Case Studies

Medical Translation Case Study

Mylan Project: Translated 10 Lakh+ words

-Medical translation which is typically considered as a technical and difficult task, LC has hassle-freely translated over 10 lakh words in this specific genre. 

Synopsis:

Client: Mylan Pharmaceutical Pvt. Ltd
Service: English to European language(s) translation and vice versa (excluding Icelandic language)
Files: Brochures, pamphlets, website, content, presentations, etc.
Disciplines: Medicine and pharmacy 
Volume (weekly): On a higher side: 10 -12 projects; On a lower side: 7-8 projects

Translation Level: Translation+ Translation check

The Challenges:

• Medical translation requires specialized knowledge and proficiency in the language pair to be translated. Therefore, finding domain specific linguists who can meet the client's expectation was a bit of a challenge. 
• Mostly, the materials to be translated are complex medical document/ research documents/ marketing brochures which consists of acronyms and abbreviations.  So, we ensured to assign expert linguists on this project.

The Plus’s that we have:

• We have a dedicated team of linguists (native medical translators) for the client.
• We handle DTP as well (In a nutshell, it concerns all the rearranging of graphs and images that can be made through the appropriate publishing software to create documents such as brochures, pamphlets, website content, manuals, presentations etc.).

Approach:

We followed our basic translation process:

1.    Quote request from client.
2.    Price quotation sent.
3.    Client confirmation.
4.    Project manager assigned.
5.    Task assigned to first domain specific translator.
6.    Task assigned to second domain specific translator.
7.    Final review by manager.
8.    Document sent to client.

Outcome:

LC efficiently fulfilled a target of medical translation of over 10 lakh words in total, within a very short span of time. Satisfied and impressed with our work, the client has chosen us as their ‘trustworthy translation partner’. Till date, we are receiving huge projects from the client and are time and again proving our efficiency by delivering projects accurately and on time. 

By Suvarna Choudhary
 

Greenlandic Subtitling Case Study

How LC fulfilled the Subtitling requirement of English to Greenlandic language.
-Successfully executed a rare language subtitling project.

Synopsis:

Client: Greenlandic Salvation Army
Service: English to Greenlandic Subtitling
Files: Video files containing initiatives taken by the Greenlandic government and Salvation army for the homeless people living in Greenland.
Disciplines: Generic video
Volume: 28 minutes
Translation Level: SRT creation > SRT Translation > SRT Editing > QC Check > Final review

The Challenges:

Finding the Translators

• Setting up the translators’ team was one of the most crucial tasks for our PM’s. Since, Greenlandic is quite a rare language spoken only by about 56,000 Greenlandic Inuit in Greenland, it was very difficult to find native professional translators.
• We approached the professors at the University of Greenland and with limited information acquired from them we found out 30-40 individuals related to the entertainment industry. 
• Finally, we came in touch with an individual who after a couple of round of discussions, finally agreed.

Note: “A majority of the population in Greenland is partially educated and they don’t have enough resources to perform the full-time translation work. However, Greenlandic government is running several education and awareness programs. Now education statistics are increasing. Also, people are shifting from rural areas to urban areas but still it is an ongoing process and this project will take several years to complete.”

Approach

We followed our basic subtitling process:

1.    SRT creation
2.    SRT translation
3.    SRT editing 
4.    Proofreading/ In-house quality checks
5.    Final review
6.    Final delivery

Outcome

Thanks to our dedicated PMs, we have successfully delivered the requirement on time and added one more to the list of our satisfied clients. We translated a 3000-word file (rare language file) and created the SRT file of the 30-minute duration video.

 

Grail Medical Transcription Case Study

Company Background:

Grail Research, now an Integreon company, has 350 dedicated team members globally. In any 12 month period it conducts research in 100+ countries and 30+ languages. Its capabilities are particularly strong in fast developing regions such as Africa, China, India, the Middle East and Russia. It offers its expertise in a wide variety of industries including Consumer Brands, Investment Banking, Legal Services, Life Sciences, Technology and Telecom. It delivers the critical market intelligence required to make fact-based strategic decisions on topics such as entering new markets, launching and enhancing products, making acquisitions or strategic investments, unseating competitors, and more.

