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Our goal is to provide you with in-depth knowledge regarding localization.

Learn how CMS localization can boost your online presence, expand your reach, and optimize for international success with our informative article.

CMSs: industry state and how to localize them best

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Localization Blog

Our blog often discusses tools that will make your localization accurate and high-quality. Rarely do we mention the second important part of your success — the translation service agencies and localization companies that can deliver outstanding results. It's time to take a closer look at how to find the best translation agencies for your company and how Lingohub allows you to collaborate with them easily.


## Why do companies need localization translation companies?

Companies pursuing going global need to take a serious approach to the expertise of the translation/localization teams they work with. Finding the best translation agencies can be time-consuming, as well as assembling a professional in-house localization team, including translators, local experts, marketers who understand the new region perfectly, localization managers, etc. 

When do you need a localization service? 
1. If you want to enter new markets and be a solid player in them.
2. If you need to extend your influence on the new market.
3. If you're going to strengthen or remarket the brand identity.
 
The goals above can only be reached by localizing the business' web resources (not just translating), which requires an in-depth knowledge of the market and local expertise. 


## 10 tips on how to choose the translation and localization company? 

If you decide to go with a localization agency, you should do meticulous research to be sure you will find the top localization company on the market. We prepared a checklist that help in the decision-making process. 

**1. Native linguistic expertise.**
 Localization is a process that requires an understanding of all the language nuances, especially in sensitive industries or when adapting marketing content. Because of this, preference should be given to language service providers who collaborate with local linguists.

**2. Language variabilities.** 
One of the first options you must consider is which languages the localization company supports. Even if your target language is already on the list, it is worth thinking in advance. 
The reason is that you will collaborate with the agency for a long time, as localization is an ongoing task. In the future, if you need to find a contractor to localize your product for an additional market, it will be easier for you to work with a reliable company than find a new one and handle the processes with two separate agencies.

**3. Industry specialization.** 
High-tech or complex industries require an individual approach. The localization company can only adapt your project perfectly with a corresponding background. The most challenging sectors for localization are: 
- [Medical](/blog/medical-software-localization), pharmaceuticals and healthcare; 
- Legal;
- Tech and engineering;
- [Financial](/blog/how-localization-can-boost-fintech) and banking;
- Marketing and advertising;
- Gaming;
- [E-learning](/blog/how-to-localize-an-e-learning-product-challenges-and-best-practices);

If you have a unique area that localization agencies do not represent, prefer a company with vast experience in localizing complex industries more or less related to your product.

**4. Quality and quality assurance** 
The localized version of your products is the first touch point for new users and gives them the first impression of your business. Linguistic and spelling mistakes, outdated or wrong terminology, and incorrect or offensive visual materials will negatively affect users' experience and trust in you.
That's why it is essential to understand the following information:
- How does the localization company hire translators? Which expertise do their translators have?
- Do potential translators for your project have appropriate knowledge in the field? 
- How does the localization company control the translation quality?
- How does the localization agency manage the released issues if they miss them in the previous stages?

**5. Technology usage.** 
Modern CAT tools allow significant speeding up of localization. Ensure the company you want to collaborate with does its best to optimize the processes and is ready to use your solutions. For example, suppose you are already a Lingohub user. In that case, you can add as many external linguists from the agencies as you need or use the Lingohub XLIFF file format for convenient localization, content exchange and management. Ask if the language service provider is ready to use the tools that are new to them but convenient for you. 


> **Read more** --> Find a detailed overview of Lingohub XLIFF in the next paragraph. 

 
**6. Consider the type of product** 
When choosing the localization company, ensure they are familiar with the localization of your product's type. This tip is especially essential for industries like video games as their adaptation differs significantly from standard websites or e-commerce resources. 

**7. Client references and cases.** 
Ask for more information about clients' references and testimonials. Moreover, getting testimonials from clients with similar projects is more helpful, as they demonstrate the company's ability to meet specific industry requirements and challenges. Explore case studies in your industry, find possible pain points, and ask how these challenges were decided. A reliable localization company is eager to provide a successful problem-solving story as this is a marker of their expertise.

**8. Transparent pricing and timelines** 
An experienced company comprehensively understands the project's scope of tasks and timelines, so you will never buy the pig in a poke. They are ready to present transparent, detailed pricing structures without hidden fees. Before signing the contract, they can calculate realistic estimates for project timelines, including factors such as the complexity of the content, number of languages, etc.

**9. Responsive communication and support** 
Soft skills are just as crucial as hard skills in a localization setting. Localization agencies' ability to communicate promptly and in a friendly manner plays a crucial role in efficiently sharing feedback and updates and addressing any concerns or issues that may arise during the localization process. 

**10. Adaptability and flexibility** 
No matter how professional the localization company is, the business owner always has the last word and final responsibility. Ensure that people on the language service provider's side are ready to hear you and communicate with you regarding adjustments and improvements (not only about translation but the entire process.)
These ten points will provide you with the best contractors for your product localization, which is already 50% of the success. The second part of success is the selection of correct tech solutions for localization management. 


## How does Lingohub TMS help localization and translation companies collaborate?

Translation management software is the best option for keeping abreast of localization. You will see all progress, documentation, and edits and can be involved in adaptation management or fully coordinating it. 
At Lingohub, we provide comfortable ways to collaborate with external agencies and strengthen their translators with CAT tools. There are a few options.


### **1. Add the translators to your Lingohub company.** 

Based on the chosen pricing plan, you can add from 5 to unlimited translators. We also allow you to create a separate (unlimited) number of workspaces and projects to split the project files and translators into an isolated environment for convenient management. 
Your companies' team members can be managed separately from their individual access to their efforts and work reports. Independent of your chosen pricing plan, they will have access to all the powerful CAT features, such as machine translation, quality check suggestions, term base, style guides, etc. 


