SlatorPod

In SlatorPod’s second guest episode, Florian and Esther are joined by former Google Translate developer and ModelFront founder and CEO Adam Bittlingmayer to discuss machine translation, machine translation risk prediction, how LSPs should leverage MT, how big tech thinks about MT, and much more. Your two hosts first talk about localization SaaS startup Lokalise — which announced a USD 6m in Series...

Florian and Esther are joined by 🎤special guest 🎤Kimon Fountoukidis, Founder and Chairman of Argos Multilingual for a frank and animated discussion about the language industry. Florian also provides an update on the market reaction following the breaking news last week that RWS plans to acquire SDL later this year Esther talks international trade — more specifically how translation and interpret...

In this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther share a hot take on❗the story of the week❗— if not of recent language industry history: RWS’s acquisition of rival SDL . The coming together of the two UK-based Super Agencies will see the creation of the first ever billion-dollar-revenue LSP, and TransPerfect stripped of its current title of world’s largest LSP by revenue The two whizz through the YT...

Florian and Esther talk about remote interpreting ’s moment in the spotlight. From phone interpreting (OPI) to video remote interpreting (VRI) and remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI), the two discuss the various use cases for each, the differences in margins, and how RSI is booming as conferences have moved online.  Esther shares insights from a deep-dive interview with SDI Media CEO Mark Howor...

In amongst arguing about salmon in this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther talk about SDL’s shares, which rallied on the release of their H1 2020 financial results . Esther discusses SYSTRAN’s new owner, South Korea-based STIC Investments, who took a controlling stake in the MT provider in July 2020 alongside a consortium of minority investors.  The two share localization insights from Croatian...

In episode 33 of SlatorPod, Florian and Esther talk about fresh signs of recovery in the language industry, from the Slator Language Industry Job Index (LIJI) — which rose (slightly) in August 2020 for the first time since the pandemic hit — to encouraging survey data from the ATC UK’s Coronavirus Pulse Survey in July . The two also share news that the world’s most valuable listed LSP, UK-based RW...

In this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther discuss the quirky use of social media ads by the Royal Australian Navy in their quest to recruit 40 crypto linguists (which also happens to sound like a pretty cool job). We also talk about Salesforce’s new open-source XML-tagged dataset for NMT training, based on thousands of XML files per language pair to help improve translation of online help docum...

Florian brings you this week’s language news from his hideaway in the mountains of Switzerland, sharing news on the world’s largest language model, GPT-3 , from OpenAI. He and Esther (who is still hunkered down in London) discuss its applications in language generation, and whether or not it’s any good at the task of machine translation yet (spoiler: not really).  Esther talks about two funding st...

In this week’s episode, Florian and Esther delve into the numbers and rationale behind the Memsource transaction, as the translation technology (TMS) provider sold a majority stake to private equity giant Carlyle in a landmark deal for the language industry . The two talk about highlights from the game localization panel at SlatorCon Remote, moderated by Daniel Finck with machine translation and l...

Florian talks about research from Silicon Valley start-up Stripe, which surveyed hundreds of e-commerce websites for issues at checkout, the most common of which was a lack of local language translations.  The two discuss SlatorCon Remote, where the 300-strong audience heard about e-commerce localization courtesy of multilingual content provider Quill. Also present at Slator’s inaugural remote con...

In this week’s episode, Florian shares breaking news from the world of M&A and funding, as translation technology provider Memsource sold a majority stake to private equity giant Carlyle and machine translation matchmaker Intento raised USD 3m. Esther discusses a nationwide mega-tender for language services due to launch in August 2020 in the UK: the pan-government RFP is worth GBP 110m over t...

Florian and Esther discuss Apple’s announcement that its new operating system, iOS 14, will come pre-loaded with a Translate app when it’s released in September 2020. The Translate app will run on NMT, be one of just a few dozen built-in iPhone apps, and allow users to translate without an internet connection. What will this mean for other translation apps? Esther shares news of e-commerce company...

In a half-year anniversary episode, Florian and Esther unpack a wide-scale European Union survey of small and medium enterprises. Nearly 2,900 SMEs responded to questions about their language needs, MT use and attitudes of MT, as the EU rolls out an expansion program for their free automated translation platform, eTranslation. Florian ponders why a public body like the EU would be concerned with m...

