Languages

Are You Using Hybrid Localisation for Your Business?

Want your message to travel the world and still feel local wherever it lands? Hybrid localisation is your combo of machine smarts and human flair. Think of it as AI doing the heavy lifting while people add the sparkle.

Whether it’s a website, computer game or product description, hybrid localisation makes sure your message doesn’t just cross borders, it makes it land with style. Fast, flexible, and surprisingly witty, it’s the modern way to speak everyone’s language (without sounding like a robot).

The AI translation space is expanding with lots of buzz, particularly when it comes to multilingual large language models (LLMs). These systems are developed to be advanced, finely tuned, and trained on massive datasets across hundreds of languages. They promise to do everything from streamlining global communication to expanding your profit as your business enters new markets. But now that AI isn’t a novel side tool but something that’s embedded into everything from product development to customer service, it’s time to think about its ability to find nuance and retain cultural sensitivity. Yes, multilingual LLMs can scale quickly, but what about their quality, ethics, and impact on local cultures?

Here’s a look at how LLMs are changing the future of translation and localisation and where they offer true innovation or streamline irreplaceable human input.

What Are Multilingual LLMs?

We built and programmed LLMs, or large language models, to understand and generate human-sounding text. However, LLMs aren’t just Google Translate or DeepL. These tools can convert text between two different languages, but they provide more of a verbatim translation that doesn’t consider the context, nuance, or culture.

You can train LLMs like GPT-4, Gemini and Claude, for more accurate translations with vast collections of texts in multiple languages. They can then use the data and information to translate, summarise, rephrase, or generate content across hundreds of languages. LLMs are highly versatile and can “reason” or parse style guides to switch tone for different audiences and sometimes brush up against the basics of cultural context to produce content that sounds fluent.

Multilingual LLMs and Translation Workflows

With AI’s evolution and multilingual capabilities, it’s only natural to consider how it can be used for translation workflows, localisation, interpretation, etc. Here’s a breakdown of some of its capabilities and limitations.

1. Quickly Draft Low-Risk Content

LLMs are adept at reducing the time spent on generating first and sometimes second drafts. If you have internal communications, memos, knowledge base articles or customer service replies, multilingual LLMs can help, especially in high-volume use cases. If a perfect translation isn’t absolutely necessary, you can use a tool like ChatGPT and get by just fine.

You can also take that first draft that your go-to LLM generated and pass it onto a human for editing. Known as MT post-editing, you get the benefit of the speed and organisation of an LLM and the personalised touch of a human. It’s a win-win.

2. Get Fast Turnarounds for Time-Sensitive Material

What if you need a quick translation? LLMs expedite crisis communications, product recalls, and live event updates within minutes. If speed is absolutely crucial, implementing an LLM can significantly transform your business. You’ll buy yourself valuable time and create a solid foundation to start from, even if you pass on your communications to a human editor.

3. Casually Test Long-Tail Markets

Your business probably has a budget for localisation and transcreation programmes for a handful of core languages. But what about those long-tail languages, including Malay, Swahili, or Ukrainian? You can still test those markets without a significant budget expenditure with the help of an LLM. If you’re not creating sensitive materials or need deep nuance and cultural sensitivity, you can start slow with an LLM to test the market for regional growth.

That’s where the limitations of LLMs lie. It’s still crucial to pass materials to a native-speaking editor and translator to review everything before going live or expanding your marketing any further. Otherwise, you could end up damaging your brand.

When Do You Still Need Human Translators?

LLMs are impressive and have made rapid gains, but there are also some overwhelming technical and strategic limitations to consider.

1. Transcreation and Emotionally Intelligent Copywriting

LLMs can handle a headline translation or come up with some basic marketing copy in another language. But it cannot localise humour, cultural nuance, idioms, sarcasm, emotional intelligence, or the pacing of a product launch. Native speakers and transcreation experts are skilled at adapting a message for another language and culture. It’s more than just translating one word to another. If you don’t master the subtext, you risk failing in a market before gaining any real momentum.