### **2. Work with localization agencies with Lingohub XLIFF support.** 

Of course, the best option for our customers is to add contractors to Lingohub to centralize all the data. However, sometimes this option is impossible as localization agencies cannot use Lingohub because of internal rules, etc. In this case, it will be helpful for you to explore the Lingohub XLIFF file format. 
Lingohub XLIFF is a platform-independent format for data exchange. Its main advantage is that our customers can import/export data and share it with agencies without affecting the file structure. The best thing is that Lingohub XLIFF is available for any project and can be generated in a few clicks. 


### **What else?**

Besides the two options above, we want to focus your attention on the management options that will allow your managers or the external localization manager to have all the data without manual reports' creating:
- Dashboard with the critical data;
- Projects' reports with status bars;
- Work logs;
- Automatically created cost reports;
- Text edits, API, and Audit logs;

Also, you can always enhance the translation team by translating or proofreading orders. For instance, if you need some text translated urgently, you have a few ways: 
- Fast rescheduling of your team load;
- Ask your localization company for an additional translator;
- Place the order in the Lingohub app, where it can be quickly taken into work. Moreover, without your involvement, our translators will have the project's related context information, like the style guide and term base. 


## Conclusion 

Perfect localization is a symbiosis of sequential and quality adaptation, which can be reached only by having a professional localization team and management tool that will cover the needs of all team members to speed up and automate the process. These parts will ensure the localized product quality is maintained. At Lingohub, we do our best to help companies work with their in-house translators to the same extent as localization and translation agencies, and we hope this article will help you find the best-fit team for your product. From our side, we will gladly provide more information for you during the short [demo call](/demo) and answer any questions you may have.

How can you select the best translation and localization company to improve efficiency? Check out our blog for more information.

How to choose the best translation and localization company to maximize efficiency?

How to choose the best translation and localization company

Today, we are talking about the cat — not the cat that wakes you up early with the pitter-patter of little paws, but the cat that can change everything in the translation process. 
Computer-assisted translation (CAT) or computer-assisted human translation (CAHT) tools are software designed to support translators in their work and speed up the entire process while removing manual tasks. This article overviews the best cat software, their types, abilities, and use cases. Learn below why CAT tools are the required puzzle of successful localization and translation processes and how to implement them best. 


## CAT tools in the industry. The main pros

Firstly, to highlight the importance of CAT tools in the localization and translation process, let's look at the CAT tool's figures and how their usage improves the process. 
Based on the <a href="https://go.proz.com/blog/cat-tool-use-by-translators-who-is-using" target="_blank" rel="noffolow"> survey </a>, 88% of translators use at least one CAT tool, and 76% use more than one. The most popular industries of expertise are:
1. Tech/Engineering - 34%
2. Business/Financial - 15%
3. Marketing - 12%

Such popularity is provoked by the fact that CAT tools have a list of advantages:
speeding up the translation process;
- ensuring the consistency of the content;
- keeping the quality at a high level;
- reducing manual tasks;
- improving productivity;
- and based on all the points above, they save time and money for customers, which also affects the increasing popularity of CAT in the industry.

But how is all of the above achieved? You will understand this better after you understand the types of CAT tools and their use cases. 


## What are CAT tools? Types overview

The types of CAT tools are variable, ranging from desktop applications to SaaS (Software as a Service) and hybrid platforms. Each of these solutions has pros and cons, catering to the support of the unique needs of businesses. The Lingohub team overviewed each option's strengths and weaknesses for a comprehensive analysis. 


### Desktop CAT tools
As the name shows, this software is installed directly on the users' computers and works locally and offline. 

**Pros**:
- Offline access to the data guarantees access to content even if the internet connection is lost;
- Data security as all information is stored locally; 
- Higher performance because the users can't be affected by the external servers or connection speed. 

**Cons**:
- Poor collaboration. Users have fewer options to work together in real time, which triggers the usage of additional communication tools and approaches. 
- Harder team scaling. Desktop CAT tools often imply using individual licenses and additional fees per each. Thus, the business should buy extra licenses for new team members. 
- Maintenance. The final app performance depends on the user's computer capacity. Translators should also handle updates, backups, and other maintenance tasks.
- Human mistakes. The data on users' computers can be stolen or destroyed by malware or system errors. 


### SaaS CAT tools
 
The cloud-based software available via browser or application interface. 

**Pros**:
- High accessibility. Your team can use any device with personal credentials, allowing more flexibility for when and where to work. 
- Real-time collaboration. With the SaaS CAT tool, team members can complete the project tasks simultaneously. 
- Flexible scalability. Often, SaaS solutions provide flexible pricing plans that can be easily switched. For instance, the [Lingohub Team plan](/pricing) allows adding up to 20 users, while the Business Plan does not limit seats. 
- Accounts management. Companies that use freelance translators' services and often change performers can create a "guest" account and share the credentials with new members. This is much more comfortable than asking new employees to install new software on their devices and take care of licensing.
- Support and automatic updates. With SaaS, users receive all the app updates automatically, often with instructions on using this or that new feature. 

**Cons**:
- Dependence on the Internet connection. The performers can work only with a stable connection. 
- Data security. Some industries/companies with sensitive data can't store it somewhere outside their perimeter. If your company has no such individual restrictions, you don't need to worry about data safety with Lingohub, as our [security](/security) policy ensures your data is safe.


### Hybrid CAT tools
A hybrid approach combines the previous two options when some features, such as text translation, can be available offline. It has pros and cons, the same as the approaches above, and individual peculiarities.

**Pros**:
- Availability. Hybrid CAT tools allow translators to do the work offline and synchronize the result after finding the connection.
- Data control. If some data should be stored locally, users can translate it into the desktop software and share it manually. 

