Multilingual eBook Conversion

[DaleDe]

There is a new wiki page started by a reader called Multilingual eBook Conversion that opens an interesting idea that deserves some discussion. I am thinking about make a few pages to augment this page. Does anyone else think this is intriguing? What do you guys think? Is automation good enough to play a role?

Dale

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

There is a new wiki page started by a reader called Multilingual eBook Conversion that opens an interesting idea that deserves some discussion. I am thinking about make a few pages to augment this page. Does anyone else think this is intriguing? What do you guys think? Is automation good enough to play a role?

Dale

@Dale:

I think that there's some confusion here. Of the listed businesses--as this seems to be primarily a promotional page, aimed at drumming up business--only ONE actually has translation services. The rest are just ebook production companies, like mine. Most producers have the capacity, or are willing to undertake, conversion IN other languages, which is not the same as conversion TO other languages. My itty-bitty company, for example, does books in Italian, French, German, Romanian, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese--to name a few. That should not be conflated with translation services.

I think that the page could be interesting--but it should be clarified that translation is a very specific area of expertise, and it's most certainly not a budget operation. The last time I looked, the one biz on that list that actually does offer translation--which, BTW, does NOT include preparing the book for print or digital publishing--ran $0.17USD/word, to the simpler romance languages like Spanish, and went UP from there. Thus, if the typical 100K word Fantasy novel needed translation to Spanish, let's say, it's a $17,000.00USD (Seventeen THOUSAND dollars US) investment. That's an awful lot of moolah.

You have to be reasonably sure that you're going to sell a hell of a lot of books, to cover that cost.

Offered FWIW.

Hitch

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

There is a new wiki page started by a reader called Multilingual eBook Conversion that opens an interesting idea that deserves some discussion.

BTW, GrannyGrump has created a beautiful Mark Twain book with multilingual quotes in many exotic languages (e.g. Cuneiform and Hieroglyphics), which uses an obscure ADE/RMSDK feature to display images on ADE/RMSDK readers and the actual text on all other readers.)

In my experience, creating books in languages that don't use the Latin alphabet usually only requires setting the correct language codes/direction attributes and embedding suitable fonts. Obviously, book creators also need to be familiar with typography conventions. E.g., French books require Guillemets (« ») and non-breaking (thin) spaces before colons, semicolons, questions marks and exclamation marks.

However, books that contain Indic, RTL and CJK characters are usually only supported by epub3 readers/apps and current Kindle models/apps. (Kindles and Kindle apps have always supported CJK characters and Amazon recently added Indic Noto fonts to the Kindle firmware and the Kindle apps.)

Originally Posted by Hitch

Of the listed businesses--as this seems to be primarily a promotional page, aimed at drumming up business--only ONE actually has translation services.

I also got the impression that the page is primarily aimed at drumming up business.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

BTW, GrannyGrump has created a beautiful Mark Twain book with multilingual quotes in many exotic languages (e.g. Cuneiform and Hieroglyphics), which uses an obscure ADE/RMSDK feature to display images on ADE/RMSDK readers and the actual text on all other readers.)

In my experience, creating books in languages that don't use the Latin alphabet usually only requires setting the correct language codes/direction attributes and embedding suitable fonts. Obviously, book creators also need to be familiar with typography conventions. E.g., French books require Guillemets (« ») and non-breaking (thin) spaces before colons, semicolons, questions marks and exclamation marks.

However, books that contain Indic, RTL and CJK characters are usually only supported by epub3 readers/apps and current Kindle models/apps. (Kindles and Kindle apps have always supported CJK characters and Amazon recently added Indic Noto fonts to the Kindle firmware and the Kindle apps.)



I also got the impression that the page is primarily aimed at drumming up business.

Yea, I agree. But pages that offer services are allowed in the wiki so long as it is obvious. We have dedicated pages for this and providing links can be useful for people looking for the service. I began a second page about the technology of conversion as different from translation. The art is getting better but probably not totally there yet.

