SlatorPod

In this week’s episode, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with various natural language generation (NLG) startups gaining traction of late. Esther covers whether these NLG startups, which can help content creators write copy in multiple languages, are a threat or an opportunity for LSPs.Over in Europe, the strike at the European Parliament among interpreters continues, as they decline to interpret for those that dial-in remotely. Among the complaints, poor sound quality and a heavier workload. As negotiations between European Parliament staff interpreters and the administration collapse, efforts have been made to get European Parliament President, Roberta Mesilla, involved.In M&A news, Lionbridge is set to acquire Game Tester, a game-testing platform based in Australia and South Africa. This will be the third games-related acquisition for the Super Agency in three years and will allow them to add community-based testing capabilities to the Lionbridge Games division.Meanwhile, Airbnb becomes even more multilingual as it expands its machine translation capabilities to translate reviews. This move comes after the company successfully launched its messaging feature this summer. Airbnb currently runs on ModernMT, the Translated-led, open-source project, co-founded by Fondazione Bruno Kessler and the European Commission.

Tim Jung, CEO of XL8, joins SlatorPod to talk about the startup’s journey — from co-founding the media-focused machine translation company with former Apple Software Engineer, Jay Park, to raising a USD 3m bridge round in August 2022.Tim discusses his experience working for Samsung and Google and how they have adopted an engineering-driven culture at XL8.The CEO walks through their product MediaCAT, which allows users to streamline media localization workflows in three steps: sync, translate, and dub. XL8 also recently launched EventCAT, where users can interpret or add live subtitles for events through the power of AI. Tim reveals some of the media-specific challenges of language automation, from speaker identification to generating subtitles by speech recognition. He tells us how the XL8 approach differs from big tech as it uses 100% human professional-curated data to train its MT engines.The CEO talks about what they have gained from their partnership with Iyuno-SDI and the challenges of competing with big tech when hiring machine learning talent. The pod rounds off with XL8’s roadmap for 2023, including improving closed caption generation by working with companies that specialize in sound-effect recognition.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with the launch of Slator’s monthly Language Industry Data and News Briefing available to all Starter, Growth, Pro, and Enterprise subscribers.The duo then talk about the performance of a handful of publicly-listed language service providers, including Honyaku Center, Appen, ZOO Digital, Keywords Studios, and RWS. Over in Switzerland, SaaS translation platform, Neur.on, which offers custom MT for law firms, legal publishers, and public authorities has announced an investment round of USD 1.6m.Esther gives an update on the Slator Language Industry Job Index, which dipped 4.5 points in September after the all-time high recorded in August. Meanwhile, video games service provider, Universally Speaking, appointed former Keywords Studios CMO, Andrew Brown, as CEO in July 2022, taking over from founder Vickie Peggs after 18 years.

Machine Translation (MT) Researcher, Yasmin Moslem, joins SlatorPod to talk about her research on Domain-Specific Text Generation for Machine Translation — a project she conducted with Rejwanul Haque, John D. Kelleher, and Andy Way at the Adapt Center in Dublin.Yasmin shares her experience working as a translator, discovering translation productivity (CAT) tools, and experimenting with translation memory to improve MT. She breaks down the paper’s approach to domain-specific MT training using back-translation for data augmentation.She discusses how some LSPs are already implementing this approach in real-life, customizing it for different use cases. She explains why they used a combination of BLEU, Comet, and other quality evaluation frameworks as well as human evaluation to rate machine translation quality.Yasmin concludes the podcast with her advice for those in the core industry looking to enter the machine translation space, from the spiral learning process to reading research papers.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, including how a streaming platform used propriety machine dubbing technology for its film offerings in the first quarter of 2022.Over in London, TransPerfect acquired a virtual data room (VDR) tech company to proactively address the VDR market. In transcription news, VIQ Solutions’ shares dipped by 20% despite reporting strong, half-year revenue growth of 45% year on year. Meanwhile, multilingual captioning provider Ai-Media turns EBITDA-profitable as a 2021 acquisition drives revenue growth.