**Cons**:
- Synchronization issues. Localization managers should pay more attention to task synchronization when some team members work offline to avoid translating the same texts.

So, when we discussed the main types of CAT translation tools, let's review what software we can precisely attribute to this group.


## Best CAT tools for translation work in 2024

**Translation Memory** (TM) is a feature that stores all the translations made for reuse in the future. 

- **TM purpose - speed increasing**. This tool aims to improve efficiency by reusing previously translated content. Using TM, the translators don't spend time on the same content, and the localization manager wouldn't recheck the same text twice.

**Style Guide** is a set of standards that describe the audience, preferred tone of voice, grammatical person, etc. 
- **Style Guide purpose - consistency keeping**. Having a prepared guideline, translators can work on the content and maintain a unified tone of voice and brand identity. 

**Quality Checking features** - are the tools that can monitor and identify errors automatically without human effort.
- **Quality Checks purpose - keeping quality and reducing human efforts**. Automated monitoring allows us to avoid issues such as double spacing, missing elements, etc. 

**Translation History** - a base that tracks all the changes through each text segment in the project(s.)

- **Translation History purpose - tracking text evolution** and **fast restoring**. Translation History allows a quick return to the previous versions in case of issues.

**Term base (glossary)** - the database that contains all the preferred projects' terms with their translations (if needed) in different languages. 
- **Term base purpose - keeping consistency.** No matter who will work on your project - in-house or freelance translators - they will use the same naming for all essential terms.

Based on all the above, we can say that CAT tools are focused on assisting translators with translation tasks, and during this goal, they increase the speed and quality of the process. It looks impressive, doesn't it? But when looking for the best option for the business, remember that CAT tools are targeted only at translators' work and don't cover translation and localization management tasks. If you need a system to help control the entire process, we suggest paying attention to the TMS (translation management system).


## CAT tools vs TMS. What's the difference?

The distinction between these terms sometimes needs to be clarified. For instance, users can see that both solutions have a term base or style guide abilities and wrongly think they are more or less the same. But these are two different products with two distinct purposes. 

As previously mentioned, computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools aid and support translators in their work. In turn, the TMS targets the management of translation projects, workflow, and automation, and TMS can contain, synchronize, and improve all of the CAT tool's abilities. 

For example, the Lingohub translation management system provides all the CAT tools mentioned in the previous paragraph and adds additional value by extending their functionality:
- [Translation Memory](/features/translation-memory) can be paired with the prefill feature, meaning all the repeated text segments can be filled out automatically in seconds.
- [Style Guide](/features/style-guide), in addition to the translators' support, affects the machine translation results. Hence, you will see the difference in the pre-translated text if you choose the formal or informal tone of voice, various connotations, etc.
- [Quality Checks](/features/quality-checks) by Lingohub warning about wrong terminology usage in addition to the more common placeholders, spaces, and lengths checking.
- [Translation History](/features/translation-history) is provided not only for translators but also for managers in a separate united report to see what was done for a specific period.
- [Term base](/features/term-base) (glossary) - automatically provides suggestions during editing and terms context (description and image.)

As you can see, all CAT tools inside Lingohub are closely related to each other and can provide valuable data for localization managers. Besides already described functions, Lingohub TMS allows:
- manage projects' progress with progress bars that show text segments' statuses;
- discuss the project-related questions in the interface;
- generate cost reports;
- integrate all popular repositories and applications to build continuous localization;
- use AI machine translation results;
- order translations and proofreading;
- and many more.

**TMS or CAT?** Consider what best suits your organization's needs. We advise avoiding splitting these systems and opting for an all-in-one solution. 
Our team hopes this article has helped you gain more information about the translation software market, particularly CAT tools. If you need more details about our CAT features and TMS abilities, contact the Lingohub team by scheduling a fast [demo call](/demo), and we will gladly provide it. Stay awesome!


Discover the top CAT (computer-assisted translation) tools of 2024. Gain valuable insights on how to use their power by visiting our blog. 

Top CAT (computer-assisted translation) tools in 2024 for translation

Websites are multipurpose tools for communication between businesses and customers. They commonly provide the maximum information about services and products, allow for the building of comprehensive e-commerce funnels, are the first contact point between the user and the company, and make the first impression about the business. Such a wide list of tasks that can be covered makes localization of websites a hot topic and increases the popularity of web localization services. 

So, what is [website localization](/use-cases/web-localization)? It is adapting the website content, including images, texts, and number formats (date and time, currencies, etc.) to the specific region's (cultural, language, religion, and other) nuances. Hence, this is translation and a complex group of activities to adjust the website to the audiences' expectations. Let's examine the main advantages multilingual websites can bring to companies and organizations. The <a href="https://csa-research.com/Blogs-Events/CSA-in-the-Media/Press-Releases/Consumers-Prefer-their-Own-Language" target="_blank" rel="noffolow"> statistics </a> showed the following data:
- **65%** of users prefer the website to be in their native languages (even if the language is poor and has mistakes).
- **40%** of users will never buy on websites with a language other than their native.
- Only <a href="https://www.verbolabs.com/internet-users-by-languages-worldwide/" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">**25%**</a> of users on the internet speak English.

Thus, we can see how many business opportunities can be lost by staying with English-targeted content only. This correlation will also be more clearly expressed when entering new markets. Language is vital to national identification, so using the local language is also an expression of respect and will increase the audience's trust. Otherwise, compared to domestic companies, businesses that communicate with clients in a foreign language may be less competitive in the local market.


## What does the website localization process include? 
Believing you can only translate the main information and communicate with different audiences successfully is a mistake. The multilingual website's best practices include a list of preparatory tasks, translating, testing, polishing, etc. For convenience, we have split all the web localization tasks into three groups and provided an overview separately. Let's go through them.


