In the early 2020s, expanding globally was relatively straightforward. Translation agencies and basic workflows were often sufficient. By 2026, this approach is no longer viable.

Modern digital systems require real-time, context-aware communication across regions. However, large language models can translate text but do not solve the broader architectural challenge. Effective globalization now depends on building systems that manage accurate, bidirectional communication across markets such as North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Global reach is no longer a language problem. It is an infrastructure problem. In practice, most systems fail at this stage.

Challenge 1: Bi-Directional Systems and RTL Support

Expanding into RTL (right-to-left) languages introduces structural challenges beyond translation. Interfaces must adapt fully to directionality, not just content.

Solution: Direction-Agnostic Front-End Design

Build front-end systems to support both LTR and RTL from the start. In practice, this includes the following:

• CSS logical properties instead of fixed directions.
• Flexible layout systems (e.g., Flexbox, Grid).
• Automated testing for layout validation across locales.

Embed localization in the architecture from the start.

Challenge 2: Contextual and Cultural Accuracy

Translation alone does not ensure relevance. For example, communication styles differ between markets such as Riyadh, Berlin, and Brussels.

Generic AI outputs can introduce inaccuracies or inappropriate tone, which can affect brand perception.

Solution: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

RAG improves accuracy by grounding AI outputs in verified data sources. As a result, responses remain aligned with both factual data and regional expectations.

• Structured knowledge bases (product data, terminology, guidelines)
• Region-specific cultural rules
• Controlled retrieval before response generation

This keeps responses consistent across regions.

Challenge 3: Scaling Content Operations

Content volume has exceeded the capacity of manual review. Automation is required, but unverified automation introduces quality risks.

Solution: Continuous Localization Pipelines

Localization should follow principles similar to software delivery:

• Version-controlled content
• Automated testing workflows
• Continuous deployment pipelines

Automated QA Layer

Quality assurance must be integrated into the pipeline:

• Linguistic validation (grammar, syntax)
• Cultural validation (tone, regional fit)
• Pre-deployment checks to prevent user-facing errors

Reference Workflow

• Content Creation: Original source material is produced.
• Automated Translation: Managed via specialized LLMs.
• Linguistic QA Bot: Checks grammar and syntax.
• Cultural QA Bot: Checks for tone and regional context (grounded by RAG).
• Final Deployment: Automatically pushes the verified asset live.

Conclusion

Globalization in 2026 requires deliberate engineering. Ultimately, Systems must be designed to support directionality, contextual intelligence, and automated quality control from the outset.

Organizations that treat globalization as a core technical capability—rather than a translation task—will achieve consistent, scalable, and reliable global experiences.

This is where many implementations break down.

The post How to Build Advanced AI Globalization Architecture for Scalable Global Systems (2026) appeared first on Ayman Elbadawy.

Arabic is an important language, as it is considered the fifth language in terms of its global spread. Also, It is considered a large framework of concepts, contents, a variety of vocabulary, opposites, and synonyms. Furthermore, what distinguishes it is that its letters are written in more than one way, and fall under what is called Arabic Script. So what is the definition of Arabic Script? What are its early days? What are its types?

Arabic calligraphy is one of the arts of writing words and sentences that use the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic language. The most important thing that helped in designing Arabic calligraphy was the interlocking of its letters, which gave it the flexibility to be shaped.

The origin of Arabic calligraphy

The origin of the Arabic calligraphy goes back to the Nabataean script, then the Kufic and Hijaz schools appeared, which worked on developing this script and spreading it. The two most famous scripts that appeared in the Arabic language are the Kufic script, which was distinguished by its rigidity, and the Hijazi script, which was characterized by ease. Initially, the script was not dotted, Until Abu Al-Aswad Al-Dawali came and put points on the letters.

Kufic script

• It is one of the most famous and oldest scripts, and its name came from the city of Kufa in Iraq. It is distinguished by its coordination and similarity of letters.

Naskh script:

• it was named Naskh because it was used frequently to copy books. The minister Ibn Muqla is considered the author of the foundations of this script. Among its characteristics: is the clarity and largeness of the letters, which ensures the correct reading.

Ruqʿah script

• It is a relatively modern Arabic calligraphy invented by the Ottomans in the year 1863 AD. The Ruqʿah script is easy to read, fast to write, and without complexity. It is the most common script and is written in most Arab countries except the Maghreb countries.

Persian script

• It is found in Persia, and its characteristics are accurate and extended letters, far from complexity, ease, and clarity.

Thuluth script

• One of the most complex scripts in writing, and the most wonderful in shape. This is because most of the letters have several forms in writing. Due to its difficulty and need for a long time in writing, its usage was limited to titles and some Quranic verses.

Moroccan script

• It spreads in the countries of North Africa and is considered mainly in the countries of the Maghreb, hence its name. One of its characteristics is the roundness of its letters.

Al-Diwani script

• it was called Diwani about the court of the Ottoman Sultan, where this script was used in writing the Royal Correspondence, and it is cloned from the script of the Ruqa’a script. It was singled out to specialize in the writings of the Royal Patents, and the orders of the Court.

How to add these scripts to your collections of fonts on your computer?

• First, you need to download them and there are several online resources where you can get these fonts. (*.ttf format)
• Once you downloaded them. Go to Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Fonts. Save them there.

Feel free to comment or Contact Me for an open discussion!

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What is a language?

Languages are defined as sounds used to express the needs and purposes of people. A language is a set of expressions recognized among a certain group of people. It has the same meaning for the whole group when arranged in a specific way. in general, it is a way of communication between humans within a certain geographical range. Since the beginning of the human ability to speak, many languages have been formed over centuries. Some of them have remained in use and alive, while most of them have disappeared. To classify the alive languages around the world we can distinguish them based on the Number of Speakers, Degree of Difficulty, Number of Words, and History.

Number of Speakers

It is difficult to count the number of people who speak a particular language, but there are many sources that provide information on the number of people who speak a specific language as a mother tongue or as a second language. The languages around the world can be arranged in terms of spread as follows:

English

it is the most popular language in the world. The language of business and technology. More than a billion and a half people speak it as a native language or as a secondary language. The percentage of English speakers around the world is approximately 20%. It is the official language in many countries, and its speakers spread around the whole world, including New Zealand, the United States, Australia, England, Zimbabwe, the Caribbean, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Canada.

Mandarin (Chinese)

The percentage of its speakers is around 15%, and their number exceeds one billion people. It is the language of the state of China with the largest population in the world. The Chinese language does not contain alphabetical letters but uses pictorial symbols instead, so each word has its own pictogram. The Chinese language is also spoken in Taiwan and Singapore, and it is worth noting that Mandarin contains a large number of dialects.

Hindi

The number of speakers of this language is around 4.46% of the world’s population. Hindi is an official language in India and the Fiji Islands, South Africa, Mauritius, Yemen, Uganda, and even in the United States.

Arabic

The percentage of its speakers in the world is 6.6%. It is one of the oldest languages in the world, and the majority of its speakers are in the Middle East and North Africa, especially the Arab countries. There are a lot of people who like to learn Arabic because it is the language of the Holy Qur’an, and in 1974 it was adopted as an official language at the United Nations.

Spanish

The percentage of Spanish speakers in the world is 6.25%, and their number reaches nearly 400 million people. It is spoken in Central and South American countries, in addition to Spain and parts of the United States of America.

Russian

The number of speakers is 3.95%, and they are distributed in many countries of the former Soviet Union, including Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. It is the most widespread Slavic language, and one of the official languages of the United Nations. In Ukraine and Lithuania, it is not considered an official language but it is spoken in a wide range of these countries.

Bengali

The proportion of its speakers out of the world population is 3.19%, of whom about 120 million are residents of Bangladesh, and it is also the language of West Bengal state in India.