Dale

[Doitsu]

@DaleDe: I've got a link for your locked Multilingual eBook topic:

Aglona Reader free Android/Windows app for parallel books.

Also, it might be helpful to investigate which readers/apps actually support books that don't use the Latin alphabet. Based on my limited research, the best options are Kindles, PocketBooks and Kobos:

Kindle readers/apps: both apps and readers come with code2000 as a universal fallback font and can display most languages covered by the the Unicode 5.2 standard.
Amazon also bundled some CJK and Indic fonts with all current models and apps and 2 Arabic fonts with the current iOS and Android apps.

PocketBook: PocketBook readers support Greek, Hebrew and Arabic, many Eastern-European languages (e.g. Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh and Georgian) and CJK.

Kobo: Kobos come with an epub3-compatible rendering engine and should be able to display all non-Latin alphabets in kepub books properly, if a suitable font is embedded or installed on the device. Kobos also have built-in support for Japanese.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

@DaleDe: I've got a link for your locked Multilingual eBook topic:

Aglona Reader free Android/Windows app for parallel books.

Also, it might be helpful to investigate which readers/apps actually support books that don't use the Latin alphabet. Based on my limited research, the best options are Kindles, PocketBooks and Kobos:

Kindle readers/apps: both apps and readers come with code2000 as a universal fallback font and can display most languages covered by the the Unicode 5.2 standard.
Amazon also bundled some CJK and Indic fonts with all current models and apps and 2 Arabic fonts with the current iOS and Android apps.

PocketBook: PocketBook readers support Greek, Hebrew and Arabic, many Eastern-European languages (e.g. Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh and Georgian) and CJK.

Kobo: Kobos come with an epub3-compatible rendering engine and should be able to display all non-Latin alphabets in kepub books properly, if a suitable font is embedded or installed on the device. Kobos also have built-in support for Japanese.

All good ideas.

Dale

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Hitch

@Dale:

I think that there's some confusion here. Of the listed businesses--as this seems to be primarily a promotional page, aimed at drumming up business--only ONE actually has translation services. The rest are just ebook production companies, like mine. Most producers have the capacity, or are willing to undertake, conversion IN other languages, which is not the same as conversion TO other languages. My itty-bitty company, for example, does books in Italian, French, German, Romanian, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese--to name a few. That should not be conflated with translation services.

I think that the page could be interesting--but it should be clarified that translation is a very specific area of expertise, and it's most certainly not a budget operation. The last time I looked, the one biz on that list that actually does offer translation--which, BTW, does NOT include preparing the book for print or digital publishing--ran $0.17USD/word, to the simpler romance languages like Spanish, and went UP from there. Thus, if the typical 100K word Fantasy novel needed translation to Spanish, let's say, it's a $17,000.00USD (Seventeen THOUSAND dollars US) investment. That's an awful lot of moolah.

You have to be reasonably sure that you're going to sell a hell of a lot of books, to cover that cost.

Offered FWIW.

Hitch

What I think is going on is that they are using translation software and then providing a language expert?? to proof read the document and make obvious corrections. This is not true translation but it is conversion. Using a program to convert a language to another language has been ruled as not a true translation since there was no creativity involved and thus is not copyrightable separately. I need to do more research into this.

This is, of course, different from binging able to make a book already translated in a foreign language.

Dale

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

What I think is going on is that they are using translation software and then providing a language expert?? to proof read the document and make obvious corrections. This is not true translation but it is conversion. Using a program to convert a language to another language has been ruled as not a true translation since there was no creativity involved and thus is not copyrightable separately. I need to do more research into this.

This is, of course, different from binging able to make a book already translated in a foreign language.

Dale

Without getting into the nitty-gritty, I KNOW that at least one of those businesses doesn't even do that. They simply mean what most of us mean--yes, we'll convert eBooks in languages other than what we ourselves speak or read. I strongly suspect the others, other than the one that does provide actual translation services (for the mentioned price) mean the same thing, too--you bring us a book in BingyLingyWingy, we'll convert it. That's it.