### Group 1. Preparatory work

- **Market research**. Before starting any website localization process, you should clearly understand where you will go and what the local audience expects, as this understanding affects the final result. For example, after an unsuccessful competitive race, Walmart left the South Korean market in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/business/worldbusiness/23shop.html" target="_blank" rel="noffolow"> 2006 </a>. They faced the same situation in Germany when Walmart didn't consider the importance of the ecological question in society and provided abundant plastic bags and packaging in stores. To prevent such a mistake during web localization, you should clearly understand your customers, their pain points, cultural nuances, hot topics, and how your successful local competitors work.
 
- **Resource and task scope planning**. To start a website localization process, you should approach it in the same way as any other long-term development project: 
- decide on the final deadline;
- collect all the info that should be localized, including marketing materials, pitches, infographics, emails, etc;
- analyze current team abilities in terms of deadlines to start the recruitment process (if needed;)
- build the roadmap to understand the localization stages and their deadlines clearly.

- **Choose the auxiliary tools**. You should understand which payment, scheduling, or other software you will have on your website. For instance, if you have used PayPal for payments, it is worth researching if this option is available in the region you want to enter. 

- **Choose the localization system**. The more content you have, the more necessary it is to use the web localization software to unite all the localization efforts and automate the entire process. Choosing the right TMS (translation management software) can be complex, so we have provided detailed steps to find the best option for your project in a separate paragraph below.


### Group 2. Localization process

- **Creating documentation for localization**. There is a list of the documentation required for successful website localization. At the very least, it includes a glossary with all the essential terms for the project (including non-translatable terms) and a style guide to keep the project consistent. The quality of this documentation directly corresponds to the quality of the final result.

- **Preparing the localization resource files**. Depending on the technology stack, the team may need to create or modify resource files — JSON, XML, YAML, Excel tables, etc. The multilingual website best practices discussed in this article recommend one of the best options: using seamless synchronization between CMS (content management system) and TMS as a time-saving approach when your development team does not need to do prep work.

- **Web design localization**. The same sentence in different languages will have a different length, which can affect the entire design. The same situation can also be faced during button translation and because of the text direction (right to left or top to button.) Due to this, design localization is often the first step of website content adaptation to avoid potential issues with layouts and cultural nuances (for example, by using offensive images or wrong colors). 

- **Website content translation**. After completing all the tasks above, we can finally start translating. Your team now has all the tools, guides, and workload needed. 


### Group 3. Pre-launching and improving 

- **SEO optimization**. To make the localization of the website successful, include SEO optimization in the plan. Well-done SEO tasks will help you reach the top position in the region's search engines and get organic users/clients. Talking about SEO, this process primarily includes keyword research and page optimization based on them, correct interlinking, and preparing best-fit [located-specific URL structure](/blog/seo-for-multilingual-websites). 

- **[Localization QA](/blog/what-is-localization-testing)**. As with any other development process, website localization requires accurate testing. The process includes:
- Checking cultural and regional nuances like date formats, currencies, measurement systems, etc.
- Checking of linguistics (spelling and grammatical errors, wrappings, terms usage, etc.)
- Checking of interfaces (UI/UX). Here, we can include design consistency, correct hyperlink language, hotkeys, etc.

Completing the steps above without wasting time and in an optimized way can be complex for those who have faced the localization challenge for the first time. Companies are forced to build processes from scratch and study how to manage them, which is only possible with a proper web localization solution. 

However, the vast market and finding the best [translation management software](/) that fits your requirements can also take time. 



## How to choose the web translation software? 
Before starting research, you should choose the approach you want to use for website localization. This step will immediately shorten the list of potential web localization services. Let's highlight three main options.
- **Translation via integration**. One of the most straightforward ways is to find the TMS (translation management system) that supports integrating your content management system (for example, [Contentful or Storyblok](/integrations/)) from scratch. This option builds seamless translation workflows where translators are fully synchronized with all the needed content and can get/provide updates quickly. Such an option guarantees that all new content will be available for translators in time.
- **Embedded JavaScript**. Some translation management systems allow embedded JavaScript localization. This approach dynamically changes website content based on the user's language preferences. Despite the apparent convenience, you may encounter a list of problems by using Embedded JavaScript:
 - Page loading speed decrease: Inline text can increase the size and loading time of JavaScript files, which affects page loading speed. 
- Indexing issues: Search engines like Google may have difficulty indexing text embedded in JavaScript. 

- **Using proxy.** The website traffic is routed to the intermediate server, and the content changes dynamically based on the user's location and language preferences. Using a proxy also has a list of restrictions that should be considered when choosing the optimal localization way, namely:
- Performance. When routing traffic through the intermediate server, the site speed can decrease.
- More availability risks. If the proxy server fails or is unavailable, the site may be partly or wholly unavailable for users.
- Security issues. Redirecting traffic through a proxy server may increase data security and privacy risks.
- SEO difficulties: The multilingual website pages have worse indexing as content changes dynamically. 

As soon as you decide which path to take, examine the TMS abilities in three directions: localization management, translation, and communication. For instance, Lingohub provides the following [localization solutions](/features/) for each category:

[Localization management ](/solutions/managers)is represented by:


1. Comprehensive dashboard with the most priority information;
2. Work reports with a summary of all translations that were done;
3. Cost reports that allow automatic counting of fees per translator.
4. The project's progress bars show the gains per language and text status. 
5. Audit, API, and text edit logs to control any activities in the organization.
6. User roles and custom permissions to provide individual access. 