2. Accuracy and Compliance in Regulated Industries

Mistranslation is more than an embarrassment or inconvenience—it can have legal consequences or harm public safety. LLMs will tell you themselves that they can make mistakes and “hallucinate”. They are known to insert false information and tell you with overwhelming confidence that it’s completely correct. Healthcare, law, finance, and government sectors may require NAATI-certified translations, or ISO or GDPR compliance. Using AI tools as anything but support in these industries is more than foolish. It’s imperative to use a human translator, especially when regulatory language is involved.

3. Contextual Consistency Across Projects

LLMs also don’t remember what you worked on previously unless you give them the context every time. In other words, they struggle with consistency across a long-term project. They won’t remember your brand voice, terminology, or style guide unless you give them more information. Occasionally they’ll remember certain aspects of your tone and how you want to work, but it’s highly unreliable and risky to rely on LLMs as an arm of your team. It makes more sense to use an LLM as part of an overall departmental ecosystem than as a standalone tool.

Creating Hybrid Workflows

Localisation teams aren’t ignoring the fact that AI has arrived and can be useful. Instead, forward-thinking teams are creating hybrid workflows, combining human translators, interpreters, transcreation experts, LLMs, and other automation tools to maximise their productivity and accuracy. Here are some examples of use cases.

LLM generates a first draft before being sent to subject matter experts and licenced translators for editing and accuracy.
An automation tool briefly summarises a document for quick internal use instead of spending resources tapping an interpreter to translate it.
LLMs use the document to create marketing materials using different tones and cadences, depending on the market and whether it should be formal or casual.
A human transcreation expert digs deeper into the text to create a more nuanced approach to the campaign.
AI looks over the finished materials and creates a brief for an internal meeting, recording it for stakeholders who can’t be there.
Stakeholders decide which parts of the project are low-risk and can be AI-supported to free up time and budget.

The goal is to use AI to streamline the process and take out the tedious aspects of a project. However, substituting the human element with AI exposes your business to potential brand damage and legal risks.

Risks to Relying on AI

Even if you feel confident in using AI and think your projects are low risk, there are still some dangers to using LLMs.

1. Data Privacy and IP Risks

Did you know that when you upload documents to public AI tools to translate them, you could be exposing sensitive or confidential information? Many AI tools save and reuse the data they’re given to improve their models. You may be violating client confidentiality and breaking the terms of your contract without even realising it.

2. Language Bias

LLMs rely on the data they receive to undergo training. If they aren’t as familiar with underrepresented languages or language variants that have less content online, you may end up with poor results filled with errors and poor phrasing. The consequence? You could encounter a world of ethical concerns. Not knowing how well the documents were translated, you could be giving marginalised communities incorrect information without giving it a second thought.

3. Fluency Bias

LLMs sound incredibly fluent even when they’re entirely wrong and hallucinating. They may sound factual, tell you where they found the information, and have perfect grammar but are providing a document riddled with errors. As a result, you develop fluency bias, believing that something is correct simply because it sounds right. Meanwhile, a trained, licenced translator can quickly spot mistranslations, ambiguous phrasing, and cultural mismatches.

AI Can Augment, But Not Replace, the Human.

Multilingual, large language models are powerful and already shaping how teams approach localisation. They can make the way we work faster, more scalable, and more accessible across even remote languages. But translation isn’t just a mechanical process. It’s also cultural, contextual, and relational.

The question we should be asking isn’t whether or not the future is about choosing between humans and AI. It’s about how we should optimise our workflows to leverage the strengths of AI and bridge the gaps. We still need human translators for clarity, tone, accuracy and trust. AI can’t replace that. When used properly, LLMs help you deliver at scale while freeing up your human talent to focus on the work machines still can’t do.

