for non-native English speakers to get a full command of the language - and for translating English materials into other languages.

Take a look at some of our other articles about the use of, challenges with, and fun aspects of English:

• Can you read this? English is toughest (European) language to read
• Language fact: British vs. American English
• British English A to Zed
• Sometimes English is not sexy but stupid

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Most medical device and pharmaceutical companies do business on a global scale. Yet most of the content is authored in English.

Translation can be a slow and expensive process, especially when taking into account cultural differences that can distort the meaning behind your words. There also can be significant delays and added expense if content is changed during or after translation.

One way to streamline the translation process is through better authoring of source content. Technical English is often in a way that is difficult for users to understand.

"Writing for translation" is bandied about as the solution. It has a nice ring to it and sounds simple - just have authors keep in mind that the text will be translated, right? But judging by the fact that the problems around source text (too technical, incomprehensible, ambiguous) persist, it's apparently not so simple after all.

In fact, the now-defunct Translator's Blog decried the use of "controlled English" (thanks to Google, you can still look at the cached version). Similarly, smaller writing groups, especially at device and biotech companies, complain that solutions like acrolinx don't take into account their small staff and budget.

The good news is that there is a new option available to learn about and improve one's writing. Shufra, long a specialist in providing on-site Simplified Technical English training sessions, has just announced that it will offer two-day Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100) classes in the UK and U.S.

The training sessions will be small (5-10 participants) and offer hands-on, actionable advice. And at a cost of US$1,800 / EUR 1,300, they offer terrific value. The first sessions are planned for September 2009 in Phoenix, AZ and London, England.

Contact Shufra for more information and to register.


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Oh no, say it isn't so: Just as the electronic common technical document (eCTD) is gaining traction as the required format for electronic regulatory submissions, the Food and Drug Administration is changing the game, says Bio-IT World.

The threat (or improvement, depending on how you look at it) comes in the form of Regulated Product Submissions (RPS). RPS seems to offer advantages to pharma companies that either 1) have a large product portfolio beyond drugs and biologics (e.g., P&G) or 2) are smaller and cannot currently leverage eCTD (e.g., animal health, OTC, consumer health). It promises to have a more flexible approach to structure that would allow the CTD to be submitted as an RPS.

RPS could represent a substantial cost to an industry which is already having a hard time implement the eCDT format. However, anyone in pharmaceutical regulatory affairs should pay close attention to this.

Similarly, translation service providers that are just getting used to the eCTD structure and interface may need to broaden their knowledge.

The good news? RPS won't be in production use at FDA until September 2011.


ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized medical translations for electronic as well as paper-based regulatory submissions. Contact us to find out more.
 
 

Lawsuits are a fact of life in the drug and device industries. And since many an action is brought across geographies (and thus, languages), translation is an integral part of filing, enforcing, and litigating intellectual property (IP).

As with many aspects of the pharmaceutical and medical device business, a lot is at stake and a lot is riding on knowing that translations are accurate. So do IP teams within drug and device companies manage the translation risk? When looking at patents, the answer seems to be "not really".

While there is an appreciation for the importance of translation quality, the state of the art still is "make sure you have a specialized translator and a separate editor and minimize the use of machine translation".

This is not to nit-pick on the traditional TEP model; for better or for worse, that is what translation service providers are doing. But it is curious that there doesn't seem to be any application of ISO 14971 or similar risk-management processes in the IP translation space. Is risk simply accepted in patent translations?


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Consistent terminology is hugely important for drug and device companies. Inconsistent or inappropriate terminology doesn't just look bad, it can result in product recalls.

For this and other reasons, MultiTerm has emerged as the closest thing to a glossary-management standard there is. While users complain about usability issues and lacking functionality, MultiTerm's tie-in with TRADOS makes it a no-brainer for many translation managers and linguists.

But despite its widespread application, few users know how to get the most out of MultiTerm. Enter tools expert Angelika Zerfass.

Angelika has teamed-up with Localization Institute to offer an online workshop that shows how to effective setup and use terminology databases. Terminology Management with SDL Trados MultiTerm will cover:

• Database setup considerations (decisions during the setup of a new term base).
• Setup and conversion of an Excel file for import into a MultiTerm database.
• Import options.
• Using a term base during translation

This 90-minute webinar will take place on Monday, July 27, 2009.