For [convenience translation](/solutions/translators), we have:
1. Two different editor views that are fully customizable and sharpened per focus and general overview. 
2. Term base, which automatically provides suggestions and a style guide that affects machine translation suggestions and helps linguists keep a project in a single tone of voice. 
3. Pre-translation feature (prefill) that fills all chosen segments from machine translation, translation memory, or translation history.
4. Automated suggestions from the quality checks about extra or missed spacing, duplication, incorrect terms, missed or extra placeholders, etc. 

Additionally, your team can communicate without leaving the Lingohub application. **Discussions** is a perfect tool for translators to comfortably mention other team members or text segments they have questions about and discuss any issues that arise.

Of course, this is only a part of our features. The entire list, including two-factor authentication, workflows, translation orders, backups, and other abilities, is available on our [website](/pricing). 
If you have any questions or want to learn more about how Lingohub can cover your business needs, please contact us or arrange a demo call with our team. We are always happy to help!

In 2024, learn the best practices for localizing a website with expert tips from Lingohub.
 

How to localize a website in 2024. Pro Tips

Localization in different industries has peculiarities that should be considered to achieve the best results. We started this series of industry articles with [e-learning localization](/blog/how-to-localize-an-e-learning-product-challenges-and-best-practices) and [e-commerce localization](/blog/e-commerce-localization-big-guide-to-driving-growth), so our team highly recommends reading them as well to understand localization diversity better. And now, let's move on to the equally exciting topic of localizing software for medical needs.


## Medical software. What you need to know

Digital health is the most appropriate term to describe medical software, as it includes different subcategories like:
- mHealth (mobile health)
- eHealth 
- digital fitness & well-being 
- telehealth (using technologies to share medical information).

The digital health market is continuously growing and is predicted to reach <a href="https://www.statista.com/outlook/hmo/digital-health/worldwide" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">$193.70bn</a> by the end of 2024 and China is the most promising region in this industry, with an expected <a href="https://www.statista.com/outlook/hmo/digital-health/worldwide" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">$53 billion</a> in 2024.

We can highlight the following factors that gained digital health growth:

- **There is a high level of smartphone, fitness trackers, and other mobile devices penetration into users' lives**. Every day, our smartphones and fitness trackers collect information about the number of steps and our heartbeat; some models also can collect information about calorie burning, blood pressure, sleep quality, etc. All this data supports monitoring the main health indicators without human effort.
- As a consequence of the previous factor — **raised implementation of telehealth**. The sharing of medical data is now easier than ever. 
- **Increased digitization of everyday processes**. The COVID-19 pandemic showed how effective remote processes could be. Patients sometimes prefer to get consultations remotely to save time spent on the road. 
- **Development of the regulatory environment**. Governments recognize the potential of digital technologies and regulate them through frameworks to raise data security while ensuring patient safety and privacy. Such steps increase patients' trust in a digital health area.
- **Resource optimization**. The healthcare industry can save in the future through its optimization via digitalization. For instance, it is much easier to provide preventive care to decrease the number of chronic diseases or their complications. 
- **Higher patient safety**. Based on the research data, implementing electronic health records reduces medication errors by <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5787626/" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">54%</a> and increases medical guideline adherence by <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5787626/" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">30%</a>.

The constantly increasing popularity of digital health has led to its regulations in the legal field and brings undoubted advantages for industry and patients. But what has yet to happen in the localization field, and how can lousy localization ruin all the benefits of digital health?

## Why is accurate medical software localization essential?

The enormous risks associated with people's health make us even more scrupulous in localizing digital healthcare. Below there are some of them:

- **Prescription correctness**. Digital health software, such as electronic medical records (EMRs) or electronic health records (EHRs) systems, usually hosts diagnoses and prescription information. Incorrect localization can lead to the mistranslation of dosage information and, as a result, negative health consequences.
- **Risk of misinterpretations**. In addition to the risk of dosage differences, both patient and doctor should have correct information about symptoms, as errors in diagnosis can occur due to misinterpretations.
- **Сorrect transcription of clinical trials**. Clinical trials can embrace multinational partnerships and diverse participants. Accurate localization of trial management software ensures that the protocols, forms, and procedures will be understood correctly, facilitating the quality of such trials.

Thus, the correct medical software localization, without understatement, is vital for patients, and localization teams are responsible for making products safe. Besides high-quality translation, digital software localization implies compliance frameworks of the region to which the product will be related.


## Which framework should you take into account during medical software localization?


Medical software localization involves correctly translating terms and ensuring legal compliance. Each region has its regulatory frameworks that you should consider during localization. Let's look at two areas — the EU (European Union) and the USA. 

In the USA, the <a href="https://www.fda.gov" target="_blank" rel="noffolow"> FDA </a>(Food & Drugs Administration) controls the quality of digital health innovation. They regulate medical devices and software based on their intended risk to patients. 
- **Low-risk**: These are general wellness products intended for only general wellness use and present a low risk to the safety of users and other people. Read the <a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/90652/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">entire document</a>. 
- **Moderate to high-risk**: Products that require <a href="https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/overview-device-regulation/regulatory-controls" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">Special Control</a>.
- **High risk**: Products that require general controls and <a href="https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/overview-device-regulation/regulatory-controls" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">Premarket Approval (PMA.)</a>

The EU regulates medical software under the <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02017R0745-20230320" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">Medical Devices Regulation (MDR)</a> and the <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02017R0746-20230320" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR)</a>. 

The medical device term in the EU legal field includes "*instrument, apparatus, appliance, **software**, implant, reagent, material or other article intended by the manufacturer to be used, alone or in combination, for human beings for one or more of the following specific medical purposes...*" 

Like the FDA, the EU legacy splits medical devices (software) into three major groups — non-invasive, invasive, and active devices with subcategories. Read detailed descriptions for all of them in <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02017R0745-20230320" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">Annex VIII</a>.