Veerle Vanderplasschen

How Outsourcing Corporate Translation Services Impacts Your Bottom Line

If you think you’re saving your company time, money, and resources by trying to handle your corporate translation services in-house, you could be compromising your bottom line. Quality translation and transcreation services use qualified, native speakers who also consider the culture and tone of your translation needs. When you try to do it all on your own, you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to connect with your target audience. Or worse, you could be making serious errors and compromising your brand’s reputation. Learn more about why outsourcing translation isn’t just nice to have but a must for your corporation’s bottom line.

1) Lower Your Company’s Costs

Whether you have a translator in the office or rely on bilingual employees, managing corporate translation services internally can quickly become overwhelming. You’re also allocating precious time and resources to translate documents, presentations, video scripts, and other assets instead of outsourcing everything to the pros. A reliable corporate translation company also eliminates the need for an in-house translator that commands a salary and other benefits. Instead, you can use those resources on areas of your business that need it most, like your sales or marketing department.

2) Get Access to Specialised Expertise

What happens if your business wants to expand into new markets, attract new business, or needs a specialised area of expertise? A bilingual speaker on staff is not the same as using a professional, certified translation service. The team at Absolute Translations works with hundreds of skilled, qualified translators across multiple industries, including

Agribusiness
Media & Advertising
Science & Technology
Mining & Engineering
Healthcare & Medicine
Law, Legal & Community
IT & Software Development

Relying on online tools will only get you so far. Free software and online programs aren’t as reliable as using a qualified translator. Free online software also compromises privacy and can put your business at risk. Anything you put into these tools can easily be accessed and potentially breach client contracts. Our translators are certified and use industry best practices, whether they’re localising content, offering onsite interpreting, or subtitling and captioning your corporate videos.

What if you don’t have sensitive documents and rely on machines and free software? We can also assign human proofreaders to ensure your AI-generated corporate translations are accurate and ready for public consumption.

3) Get Faster Turn-Around Times

Whether you’re pitching a new client or working with stakeholders, you need translations with quick turnaround times or real-time professional translation services. Working with a team member in-house can quickly lead to delays and errors and result in lost business. Our real-time services convey the same style and tone of your meetings, conferences, and more with a focus on resonating with your target audience.

4) Avoid Costly Errors

What happens if one of your employees or an amateur translator misunderstands your sensitive documents? Translation and transcreation services are not an exact science, but they do require a combination of native fluency, cultural understanding, and industry expertise. Our translators strive for accuracy and quality without dragging down productivity and turnaround times. Whether you’re working on design templates, voice-overs, subtitling, staging sites, or documents, we make sure all translations are integrated correctly and accurately for high-quality work you can trust.

5) Protect Your Corporate Brand

What if your translation needs aren’t critical enough to need someone to review contracts and other industry-specific documents? Even if your business doesn’t need to translate sensitive materials, you still need a quality service to protect your corporate brand. Imagine releasing social media content, email newsletters, and marketing materials with multiple errors, cultural insensitivities, and oversights. Investing in corporate translation services is about protecting and enhancing your corporate brand, no matter what industry you work in.

6) Build Trust in New Markets

If you’re thinking about expanding into new markets, it’s vital to build trust as soon as possible. Don’t chance your growing brand voice with amateur translation services. The team at Absolute Translations meticulously reviews and checks their work through a peer-review process. Our reviewers check for accuracy, fluency, consistency, cultural suitability, grammar, spelling, tone of voice, register, and format.

When the review is complete, we send it back to our trusted translators to review the changes and carefully assess the accuracy and flow. The results? Your translation comes back flawless and reflects the language and culture of the market, establishing your company as a trusted voice.

7) Scale Your Business Faster

When you want to earn more revenue, scale your business, and move into new markets faster, there’s no cutting corners with professional translation. Our services work with state-of-the-art translation technology to keep you on budget and move through projects quickly, but without compromising on quality. Instead of relying on an internal team member to manage your corporate translation services, our system seamlessly integrates across different workflows through a secure server. You can also use our convenient portal to request new translations, approve quotes, and track the status or download completed files. It cuts down on the back and forth and gives you more control over your translations.