Requirements:

LC (then Lingual World) was appointed to transcript telephonic interviews of medical specialists in US. These interviews had been conducted by Grail research as per their client’s requirement. Normally, a transcript would be word-by-word, however, our client had specific guidelines to extract information and present it in a brief yet technically sound and comprehensive way. The transcript needed to be technically precise, at the same time, extremely concise in order to meet exacting layout requirement.

Solution:

LC delivered technically- accurate and succinct transcript using highly qualified resources with minimum 10 years of experience in medical transcription and proofreading and DTP experts to ensure the final layout met cultural requirements of the target audience. Extensive feedback sessions with the client and their subsequent execution along with interactive proofreading incorporated at various stages of the project helped LC in delivering an end- product that grammatically accurate and technically perfect.

 

Legal Translation Case Study

Law is culture- specific subjective field. Therefore, translating texts pertaining to field of law is a difficult task. Minor err on the part of translator could result in lawsuits and subsequent losses.

Textual structures with a certain cultural orientation in source text (ST) may not correspond to equivalent structures in target text (TT). The translator, therefore, must use socially and culturally relevant linguistic standards. Each standard specifies the elements from ST that must appear in TT.

Not many legal professionals are sound with verbatim translation and hence they use interpreters or translators for highly sensitive texts. Often they misconceive an accurate translation to be substitution of words in source text with corresponding words in target text. They may not realize that word by word translations could sound as complete nonsense in target language. To provide them with a fluent version of translated texts, many professional choose to adhere to standards that they consider appropriate based on their own experience. This subjective exercise itself calls for translation from a highly experienced professional. Most of the translators consult bilingual law lexicons. Only an experienced translator would know the difference between a good lexicograph and a bad one.

 

Retail Translation Case Study

Whether it is foreign market, or the cross- cultural, multilingual customer base in the home nation, retailers need to communicate with their audiences through several ways such as catalogs, brochures, e-commerce sites, newspaper leaflets, coupons, in-store promotions, product manuals, packaging instructions, and other point- of- sale collaterals. Even internal customers to an organization, its employees are to be provided the translated and usable formats of product manuals, operation guidelines, and other training material. Many a time, the material consists of repeated texts across product lines and over time, especially so when the organization has sufficient cross- lingual global presence. This kind of texts greatly benefits from technology.

Unlike luxury retail, mass retail is characterized by high- volume, low- margin on its projects. To keep pace with highly dynamic high volume, short-turnarounds are a prerequisite for translated texts in retail. Apart from turnaround time, price is a key consideration. Many a time retailers may focus solely on price per word and hourly rate without realizing the quality issues that may arise later on. Guarding information from competitors is another key concern for retailers, especially of large organizations. They require their translation efforts to be distinct from those of their competitors. Further closely observed, translation gives competitive edge to a company over those not using translation as the former had already figured out how to work in customer’s language.

One very important aspect in retail translation is the legal and cultural environment of the origin country. Quebec , for instance, requires companies with more than 100 employees to provide work- manuals in English and French. To be eligible for the European Community’s CE mark, the supplier must confirm to language specific requirements which may include translation. Having understood the cost effective strategy of translation, it is equally important to understand HOW it is to be done. In retail, place of transaction is very important. A catalogue designed in Spanish for customers in Mexico may not meet the needs of customers in Spain. Taiwanese customers can understand the packaging tailored to the market in China, however, they can tell immediately that it was not made for them. This calls for the need of culturally sound translators who understand market sensitivity to social & cultural influences.

Knowing this, how does then one maximizes the output through translation? An effective and efficient strategy aligns technology with processes. For instance, TM or Translation Memory software can be used to reduce cost of translation by reusing already translated structures from a database of previous similar structures. Using a GLOSSARY could be a second cost- saving tool especially for industry specific terms such as visual merchandising, 0% interest rate etc. A style guide could be the third aid to understand culture specific conventions. Staffing adequate in- house resource helps retailers enforce consistent terminology and language hand- offs.

A crucial point in context is to support human translation with technology. Systems driven process can handle the high- volume, high quality considerations other than handling smooth file movements, confidentiality, and consistency across projects.

It is then imperative for translators working on retail project to understand the legal, social, and cultural connotations in translation project and support the same with advanced technological tools for the maximum optimization of available resources.