Translation that has to pass a native speaker
CTP Energy's owner wanted every translated page to read as though someone who speaks the language had written it. The CRM built for them translates with software first, sends each page to a native speaker to edit, then checks the edited page against the original to make sure the meaning survived the edit.
Client: CTP Energy.
CTP Energy's owner had one requirement for anything the company published in another language: it had to sound natural to the people reading it.
Software translation gets the words across quickly. A native speaker gets the voice right. Neither on its own was enough, so the work was a specialized CRM that uses both, in order, and then checks the result.
Challenge
There are two ways a translated page goes wrong, and fixing one tends to cause the other.
- Translated by software alone, a page can be accurate and still read as though nobody who speaks the language was involved.
- Rewritten by a person to sound natural, a page can drift from what it was supposed to say.
The owner wanted neither: natural language that still means what the original meant.
Solution
A CRM that treats each translated page as something to be passed, in stages:
- Software produces the first translation.
- The system flags the page for an individual native speaker of that language to edit.
- When the edits are saved and submitted for publishing, software checks the edited page against the original to make sure the meaning has not changed.
- The check reports a percentage showing how closely the edited page matches the intended meaning.
- From there, the page can be sent to someone who speaks the language for a final review.
The person gets the language right and the software makes sure the person did not change the message. The percentage makes that visible at the moment somebody decides whether to publish.
What this demonstrates
- Building software around how a business owner actually wants the work done
- Combining machine output with human review, each checking the other
- Workflow design inside a CRM: flagging, assignment, submission and review
- Making quality measurable at the point of publishing
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