French

The number of speakers is 3.05%, and 32 countries use it as an official language. Most of those who speak French as a mother tongue is of French origin and the rest are spread between Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, and Africa.

German

The percentage of speakers of 2.77% around the world, and its origin is Germanic languages, and it is considered one of the most widespread mother languages in the European Union, and among the most famous countries that speak this language, Germany and Austria.

Degree of Difficulty

Languages ​​differ in the degree of difficulty of learning them due to the different origins and circumstances of their origin. For example, the Chinese language does not contain letters, the Arabic language is distinguished by its great eloquence, and the Russian language with strange sounds of letters, so it is not possible to adopt specific criteria to determine the most difficult language, but a lot of things are taken into consideration in determining this matter. The order of the most difficult languages ​​around the world can be arranged as follows:

• Arabic.
• Japanese.
• Chinese.
• Korean.
• Turkish, Hindi, Russian, Vietnamese, Thai, Serbian, Greek, and Hebrew.
• Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, and French.

Number of words

A language by its nature is a group of words that a person arranges in an organized manner in order to give the intended meaning to them. Languages differ in the number of words they contain. Here is a list of some languages arranged according to the number of words they contain:

• Arabic: 12,302,912 words.
• English: 600,000 words.
• French: 150,000 words.
• Russian: 130,000 words.

History

Despite the development of languages throughout history, some languages are still used in the current era. Languages have undergone many processes of continuous development and modernization over time according to the climate, economic, social, political, and natural changes in the world. Which leads to a change in human concepts, awareness, and thinking. This in turn leads to the development of linguistic terminology and the emergence of new linguistic terms. The oldest languages in the world are:

The Greek language: It dates back to 1500 BC, and was the official language of the country of philosophers and thinkers in Greece.

The Tamil Language: This language, spoken by more than 75 million people, dates back to 300 BC and is an official language recognized in India and Singapore.

The Persian language: It is the official language of Iran and Tajikistan, and it dates back to the year 800 AD.

The Latin language: It is one of the most ancient languages in history, if not the most ancient, and it is the source of many modern languages, dating back to the year 45 BC in the era of the Roman Empire.

The Hebrew language is one of the oldest languages in the world. Where it stopped its use in the year 400 AD and returned to the scene with the rise of the Jews in the world, where it is now spoken by more than 9 million people spread around the world.

The Basque language: It is one of the most distinct languages. As the origins of this language do not belong to any language existing in the world.

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Today, the 3rd of April 2021, the whole world is waiting for the The Pharaohs Golden Parade at 6 PM CET. This unique event is receiving great global attention, as more than 60 countries in the world will broadcast the great event, through more than 400 TV channels around the world.

Today, the mummies of Ramses II and 21 of his pharaohs companions will participate in what is called “The Pharaoh’s Golden Show.”

The purpose of the show is to move the 18 kings and four queens of Egypt, along with their coffins and possessions, from their old home in the Egyptian Museum. They will be transported five kilometers south, to their new high-tech home at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC).

At the Mummies Preservation Lab and Storage Room in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, a team of 48 people are preparing for the royal mummies. The preservation process includes placing each mummy in a nitrogen-free capsule that is free of oxygen, which can preserve them without being damaged. The capsule is surrounded by a soft material that distributes pressure and reduces vibrations during transportation.

The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization is a large museum in the ancient city of Fustat. The cornerstone was laid in 2002 to make this museum one of the most important and largest antiquities museums in the world, and it is the first museum to be devoted to the entirety of The Egyptian Civilization. Where more than 50 thousand artifacts will relate the stages of the development of civilization from the earliest times until the modern era.

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Sitecore is a customer experience management platform that provides a web content management system and multi-channel marketing automation. The CMS combines the content with the presentation to produce dynamic websites. Sitecore Helix Principles are a set of design guidelines for Sitecore development. It enhances the final product stability by adhering to Sitecore development best practices. Sitecore recommends Helix architecture for its newer implementations. Therefore, understating and applying the Helix structure is important.

Layouts, Renderings and Placeholders

In Sitecore, webpages developing workflow start with the Layout which defines the overall structure of a page. Within the layout, there are multiple Renderings. We create them separately for reusability purposes on other types of pages. We place renderings into a layout using a Placeholder that defines the location of a rendering on the page.

Data Templates

The content structure for the renderings is setup using data templates. Each field has its own type, such as an image or text. Sitecore is able to correctly generate the corresponding HTML output for each type. Data templates act as a model that will bind to renderings to display the values from the fields in Sitecore.

Project, Feature and Foundation Layers

• First of all, create a Projects folder outside the webroot (wwwroot). This is where your Visual Studio Sitecore custom solutions will be saved. Sitecore recommends this location to enhance the separation between your own projects and Sitecore files. This approach also enables you to safely upgrade Sitecore or create a new instance and use the same custom projects easily.

Visual Studio Folders Structure

• When starting a new visual studio project for Sitecore following Helix principles, you need to create an empty solution. Then, create the main 3 folders: Project, Feature, and Foundation. These folders represent the 3 layers of Helix architecture. Within each of these folders you will have multiple projects:
  • The Project folder is used for presentation including Layouts and Page types.
  • The Feature folder will include the functional components of your solution.
  • The Foundation folder will hold the core components of the project like configurations and third-party frameworks.

Folders Structures

• Create the same folders physically on your drive under the projects folder you created in the first step. Under the project name of your solution, create a Source folder then, inside it, create the 3 folders: Project, Feature, and Foundation. Make sure no other folders exist (i.e. the default project created by Visual studio etc.…)
• Following Helix principles, projects within your solution must adhere to the following structure:
  • Project naming convention: [Solution name].[Project Layer].[Project Name]. So for example, if you create a solution named Demo and you want to create the configuration project for it, then the full name will be as following: Demo.Foundation.Configuration.
  • Also, you should save physically this project as follows:
    • Under your solution folder, go to the Foundation folder. Create a new folder and name it Configuration. Inside it, create a new folder and name it code. Then you can save your project there. The Final Path will be:

Helix Structure Benefits

One of the main benefits of Helix Structure is that when you do a change in the code, this action will affect only the related project and not the whole solution. Also, Helix Structure creates a standard approach for organizing projects which makes the structure more predictable for future updates and enhancement processes.

Project settings

Regardless of the layer or the functionality, for any new project created under your Sitecore solution, please consider the following:

• To avoid corrupting your Sitecore main installation, make sure that all references are not copied when the project is published. This will prevent overriding the main dlls in the target Sitecore website. You can do that by selecting all your reference and set copy local to False.

• The Configuration project is necessary for any Sitecore project. In this project, you will store your configurations and Database connection strings. To create them, Copy the Web.config and ConenctionStrings.config from the main website to your new project. This must be under the Configuration layer. By default, you will copy the configs from the paths: [wwwroot\[YOUR_SOLUTION].dev.local\web.config] and [wwwroot\[YOUR_SOLUTION].dev.local\ App_Config\ ConnectionStrings.config]
• When you create a new MVC project, make sure to delete all unnecessary folders and files: App_Data, App_Start, Content, fonts, etc.…
• For any new project except the Configuration project under the foundation layer, make sure that the web.config both in the webroot and under Views folder are not deployable to avoid breaking the main Sitecore installation. To do that, right-click your web.config and set Build Action to None, and set Copy to Output Directory to Do not copy.

Sitecore Kernel and Sitecore MVC

• Under the Feature layer, your projects will need to install Sitecore Kernel and Sitecore MVC. You can do that by using the NuGet Package Manager (NPM). Right-click your project, select Manage NuGet Packages. You must have Sitecore Package Source saved there. If not, click Settings, add the new name, and the source URL which is: https://sitecore.myget.org/F/sc-packages/api/v3/index.json

• Also, make sure you are installing the package version that is compatible with your solution. Remember after installing the 2 packages to go to the installed references and set copy local to false as explained above! Also, to enable IntelliSense for your project views, go to the web.config under the Views folder and add Sitecore MVC namespace.