Hitch

[gmw]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

There is a new wiki page started by a reader called Multilingual eBook Conversion that opens an interesting idea that deserves some discussion. I am thinking about make a few pages to augment this page. Does anyone else think this is intriguing? What do you guys think? Is automation good enough to play a role?

Dale

Formatting an ebook written in some language other than English is never going to apply to me. I might have an intellectual interest/curiosity in knowing what some of the issues are - any distraction is a good distraction - but I have no vested interest.

Automated language translation is an interesting idea - although this isn't necessarily ebook specific. But I don't think I'd trust it, not on its own. I can imagine that an automated translation, which is then edited by someone conversant in that language, could conceivably provide some overall time saving ... maybe. But that's the thing, I don't really know enough about other languages to have any idea of the issues.

I do think that automated translation into speech (audio book) is a related* but more achievable objective with current technology levels. I've seen how it works, and while direct conversion is not perfect there are ways to instruct the voice software to adjust itself dynamically - so distributing ebooks ready-to-be-read in a voice of the reader's choosing is well within current capabilities.


* I see it as related because there is a contextual aspect to both that automation will have difficulty encapsulating - at least until a learning Artificial Intelligence is brought to bear on this.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Hitch

The last time I looked, the one biz on that list that actually does offer translation--which, BTW, does NOT include preparing the book for print or digital publishing--ran $0.17USD/word, to the simpler romance languages like Spanish, and went UP from there.

That's the "agency rate." Depending on the language, you might get slightly better rates by using freelancer websites such as ProZ.com or TranslatorsCafé.com.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

What I think is going on is that they are using translation software and then providing a language expert?? to proof read the document and make obvious corrections.

I don't think that any of the providers actually use machine translation tools since post-editing machine-translated texts usually isn't worth the effort, unless the languages are closely related (e.g. Portuguese and Spanish or German and Dutch) or the source text was written in a controlled language.

Moreover, many translators refuse to post-edit machine-translated texts.

It looks like the companies listed on the Wiki page primarily specialize in multilingual format shifting.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

That's the "agency rate." Depending on the language, you might get slightly better rates by using freelancer websites such as ProZ.com or TranslatorsCafé.com.

Yes, I should have mentioned that. I guess the entire topic sort of gets on my nerves, because it's a never-ending topic, in the various and sundry author forums--"How can I get my book translated, should I use Google Translate?," and so on, with people having absurdist ideas about what "translation" should cost.

Spoiler:

(One thing I've certainly learnt in this line of work is that authors and publishers seem to have an exceedingly low value appreciation for anyone else's work but their own.)

I don't think that any of the providers actually use machine translation tools since post-editing machine-translated texts usually isn't worth the effort, unless the languages are closely related (e.g. Portuguese and Spanish or German and Dutch) or the source text was written in a controlled language.

Moreover, many translators refuse to post-edit machine-translated texts.

It looks like the companies listed on the Wiki page primarily specialize in multilingual format shifting.

I'm quite certain that NOBODY of any repute whatsoever uses Machine translation, and I don't know of any translators of any repute that would even consider doing a "clean-up" on a machine-translated file. Why would they? It's like cleaning up someone else's work, in an eBook--takes you longer to figure out what they were trying to do, find the errors and fix them, than to just make the book right in the first place.

Hitch

[mitford13]

Sweartogod I once saw two authors in a Goodreads forum discussing that they both thought that when they uploaded their books to KDP in other Amazon countries the books would somehow come out in those other sites’ languages. Sorta linguistic sausagemaking...

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by mitford13

Sweartogod I once saw two authors in a Goodreads forum discussing that they both thought that when they uploaded their books to KDP in other Amazon countries the books would somehow come out in those other sites’ languages. Sorta linguistic sausagemaking...

Oh, I see this all the time! Hilarious.

Hitch