How In-Context Review Language Technology Automates and Shortens the Translation Review Process

Content speed. Increased quantity. Compelling content tailored to the local market. Skilled digital marketers achieve market expansion and increased sales by getting these initiatives right. 

The ability to push out content fast, produce more of it, and make it appealing to your target audiences hinges on many factors. A critical part of the localization process is the in-country review. However, this proofreading cycle is notoriously bogged down by delays. Headquarters and subsidiaries often clash. Corporate sets deadlines that require subsidiaries to make quick, efficient reviews, while local subsidiaries have access to a limited number of tools. Proofreaders face other obstacles as well. 

Any setback at this stage can prevent local content from going live on time, slow down the velocity of your content engine and your products, and impact your ability to reach your target market through high-quality content. Advanced language technology, such as the Lionbridge Language Cloud’s In-Context Review capability, can help you overcome these challenges and enable your content engine to achieve peak performance. 

The Lionbridge Language Cloud automates and simplifies the review process. It brings subsidiaries into the fold early on, during content creation, to minimize conflicts with headquarters. And its In-Context Review feature provides a cutting-edge, in-context preview that enables you to quickly provide the highest quality content in the languages your customers need.  

What Is an In-Country Review?

An in-country review is part of the localization process in which a native speaker reviews the translation work performed by a Language Service Provider (LSP). Typically, the proofreader is a company employee who resides in the target country and is fluent in both the source and target languages. These reviewers are uniquely suited to conduct proofreading because they are usually both native speakers of the target language and company subject matter experts. During the in-country review process, proofreaders make corrections to ensure content will resonate with the local market.       

Why Does the In-country Review Process Often Lead to Delays?  

In-country reviewers are not usually professional linguists and must often tackle proofreading assignments on top of an already full workload. Being overloaded with work and being asked to perform translation tasks with limited context are significant challenges leading to delays. In addition, in-country reviewers often butt heads with headquarters because they have differing views that arise from not being involved in the process early on during content creation. This situation can put a strain on the process and lead to slowdowns. Unwieldy, manual tasks involving email and Excel spreadsheets can further exacerbate holdups because the job becomes more tedious. 

When translation proofreading deadlines are missed, companies face two choices; each option is equally undesirable. They can either adjust their timelines and delay the release of their content or publish the material without the in-country proofreader’s review. The latter is risky as it can lead to poor quality. Both scenarios result in missed opportunities to connect with potential and existing customers. This scenario, in turn, hinders a company from growing and prevents maximum sales.

What Other Consequences Result When In-Country Reviewers Have Limited Context? 

In addition to being overextended, in-country reviewers must often perform translations despite having limited context. It’s like trying to follow the plot of a television show with access to sound only. Without visuals, you’re likely to miss important plot elements or storyline nuances because you don’t have all the information you need.

Similarly, in-country reviewers must often assess content prepared by LSPs with limited information, which causes undesirable results. These reviewers often lack access to glossaries and style guides. As such, they’re likely to make grammatical errors and misuse glossary terms. The company’s brand voice will suffer. In-country reviewers may produce translations that are distant from the source language, which can cause the LSP’s linguist to be penalized in some cases. This situation can lead the LSP to conduct a lengthy root cause analysis.  

Furthermore, in-country reviewers often see only small chunks of source and target text side-by-side, without the context to fully understand the intended message. In the case of website localization, they frequently do not have the ability to see how the text is laid out on the page. This situation makes it challenging to perform website translation.  

The lack of insight leads to quality issues, threatens brand voice consistency, promotes more questions, increases the number of necessary reviews, and adds time to the localization process. Companies can overcome these obstacles by utilizing sophisticated technology that gives proofreaders all the information they need to conduct online translation reviews efficiently and effectively.

How Can I Optimize My Marketing Materials and Webpages Through In-Context Review?

The Lionbridge Language Cloud automates and enhances the proofreading process. It provides in-country reviewers with access to glossaries and style guides, integrates their feedback into the workflow to capture their edits, and enables them to use the In-Context Review preview feature, an upgraded capability. The In-Context Review provides contextual information about the content, which leads to marketing material and webpage optimization.

Lionbridge has built connectors for the leading Content Management Systems (CMSs). This enables content to be shared easily and allows companies to use the preview feature within their own system.

In the case of HTML files, reviewers can press a button in the online review tool within the Lionbridge Language Cloud to get a WYSISYG or What You See Is What You Get view. This translation preview enables them to see what the finished product will look like. For XML, MIF, DOCX, PPTX, and XLSX formats, proofreaders get access to contextual information like tables, lists, and text formatting. This extra material makes the proofreading process easier to execute and helps optimize the creation of newsletters, whitepapers, and other marketing collateral.

In-country reviewers can also use the In-Context Review to generate a preview of translated web pages that are under development — exactly what companies need to effectively operate in a digital-first world. Reviewers will see precisely how the translated text fits into the overall context of the page. The reviewer has the option of seeing the source content, the target content, or both. Having the complete picture is particularly helpful when reviewing translated text that describes images.

This technology, which allows in-country reviewers to make corrections in layout format, is a vast improvement over the side-by-side view of chunks of words. With contextual information, reviewers will have fewer questions and review cycles will be reduced. The In-Context Review preview feature enables in-country reviewers to increase accuracy, improve translation quality, and accelerate reviews. As a result, companies will be able to bring content to market faster and speed up product market releases.