Managing Dependencies using Helix Principles

Following Helix principles, we have 3 layers as discussed: From the top we have, Projects, Features then Foundation. The Dependency flow goes on the same way from Top to Bottom and NEVER the opposite. Based on that: A project under the Project layer can reference other projects in the Foundation or the Feature layers. The same, a project in the Feature layer can reference others in Foundation BUT NEVER from the Project layer. Also, a project cannot reference from another one on the same layer.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion!

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Data Modelling using JSON: JSON is short for JavaScript Object Notation. It is a human-readable text format and we use it to represent and transmit objects. The JSON structure is very popular and we apply it for data modeling in document databases and across many other technologies as well.

JSON Data Structure

In the above figure, the JSON structure consists of a curly brace, and within these, we have what are essentially key and value pairs. Attribute values can be a string, a number, a boolean, a nested JSON object, or an array.

Technically speaking JSON has 3 main data Types:

1. Primitive such as Boolean, String, Int, Double, etc.…
2. Incomplete Information: Null, Missing.
3. Composite: Object, Array, Multiset.

JSON Role in Modeling Data for Document Databases

The data model for document databases consists of a structured hierarchy. A document’s data may contain embedded documents. Each document has data that represent the attributes of an entity. We organized Documents into collections (equivalent to tables in a Relational database). For more info please check my previous article about NoSQL DB and Data Model.

Inside each document, there are attributes (fields). These attributes are in the format of key-value pairs.

Normalization vs Denormalization

When it comes to a relation database, it’s a fact that Normalization is the best practice approach to better maintain the data and avoid redundancy. Let’s take an example of page data in a CMS that needs to be stored in a relational database: Id, title, metadata, description, properties, subpages, date. In order to follow best practices, it is recommended to store related parts of data together in one table such as ID, Name, Date, Metadata, and Description. Obviously, we insert, update, or retrieve these parts of data together and the relation between them is one to one. For Page Properties or Subpages, we should create other tables and reference only the page ID with each page property or subpage:

Contrarily, when it comes to non-relation databases (NoSQL) the denormalization approach is the best practice. Denormalization is the opposite of normalization. All related data for an entity is compressed into a single document in NoSQL databases.

Even, denormalization is used quite a lot in document databases, there will still be other documents related to each other. We can group them together in a “Unit” that varies from a non-relational database to another one. It could be a Collection in MongoDB or a Container in CosmosDB for example. So, the same example will be:

As we can see the document my have nested structures (complex) such as arrays and/or objects beside simple primitive fields. The name of this approach is “Nested Joins.”

Nested Joins vs Ordinary Joins

The conceptual view for an ordinary Join will look like this:

Based on that, the nested join approach makes it possible to embed all related data for an entity in one single document. Using the ordinary join approach will retrieve the entity (page) data each time along with each different property related to the page.

Which approach to follow: Normalization or Denormalization (Nested approach)?

Following the same example, let’s say we have pages and page properties. So, 2 related entities. Should these entities be represented in separated documents (normalization)? Or, should one of them to be nested within the second (Denormalization using Nested Join approach)?

First of all, in document databases, the optimal solution depends on the use case itself.

Use case analysis

It makes sense to group both entities using a nested approach if both are viewed together. In other words, if both entities should be retrieved in a single query. In our case, we retrieve a page with its properties. Thus, we can reduce the query processing time and this will improve the overall performance of the CMS and increase the user experience satisfaction. It makes also sense if both entities (page and its properties) are updated together because we will retrieve here 1 document instead of 2.

The opposite also applies. If no need to retrieve or update certain entities, it is better to split them using the normalization approach. This will enhance the integrity of the data and prevent redundancy.

Now, if you choose the nested approach, the next question will be which entity to be nested inside the second? This depends on the nature of the relation between them. In our case, we have Pages and Properties. The relation is one-to-many: One page may have one or more properties. Then it is obvious that we need to group the properties entities within the page and not the opposite.

The nested approach doesn’t make sense in case the relation between 2 entities is many to many. For example, Pages and subpages. A page may have 1 or more subpages and also the subpage may have 1 or more parent pages. Furthermore, no need to retrieve or update multiple pages at the same time. Then separating them is the best approach using the normalization approach.

Conclusion

Document in the context of document databases refers to values that are JSON documents. Modeling a non-relational database depends a lot on the use cases. In light of the usage, we can select either the denormalization or normalization approach for each group of entities.

Using a JSON data structure, every document will have a set of attributes. These attributes consist of keys and values. The type of values can be Basic such as string, number, or Boolean, or complex like array or object (embedded documents).

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion!

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Data Model

A Data Model represents the framework of what the relationships are within a database. Building a data model is critical because it provides the structure of the information. The data itself will be stored, manipulated, and retrieved from within this framework on a database.

Understanding Data Models.

In order to better understand Data Models, there are 3 factors to consider:

• Conceptual view of data

Defining what exactly is the data that we need to represent, what each of the entities is, and what data we should store for each entity, and finally, how different entities are related to each other.

• Logical view of the data

Specifically, the data type to use in order to store the attributes for the entities such as strings, integers, double, float, etc…

• Physical storage of data

How data model will determine the physical storage of data.

Example:

We have an e-commerce website, we decide in the conceptual view, that we are going to store information about products, customers and we can have orders that can link products to customers. In the logical view, we may determine that a product’s name should be stored as a string while its price will be stored as a double value. For the physical storage, we may choose that order information and customer information should be placed together since they are accessed together.

Database Technologies

We apply data modeling for different categories of database technologies. In fact, databases can be broadly classified as relational databases and NoSQL (non-relational databases). Let’s first dig into RDBMS which makes use of the Relational Data Model.

Relational Data Model

Tables

We arrange data in this model in table format (rows and columns). Each row adheres to a schema. The schema defines the columns in each row, and the types of data in each column.

Example

Following the same example of an e-commerce website, the above table represents information about customers. We represent each customer by a unique ID and a name. Each row has exactly 2 columns (unique ID of type number, and name of type string).

A customer has the ability to place orders. Following this example, we can store the order as an entity represented by a table.

For each order, we store a unique ID, Customer ID (which can be repeated as one customer can do multiple orders) as well as the product ID which also can be repeated.

Normalization

One of the important properties of Relational Data Modeling is data normalization: Splitting information across different tables in order to avoid data redundancy.

If we look at the Order table, we will see that the customer is represented by its unique ID only without any other related data like a name. This splitting of information help reducing data redundancy. In other words, in order to know who is the customer who placed an order we just need to know his unique ID. By using it, we can retrieve all other information.

Constraints

Yet, another important property is table constraints. For example, a Foreign Key represents a relation between a column in one table and the content of another table.

In the above diagram, we reference the Customer Primary Key (ID) as a Foreign Key in the Orders table (CustomerID). By applying this relation, we can impose several constraints to enhance data integrity as in the below figure:

Non-relational Data Modeling

Different from the Relational Data Model, there is a broad category of models that apply to the No-SQL databases (Non-relational databases). Among these models:

Graph Databases:

it models relationships between entities in the form of graphs. Its main goal is to emphasize relationships over entities. It uses Nodes and Edges. Nodes represent Entities while Edges represent the relationships between the nodes (entities). Graph model supports semantic queries to access information.

Object Databases

In this model, we record the information in a form similar to objects in a programming language. Also, we define entities using classes and we create an instance of these entities as an object. The target of Object Databases is to model data in a more closely way to how it is accessed in a programming language to overcome the RDBMS challenge which is Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch.