Ready to Outsource Your Corporate Translation Services?

If you’re ready to start outsourcing your corporate translation services we’re here to help. Absolute Translations offers language translation services with certified native-speaking experts in technical, legal, creative, and corporate fields. With over 250 languages and dialects to choose from, we also offer live conferencing, voice-over, subtitling, and multimedia translation by experienced talents. Or request our website localisation that integrates with your CMS for fast, cost-effective updates. We also offer the best transcreation services in the industry to make sure your brand messaging resonates across cultures. Ready to get started? Request a quote today!

Exploring the Crucial Role of Translation Services in Crisis Management

Photograph of a lady wearing a rain poncho and standing in the rain in the middle of a flooded road.

2022 was a tough year for everyone living in Australia.

From floods to fires to storms to public health crises, disasters have hit across the country at a rate that shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. As a widely multicultural, yet primarily English-speaking country, Australia’s many recent disasters have revealed one major crack in our emergency response systems: it is catered to English-speaking individuals.

A good number of Australians don’t speak English at home, making preparation and response to disasters much harder for them. While community groups often do life-saving work in these situations, they are typically lacking in funding, poorly equipped, and not properly trained to handle disasters. So what can be done in terms of crisis management? And what should authorities put their focus towards for best results? Let’s discuss.

Recognising and Addressing Language Barriers

Around 23% of Australians surveyed in the 2021 census speak a primary language other than English in their homes. Most have some capacity for English (reading, writing, speaking, or listening), but fluency isn’t always common in their communities. For these people, navigating an English-speaking world is difficult enough during their normal day-to-day life — imagine what it could be like during a catastrophic flood or damaging hailstorm.

Adapting the Messaging

Public transport is one clear example. Many non-English speakers navigate public transport by memorising signs, symbols, or landmarks, rather than reading maps or listening to announcements. For this reason, many high-traffic public transport hubs in Australia, like central bus or train stations, have upgraded to digital signage that cycles through languages as a way to keep all passengers informed. This is a fantastic development in community awareness over the last few years, and we applaud it. During a crisis situation, however, these communications can be left by the wayside — potentially endangering lives. Many transport authorities (indeed, authorities of any kind) are likely to release English-only emergency communications that won’t register to those who aren’t fluent.

A Slow Read During Urgent Times

Imagine trying to understand this cyclone advice graphic if it was in a language you didn’t read fluently:

Image of a tropical cyclone warning explainer by the Bureau of Meteorology featuring two levels, Watch and Warning.

That’s a complex image for fluent English speakers, let alone English-as-a-second-language speakers. Between uncommon words like “onset”, “gales”, and “occurring”, and the non-linear formatting, it takes effort to decipher the exact meaning — effort that, in the middle of a disaster, cannot be afforded.

This is what most non-English speakers have to face during disasters, and it can be extremely stressful trying to organise your own translation from the community or family members, in order to know what to do. One of the first steps that authorities who publish disaster warnings can take to help non-English readers is to use the simplest, clearest English and formatting possible. This drastically reduces translation times and also any stress placed on non-English-speaking locals.

Disaster Preparedness

To mitigate the effects of emergency situations before they happen, non-English speakers and their community groups can encourage local councils to include them in disaster preparations. Forecasts predict that the current pace of weather and health crises will not slow down, so getting ahead of things can make a world of difference. Both local and federal government websites across Australia offer natural disaster preparedness guides and some local councils already understand the need for translation. For instance, we worked with local councils in Queensland to translate their Disaster Management leaflets in a wide range of languages, including preparing multilingual voice-overs for radio ads and website voice alerts. However, many councils still have no solution for acute life-threatening disaster response for their culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Translation software might be available on the users’ end (think Google Translate), but it relies on infrastructure like an internet connection that may not be available in the midst of a natural disaster. If possible, community groups should advocate for their governments to engage language professionals for their urgent disaster response communications and plans and let their community know where to access them.

