Centralised translation of a multilingual website using translation memory

Project details

Client

CARSTENS + PARTNER

Sector

HYGIENE SOLUTIONS

Time period

Since 2019

Project name

TRANSLATION OF THE WEBSITE AND WEBSHOP

Our customer was founded in 1971 and specialises in professional hygiene solutions for the hotel and catering industry. Its main focus is on washroom, kitchen and laundry hygiene. The family business is highly innovative and new products are constantly appearing on the market. This development accelerated further during the corona pandemic.

Examples of these products are dispensing systems with electronic controls, towel and soap dispensers with level sensors, and complex cleaning machines for professional cleaning. In Europe, the customer has more than 25 locations in more than 10 countries. The products are sold in more than 60 countries worldwide. The product descriptions have the special feature of being appealingly formulated despite being highly technical. Translators who specialise in sensor technology while mastering marketing texts and wording in the field of hygiene solutions at the same time are therefore in demand.

Impressions

Alignment der vorhandenen Marketingtexte aus InDesign

Kataloge im InDesign Datei-Format

Challenge

Our client’s goal was to centralise and standardise all translations for the company in order to bolster its corporate identity. This was to be realised in cooperation with the national subsidiaries, which until then had largely managed the translations independently. The coordination effort between the parent company and subsidiary as well as between the different cultures represents one of the greatest challenges if the intention is to centralise the translations for reasons of cost, quality and time. The forthcoming translations of the website and the online shop were to be used to overcome this hurdle. The experience and market knowledge of the national subsidiaries had to be integrated in a well considered process, especially when it comes to approving the texts.

Planning

For C+P, the involvement of the national subsidiaries was an important aspect of the translation task. When searching for existing reference material, it became clear that several texts on the new website had been translated in the past. The texts were available, for example, as brochures and catalogues in InDesign format. These translations provided a particularly valuable reference because they were authorised by the national subsidiaries. In order to make these texts available to the C+P translators for new projects, many InDesign files were converted and transferred to a translation memory using the CAT tool ‘Trados Studio’ by means of an “alignment” process. This translation memory forms the basis for all subsequent translations. The next step was to extract the product names and the most common technical terms from the website text and translate them with the support of C+P’s translation memory. This has provided a terminology database with more than 500 product names and technical terms per language, which is used and maintained as the basis for all subsequent translations. The translated technical terms were checked and approved by the contact persons at the national subsidiaries. This meant that the prerequisites for starting the translation of the website were met.

Our steps for successful implementation:

Alignment of existing marketing texts from InDesign
Extraction and translation of technical terms
Approval of the technical terms by the subsidiaries
Translation of the website
Verification of the translations by the subsidiaries

Our solution

The centralised translation management required by the company headquarters, with the support and approval of the national subsidiaries, was successfully implemented.

The coordination effort involved in translating the website was minimised by creating and introducing permanent, clear processes during the collaboration between the national subsidiaries and head office, as well as between the project managers at the customer and C+P. After the project was completed, the translation memory was shared between the head office, the national subsidiaries and C+P using the Trados GroupShare server solution. All three parties can access the central translation database and the common glossary. The resulting unified terminology also ensures a stronger corporate identity across all subsidiaries.

The introduction of the translation memory system allows the individual subsidiaries to create new translations independently.

We also provide additional support for time-critical projects or larger volumes. The glossary is updated in all languages with each new product and product name, which means that the translation memory remains consistent over time despite its varied use. This process is now used for all information products on the customer side: in sales, for training documents and in the technical area.