For US$149.00 it's a steal - be sure to check it out!


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Did you know that today's Korean script wasn't introduced until the 1400s and that until then, 70% of Korean used to be derived from Chinese? Or that as recently as 20 years ago, Chinese characters ("hanja") were still very common in Korean newspapers?

These and other nuggets are contained in an informative video on the use of Chinese Characters in Korean writing, produced by Steven Bammel. While the production value is pretty low, the content is informative and well-presented.

If you are interested in other Chinese language facts, check out our recent post on identifying written Cantonese.


ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized Korean and Chinese translation services to pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Contact us to learn more.
 
 

Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) place unique and highly specialized demands on translation service providers. Gained in Translation, published in Future Pharmaceuticals, provides a good overview of the documents requiring translation, the process steps included, and some of the unique challenges present in international clinical trials.

Of course, one the topics that's being addressed is whether or not back-translations are needed. As we have seen before, strong opinions surround this discussion.

For a good overview of this topic, be sure to read this informative article.


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Our recent guest posts around medical translation (pro and con) received a lot of attention. The debate also touched on culinary translation, and one of the commentators pointed out the difficulty that surrounds the translation of dishes without equivalent names.

Prior to last summer's Olympic Games, Slate's Examiner looked at the stories behind Chinese dishes like "chicken without sexual life" and "bean curd made by a pockmarked woman". It's funny but it also highlights some of the difficulties in coming up with really good culinary translations.

So it's no surprise that translating recipes is similarly difficult. As a result, recipes often get localized to account for differences in tastes, measurements, available products, and so on.

Proponents of this practice argue that it's the only sensible approach. Why provide instructions that are impractical if translated? For example, this article on the discusses how the different attitudes and expectations around time must be taken into account when adapting Japanese recipes for American audiences:

To create Japanese sushi in America, some sushi making classes may have the rice already cooked or suggest instant rice. The sushi making ingredients may come pre-packaged, unlike the traditional way to make sushi, but in a way to make it easier on translation. The silent ceremony and traditions behind creating sushi may not be mentioned in a sushi making class in America, because Americans will not be performing the ceremony when they make sushi at home.

On the other hand, "foodies" and purists decry the localization of recipes. Their argument is that if you want Italian food that was adapted to U.S. tastes, go to Pizza Hut. Otherwise, take the time to search for original-language recipes and then translate them with out localizing them.

Where are you in this debate? Pizza Hut or strict adherence to sushi rules?


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Medical device manufacturers are struggling to determine just how broad the definition of "device" is when applied to their software. The answer to "What needs to be localized?" has far-reaching implications on development efforts, translation costs, and customer support.

The revised Medical Device Directive 2007/47/EC calls for translation of software intended for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. It is important to note that it's not just patient-facing software but also other equipment or devices you might find in a clinic.

That is a broad category, open to interpretation, but one that device manufacturers don't want to get caught on the wrong side of. Some examples that we talk about are:

• Telemetry programmers
• Analyzer firmware
• PDA patient diaries
• Automatic external defibrillators
• Blood glucose meters

There would be very few examples where software would not have to be translated. Just like with the "old" MDD, KEMA's Eric Henning suggests that manufacturers get clarity (and agreement) from Notified Bodies before deciding on a course of action.

Making the wrong choice and not being able to defend your decision will be even more expensive and disruptive!


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Few things are as frustrating as arguing about stylistic errors in a text or translation. These are the kind of discussions where everybody feels their viewpoint and stylistic preference are correct. Usually, these situations don't get resolved in a cooperative manner.

Over the past few days, a troika of articles have touched on the topic of stylistic and linguistic conventions.

The transubstantiation blog asks the question Which Standards Apply? and observes that "[o]ne of the most confounding issues for translators, editors and proof-readers is not knowing which standards to use when working on a particular document".

The author makes the point that while various standards exist (e.g., ISO 4217 for currency abbreviations), individual clients will often have their own (conflicting) standards - or no standards at all.