Leveraging the Media

Speaking of plans, one action that governments can take to help prevent unnecessary harm during disasters is to work alongside the media outlets that already service the minority communities in their area. Whether that’s a small TV or radio station (Radio 4EB, in Brisbane, is an example) a newspaper, a text message alert service, a WhatsApp group, or a social media channel, every community has its ways of using media to keep up-to-date with current events. The people working with these media often already have a great deal of experience taking English information and distributing it to their non-English-speaking community. Minority-run media channels are a great resource for governments and disaster response organisations to utilise when preparing for catastrophic events. They have a lot of expertise to offer outside of disaster scenarios too.

With the summer forecasted to be hot and dry and with bushfires, flash floods, and powerful storms all on the docket, Australian authorities can learn from the past year’s disasters and make sure language services are available to all. Translators, both human and digital, are great resources in general, and more so in moments of crisis, but can’t be everywhere at once. Crisis Management is about being proactive and prepared. That’s why preparedness is the number one goal for disaster response, and translation, as well as other language services like voice-over, should be central to that goal in order to protect everyone during times of crisis — no matter which language they speak.

How to Boost Migrants’ Quality of Life with Language

Photo of a family featuring a mother, father and daughter, illustrating Absolute Translation's blog on language technology and its positive impact for migrants

When people move away from their place of birth and into a country where they don’t speak the national language, integrating into that new society can be a real struggle. The language barrier can cause migrants to lose out on employment opportunities, have their access to social groups restricted, and even endanger their lives in the event of a natural disaster or a medical emergency. While most governments provide language learning options for incoming migrants, the providers of those services can be inflexible in their accessibility. So how can authorities lower the language barrier and prove their countries to be a safe and welcoming new home for migrants in the modern day?

Access to the Community

Integration is a multifaceted and inter-directional process, but language is one of the biggest barriers hampering a migrant’s access to their desired communities. While many migrants gravitate towards communities where their own native language is spoken, such as expatriate clubs or similar social groups, social acceptance in the broader society of the region they’ve migrated to requires a working knowledge of the local language.

In a 2020 study of non-European immigrants to Sweden, the study participants felt that learning Swedish was important for them in understanding Swedish culture, and in being socially accepted by native Swedes. Their sense of belonging within Swedish society was directly tied to their fluency with the Swedish language. When they spoke their native languages (mostly English, which is also widely spoken by native Swedes), they felt that they were judged as ‘outsiders’ — unless an immigrant can speak the language of their new home, they won’t be accepted into native speakers’ social circles. Instead, they will gravitate towards other immigrants who speak their preferred language.

One large benefit of immigrants learning the language of their host country is representation. Through fluency, immigrant groups are able to properly advocate for their legal, social, and cultural rights, which allows them to maintain their own identities while still integrating into their host country. This leads to greater strengths in cultural diversity, anti-discrimination policies, and the social image of migrant groups.

Access to Employment

In a 2019 interview with Caritas Europa, Migration Policy Institute associate policy analyst Aliyyah Ahad said “Language is tied to employment and to the quality of that employment; the better the language skill the more likely a newcomer will have access to good jobs…”

Migrants are often under pressure to get employed, due to a number of reasons ranging from covering their living costs, to sending money to family back home, to displaying a willingness to contribute to their host society.

Although many migrants are highly skilled, if they are unable to confidently communicate their knowledge, those skills will go to waste.

Ahad emphasises care in allowing newcomers to learn until fluency, rather than forcing the quickest entry into employment — this is not just to the immigrant’s benefit, but also to the host country’s. “Gains to the GDP will be the most obvious [benefit], as a result of increasing the productivity of the country by making use of the talents and skills that are within the territory,” Ahad states.