As soon as you find the best team and experts and study all legal questions, it would help if you had a tool to make localization easier and speed up time-to-market while maintaining quality. The Lingohub team knows which tools will be best for this task.


## How can Lingohub help with medical software localization?

Lingohub is a [translation management system](/) that collects all the localization data and tools in one place. We [protect our customers' data](/security) regarding GDPR privacy regulations and use world-class data centers, such as Amazon Web servers. Your security is our priority. 

Also, Lingohub supplies a list of [tools to simplify medical software localization](/features/) and reduce mistakes, which is highly important in the digital health field. Let's take a look at some of them:

- **Quality checks** — this tool can notify translators and localization managers about various mistakes, such as missed placeholders/HTML tags, duplications in the text, line breaks, and incorrect term usage. The Lingohub quality checks feature speeds up the time-to-market without quality reduction. 
- **Term base (glossary)**. As mentioned above, correct terminology usage is essential to medical software localization. The Lingohub glossary provides correct suggestions for terms with additional context, like description or image. Thus, translators are highly involved in the localization process and better understand what they are working on. 
- **Translation history**. Once you have approved the translation, you can reuse it in the next resource files. Thus, ensuring that the same text segments are translated equally and consistently throughout the project will be kept. Also, translation history helps speed up the entire localization process and reduce the number of checks.


## Conclusion

Medical software localization is pivotal in scaling digital health products to the global market. We at Lingohub understand how hard it can be to localize such sensitive data and are doing our best to simplify this experience for our users by providing advanced features. If you want more information about how the localization can work in your case, find the best time in our calendar and book a [demo call ](/demo)with our team.

Discover the best approach to localizing medical software on our blog. Click to uncover more.  

Medical software localization

AI (artificial intelligence) technology in the machine translation industry has made a huge jump during the last decade. Just in 2016, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Neural_Machine_Translation" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">Google released GNMT</a> (Google Neural Machine Translation), one of the first widely used MT(machine translation) on AI, and already today, people are using ChatGPT and other similar bots that can greatly understand the context and partly replace humans for some tasks, including paraphrasing and translating. In turn, NMT translating systems also did considerable work (for example, in Google, the accuracy for English-Spanish translation reached 90%, which is an outstanding achievement). This fast development of technology has inspired us to explore the AI translation systems landscape more deeply to understand their current capabilities and future potential.


## AI translation: overview, pros and cons

The AI translation market was valued at <a href="https://www.verifiedmarketreports.com/product/ai-translation-market/" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">$2.17 billion</a> in 2023, and the prediction for 2030 is <a href="https://www.verifiedmarketreports.com/product/ai-translation-market/" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">$5.72 billion</a>. The Google Trend reports also show how the search for AI services has increased over the last two years.

There are a few reasons that explain such forecasts and popularity:

- **The world is constantly moving toward blurring borders**. Globalization has been a central component of success for countries and companies in recent centuries, and in the 21st century, the WEB became a new power. Businesses need tools to communicate and efficiently work with customers and partners worldwide. 
- **There is an increased demand for accurate and fast translation**. Traditional translating systems were more effective than people with dictionaries but needed help understanding context. That required more time for proofreading even simple sentences. Businesses need and are ready to pay for more accurate alternatives.
- **There is high competition between tech giants**. AI is a vector of development for all the big technical corporations, which leads to the release of new features and increases user interest. For example, the AI software vendor Appen got <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/06/appen-which-helps-amazon-and-google-train-ai-is-reeling.html" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">80%</a> of its revenue from Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and Google. These tech giants continuously buy promising AI startups or partner with them, giving users new abilities sooner or later. This race of large companies popularized the topic of artificial intelligence in general and in the field of translation.

 
Let's sum up the main pros of the AI translation, as we touched on many of them above.
- **fast translation**;
- **better context understanding** in comparison with traditional translating systems;
- **perfect scalability** - one tool can be used for different purposes (languages, types of projects, etc.)
- **affordable cost** in comparison with a live translator;

 
But nothing is perfect under the sun; otherwise, all translators would have lost their jobs by now. So, the **cons of AI translation are**:
- **Limited language support**. Any AI language model requires a lot of content for "studying," so additional languages require more power and more training materials. One of the most popular AI ChatGPT today can "speak" 11 languages and know a few additional languages on the low level. 
- **Quality of training material**. The information for the AI translating model is taken from the web, and no one can check the quality of all these documents. So the system can study mistakes. 
- **AI is training constantly**. The AI model can learn incorrect information during communication with users. 
- **Legal issues**. Translating sensitive or confidential information with AI services is risky as data can be shared with external servers.
- **Cultural sensitivity**. AI translation models can't understand all the cultural nuances, which can lead to offensive content.
- **Ethics**. All AI models are trained on subjective data and will inherit biases. So, the quality and ethics of AI translation depend on the development team. 
- **AI models can't work independently of humans**. No matter how well the AI translator is trained, it should only be used with control. Every business bears responsibility for each word on its business pages. Thus, the proofreading stage will always exist. 


## Human translation: overview, pros and cons

Human-only translation is a less popular method. It requires more resources (time and cost) for an equal volume of data than machine translation. However, there are many situations where it is preferable to use only human efforts for translation. For example, the research made with <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326861883_COMPARISON_OF_HUMAN_TRANSLATION_WITH_GOOGLE_TRANSLATION_OF_IMPERATIVE_SENTENCES_IN_PROCEDURES_TEXT" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">7 imperative sentences</a> showed that the equation between Google Translate and human translation was only 29%. 