Jost Zetzsche's Tool Kit #144 laments that "[o]ne of the more time-consuming and unnecessary problems in communicating with clients is disagreements on linguistic renderings for which there are several 'correct' solutions" but goes on to offer a solution.

Jost had in the past proposed a German style and formatting agreement. He made this available to his readers, asked for input - and was dismayed by the lack of response.

On the Translation Tribulations blog, Kevin Lossner picked up the theme by voicing frustrations with "niggling, repetitive questions about stuff like subheader capitalization" and similar issues.

While he sees the possibility of saving time with a standard style guide, he doesn't seem hopeful that a large-scale, industry wide effort would catch on. "A good idea in principle; I hope something comes of it", is his view on the possibility of a Google docs project with different documents for various languages.

Isn't it incredible that we are still struggling with this? I remember this being a hot topic 10 years ago, when the new German spelling rules were actuall new. Is it possible that absolutely no progress has been made in the past 10 years?

By and large, no, it doesn't appear that we have made any progress. My guess is that it goes back to the fact that nobody cares - until there is a "mistake" (real or imagined).

Many client contacts don't know anything about language and just act as go-between for projects. Translation companies don't value the importance of proper style either. Most of them are in the business of shuffling paper. And because of that linguists don't get paid to pay attention to style. Their clients demand lower prices and quicker turnaround times, not stylistic master pieces.

So unfortunately, despite all of the best efforts of the EU (PDF link) and individual folks involved in translation, authors, linguists and client reviewers seem destined to continue the age-old arguments of car vs. automobile, annoyance vs. frustration...


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We have already mentioned Kendle's article Latin American Clinical Trial Authorizations (PDF link) back in June but it just keeps on giving.

Another interesting piece of data in the article is based on FDA Form 1572 data. It shows how clinical trial sites are heavily concentrated in the western world:

It is no surprise then that clinical research is going global and expanding outside the traditional areas. With significantly fewer sites competing for patient populations, CROs and sponsors find that recruitment is easier, allowing emerging market sites to produce more patients per site per month than sites in traditional regions.


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In the current economic climate, companies must maximize the return on investment from every training and development program if those programs are to deliver on the promise of enhanced organizational and individual performance.

When localizing e-learning courses, voiceover components are probably the most expensive elements. And it can also be the the trickiest - just ask the folks who didn't take the time to properly define the requirements for the finished localized products.

Our very own Sandra LaBrasca has written a terrific article to help course developers with this issue. E-Learning Without Borders appears in the July issue of Learning Circuits, a monthly publication of the American Society for Training and Development.

In addition to containing concrete, actionable advise on how to limit the frustration and cost of a localized course, Sandra's article contains good references, including the excellent book Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship.

So, head on over to Learning Circuits and read Sandra's article. You'll be glad you did!


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Susan Otterson of Carl Zeiss Meditec posed the following questions on LinkedIn:

What to you do say when project managers ask "Why do the translations take so long, and why are they so expensive?"

You've probably heard this a thousand times. "We're only changing a few words here and there, so why do translations cost so much and take so long?" I try to educated people on the process, but it's like it goes in one ear and out the other. They never learn from one project to the next. They also don't understand why we can't make changes in the middle of the process without incurring extra cost and delays to the schedule. Any suggestions?

This does, in fact, come up regularly, particularly in small and medium-sized medical device companies. When we run into this challenge, we encourage clients to try some of the following:

1. Develop an internal translation request form (can be offline or online) that includes minimum charges and turnaround times. This way, internal customers see the impact of the volume of changes first-hand.
2. Ask your supplier to organize lunch-and-learn sessions with your internal constituents. We have found that the more that engineers, writers, marketers and RA folk know about translation, the better.
3. Quantify the volume of changes (actual # of changes x target languages) to establish objective categories for "small", "medium" and "large" updates. It can also be good for the authors to know that their "small" update is, in fact, a 40% re-write.
4. Consider developing different processes (and timelines and costs) for different sized projects. That way you can avoid the time and expense or re-editing and re-formatting unchanged text.
5. Track metrics to show that projects without "changes in the middle of the process" get done faster and for less money. Make sure your regularly communicate internally around these metrics.