In a 2011 report on using specific language instruction styles to boost immigrants’ employment prospects, the Migration Policy Institute recommended that policymakers:

Expand language instruction that is contextualised for workplace use.
Combine language and skills training.
Encourage partnerships and work with employees.
Encourage workplace-based instructions.
Take into account the needs of nontraditional students.
Evaluate programs and share and support effective practices.

Access to Care

As many medical procedural TV series have shown us, one of the most dangerous places to find a language barrier is in a hospital. If a patient and medical professional can’t adequately communicate, it can lead to misdiagnosis or extended delays in treatment, and subsequently severe complications to the patient’s health. This has been accentuated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as border closures and rapid changes to procedure caused miscommunications even among those who share a native language.

Similarly, as we in eastern Australia have recently learned, information dissemination during times of natural disaster relies on language fluency. If an immigrant is not aware of their host country’s channels for reporting local disasters — or if their fluency is too low to properly understand — they can be in very real danger of harm, or worse.

In these instances, technological innovations are often the quickest (if not the cleanest) solution. By applying foreign language subtitles to television broadcasts, hosts and migrants can be on the same page in the event of a disaster. Similarly, personal real-time translators like those offered by companies like Timekettle or Pocketalk can be a boon when translation is needed instantly, like in medical contexts, though they will still miss out on some nuance. In order to get the clearest translations, we believe having an in-person, trained interpreter is the best choice.

Fluency of a host country’s language is often the first step on the road to integration for a new immigrant, and for many it can be a hard hill to climb. When information is lost in translation, it can put people’s lives at risk. There are many communities of migrants in our modern, multicultural societies, and fluency can’t be expected to be equal amongst all of them. Instead, we need to have policies, technologies, and trained professionals which allow for adequate communication between peoples and authorities, and all the different levels of education and social integration seen among them.

The Value and Importance of Language Interpreting for Communities

Photo of a multicultural group of people - illustrating the blog post community and language interpreting, by Absolute Translations.

Language interpreting is a critical tool for fostering human connections, promoting integration, and ensuring safety. In today’s globalized world, the ability to communicate across language barriers is essential for building bridges and fostering understanding between people of different backgrounds.

At its core, language interpreting is about facilitating communication. By providing a link between speakers of different languages, interpreters help to ensure that everyone can be heard and understood. This is especially important in settings where language barriers are barriers to understanding and as such prevent people from accessing essential services or information.

One of the key ways that language interpreting promotes human connections is by facilitating dialogue between people who might not otherwise be able to communicate. For example, interpreters can play a crucial role in mediating discussions between individuals or groups with different cultural backgrounds. By providing a neutral and impartial platform for communication, interpreters can help bridge the gap between individuals and promote understanding and collaboration.

In addition to facilitating communication, language interpreting is also important for promoting integration. In many cases, language barriers can create a sense of isolation and disconnection for individuals who are unable to communicate with others in their community. Interpreters can help bridge this gap by providing a vital link between individuals and the broader community. By facilitating communication and promoting understanding, interpreters can help build stronger and more inclusive communities.

Language interpreting is crucial for ensuring safety in a variety of settings. In emergency situations, for instance, interpreters can play a crucial role in facilitating communication between first responders and individuals who do not speak the local language. By providing a clear and accurate translation of vital information, interpreters can help to ensure that everyone has access to the information they need to stay safe.

Furthermore, language interpreting is critical for supporting overall interconnections in a globalized world. In today’s interconnected society, the ability to communicate across language barriers is essential for building relationships, fostering understanding, and promoting collaboration. By facilitating communication and promoting understanding, interpreters play a vital role in supporting the interconnectedness of our world.

In conclusion, language interpreting is a valuable and important tool for fostering human connections, promoting integration, ensuring safety, and supporting overall human collaboration. By facilitating communication and promoting understanding, interpreters play a crucial role in building bridges and fostering a more inclusive and interconnected world.