Key-value Databases

This is where document-oriented databases come into the picture and more specifically JSON Data format. Key-value databases have several implementations. Some of the commonly used document-oriented databases include Couchbase, MongoDB and hosting solutions on the cloud are available in the form of Azure’s Cosmos DB as well as DocumentDB on Amazon’s web services.

Wide Column Databases

As explained at the beginning of the article, relational databases make use of strictly defined schema that sets a fixed number of columns for each row. In case there is a need to add or remove columns this is considered as a major change and represents a challenge. Furthermore, because each row must have an identical number of columns, some of them have no value. In this case, a null value will be recorded for the corresponding empty column. But this in turn does end up occupying a lot of space. The Wide Column model comes to overcome these issues. By using a flexible schema, instead of altering a table to add or remove a column in the Relational model, we just need to add an additional row.

 As in the above figure, in the Wide Column model, we don’t need to alter the table to add a new column. Rather just add the new column as an additional row. Also, we can see that in the relational database row #5 has a null value because the columns Email must exist for all rows. But in the Wide Column model, we don’t have the same case because there is no schema obligation to represent this missing information in an additional row.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion!

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We live in the information age, and most of what we do is greatly influenced by our ability to access vast amounts of data. It can be via the Internet, our computers, or our mobile phones. The buzzword describing this amount of information is Big Data.

Before we get to the definition of big data, we must know what data is?

It is the raw form of information before the sorting, arranging, and processing operations. It cannot be used in its primary form before processing.

The raw data can be divided into three types:

• Structured: These are data organized in tables or databases.
• Unstructured: It constitutes the largest percentage of data, and it is the data that people generate daily from text writings, pictures, videos, messages, clicks on websites.
• Semi-structured: a type of structured data, but the data is not in the form of tables or databases.

Now, what is big data?

The term Big Data stands for multiple data types and sources with a huge size. It has huge importance, as it provides a highly competitive advantage for companies if they can benefit from it and process. Big Data provides a deeper understanding of the company customers’ behavior and their requirements. This helps to make appropriate decisions within the company in a more effective way. Thus, increasing efficiency and profit and reducing Losses.

Characteristics

Volume

It is the most important feature of big data analysis. The volume here represents the amount of data extracted from a source. It determines the value and potential of the data to be classified among the big data.

But, describing it as huge does not specify a specific quantity. Rather, the measure here is by bits or byte. It is estimated that 90% of the data in the world today was generated during the last two years, by devices and by humans, both of which contributed to the increase in data.

Variety

It refers to the diversity of the extracted data. This variety helps researchers and analysts to choose the appropriate data for their field of research. It includes:

• Structured data retrieved from databases.
• Unstructured such as pictures, clips, audio recordings, videos, SMS and call records Map data (GPS).

Such a wide variety of data requires time and effort to prepare it in a suitable form for processing and analysis. The NoSQL approach is a suitable way to achieve good results.

Velocity

It covers the speed of production and extraction of data to fulfill the demand for it. Here, speed is crucial because it affects the decision that will be made based on this data.

“Batch processing” is the old approach to handle a small set of structured data where we analyze each set in a consecutive sequence. The huge increase in the volume and speed of data increase the need for a system that guarantees high speed in analyzing big data in real-time. This need has led to the innovation of technologies and solutions such as Apache, SAP HANA, Hadoop, and many others.

Sources

It comes from running a program, whether it is a governmental or non-governmental program, such as electronic medical records, hospital visits, insurance records, bank records, and food banks.

Commercial or transactional related sources, arising from transactions between entities. For example credit card transactions and online transactions including mobile devices.

For example, satellite imaging, road sensors, climate sensors, tracking device sources, such as tracking information from cell phones and the Global Positioning System (GPS).

For example, the number of Internet searches for a product, service, or other types of information, and the number of views of a page on the Internet.

Such as comments on social media.

Conclusion

In our time, we are witnessing a huge explosion in information. The analysis and processing of it mainly increase the understanding and assimilation of customer requirements. Thus, increasing efficiency and productivity and reducing losses for companies. With time and technological advances, we expect significant progress in addressing the challenges and constraints of using big data more broadly.

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Episerver Localization Setup: Episerver is one of the most powerful Content Management Systems capable of efficiently manage your digital assets. The Episerver platform is very user-friendly. Authors, editors, and administrators are always feeling very comfortable when they deal with Episerver’s great features.

Episerver is also recognized as a strong Marketing and e-commerce platform, that helps Brands to achieve their goals and more. One of the requirements of expending a Brand Message globally is Content Localization. Episerver is one of the best CMSs in that regard. Here are the easy 4 steps to apply to make your Episerver ready for localization.

Also, you can check my YouTube Video about how to localize Episerver here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTDkNwO_hvI

First,

Log in as Admin. Go to the Admin section and click the second tab Config.

Now, click System Settings. You need to check the Enable Globalization checkbox.

Optionally; you can check the third option ‘Detect Language’ via the browser’s language preference, in case you want the CMS to automatically detect the preferred language.

Second,

you need to add your new languages to the System. From the same tab click Manage Website Languages.

Then, select your target language from the list.

If you cannot find your language (or Locale), Click the Add Language button at the top. Now you have all the languages available in the System to select from.

Then, click the language you select and check Enabled.

By default, the language will be available to all the internal users of the CMS. If you want to change this behavior click Add Users/ Groups.

Now you can search by individual user or group of users and weather to provide access or not to this particular language.

Third,

So far, we enabled globalization and we added languages to the System. The third step is to set up the language inheritance hierarchy on the Content Items (pages) level. To do that, we need to go to the Edit mode of the CMS, click the Pages tab, and select the Root node.

Now, click Tools and then Language Settings.

Next, is to add the language and click OK.

To apply the inheritance for this language setup for all subpages. Go to the Home node and make sure that Inherit settings from the parent page: “Root” is selected.

Now if you got to any of the other subpages, you will see that it inherits the same language settings as in the setup root node.

Fourth,

As we finished the third step, now we need to create the pages in the target language. You need to go to the second tab Sites and select the new target language that you have already set up in the first step. In this demo, I am using French.

Then, return back to the Pages tab and select any of the pages you want to translate into French. So far, the page doesn’t exist in the target language and needs to be created first.

As you can see the page node is in Italic and its current language is English. There is a Yellow message on the top that says that this page doesn’t exist in French. Two ways to create it in the new target language:

The first approach is to click the Translate button at the top right as in the below screen:

This approach will create the page structure into the new language but will not copy the English content to the French page.

The second approach is to use Episerver Languages Gadgets and creates the page using it to clone both; the page structure and the content from the source default language.

In the below link you will find one of my blogs that explain how to set up the Episerver Translate Gadget in detail. 

https://world.episerver.com/blogs/ayman-elbadawy/dates/2019/11/episerver-languages-add-on-2019/

Also, if you need to get more information about how to set up your Episerver CMS for multilingual you can watch my tutorial video here:

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Artificial intelligence is one of the most important topics in computer science. With the help of this science, machines can be made intelligent and used in various fields. We need to use programming to implement concepts related to artificial intelligence. Python is one of the most popular programming languages in this field. Its main strength comes from its libraries which some of them are so great that they make it possible to do almost anything with Python.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Defining artificial intelligence is not an easy task, because there are many different definitions of intelligence. But the simplest one of artificial intelligence is a machine or system that shows an intelligence like that of humans in different conditions. In other words, the machine that can plan, learn, think, have the ability to solve a problem, and ultimately interact with the external environment has an AI.

Sometimes we use AI systems without realizing it. For example, Instagram uses artificial intelligence to filter off offensive comments, detect violence in videos, or suggest a post based on users’ behavior. Another example is the voice assistant, which is being used increasingly. A smart assistant, like Siri or Alexa, uses machine learning to interact with humans.