Adrian Probst, German Language Specialist and Content Creator behind the YouTube channel Freelanceverse, joins the pod this week to talk about how he became arguably the most successful YouTuber in the language industry.The YouTuber looks back on his journey; from commercial apprenticeship and studying translation at university to working as project manager and branching off on his own as a freelancer. He recalls how he began his YouTube channel as a way to challenge himself during the pandemic, and how consistency and authenticity has allowed his channel to grow to over 16,000 subscribers.Adrian highlights the importance of online visibility and networking as a way to find and secure new clients directly. He reveals how he bases some of his videos on frequently asked questions from the community, such as pricing translation and the future of machine translation.The pod rounds off with Adrian’s view on YouTube giving multilingual audio tracks to its top creators — and how his offering multilingual subtitles caused his videos to spike in views. He encourages students not to wait until they graduate to attend language industry events, do some voluntary translation, and build a network.First up, Florian rehashes some of the biggest stories of the past four months as co-host Esther returns. Back in May 2022, RWS and Baring Private Equity Asia Fund VIII Limited confirmed that Baring would not proceed with a takeover bid for RWS.Next, there was some major pushback against RSI over the summer as UN interpreters blamed technology for the decline in their working conditions; and EU interpreters voted unanimously to suspend remote interpreting services.More recently, YouTube has been testing a new multi-language audio feature with a small group of popular creators. Esther breaks down the different language industry companies that made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing, US-based businesses in 2022.

Joseph Lambert (Lecturer in Translation Studies at Cardiff University) and Callum Walker (Lecturer in Translation Technology at the University of Leeds) join SlatorPod to talk about their paper Because We’re Worth It: Disentangling freelance translation, status, and rate-setting in the United Kingdom.Joseph discusses the top three challenges for translators when it comes to pricing their services, including knowing how to calculate rates, client or LSP resistance to rate suggestions, and being willing to talk about rates in general. Callum shares the motivation behind writing the paper and how they aim to bridge the gap between academia and industry when it comes to pricing.The duo talk about the lack of recognition of translation as a profession that requires a high degree of specialization and expertise — one of the central issues holding prices down. They address the difference in pay between working as a freelance translator for an LSPs versus acting independently and engaging directly with clients.Joseph and Callum then unpack the positive and negative impact that machine translation and translation marketplaces have made on freelance translators over the past two decades. They reflect on the growing demand from translators for hourly pricing versus the per-word model, especially when it comes to post-editing.They agree with the theory that as MT increases in quality, the level of expertise required of a professional linguist becomes ever higher and this should be reflected in teaching. Callum outlines the Leed’s approach to educating students through simulated projects to practice their negotiating skills.The pod rounds off with advice for graduate students entering the industry — from networking and talking about rates to enhancing professional development with language and business skills.

In this week’s episode, Florian and Anna discuss the language industry news of the week, with RWS announcing the appointment of Julie Southern as Chairperson Designate. Another leadership change saw Heith Mackay-Cruise replacing Phil Norman as Chairman of the Board at Straker Translations. Meanwhile, the UK Immigration Enforcement outlines exceptional cases in which staff might use a translation device instead of on-site or telephonic interpreting.In Canada, the Board of Internal Economy (BOIE), has approved a six-month pilot project that allows the use of “external” and “remote” interpreters for parliamentary sessions. The duo talk about a EUR 42m contract that popped up in Slator’s own RFP Center from the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons. New guidance in Australia was published by the health department that clarified how medical professionals and GPs should bill interpreting services when they require an extended consultation. In an article, Haris Ghinos, Project Leader for ISO 23155, summarized what conference interpreting service providers need to know about the new ISO standard.