Despite all of these though, some companies' corporate culture simply can't (or won't) work this way. In that case, rather than fighting windmills, clients should search for a supplier who can work in this environment.

Do you have any other suggestions that would help clients?


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... without breaking into laughter, that is!

John Lejderman maintains a terrific page of jokes related to translation and languages.

Enjoy a good laugh - but be careful when trying to translate jokes.


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The first half of 2009 is already over... Our team produced almost 60 live events so far this year. Some of the best of these covered highly specialized topics in the areas of regulatory affairs, quality management, marketing and clinical research.

June brought more of the same: terrific content presented by knowledgeable speakers. The top five events for the month were:

1. How to Successfully Execute an FDA Product Recall


2. Device e-Labeling & Regulatory Compliance in the EU


3. Meeting the Requirements: Blending REMS Science & Operational Execution


4. Regulatory Considerations for R&D in Central & Eastern Europe


5. 21 CFR Part 11: Gap Analysis, Remediation & Adding Value to Validation

If you have any suggestions for audio conference topics, send us a note!

As we noted before, many device companies doing business in Japan rely on their local affiliates to handle the creation of regulatory documentation.

While this approach makes sense on the surface (language and cultural considerations come into play), there are big problems that come with doing business this way. The most serious? HQ doesn't know what was submitted to the government, which can have serious implications.

The Japan dossier preparation and translation process requires a unique approach. Cooperation among submission authors, the translators and the Japanese affiliate is essential to make it work. When it does, a company can be assured that its English and Japanese submissions stay consistent, and there are no questions about what is submitted. It has the side benefit of building cross-cultural teams, where both parties focus on their core competencies.

One of our audio conference shares Japan-specific experiences around how regulatory documentation gets translated, different approaches companies take for their Japan dossier creation.

If the "usual approach" no longer works for your firm, take a look at these best practices for creating consistent, accurate, and timely submissions.


If you have your Japanese regulatory submissions working at 100% efficiency, move along. Otherwise, subscribe to the Medical Translation Insight via email or RSS.

The Blogging Translator, listing take-aways from ITI's Style Matters translation workshop, mentioned the following:

Remember that as a translator you're also a professional writer

Too often, this gets overlooked along the translation service-delivery chain. The focus of clients and language service providers is usually on any combination of price, schedule, or "mechanical" quality. Style gets ignored if not downright discouraged.

It is refreshing to see his list of tips. Similarly, his suggested reading list should be on every linguist's bookshelf:

• Stephen King On Writing
• William Zinsser On Writing Well
• Jack Lynch 'Online Usage and Style Guide'
• The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market

The ability to produce polished text, no matter how rough the original text, is one of the factors that distinguishes top-end translation service providers - and allows them to charge more for their services!


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Our friends at Mousley Consulting have started a blog related to biopharma, IT and general business topics. The most recent post deals with OmniComm expanding in the EDC space.

Head on over to their burgeoning blog and say hello to the Mousley team.

New English websites operated by SIPO, the Chinese patent office, and its Intellectual Property Publishing House (IPPH) are now live.

Accroding to EPO's East meets west blog, the interfaces for the free patent sources available on these websites have also been re-designed. Content and search functions have remained largely the same.

It's interesting to see how aggressively IPPH is promoting its patent-translation service. While some of their own translations require some additional work ("Processing Enormous Chinese Patent Data" a banner ad proclaims), their prices are pretty good. And if you need it fast, IPPH offers a machine-translation service (either standalone or "human aided").


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Our post on crowdsourcing translations created good comments and discussions.

On LinkedIn, Jose Henrique Lamensdorf introduced the concept of an X market for translations. Here is an excerpt for those without a LinkedIn account:

...each and every client, on each and every job, should consider the cost/benefit ratio. Benefit involves an advantage being used by the buyer; if the buyer doesn't use an advantage, it never turns out to be a benefit, so it's not worth whatever it costs.

If a translation is needed because "a translation MUST be delivered", but nobody will ever read it, free machine translation will be good enough. No need to waste some change on a rock-bottom-cheap translator, who will turn in a job about just as bad.

On the other hand, if a translation behooves quality, the buyer will seek the best value for average market rates. This is how the Japanese auto industry beat the Detroit old-timers.

