Trying to get a second quote from a non-MadTranslations LSP

[trishe]

Using: Lingo v8

I'm having a terrible time getting a very big localization company to understand how to quote the Lingo XLF files that I'm sending to them. I plan to use MadTranslations, but I have been asked to be ready to get a second quote.

The project manager for the big-time LSP cannot seem to understand how to parse the Lingo XLFs - they say that they cannot move the tags over to the target, and there is confusion about which is really the source tag. (They see a <source> and <source-seg> tag, and that seems to be confusing for them.)

I am relatively new to Lingo and Flare, so I am reaching out:

• Have any of you encountered this type of confusion in an LSP?
• If you were able to resolve it, HOW did you resolve it?
• Can you share the names of LSPs that work with either Lingo, Flare, or XLFs that come out of Lingo?

I can see that it is nice to have more than one quote, this is quite standard. I can also see that this could be a problem with other LSPs too.
TIA!


Trish

[alt_jennifer]

Hi Trish,

It's not uncommon for an LSP (even a big-time one) to be confused about Lingo, and sometimes even Flare. Flare is rapidly becoming more known in the translation industry, but Lingo is still less known. Still, the number of LSPs that are actually qualified to work with Flare is pretty small.

However, Lingo XLF files are another matter. These files follow the XLIFF standard. This is an increasingly important standard in IT, and most especially in the Translation industry, since it can be a very useful format for translation. Most translation tools used by LSPs already have default XLIFF filters, that they don't even need to alter to process Lingo XLF files. So if this big-time LSP cannot handle basic XLF/XLIFF files, that's concerning. They might not actually be very tech-savvy or very innovative with their processes.

In fairness, though, maybe they are simply over-complicating things, because they aren't familiar with Lingo. You can tell them that it's a standard XLIFF file, and to try using their tool's built-in XLIFF filter (if there is one). If they still don't get it, move on to someone who does!

I work for an LSP, and we work with Flare files, Lingo files, and XLIFF files all the time. If needed, the XLIFF structure can be looked up online, since it is an international (or at least national) standard. The <seg-source> tag is simply the segmented version of the <source> tag. The contents of the <seg-source> tag are what should get translated, but the translation itself gets put into the <target> tag. Translation tools will do this automatically if an XLIFF filter is used. (Even if you don't use the XLIFF Filter, there are ways to work with the files if you can use an advanced find/replace tool like FARHTML.)

Hope this helps!