Branches of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has many branches and is divided into different departments:

• One of its most important directions is Machine Learning (ML). In machine learning, humans determine the goal for a device. Then the machine must learn how to reach this goal. In this branch, the device always gains experience and learns new things.
• Another application of artificial intelligence is Natural Language Processing (NLP). Thanks to this branch, computers can recognize speech or write in different human languages. The most popular services that use this AI technology, and you may know it, are Google Translate and the anti-spam service.
• Machine Vision (MV) is one of the most attractive branches of artificial intelligence. We can view it as a human vision, but it has no limits. For example, human vision cannot see behind a wall or at great distances, but machine vision can! In this field, we deal with a variety of concepts such as converting analog images to digital images, signal processing, etc.
• Robotics is one of the most important branches of artificial intelligence in the world. Robots are still very different from what we see in the movies, but they are growing rapidly and they have a role now in sensitive and important areas: Surgical robots that perform their tasks better than humans, flying robots, and firefighting robots are all made with artificial intelligence.

Python and artificial intelligence

Years ago, people working in artificial intelligence and machine learning would have had to do various things manually. That is, they had to first analyze the algorithms and then implement the various formulas and reports. Combining these tasks was a long and tedious process, and in many cases, it was accompanied by an error. But today, with the growth of various programming languages, libraries, and frameworks based on them, this is much easier than before.

Python is currently one of the most popular programming languages ​​in the world. its popularity is not accidental, and there are many reasons for its usage. One of the main reasons for using this language is the simplicity of learning it. Artificial intelligence and its branches have their own complexities, and experts in this field cannot spend much time learning the complexities of a programming language. It is also very flexible and supports a variety of programming methods.

Python libraries for artificial intelligence

Python’s popularity in various fields has led developers to create many libraries for this language. With these libraries, Python AI users will not have to worry about complex programming and structures: developers already designed and programmed almost everything they need!

Scikit-learn

Scikit-learn is one of the best machine learning libraries in Python. This library handles basic algorithms for this field well. We use Scikit-learn for linear and logistic regression, clustering, classification, etc.

Pandas

Pandas is an open-source library published under the BSD License. This library, in addition to its easy operation, is also very efficient. We use Pandas to analyze data trying to bridge the gap in Python with modeling and analyzing data. Furthermore, Pandas, along with other deep learning and machine learning libraries, is gaining more power.

TensorFlow

In 2010, Google formed a research team in the field of artificial intelligence and deep learning. The TensorFlow Library is one of the group’s achievements, published in 2015. Google uses this library for its research and products. TensorFlow has dedicated itself to a wide variety of operating systems (Linux, Windows, Mac, etc.).

Matplotlib

Matplotlib is a very useful library for creating infographics. With it, you can design a variety of 2D shapes, graphs, etc. After analyzing your various information, you can use infographics to make it more readable and understandable. Matplotlib helps us get tangible output from our data.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence has a bright future. This field of computer science is still maturing and there are many unresolved issues to this day. There are several advantages to choosing Python for an AI professional. By choosing this language, one can focus more on algorithms and problems in the field of work rather than spending time on the programming language itself. Simplicity, rapid development, and flexibility make Python a great option for working in a wide variety of areas of artificial intelligence.

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RDBMS vs NoSQL: The relationship between data and User Interfaces (UI) always depends on a platform or system for managing databases in order to save data and provide it for use when and as needed. Programmers are well aware of this. At a certain point in building any software project, you will need to store the data for subsequent use, whether User data such as name, password, email, etc., or other data depending on the project.

Nowadays we have RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) and the new trending DB management System: NoSQL.

What is RDBMS?

In order to better explain NoSQL, we must first define the RDBMS type: It is a relational database management system. This means you store the data in the database in the form of tables. So that each table has a specific name. A database can contain a large number of tables. The table consists of internal elements also called Columns, and each column has a name and type of entry that accepts a value, i.e., for example, the name column accepts the value of type Varchar (50), which means that the column accepts input of type text with maximum 50 characters. Tables are linked in databases as needed, as there is a set of linking properties such as (One to One, One to Many, Many to Many).

In short, the relational system consists of tables with specific pre-defined value types of columns, and Foreign Keys link between them.

What is NoSQL?

NoSQL, which is an abbreviation for the term Not Only SQL, comes to change the way of data management. NoSQL organizes data using a structured approach. The parent node is the root element. It is present in the header of the structure. Then, the child’s elements come below it. Each element has its own key in order to define it, such as id. And each key has its own value that carries any type without prior specification as in the RDBMS.

So that the final result becomes in the form of a Structured Tree. You can extract its data in JSON format. In NoSQL, you do not need to create a database. Rather we need to create a Directory Root that acts as the database. Furthermore, you do not need to define the tables or to specify the type of data that can be entered into Each key. At first glance, You may think that this approach is messy, but in fact, it is a strong approach to store data.

Who should use NoSQL and where?

The concept of relational databases is not appropriate at all when databases are dealt with massively especially in the field of Big Data: where thousands of unspecified and specific information are stored every second like images and text. Also, the need of extracting any type of data (bulk data) and then doing the filtering process later. Thus, so many companies decided that the relational system is not suitable. The relational system is mainly limited in the type of data stored. based on that, You had to use a new data storage system and NoSQL was the solution. Today, all major companies in the world, especially the leaders in the field of Big Data use NoSQL.

NoSQL vs RDBMS

You have to first realize that RDBMS and NoSQL each have their uses. Each one plays a role in its own domain. But let’s talk a little bit about the most important differences.

Scalability

let’s start with Scalability. NoSQL has a greater and better ability to store any type of files, regardless of whether images, texts, links, numbers. While the RDBMS is confined to a dedicated data type that cannot be bypassed. You must also specify the type of data that will be storing them. In case the type does not match the entered values, an error will occur. Unlike NoSQL where you can save anything without pre-defining its type, but with specifying the key to access it.

Usability

Both are almost close in terms of usability. Small, medium or large companies are using NoSQL and RDBMS in a range of services such as websites, applications, and desktop programs. But NoSQL and its capabilities allow us to use it in deeper domains such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Social Media to rely on Big Data. RDBMS relies on queries or SQL queries in order to manipulate data, while NoSQL does not rely at all on SQL to deal with queries or data.

Support

Although NoSQL is powerful, it is still not supported by many database management platforms, unlike RDBMS which is supported almost by many Web Servers and Database Management platforms. The most important platform that supports NoSQL currently is MongoDB, and perhaps it is the most famous as well.

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The Maghreb dialects are among the Arabic dialects spoken in the countries of the Maghreb. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Despite the similarity, these dialects are not from the same origin. For example, the Libyan dialect is more oriented towards the Bedouin accent. The Moroccan is more influenced by the Andalusian civilization.

Libyan dialect

The Libyan dialect is classified within the pure Bedouin dialects. The Libyan dialect is distinguished by pronouncing the letter “qāf” (ق) as “Jim” (جيم) and using the letter “n” (نون) instead of “alef” (الف) in their speech. So instead of (ored| أريد), they say (noreed|نريد).

One of the advantages of the Libyan dialect is that it contains a huge amount of vocabulary. There is no noun or verb without many synonyms that may be used instead of it, all of which come From the Arabic language.

The Libyan dialect has several accents, including:

• The Eastern dialect of Cyrenaica (Barka | برقة) province in the eastern part of Libya.
• The dialect of the Central Region, which is a pure Bedouin dialect used by the tribes of the western region.
• The Western or Tripoli dialect, used in the capital, Tripoli, is considered somewhat influenced by the Italian language.
• The dialect of the Badia tribes is characterized by the absence of any extraneous vocabulary and is full of words in the ancient Arabic language.