Florian and Esther talk Google snafu, delving into the story of how Google “inadvertently sent” users’ translation memory data to someone else. Users of the now retired Google Toolkit, a free cloud-based translation productivity, may have had their translation memory contents shared with another user as a result of a technical issue affecting download requests. Florian discusses UK-based RWS’ acqu...

Florian and Esther discuss the plight of the EU’s contract interpreters. While conference interpreting work has dried up, the ca. 3,000 contract interpreters, many of whom generated 100% of their income from the institutions, have been given a one-off payment to see them through the coronavirus pandemic. In a show of solidarity, however, staff interpreters created an emergency fund to help support...

In this week’s episode, Florian and Esther discuss Netflix’s recent paper on sentence simplification and machine translation, destined to help improve the quality of machine-translated subtitles. But how will audiences react if simpler source sentences mean a lack of idioms and colloquialisms in foreign-language subtitles? The two talk about hyper-localized markets in the language industry and poi...

#22 Japan’s Undervalued LSP, Australia and VRI, Translator Strike Contd. In this week’s podcast, Florian shares news from Japan’s largest LSP, Honyaku Center, whose translation revenues shrunk by +4% to a still-substantial USD 75m year-on-year (and USD 107m for the whole company). He says that the listed LSP could be a steal for companies looking to acquire within the world’s third largest economy...

Despite Esther’s laptop going into its own form of lockdown, Florian and Esther ploughed ahead to bring you this week’s language industry news. Florian highlights three finance-focused stories, as Plint, Lilt and Keywords Studios, three very different types of language service providers, all announced financing news. Firstly, Florian shares news from Sweden, where private equity firm Priveq took a...

Florian and Esther pick out two of their favorite sales and biz dev insights from the recently launched Slator 2020 Language Industry Market Report: 400+ buyer job titles and 200+ LSP core and adjacent services. Florian gives an update on coronavirus’ industry impact and talks about the added factor of debt for some private equity backed LSPs. The two ponder LSP thebigword’s bold Word-pie initiati...

Florian and Esther share highlights from the newly-released Slator 2020 Language Industry Market Report. The 55-page report features a wealth of insights and data to help LSPs drive strategy, sales and marketing and enable buyers to assess the vendor landscape. Esther talks about terminology management at scale after Facebook’s Uwe Muegge gave Slator an inside look at how his team is bringing cons...

In another lockdown episode, Florian discusses how LSPs are faring in the current climate. He also previews the results from the European Language Industry Survey, run by a group of industry associations. The survey found that LSPs plan to increase sales and marketing after Covid-19 and are not yet considering making layoffs. Among freelancers surveyed, only 16% said they have had to renegotiate r...

#17 Startup Cuts, Super Agency Headwinds, Fixing Gender in NMTFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry startup environment amid the coronavirus pandemic. As the language industry’s most heavily-funded startup, Unbabel, lays off a third of its staff, others may need to take similar measures to extend their runways given the uncertainty around capital raises in 2020. From startups to stalwar...

Florian shares his own bizarre story of being pitched coronavirus masks by an LSP over LinkedIn. Esther discusses news that LSPs are suing the Translation Bureau of Canada (Attorney General of Canada), one of the world’s largest translation buyers. LSPs claim that the Translation Bureau’s translation memory is “flawed and polluted,” which is costing them time and money. Florian unpacks RWS’s lates...

Florian highlights some stories picked up this week in SlatorSweep, Slator’s daily news aggregation service, including Keywords Studios’ decision to furlough 200 of its game testers employees in Dublin, and news from Germany of the government’s financial support package for freelancers and small businesses. Esther discusses the impact of Coronavirus on the Slator Language Industry Job Index, which...

Florian and Esther share an update on the impact of Coronavirus on the language industry, zooming in on contingency plans communicated by SDL, ZOO Digital and Keywords Studios in their recent updates to investors, as well as the UK’s newly unveiled financial aid package for self-employed people. Esther unpacks a recent study on machine translation evaluation, published by leading academics from Zu...