Interview of the month – Panagiotis Karantais

Interview of the month – Panagiotis Karantais

(Translator, Linguistic coordinator)

Tell us about yourself and your studies. How did you start your career in localisation?

I obtained my bachelor’s degree in German literature from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where I chose a series of translation classes as my direction. While studying, I was working as secretary at the Panhellenic Association of Translators (PEM), where I had to deal with translation issues on a daily basis (regarding both translation theory and professional issues facing translators today). 

Following my graduation, I started working as an in-house translator at a translation company headquartered in Thessaloniki. Later, I began working as an in-house reviewer and project manager at a translation centre. One year later, I decided to delve into the technical aspect of things, so I started my master’s degree at the University of Limerick (UL) in Ireland, obtaining a “Master of Science in Global Computing and Localisation”. As a UL graduate living in Ireland —the “Mecca” of localization in Europe, if not worldwide— I soon found opportunities to work in localization, both at translation service providers (vendor side) and at the localization departments of the numerous IT companies that are active in the country (customer side). 

Currently, I work as Linguistic Coordinator at Ariba, an SAP Company, where I am responsible for the quality of the languages into which our products are localized.

Lately the term “glocalisation” is also gaining ground in the sector. What is glocalisation and how does it differ from localisation?

There are several “buzzwords” used in the sector (as in other sectors as well), e.g. internationalisation, regionalisation, transcreation, glocalisation etc. These are essentially similar practices that aim at the creation of final content, which is adjustable to the linguistic, cultural and business needs of the end user. Therefore, the original content is created taking into account all the markets in which it will be available, so that it can easily be adjusted to each market’s individual needs. 

To give an example, the notion of internationalisation (i18n), which is a widely used term, means the adhesion to standards and the use of strategies that render the created content easily “localizable”, i.e. ready to be localized [localisation (l10n)]. This can mean, for example, that the code used supports languages that are written from right to left, that there is enough space to extend the sentences, that different calendars are supported etc (technical issues) or, simply, that the content used does not make sense only to specific cultures. There are several best practices, which, when used, can make the translators’ work way easier!

Which are the main tools and the knowledge required for localisation and is it difficult to learn how to use them in your opinion?

In my experience, every company uses different tools (either popular solutions that have been adjusted to their own needs or tools developed specifically by them to fit their needs and content). Therefore, what’s important for a translator is to have a basic understanding of the localization life cycle, meaning: where the content starts, which stages it goes through and where it ends up, so that he or she can use the tools offered for this purpose. Large companies usually make use of holistic tools that cover content management, translation management, terminology management, QA management functions, etc. Some of these tools are Worldserver (SDL), Globalsight (WeLocalize), among others. Although the tools may differ, their main functions are similar, making it easier for professionals to learn how to use them. Furthermore, most companies organise training seminars to familiarise their translators with the use of these tools. Usually, if a translator cannot use the company’s tools, the working relationship is terminated, therefore it is important for them to be familiar with their use.

As regards localization in general, it is important for translators to have very basic knowledge of programming, which enables them to understand why changes they make can create problems, to know how to manage the variants that may be included in the content, to correctly interpret the information that they receive regarding the content, to understand the notions of truncation, concatenation, etc.

What is your opinion on “automatic translation” and how do you think it will influence the future of the translation sector?

In my opinion, “automatic translation” is already here. However, I don’t see it as the translator’s enemy, as it is used for very specific content, which would otherwise not be translated or which would be extremely boring for a translator. The translation of this type of content through “automatic translation” increases the availability of translators for more creative content, which requires a kind of sensitivity that only a human translator can offer.  After all, automatic translation tools can always be improved thanks to the work of translators (as reviewers), giving them the chance to produce much larger translation volumes –as is already happening with computer assisted translation tools for the last few decades. 

The use of automatic translation for content that was not created for this purpose, e.g. without the use of controlled language, or for content that requires human intervention, e.g. marketing content, is a wrong practice and is generally avoided by most companies.