Algerian dialect

Algerian Arabic arose in the eighth century under the influence of the Arabic and some of the Amazigh, Punic, and Latin languages. The Arabic language entered Algeria with the advent of the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb, before that the Amazigh and Punic languages prevailed. When the Amazighs entered Islam and mixed with Arabic speakers, the Algerian Arabic changed a bit and was affected by the local language, so it adopted many of its words and even its grammatical rules.

The Algerian Arabic dialect is characterized by several regional formations belonging to two different groups: the urban pre-Hilalian dialects influenced by the Andalusian dialect, and the Bedouin Hilalian dialects.

The Algerian Hilalian dialect belongs to three language groups:

• Eastern Hilalian dialects: It is spoken in the high plateaus around Sétif, Tébessa, Biskra, Bordj Bou Arreridj, M’sila, Djelfa, and Laghouat.
• Central Hilalian dialects: from central and southern Algeria, south of Algiers and Oran.
• Al-Maqal dialects: spoken in the western part of the Oran sector.

Moroccan dialect

The Moroccan dialect is one of the Arabic dialects and is used by most Moroccans and is considered the mother tongue of 50% of Moroccans, and it comes second in the regions speaking the Amazigh language.

This dialect in general is a legacy of the Islamic civilization, but it was influenced by the languages of the non-Arab peoples that contributed to building this civilization, such as the original Amazigh inhabitants in addition to the Andalusians and the French.

In Morocco, each region has its own dialect, but the differences are slight and do not affect understanding and communication. However, the original Moroccan dialects are now extinct due to the spread of the colloquial language. It is confined between a few dialects:

• The Andalusian dialect that spread in the city of Fez and partly in Meknes, Salé, Rabat, and Bilad Gabala.
• Bedouin dialect, which is the dialect of the Arab tribes in the West, Al Haouz, Chaouia, Rudigha, Doukkala and Abda.
• Hassani dialect, which is the dialect of the Sahrawi Arabs.

Tunisian dialect

The Tunisian Arabic dialect is one of the Maghreb dialects spoken in Tunisia. The Tunisians recognize it as the vernacular or the spoken language to distinguish it from classical Arabic, and they also call it Tunisian Language.

The Tunisian dialect is used throughout the country, with variations from one side to the other. it is similar to the dialects of eastern Algeria, western Libya, and northern Morocco.

The Tunisian can, through his accent, communicate with the Libyan, the Algerian, or the Moroccan without having to speak in their accents, due to the similarity of their dialects. One of the characteristics of the Tunisian dialect over most other Arabic dialects is its correct and proper pronunciation of most of the twenty-eight Arabic letters.

Tunisian colloquial dialect

The Tunisian colloquial dialect is a dialect based on the local accent and the Amazigh language and dominated by the Arabic vocabulary. It has also been influenced by French, Italian, and other ancient and modern languages such as Turkish and Andalusian.

The degree of dependence on the non-Amazigh words varies from one region to another. In rural areas, their accent has predominated the phrases of Amazigh origins, and their inhabitants do not pronounce the “Hamza” (همزه) at all.

In contrast, the residents of the coasts and the capital do not use Amazigh vocabulary that much. They use many French, Turkish, Italian, Spanish, and recently English words to replace the missing words and expressions. Because of this huge import of foreign words, the Tunisian dialect has moved away from classical Arabic, until it is considered a language in itself and not a dialect.

Conclusion

In general, the Libyan, Egyptian, and Moroccan dialects cannot be considered one language, even if they are all Arabic dialects. In Libya, the Bedouin dialect predominates, and thus the Libyan dialect is a major exception in terms of accent from the rest of the Maghreb countries. The contemporary Egyptian language combines Pharaonic, Coptic, and modern Egyptian spoken language, while in Morocco, for example, the Andalusian influence is more visible. In these dialects, there are also words from European languages, especially the French language, as a result of the French colonialism in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. As for Libya, we find the use of Italian words and some Amazigh, Turkish and African words.

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To understand how to internationalize MongoDB we need to talk briefly about its technical characteristics. So, it is an open-source database. It falls under the NoSQL database type. Unlike SQL, stored data has no predefined schema or structure. It was published for the first time in 2009 and is developed using C++, Go, Python, and JavaScript.

SQL vs NoSQL

From the above comparison, it is quite obvious why NoSQL is popular these days! In the last few years, the amount of exchange and the volume of non-structure data has become huge. Traditional databases and SQL have a lot of challenges and limitations to deal with such types of data. Here are a few benefits of MongoDB of type NoSQL:

• Easily scalable.
• You can store any type of data.
• You can use your favorite way to manipulate data on MongoDB as it comes with no predefined structure.
• High performance and speed.
• The ability to deal with any amount of unstructured data.
• MongoDB is suitable for both small or large companies.

MongoDB Internationalization (i18n)

The following are among the important preparation points to tackle to internationalize MongoDB:

Collation

You need to set the appropriate collation during the database creation.

Schema Design & Architecture for Multilingual data

Designing a Schema for a multilingual database is not an easy task. This is because good architecture requires the following:

• Full understanding of the business needs and technical requirements of the project.
• A good Schema must be able not only to fulfill current requirements but also to accommodate and to deal with subsequent changes and requirements in the future without reconstruction.
• Deep knowledge of the technical characteristics of the database program and utilization of every feature in it that makes the final database scalable, stable, secured along with a strong performance.
• Also, there is no shortcut or one solution for a well-designed schema. The same design can be perfect or no depending on the project’s requirements. Let’s see an example and demonstrate how many Schema designs can be provided:

Let’s say we have a Product Collection with the following data: ID, Name, Description, Availablity (True or False), Price & Currency.

The requirement is to Design a schema to internationalize the product so it can be stored, updated, retrieved easily in multiple languages.

From the above Collection, you can see that some documents are language relevant: Name, Description, Price, and Currency. But, ID and Boolean value of availability are not language-dependent.

Solution 1

Is to create a collection per language:

Solution 2

Within only one Product collection, you can create the languages inside it.

Solution 3

In solution 2, we split the collection per language. Another solution also within the same collection is to split per language-dependent field :

Solution 4

We can create something like a dictionary within the collection to group content per language while separating the language-independent content:

These are 4 solutions and be sure that there are many more. But what is the best one? Simply each of them theoretically is valid. But practically to decide the best one, there are factors to help you to make the right decision:

• The frequency of changes such as adding or removing new products.
• Are you doing the schema architecture for the product for the first time? Or you are customizing an already built one. Because sometimes extending from an existing Collection is a better solution for complex designs already in production.
• If you are customizing the schema, what is the level of dependency between the collections?
• What is the volume of documents? If it is too large it may exceed the MongoDB document size limit.
• The performance is important and sometimes it is crucial and must be the first priority.
• What is the cost and effort needed for future maintenance?
• How much your design is flexible and scalable?

To conclude, the key here to achieve the best result is the perfect communication between the Solution Architect and all the stakeholders along with the deep understanding of the technical requirements and the database platform capabilities and limitations. Of course, the experience and the knowledge gained from previous similar projects facilitate a lot in the decision-making process.

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The Emirati dialect is considered one of the richest dialects that contain an abundant linguistic stock, the richness of this dialect is due to its first formation by merging a number of dialects coming from the east, west, and south of the Arabian Peninsula. It is said that the Emirati dialect is the dialect of the Arabs 15 centuries ago.

The Emirati people still preserve the language through the use of many ancient vocabularies that distinguishes the Bedouin Emirati dialect from other Arab dialects in general and the Gulf in particular.

