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At Weblations we adapt to the changing needs of our clients. In 1996, Cochlear, the world leader in cochlear implant technology (which helps thousands of people improve their hearing), came to us to translate their website into Spanish. They were very happy with the results, especially with the accuracy of the medical terminology.
In 1998 Cochlear designed a new website to reflect the growth the company had enjoyed band the technological advances that they had made in the past few years. They came back to Weblations to translate this new website.
The first translation had been performed into the Spanish spoken in Spain. Second time round, the people at Cochlear decided that the Spanish used should reflect the fact that most Spanish-speaking Cochlear implant wearers are Spanish speakers in the USA or in South America.
From our database of translators, we tested and selected a translator in South America whose specialization was medicine and we selected the translator of the 1996 website to revise the translation.
The team at Cochlear were very efficient at providing us with company literature in Spanish so that we could be sure that technical and company-specific terms were translated correctly.
The files were downloaded and pre-processed using Weblations Cypher, so that they could be sent to the translator. The translator, using our Weblations Workspace application, first translated the text-in-graphics and sent these translations to us to be revised and sent to our production artists so that the translated graphics could be generated.
During the ten-day process of translation and revision, we were able to consult the team at Cochlear in order to resolve terminological and other problems.
The revised and proofread text translation was then post-processed using Cypher to create translated HTML pages. The translated graphics were inserted and the site was posted at team.weblations.com, our Extranet for clients, translators and designers. Clients use "team" to deliver original digital assets and to review their webs during the staging process. The advantages of using this system are that the client can preview the site "offsite" before they take delivery to their server. The client can also ask people to view the site from the field without having to set up a specific site.
The project was simple to coordinate, in that there was only one target language and the technical difficulties were minimal. The main difficulty it posed was the specialized subject matter. This was easily overcome by using specialist translators and by making full use of the client's resources. In addition, at almost 30,000 words (the equivalent of around 100 manuscript pages), it was a large project where a lot of care had to be taken to ensure consistency. Post-processing the translated text revealed several problems in the HTML code that were resolved in consultation with the client.
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