Dubverse co-founder, Anuja Dhawan, joins SlatorPod to talk about launching the machine dubbing startup and powering video content dubbing using the latest AI language models and tech.Anuja starts with her journey to co-founding Dubverse with Varshul Gupta as a result of the rise of English speaking video-generated content during the pandemic. She goes through the company’s core team structure where the focus is on scaling through AI and technology.She discusses how they tailor their product to language demand in India as roughly only 10% of the population understands or speaks English fluently. She talks about their approach to tackling technical challenges when producing highly natural, emotional AI voices.Anuja notes the importance of dubbing short-form content from large social media and video networks like YouTube, TikTok and, specific to India, ShareChat. She unpacks a human-in-the-loop model where they onboarded a translator to improve linguistic nuances in their automated workflow.She also shares the story behind connecting with Dubverse’s first investor, Kalaari Capital, and the lessons learned from the interview process. The pod rounds off with the startup’s future plans to make dubbing published content even simpler for creators, so they can break the language barrier.

In this week’s news episode, Florian and Anna catch up on a month’s worth of news, with RSI receiving a lot of opposition. First, there was a UN Today article where interpreters pushed back on poor sound quality and unreliable audio levels causing hearing problems. Then interpreters went on strike at the EU Parliament after negotiations seeking improved work conditions failed. Anna talks about Meta AI’s “breakthrough” claim in machine translation with the release of the I/O model called No Language Left Behind (NLLB). NLLB is an open-source machine translation model with 54 billion parameters and focuses on 200 low-resource languages, specifically from Africa and Asia.In media localization, ZOO Digital released full-year results for 2022 which saw revenue grow by 78% from the previous year, and growth into the current year driven by the ongoing territory launches of major streaming platforms.Keywords Studios’ interest in the space has become more apparent as CFO, John Hauck, shares the game localization provider’s plans to expand into adjacent markets and move more heavily into film and TV.The duo also discuss the launch of Zoom’s translation feature. Business users can now have their Zoom meetings translated in real-time into and out of English from any of 10 languages. Anna then covers Disney’s experimentation with synthesized voices. The company partnered with voice-cloning startup Respeecher to feature a synthetic voice in The Mandalorian miniseries.

In this week’s SlatorPod, we’re joined by Jan Rausch to discuss his experience in the interpreting industry as a freelance conference and business interpreter.Jan talks about his background in teaching modern languages and how he transitioned to freelance interpreting, where he eased himself into a highly competitive market. He shares the range of scenarios he has worked in; from European Works Councils and clinical trials to sales meetings and political and diplomatic interpreting for German delegations.Jan discusses the need to multitask and formulate good language that is easy to understand for the listeners when it comes to simultaneous interpreting. He also talks about how the pandemic has impacted interpreting with the explosion of remote and hybrid meetings.Jan outlines the pros and cons of remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) and the preventative measures interpreters can take to protect their hearing and general health. Jan touches on the challenge of staying fully up to date in one’s native language when living outside the country, especially with social linguistic development.Jan unpacks the perception of on-site pricing versus remote interpreting, where clients can sometimes assume RSI is cheaper when, in fact, it can be more demanding for the interpreter. He concludes the podcast with tips for graduates who want to break into institutional or freelance interpreting, particularly when it comes to networking.

Theo Hoffenberg, Founder and CEO of Reverso, joins SlatorPod to talk about specializing in AI-based language tools and translation aids used by millions online.Theo begins with his background in the software industry, where he helped launch tech companies in Europe and how he got into the language technology industry with Reverso. He discusses the evolution of the company, from a downloadable software to an online translation platform with millions of users including language professionals and enterprises.The CEO talks us through the release of some of their AI-based language tools like Reverso Context, a bilingual dictionary tool based on big data and machine learning algorithms. He shares how they maintained and grew their user base by staying on top of SEO and leveraging the App Store.Theo talks about acqui-hires and recruiting remote engineering and tech talent. He discusses how they stay ahead in a highly competitive space by deploying locally and online, offering secure SaaS for those in sensitive industries, and translating documents and websites while preserving their layout.The pod rounds off with Reverso’s roadmap for 2022, including an all-in-one desktop app and an updated mobile app that will have even more learning capabilities. Theo also weighs in on the value of large language models when it comes to memory usage; because, as volumes grow, it becomes more critical to achieve high efficiency.