The old Emirati dialect

It may be assumed by some that all the peoples of the Gulf Cooperation Council share the same dialect and that the UAE shares the same culture with the rest of the countries, yet each of them has a different dialect characterized by a set of different vocabulary. In addition to the fact that the United Arab Emirates combines more than one dialect, which varies according to the Geographical distribution of the population. The current Emirati dialect is considered a mixture of ancient and external vocabulary, and the main factor that brought the merging of the Emirati dialect was its strategic location on the coast, which facilitated the process of mixing with other people. This coalition led to mixing meanings and words and their diversity. The travel of merchants also served to add new vocabulary that they brought with them from neighboring countries, such as India and Persia.

Foreign words in the Emirati dialect

Types of Emirati dialects

The dialects in the United Arab Emirates vary according to the region, some of them differ in some vocabulary and words, and some have a repository that differs completely from other dialects. Among these dialects:

• The west coast and Abu Dhabi dialect
• Urban dialect in cities like Dubai, Ajman, and Sharjah.
• Al Qaywain dialect. Relative to Umm Al Quwain.
• Ras Al Khaimah dialect.
• The Bedouin dialect.
• Dialects of mountains region.

Emirati original words and their meanings

Specialization of the Emarati Dialect

The specialization is represented in the manner of pronouncing some letters. The ancient Arab tribes that lived in the Arabian Gulf coast region for more than 15 centuries, fluctuated the letter Jim (جيم) to Yā (ياء) in words, and some of them used to add the letters Yā (ياء) and Hā (هاء) to certain words. This dialect is spoken by the people of Al Dhafra Region in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi today.

The reason for the dialectal diversity is the environmental diversity of a mountain, sea, and agricultural land, so that the dialects of the same environment differ from one emirate to another, for example, the dialect of the people of Al Dhafra in Abu Dhabi, which differs from the dialects of the Badia in the northern emirates, in addition to tribal diversity.

Historical background

The history of the Emirates is closely linked and rooted in trade and Islam, which entered the region in 630 AD. And because of its distinguished and important location passing through the merchants of Europe, the Far East, India, and China, its coasts were coveted by European invaders, and the region fell under the British Mandate in the nineteenth century, until it got Autonomy in 1971 AD.

The pearl trade flourished in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, providing income and job opportunities for the Gulf peoples in the summer, while the cultivation of dates provided sources of income in the winter, and continued until the early thirties of the twentieth century when companies started the search for oil.

The first shipment of crude oil was exported from Abu Dhabi in 1962, that is, after thirty years of exploration and work. Oil revenues were used to repair infrastructure, build schools, housing, hospitals, and the road network. in 1969, the Emirate of Dubai began exporting oil, and with the British announcement of the withdrawal from the Arabian Gulf, an agreement was reached between the rulers of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Umm Al-Quwain, Fujairah, and Ajman. To establish the federation known as the United Arab Emirates on December 2, 1971, and in the following year the seventh emirate, Ras al-Khaimah joined.

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The Gulf dialect is branched off from the Arabic language. It is a term by which all the Arabic dialects in the Arab Gulf region and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries are classified.

Countries that speak the Gulf dialect are the United Arab Emirates, the State of Kuwait, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the State of Qatar. The Omani dialect is not considered as a Gulf dialect. Their words and meanings are different. It is an ancient dialect that has been passed down through generations until this present time.

Emirati dialect

The Emirati dialect is a branch of the Arabic language. It is similar to the Kuwaiti dialect in some words. In this dialect, the letter “qāf” (ق) is pronounced ” gā” (ج) and the letter “Jim” (جيم) is often pronounced as a “ya” (يا), such as “Masjid = Masyid.”

Kuwaiti dialect

The Kuwaiti dialect is a branch of the Arabic language as well and one of the Gulf dialects, but many of its words disappeared and new words appeared with the succession of different generations and the influence of different cultures.

The Kuwaiti dialect is characterized by two main branches:

• The urban Kuwaiti dialect.
• The Bedouin Kuwaiti dialect.

The difference between them appears in the pronouncement of the letter “Jim” (جيم) as in the urban dialect, it is pronounced as “ya” (يا), like the word “chicken” (دجاجة), is pronounced as “Diyya” (دياية), and the word “riyal” (رجال) for “rejal” (رجال) which means men. Also, the letter “qāf” (ق) is pronounced in the Kuwaiti dialect as “gā” (جا).

Bahraini dialect

The Bahraini dialect is used by most of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Bahrain. And it speaks in two different dialects:

• The Bahraini dialect (Baharnah dialect) is the most widespread and is used in most areas of Bahrain. It is a little similar to the Iraqi dialect.
• The Gulf dialect, which is used in Muharraq, Riffa, Budaiya, Madinah, Umm Al Hassam, and some other areas. It is similar to the Qatari dialect with a difference in pronunciation.

There are many words in the Bahrani dialect that are not originally from the Arabic language, and the origins of these words go back to the Persian, Hindi, and Turkish languages as a result of these nationalities mixing with Baharna for a long time.

The Qatari Dialect

The Qatari dialect is also derived from the Arabic language and is similar to the Kuwaiti dialect. “qāf” (ق) is pronounced ” gā” (ج) and also in some words the letter “Jim” (جيم) is often pronounced as a “ya” (يا)

Saudi dialect

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the original homeland of the Arabic language. The Arabic dialects vary there according to the following factors: geography, tribal, civilization, and nomadism.

Omani dialect

The Omani dialect is different than the Gulf dialect and other Arabic dialects. Its words and their meanings are different. It is a long-standing dialect inherited by generations to the present, and the Omani dialect varies from region to region and sometimes from one state to another. The dialect in the eastern region is different from the other regions such as Al-Batina, Mosandam, Al-Dakhleya, and Zafar.

The Muscat people’s accent is the one that is understood by all. As well as the people of Musandam because they are close to the Persians, they have been influenced by them, there are some Persian words they use in their Arabic speaking, so they are incomprehensible to those who do not understand Farsi. The eastern dialect and Al-Brimi province are also understood by the people of the UAE.

The Gulf dialect is an Arabic dialect and it is spoken by the Arab clans and tribes that inhabited the Arab Gulf region on its banks. The Gulf dialect has been affected by some vocabulary from neighboring regions such as Persian and Turkish and it also contains some Hindi or English words due to the mixing that occurred between these peoples in the Arab Gulf region.

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Every country in the world speaks one or more languages. There is an interactive reciprocal relationship between them: Language is one of the unique characteristics of every country. The country, in turn, adds a special flavor to the language, a locale!

You always need to analyze the dialects used in a country. This will help you to provide its people with a localized product or service that doesn’t sound strange. A country’s dialect is always the outcome of different factors: history, education, geography, economical activities, and relations with other nations.

Egypt Geographical Location

Egypt is an African country, located in the north of the continent., It overlooks the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. This country is enjoying a unique location between three continents: Asia, Europe, and Africa. The longest river in the world flows in it, which is the Nile River.

Hieroglyphs

Egypt is the land of the wondrous Pharaonic civilization. The world is still discovering and wondering about its Pyramids and Temples. Egyptians were using Hieroglyphs language at that time. They wrote It on papyrus and on the walls of temples.

Interestingly, Egyptians are still using some of the hieroglyphic synonyms in their modern spoken language. After seven thousand years, the language still alive among the descendants of the Pharaohs! Let’s see just a few examples:

Furthermore, it is even more strange that although, the ِancient Egyptian Language in its writings was not scientifically discovered until 1822 when the French scientist Champollion discovered the meaning of its letters. Yet it did not die and remained alive till now!