Such a low figure explains the vast number of translators worldwide - more than <a href="https://www.mylanguageconnection.com/translation-industry-trends-and-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noffolow"> 600K </a> - and proves that the translator's job will be requested for many years. Other areas where human translation is always required are:

- **Marketing and advertising**. Slogans, ad texts, and video scenarios cannot be translated for different audiences; they require adaptation with a deep audience understanding. Marketing and advertising are always focused first on attracting, informing, and retaining. For example, all of us will still remember some obsessive text from an ad song from childhood. Thus, the content for this industry is mainly [transcreated](/blog/the-importance-of-transcreation-in-localization) rather than translated. AI machine translation models are useless in this field as they don't have a high level of creativity like humans.
- **Confidential information**. Companies would be forced to implement a boxed solution with an AI translation model inside their company infrastructure to guarantee the data's safety, which is a very complex and expensive solution. Otherwise, there is always a risk that the data can be stored and sent to external servers. In this situation, businesses prefer human-based translation to minimize the chance of data breaches.
- **Specialized content**: tech documentation, manuals, medical reports, guides, math or physics documents, etc. These types of content cannot be translated with AI as the terms and data are narrowly specialized. For example, content related to the mineral resource "lead" can be mistakenly translated by AI to mean "leader."
- **Literary works**: сreative writing often contains wordplay, other literary elements, or deep cultural references. All of this requires an understanding of the context and the initial author's idea. 

Besides the high quality of human translation and its versatility, there is also **a list of cons**:
- **Losing time-to-market**. Human translation speed is significantly inferior to AI or traditional machine translation. In today's business world, competing means having a quality product and being the first to launch it to reach the target audience.
- **Difficult scalability**. Finding professional translators is always a challenge, especially for rare language pairs. At the same time, even if you build the translators team, they can only cover a certain amount of work, and you can't scale their efforts 1.5 or 2 times. 
- **Human factor**. People can bring their interpretations into translation, which leads to different styles and interpretations. Also, the human factor assumes that translators can quit or get sick, shifting the schedule. 
- **Increased translation cost**. Because of all the points above, translation costs will steadily increase. The final price depends on factors like language pairs, content complexity, translation speed (urgent translations will always cost more), translators' experience, and expertise. 

The information above makes it easy to understand that the best method for content translation is somewhere in the middle. Optimal indicators for businesses can be achieved by combining AI machine translation speed with human context understanding. How to make that in the best way? We know the answer.


## How does Lingohub combine machine translation and human translation?

As a translation management service, we see the cases of different businesses and hear their needs in the first stages. Different feedback allowed us to build a system that perfectly combines the machine translation power and harmoniously includes translators to get all the best from both types of translation. 

First, Lingohub combined Google Translate, Microsoft Translate, and DeepL to produce the internal machine translation result. This decision was made because each of these engines has its own strong and weak sides, which we balanced by this solution. 

The Lingohub machine translation feature is provided in two ways: first, the machine translation tool, where the user can type the query or click on the segment to get the ready translation, and second, automated machine translation for selected segments via prefill. We will overview the [prefill feature](https://help.lingohub.com/en/articles/6686568-how-to-set-up-the-prefill-feature) in more detail, as it allows the pre-translation of a vast amount of data in a few clicks.

**Note**: Lingohub can use another language or translation memory besides machine translation to fill the empty text segments. 

So, how does the schema work? The localization manager can calprefill on its own or set up automatic prefill rules. Thus, translators will get machine translation results instead of working with blank spaces. Such an approach **saves a vast amount of time** because:
- Translators don't manually type translations for simple content, such as text segments with buttons like "Start," "Send," "Submit," etc. All they need to do - proofread and approve the text's correctness. 
- Translators have a starting point for complex texts and can lean on the pre-translated content. 

The next tool is designed to **set a fair and transparent price** for translations based on MT results. The thing is that some text segments can be fully translated via machine translation, and the translator's efforts are light in this case, but another segment will require much more time and effort. To solve this dilemma, Lingohub offers **EES (Edit Effort Score)**. We provided a detailed description in the blog article about machine translation post-editing; below is a brief description.

EES quantifies the level of editing by ranging from 0 to 100, where 0 is proofreading (no edits), and 100 is fully edited text. So, there are four effort levels, and customers can set the range and price for each. For instance:
- Proofreading - 0.02$ per word
- Low effort - 0.04$ per word
- Middle effort - 0.06$ per word
- High effort - 0.08$ per word

Thus, Lingohub **combines machine translation and human efforts** and provides all the necessary tools to manage this collaboration conveniently.  

The AI market is constantly growing, and we believe that one day, AI language models will cover a more significant amount of translating work. However, humans will always keep everything in the correct direction and be part of the translation process. With this understanding in mind, our team does our best to provide the optimal balance by using the strengths of each approach.

If you would like to get more information about Lingohub and our features, schedule a quick [demo call](/demo) with our team or sign up for a [14-day free trial](https://app.lingohub.com/sign-up) to try all the benefits of Lingohub TMS (translation management system). 


### Stay awesome, and let's localize together!



AI translating services have gained a high popularity. In this article, we overview the ability of AI in terms of translation quality and how to connect modern technologies with human efforts to get the best result.

AI vs Human translation. The future in the collaboration 

AI vs Human translation. The future in collaboration 

MTPE, or machine translation post-editing, is a current reality and trend in the localization industry. It allows for combining the speed of translating engines and human context understanding to provide quality results most shortly. The schema is simple: translators don't work "from scratch" - they have translated content by MT(machine translation), which should be proofread and edited. Thus, it appears to be a logical question - how can we count the translator's efforts during post-editing? How to understand if some text segments were edited or if they were good from the start? Fortunately, we know the answer. 


## The translators' efforts comparison with and without post-editing 

To demonstrate the problem more clearly, let's use some text segments and imagine that they should be translated into German:

"**I love cats**."

