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L.N. Revathy

... if you are good at foreign languages. So, go ahead, wax `Lyric'al.

Most resumes invariably include a line or two about languages known to the candidate. The candidate most often fills up the column without giving much thought to it, at times even adding something more than what he/she really knows. It probably did not matter too much, one way or the other.

Not any more. Now organisations are increasingly looking for opportunities to establish their presence abroad, post their workforce in some foreign land - may be China, Japan, Germany - where it can be difficult to cope without knowing at least the basics. English may have attained the tag of a global language, but for marketing products in newer geographies or developing a product with foreign collaboration, companies increasingly find that English alone will not help. This has given a new lease of life to translation services.

Consider this: A manufacturing company in India receives a technical drawing from its foreign collaborator (say German). It would definitely have to seek the services of a technical translator. The job does not end there. The follow-up interactions could be frequent, compelling the company to outsource this service. That's where Lyric Labs steps in.

The Coimbatore-based company offers Net-enabled translation service. It has helped renowned corporates translate their technical, training, marketing manuals and other documents in Indian regional and foreign languages to enable their clients to understand the content in their native tongue.

"We have integrated the translators into their vendor stream and the online mode actually makes it competitive at all levels," says V.R. Sasidar, Managing Director, Lyric Labs. Both the client and the translator stand to benefit, he says. "Earlier the pricing was not uniform. A good number of translators did not have regular flow of work order, as the jobs were assigned by conventional offline agencies. Now, there is a reversal in the situation," says Sasidar.

As per the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association, there are 5,000 companies involved in exporting bulk drugs and formulations to other countries and each company, on an average, spent in the Rs 2-5 lakh range per year on translation services alone.

Lyric Labs has over 7,000 language professionals across the globe, involved in the translation service. "They are our registered members and their number is growing by the day. A majority of them are literally booked by online clients. Since the job involves translation of technical manuals, we have to ensure accuracy of the content and the work will have to be delivered within the specified time frame," he explains. The translators would have to hold professionally recognised qualification and could be specialists in other fields as well. The company lets these translators translate in their `mother tongue'.

"If the translator is from Spain, he or she can translate from English to Spanish but not vice versa."

Languages on offer

The languages available vary by service. Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Bengali (Bangla), Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, English for the UK, English for the US, Estonian, Finnish, French for Canada, French for France, German, German for Austria, German for Germany, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian (Lettish), Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese for Brazil, Portuguese for Portugal, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sesotho, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish for Latin America, Spanish for Spain, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh, Zulu, etc, are offered online. The number of language directions available on the company's Automatic and Edited services is being constantly reviewed to meet the demands.

On `Premium' service orders translated by human translators, the company provides a turnaround time of two business days on orders of up to 1,600 words.

"Since computer-generated translations are machine-generated, they are considered ideal only where human translation is simply not feasible. Such translations are commonly used for rapid, draft-quality translations that provide individuals with the `gist' of language documents such as e-mail, Web pages and correspondence.

A `gisted' translation allows the reader to understand the meaning of the original document and determine its relevance to his business," says Sasidar. If you have a flair for languages, now is the time to flaunt it.

lnr@thehindu.co.in

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