Now that the translation market is settling after broadband Internet, a chasm is apearing at a certain translation rate, let's call it "X". It divides the lower-end "just passable" translations from the really bad translations that compete directly with their automatic computer-generated production.

The truth is that no end-client will pay "X" for bad translation work that can be purchased for less (or even obtained for free). Conversely, no translator able to do better than that will take any job for "X" if they can get more. So the "X" translation area is gradually being vacated by both translators and clients/outsourcers alike.

Jose, who is a professional translator himself, is onto something here...

Recent developments like crowdsourcing translations and Google's Translator Toolkit will help define clients' quality-versus-cost expectations and will force low-quality translation providers out of business - or into the higher-quality segment.


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A recent article in The Australian on dying languages contains a number of gems.

It leads off rather well by asking

Worried about the loss of rainforests, the ozone layer, quokkas? Well, none of those is doing any worse than a large majority of the 6000 to 7000 languages that remain in use on earth. One-half of the survivors will almost certainly be gone by the middle of this century...

and calls recent interest in disappearing languages the "flavour of the month".

About half-way through the article, the question is posed: "Who is to blame?"

The answer: Noam Chomsky.

What, you might say? How is the famous linguist responsible for languages disappearing all around the world? I always thought that bilingualism was to blame.

Over the years, there has been plenty of criticism of Chomsky and his disciples. That may not be surprising for somebody as outspoken as Chomsky. On the other hand, Chomsky has recently started speaking out on behalf of disappearing languages.

So, is this article just mud-slinging in the ivory tower or shedding more light on a fundamental issue with Chomsky's work? You be the judge...

[Tip of the hat to Kommunikation og Sprog!]


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Our little blog just turned six months old :-). While it's learning to crawl, we have had some really good responses. Here are the posts that got the most attention over the past month:

1. Chevy Nova and other global marketing myths - Love it or hate it, this urban myth sure gets people's attention.


2. Computer-aided proofreading - This came out of the most recent Localization World conference.


3. QA vs. QC - The excellent response to this post was a bit of a surprise; it seems like there is a lot of confusion around this topic.


4. Central update of TMs by translators - This entry fit in nicely with discussions going on elsewhere on the web.


5. Pharma (still) fears social networking - This post got some good exposure after being picked-up by a few other blogs.

Hey - unlike in April or May, none of the funny entries hit the top five! Nonetheless, happy reading and happy weekend!

The Center for Spanish Language Media at the University of North Texas is holding a workshop with this title next Thursday, July 9, 2009.

Topics covered include:

• Identifying major market components
• Evaluating market opportunities with Hispanic consumers
• Distinguishing facts from stereotypes
• Identifying good and bad research practices
• Selecting the right media options
• Avoiding costly advertising and PR mistakes
• Understanding basic product and pricing issues
• Creating Hispanic-friendly shopping environments

When: July 9, 2009 9am-12pm
Where: North Lake College Irving Tx
Price: US$175

Hopefully, pharmaceutical and medical device companies will take advantage of this event!


For expert medical translations of regulatory, clinical, and marketing content in 40 languages - including Spanish - request a detailed proposal from ForeignExchange Translations.
 
 

Companies are scrambling to meet the new requirements of the 2010 European Medical Device Directive (MDD). One of the most challenging components of the new directive is software translation.

The updated MDD states that software which is integral to the operation of a medical device must be translated into the languages of the countries in which the device will be sold. In the past, companies have been able to avoid software translation by stating that the great majority of device users can read English.

Software translation is no small feat. It can be expensive, time-consuming and a minefield for errors. But it doesn't have to be this way. Through implementing some best practices and avoiding common pitfalls, software translations can go smoothly.

Our very own Jason Heaton will present best practices for software translation projects at a Boston-area regulatory affairs conference on July 16, 2009. Racing to Ensure Compliance With the New EU Medical Device Directive Requirements - 2010 Deadline is sponsored by RAPS and will be held at Bentley University in Waltham, MA.

In addition to ForeignExchange, regulatory experts from TUV Rheinland, KEMA, Pleiad, BSI, and others will present. If you are attending, please stop by and say hello.