"**If you have any further questions...**"

"**lead**"

Working with a freelance translator, you most likely will have the rate per word, for example, **0.08$**. The three segments above have 10 words
So the final amount will be **0.08$.x 10 = 0.8$**

In the case of post-editing, the translator will have the following data from the start:

|English| German | 
|--|--|
|I love cats.|Ich liebe Katzen.| 
|If you have any further questions,...|Wenn Sie weitere Fragen haben,...|
|flat design|flaches Design|

 So, the task for the translator will be to add the edits based on the context and tone of voice: 

|English| German | Efforts |
|--|--|--|
|I love cats.|Ich liebe Katzen.| None, text correct from scratch.|
|If you have any further questions,...|Wenn Sie weitere Fragen haben,...|Wenn **du** weitere Fragen **hast**,... (in case we need informal tone of voice)|
|flat design|flaches Design|**Wohnungsgestaltung** (in case the word "flat" was used in the "apartment" meaning.)|

Thus, the translator left the first segment as is, added minor edits to the second, and changed the last one entirely. There was no need to translate all the words, and the task was completed faster with less effort. How to calculate this?

## Why and how to measure the MTPE efforts? 

Calculating the translators' efforts allows clients to get fair and transparent pricing for the content translation. If the machine engine translated the text perfectly, the translator would only proofread and "approve" the ready text, which could lower the price. Let's see approaches of how this can be done:

**<a href="https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~alavie/papers/GALE-book-Ch5.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">HTER</a>** - the edit distance between the original translation and post-editing; 
1. Original translation - machine-translated text.
2. Post-edited translation: text after human post-editing
3. Calculate the edit distance between the original and post-edited translations using algorithms like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance" target="_blank" rel="noffolow">Levenshtein Distance</a>.
4. Interpretation: A higher edit distance implies more effort by the translator.

**<a href="https://aclanthology.org/2012.amta-wptp.2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noffolow"> SPW </a>**- seconds per word. Shows the time spent on translation divided by the length of the post-edited translation; SPW=Total Number of Words/Total Time (in seconds)​

**<a href="https://aclanthology.org/2012.amta-wptp.2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noffolow"> KEYS </a>** - total number of keystrokes that were pressed while post-editing.

**Editing density**: (Number of edited words/Total number of words)x100.

**Quality Improvement**: using <a href="https://machinetranslate.org/ter" target="_blank" rel="noffolow"> BLEU </a> or TER metrics to evaluate machine translation and post-edited quality.

Counting MPTE effort is an all-purpose thing that can be applied to different languages. For example, we can confidently say that the exact text MTPE between English and Spanish is much faster than between English and Ukrainian or German. The reason is that popular engines have the highest level of accuracy for the English-Spanish pair (Google Translate has over 90% accuracy.) If this topic interests you and you want to learn more, read our article about the most popular [machine translation engines](/blog/find-good-machine-translation-engines).


## How does Lingohub help to measure the MTPE efforts? 

As Lingohub provides a prefill option, which means you can fill empty text segments from other languages, [translation memory](/features/translation-memory), or [machine translation](/features/machine-translation), we thought about how to measure the translators' effort - EES.

**EES** or Edit Effort Score is a quantity of editing in translation that ranges from 0 to 100, where 0 is no edits - the text was approved with no effort (proofreading), and 100 is when the text was entirely changed. For example, if the sentence "Please create a note" was changed to "Please create a file," the EES will be calculated as 14, classifying it as a case of low effort.
How do we suggest working with this 0-100 range for your comfort? We split all the gradation into four levels: 
- **proofreading** - the efforts score = 0 
- **low effort**, from 1 to a configurable figure
- **middle effort** - fully configurable
- **high effort** - from configurable figure to 100

Thus, you can set up the effort score for all the levels except proofreading.

This EES information will be used for the cost reports, so the localization manager and translator will see how many words and with which effort were translated for some period. 


Moreover, you can set a specific price per word based on the effort level - lowest for proofreading and ascending based on the effort level. 


Let's count the price difference between the constant price per world and effort score usage. As an example, we will use the text segments from the previous paragraph and the rates below (we use the same 0.08$ as a price for full translation (high effort). 
- **Proofreading** = 0.01$
- **Low effort** = 0.02 $
- **Middle effort** = 0.03$
- **High effort** = 0.08$ 

|**English** |**German**|**Efforts**|**Effort level**|**Price**|
|--|--|--|--|--|
|I love cats.|Ich liebe Katzen.|None, text correct from scratch|Proof- reading|0.01$ x 3(words) = 0.03$|
|If you have any further questions,...|Wenn Sie weitere Fragen haben,...|Wenn du weitere Fragen hast,... (in case we need informal tone of voice)|Low effort|0.02 $ x 5 = 0.1$|

So the final price for 3 segments (10 words translating) will be **0.03$ + 0.1$ + 0.08$ = 0.21$**, which is more cost-effective than the previous example of $0.08 per word for 10 words, which was **$0.80** in total.

If you want to get more information about how the EES and cost reports work, we highly recommend you to **read our help center articles**:
- [What are work reports?](https://help.lingohub.com/en/articles/6684129-what-are-work-reports) 
- [How to create cost reports in Lingohub?](https://help.lingohub.com/en/articles/6684123-how-to-create-cost-reports-in-lingohub)


## Conclusion
 
The machine translation engines entirely changed the "rule of the game," so the translation industry should consider the new reality and find a way to manage it successfully. Lingohub <a href="https://lingohub.com">translation management service</a> provides a simple but, at the same time, effective solution that allows users to work with translators' efforts transparently and fairly.

If you have any questions or want more information - schedule a quick [demo call](/demo) with our team or sign up and try all the Lingohub features for [14 days for free](https://app.lingohub.com/sign-up)!

MTPE (Machine Translation Post-Editing) is a trend in the localization and translation industries. It is essential to account for the effort required during MTPE and determine the best way. 