The TermWiki bee has been busily buzzing around this summer, working hard to provide users with new and improved additions to the world’s fastest growing social learning network. Below is a recap of what’s new at TermWiki:

1. TermWiki speaks with the pronunciation feature available in 20 languages

As a social learning network, one TermWiki’s long-terms goals is to provide users with access to a variety of learning tools. We understand that everyone has different approaches to learning and work hard to demonstrate our understanding of this. The pronunciation feature offers additional support to learners by allowing users to hear how a term is pronounce in twenty different languages, including major world languages, such as English, French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, German, and Japanese.

2. The Wall is a one-stop shop that makes it easy for users to see all of the latest updates on TermWiki.

Recent visitors to TermWiki may have noticed the website’s welcome page was recently restructured to include the TermWiki Wall. The Wall allows visitors to see the latest updates to the site via a real-time feed, including term and translation contributions, new questions or answers to AnswerBea, the latest forum post, announcements, new additions to the community, etc.

Among translators, CAT (computer-assisted/aided translation) tools are a topic of interesting discussion and diverse perspectives—some swear by them while others find them to be more of a hassle than anything else. Regardless of personal opinion, CAT tools are an integral part of the translation industry as a whole. For localization buyers, it is important to understand how your translations are generated and what tools might be involved in this process. For localization providers, in order to maintain clear and open communication across functional groups, we need to be sure to be well-versed in all steps of the localization process, translation included.

The Basics of CAT Tools

Generally, CAT tools come with three basic functions: segmentation, translation memory, and a terminology database. By breaking text up into segments, CAT tools present text in a simple and easy-to-read manner. The phrase to be translated is usually sectioned off in a special box or highlighted, and the translator is able to insert the translated text into another identified box. Each source and target segment are paired together (identified as a translation unit) and saved in a database for future reuse (translation memory).

TermWiki’s extended functionality and intuitive user interface have been designed from the ground up to facilitate quick integration into a variety of different workflows (including casual browsing). That said, we would like to take this opportunity to make sure that you understand how you can personally make the most of TermWiki.

For this entry, we’ll focus on three different types of users (you can click on the links below to skip to each individual section):

• General Users

• Translators

• Corporations

And if you have any specific questions about how TermWiki.com might appeal to other types of users, please feel free and ask in the comments section below!

It’s funny how a-ha moments strike when you are least expecting it. A fun fact about TermWiki that you might not know is that it was conceived in a downtown bar in Beijing! The live music band that was onstage that night was supposedly playing with such gusto that the beat of the drum and the strums of the guitar were enough to pulsate to life the beginning wisps of what would soon turn into TermWiki.

A few weeks later, the TermWiki concept began unraveling, synthetic bricks being laid down to form the foundation of an idea that would change how countless companies, individuals, and translators from all around the world would approach social learning and terminology management.

It is hard to believe that a year has already gone by. The entire journey has been a great adventure and experience, and the hard work of many around the world made every moment worthwhile. To all of our supporters, contributors, and believers, many thanks…This day goes out to you!

The timeline below will take you through TermWiki’s first year—our achievements, the addition of new features, and the result of ongoing collaboration with all of our supporters.

A common and growing trend for businesses across all industries over the past few years (including translation, localization and software companies) has been to move their data and workflows upwards… to the cloud.

Which means what exactly? The general meaning of cloud computing can be understood as a way to offer services and capabilities via virtual servers over the Internet. Therefore, instead of using software or applications on specific computers or servers, they are now available through a collective virtual computer. This essentially means that users of cloud technology become less dependent on hardware and infrastructure while still being able to access the resources and tools they need.

At CSOFT, we are committed to researching and developing technologies that will help you improve your localization workflow without the hassle of installation, maintenance and training. The advantages of using both of our latest technologies, TermWiki and ReviewIT, which are both cloud-based systems, are clear:

Earlier this month at the CMS/DITA conference, CSOFT’s Uwe Muegge presented on machine translation. Machine translation, or automated translation, has been a topic of interest for some time now in the localization industry. With the arrival of machine translation tools and their increasing rate of use around the world (especially Google Translate), we thought we’d take a moment to give you a very high-level rundown on this topic.

To begin, machine translation (MT) is the process of using a software application that takes content in a source language and translates it into the target language without human intervention. There are two main types of machine translation to consider: statistical machine translation, and rule-based machine translation.

Since the beginning of the month, we have been brimming with excitement as the TermWiki countdown neared its target of one million terms. On Monday evening, April 11th, the TermWiki Community finally did it… the terms, definitions, and translations in TermWiki are now one million and counting!

We are also happy to announce today’s post is an interview with the contributor of the one millionth term, Raúl Barrera! Take a moment and sit down with us as we talk to Raúl about this momentous occasion, his reasons for using TermWiki, and what his favorite TermWiki features are. On behalf of the entire TermWiki Community, thanks again Raúl for all your hard work!

Here at CSOFT, we’re excited. Sure, it’s Friday. We’ve had a fantastic lunch. The sun outside is shining, hints of spring in the air. But that’s not all we have to be excited about….

You see, TermWiki is about to hit its one millionth term. One millionth! So yes, we are excited! Stop on by to check out the countdown.

To all of you who have contributed, translated, believed in us; all who are now certified TermWiki-heads, who have offered us your advice, feedback and constructive criticism; all who see the potential in TermWiki, who have told a friend about TermWiki, who have been with us from the very beginning or just since yesterday…

… to you, our biggest thank you, one million times over. We couldn’t have done it without you, and we appreciate your effort more than you can imagine.

With developments in collaborative and cloud-based technologies, collaboration within the workplace has seen immense growth over the last decade. We at CSOFT are huge supporters of this concept, collaborating daily in production, for deliverables, and to generate new ideas on how to make life easier for our clients. TermWiki, the localization industry’s first online collaborative terminology management portal, and ReviewIT, a web-based platform for collaborative translation review and validation, attest to this.

We’re not the only ones who support collaborative practices. Last November, Google, with help from market research firm Future Foundation, produced the Google Decisive Decade Report, which explores reasons why this growth in collaboration will continue on in this next decade.

Over 3500 employees from France, Germany, Japan, UK and USA were surveyed and interviewed about how technology currently influences the way they interact and generate ideas, and how they believe this will change in the workplaces of 2020.

John Yunker co-founded Byte Level Research in 2000. Over the years he has worked with a wide range of Fortune 500 companies and most recently worked as a senior program manager at Microsoft. He has also written a number of landmark reports, including The Web Globalization Report Card.

John recently launched Byte Level Books, a new press dedicated to publishing books on translation and globalization. Passionate about animal rights, John is also the author of The Tourist Trail. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter!

CSOFT was fortunate to recently sit down with John Yunker to get his perspective on web globalization. In our interview with John, he shares what he believes are some of the biggest challenges in web globalization, how social networking has played a supporting role in the crowdsourcing revolution, and some tips for succeeding in going global.

You were one of the first to study the web on a global level. How has this field of study developed over the years?

John: Seven years ago, I could count on one hand the number of web sites that supported 30 or more languages. Today, there are more than 70 web sites that support 30 or more languages. We’ve quickly moved away from a period in time when you needed to convince companies why they needed to make their web sites global. Now the focus is on how to go global most effectively.