SlatorPod

In this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther discuss the collective responses of more than 40 LSPs to the Coronavirus pandemic, from remote working to cloud-based services and business continuity plans. Esther talks about the results of a recent survey published by the CIOL — Chartered Institute of Linguists — which revealed a significant degree of dissatisfaction around translator and interpreter...

Capping off a hectic week with a Friday 13th special, Florian and Esther unpack the state of the language industry as Coronavirus goes global. From reports of demand surges for video remote interpreting and from some retail and e-commerce customers, to slowdowns in IT, e-learning and multimedia translation requests, how are the world’s language service providers faring in the face of the pandemic?...

Esther gives a short briefing on the AILIA conference she attended in Ottawa last week. The two discuss how the ongoing economic disruptions caused by the coronavirus are impacting the language industry and freelance linguists. They review the ranking of the fastest growing language service providers of 2019 and wonder about a recent RFP published by US Department of Homeland Security, which is lo...

Who came in top? Who grew fastest? Who struggled? Florian and Esther discuss the newly released Slator 2020 Language Service Provider Index (LSPI), featuring 130 language service providers on first release. Breaking down the landscape of providers into four segments: Super Agencies, Leaders, Challengers and Boutiques, the two analyze some of the best performances across each of the categories, and...

Florian and Esther share a sneak peak of 2019’s LSP results ahead of publishing the Slator 2020 LSPI next week. Get an exclusive look at the top 10 language service providers by revenue in 2019, as Florian and Esther discuss language industry Super Agencies and Leaders, and reveal which media localizer made it into the top 10 for the first time. What could go wrong? As several US airports have tak...

SlatorPod #8! Esther shares details about localization at US-based coaching app BetterUp, which works with enterprise customers across 62 countries and 30 languages. BetterUp’s Localization Program Manager, Ella Pętlicka spoke to Slator about localization operations at BetterUp including the Trans-Adaptation workflow — Florian and Esther discuss this and other workflows (e.g., transcreation and li...

Florian talks about DeepL’s claims of making yet another “breakthrough” in what they call “AI translation quality”. Esther unpacks a recent survey of UK gaming professionals by industry association ukie, which finds that localization workers in gaming are better educated, and less depressed and anxious than their counterparts in other functions. According to the survey, game loc professionals are...

SlatorPod #6! Florian Faes and Esther Bond unpack ASICS’ localization strategy and weigh up the benefits of centralized and local procurement strategies. The two also discuss when to use a vendor-agnostic (pureplay) translation management system (TMS), or one offered by an LSP. Florian analyzes the acquisition of US-based video interpreting provider Stratus Video by healthcare service giant AMN He...

SlatorPod #5! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss the 1,500-strong interpreter strike in the Netherlands. Florian talks about Amazon’s foray into automatic machine dubbing, which combines machine translation, text-to-speech, and audio rendering models. Esther unpacks the 2019 financial results for two Super Agencies — SDL and TransPerfect. TransPerfect’s acquisition of no less than seven media lo...

SlatorPod #4! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss South-East Asia streaming joint-venture HOOQ and their localization efforts across a handful of Asian languages. The two also talk about Lionbridge being sued over earn-out payments by the founders of Geotext, a legal translation company they acquired in 2015. Translation scams continue to be a problem with fake translators impersonating real ones...

SlatorPod #3! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss London localization meet-ups, the European Parliament’s giant Translation Directorate’s EUR 60m translation award, Amazon hiring new media localizers, and the scorecard of the handful of publicly listed language service providers. Esther talks about the January reading of the Slator Language Industry Job Index and Florian plucks Amazon’s new batch...

Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss the week’s language industry news. Featured this week: the top language industry quotes of 2019 including TransPerfect, BTI Studios, Unbabel’s venture capital backer, and Nike’s Global Localization Manager. Then, the two discuss California’s controversial AB5 gig worker bill, which the language industry is fighting tooth and nail, and Keyword Studio’s acquisiti...

SlatorPod #1, the very first edition! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss the week’s language industry news. Featured this week: a giant interpreting contract gone wrong in Denmark; the EU’s translation test fail; RWS continues its growth streak posting yet another year of revenue and profit growth, and takeaways from SlatorCon Amsterdam’s enterprise localization panel. Links to the stories discu...