Coptic language

Then comes the Coptic language, which is known to be the last development of the ancient Egyptian Language and was prevalent during the period of Roman ruling till the Arab conquest of Egypt.
The Coptic language is a mixture of Greek letters, plus some ancient Egyptian letters, which have no equivalent in the Greek language. ِAnd similar to the ancient Egyptian language, it still has a trace in modern Egyptian speech. Just to name a few:

“yad, wad واد، ياض” meaning a boy, “Abai| اباي” is a sign of surprise and disapproval, “Itai | ايتاي” means a valley, and “Erdab | إردب” which is a measure of agricultural scales, “Afsikhi | افسيخي ” meaning fish, and Awbash| أوباش”means bad people,” outa|أوطة” meaning tomato, and” bah | باح “is a Coptic word meaning none, “tarabiza|طربيزة” means table.

The strange and surprising thing is that after hundreds of years have passed since the Coptic language was replaced by Arabic, there is still an Egyptian village that still speaks the Coptic language until now. It is the village of Al-Zainiya-Bahri in the Luxor Governorate, where they still speak the Coptic language in their daily lives.

ِArabic Language

In the beginning, the Arabic language began as a stranger among the Copts in the seventh century AD. Then it gradually mixed with the Coptic tongue. At this time, a stage of conflict arose between the two languages ​​over the tongues of the Egyptians, who for centuries remained bilingual. Finally, it ended in favor of Arabic.

And it is worth noting here that the Arabic language is called the language of “dhad”, as it is the only language in the world in which this letter is found.

Nowadays, Arabic is the official language of Egypt, but with many dialects that vary from region to another.

Egyptian Dialects

The modern Egyptian language belongs to the family of the Hamitic-Semitic languages ​​(Afro-Asian), and it is the fourth stage of the languages ​​spoken by the Egyptians throughout their history. Among these ones, we have the Cairo, Alexandrian, Farmers, and Upper Egypt dialects.

It turns out that the Egyptian civilization throughout the ages has succeeded in digesting and assimilating many languages such as hieroglyphs, Greek, Coptic, and Arabic. Then, it produced its own verbal language that combines in its vocabulary many words and expressions from other languages without being affected by any of them.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion!

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In order to answer the question of why Glossary is essential for translation projects into Arabic. Let’s first share some definitions like what is Glossary? The difference between glossary and translation memory, what type of terms to extract? Glossary structure, and benefits. Then we can go into more detail to explain the Arabic case.

What is Glossary?

A list of terms and short expressions specific to a client or to an industry. You develop the glossary, translate it, and approve it before starting the translation process. This is important to make sure you are using the correct terminologies all over the translation. Once done, you can always edit and update it and search for terms during the translation process. There are many commercial tools or even in-house developed software to facilitate working with glossaries. Also, you can measure the quality of a final translation by its adherence to the terms saved in the glossary. A glossary is a trustable reference for the translator in a translation project.

Difference between Glossary and Translation Memory

While Translation Memory stores the segments of a translation, the Glossary contains only pre-defined short terms of certain words only. Also, a glossary is prepared and approved before starting the translation of the actual content and can be maintained and updated later. The Translation Memory is developed during the translation process itself. A term stored in a glossary means that it was researched enough. already used and also approved.

What terms to extract for a glossary?

The glossary terms have one or more of the following characteristics:

• Terms that require clarifications because they are used in a meaning that is different from usual.
• Brand and product names.
• The words that should not be translated.
• Technical, scientific, or legal terms.
• Abbreviations.
• Any other unique terminologies related to a domain or a brand.

Glossary Structure

The glossary structure is a combination of more or less of the following sections:

• Source & target languages.
• The explanation that provides more details about the term like why to use it this way, where to use it and where not, capitalizations, etc…
• Related comments.
• Dates of addition, updates, acceptance (versioning).
• Reviewers names.

Glossary Benefits

• Maintain the consistency of the overall translation which will increase the quality.
• Makes it easy to understand the context of the terms and then translate it correctly.
• Create a common understanding between the client and the translation company and prevent misunderstanding.
• Accelerate the translation process by reducing the research time to select the best translation that matches certain repeated terms.
• Reduce ambiguity and uncertainty.
• Can be used as an acceptance criterion of the translation.
• During the Linguistic QA, the glossary facilitates the process of discovering translation issues.

The importance of glossary for Arabic translation projects

As mentioned, a translation glossary is very important to ensure the accuracy of the overall translation but it has a crucial role when the target language is not written in Latin script like Arabic for example.

Arabic diacritics

We write the Arabic Script from right to left while the numbers are written from left to right. Also, the Arabic Script uses some optional diacritics as in the below figure. These diacritics are used optionally to clarify the meaning and the pronunciation of certain words. These words can be agreed upon and stored in a glossary to be applied for the whole translated content.

Consonantal Alphabet

Also, The Arabic Script is a consonantal alphabet. This means no written vowels! For Arabic native speakers, this is not an issue as the reader can easily pronounce a word and understand it based on the context where it is written. And in traditional Arabic, the vowels are expressed using certain symbols (the ones highlighted in the above figure). But what about an Arabic Translation for a Natural Language Processing project? The computer cannot understand the word the way the human can. A well-prepared glossary can help the machine to have a better understanding of the different meanings of a single word in Arabic.

Arabic Dialects

And the fact that Arabic is the first language in the Middle East and North Africa, this doesn’t mean that the Modern Standard Arabic is the best choice to use for all the countries there. There are different dialects based on the country or the area, like Gulf Countries, Egypt, North Africa. A pre-defined agreement between the translator and the client about the Arabic locale and its related terminologies is very important. And to make sure they are used consistently in the whole translation project, they need to be stored in a glossary.

Terminologies

Also, using a glossary is very useful when the translation is related to the engineering or the medical domains. A lot of terminologies in these fields are usually kept in English. Therefore, including them in the main glossary of the translation project is important.

Arabic Letters

Furthermore, the Arabic language is distinguished from other languages by certain characteristics such as letter marks that can be added over or under letters like:

Such kind of a language specialty makes it more complex and then needs more collaboration and research. The glossary can save time here by doing the effort one time at the beginning of the project then store the result in a glossary and get it approved. Then, apply it during the translation process instead of keeping doing research for complex words during the translation process itself.

Conclusion:

The glossary should be always created before any translation and should be maintained and updated to keep it relevant. Translators must study, understand, and follow strictly the glossary during the translation then finally during the linguistic QA the glossary must be used as an acceptance factor for the final approval.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion!

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Content Management Systems vs Custom websites

Content Management Systems, usually abbreviated to CMS, is a highly customizable blueprint platform that is used to manage different types of content by non-technical users. And, the last decade witnessed a dramatic increase in Content Management Systems usage and a clear decrease in custom websites. Why?

Source

Static vs Dynamic content environment

Because during the last few years, the need for a dynamic environment to share information has become crucial. Static or custom websites show inefficiency to tackle such requirements. From here, the concept of Content Management Systems rises. Now, without technical skills, a user can easily create, update, or delete the content as well as publish it. 

Nowadays, we have almost 668 Content Management Systems up and running worldwide. Here is a portion of them. Each one has its own characteristics, pros, and cons:

Top 5 CMS used currently are:

Source

Does this mean that you must use one of these top 5? Of Course not! The fact that these ones are the top 5 doesn’t mean that any of them can fit your business requirements. This will lead us to the main point of the blog: How to select the best CMS for your own business requirements?  The following checklist will definitely guide you to the right one:

How to choose your CMS?

And to conclude, CMSs are now leading the content creation and publishing processes. To get the most benefits from them, make sure to select the right one that fits your business needs.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion!

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Things you must know before localizing your product into Arabic

Before digging into the details of product localization into the Arabic language, let’s first explain briefly the difference between localization and translation: Translation is the process of literally describing certain words and sentences from one language like English into another language. The localization process is more global. Besides the translation, it covers the adaptation of the overall context to go with the target language including cultural correctness, images, and any other related assets. Understanding this difference makes it easy to manage the process of localization into Arabic.

Quick facts about the Arabic Language:

• The Arabic language is considered the richest language in history:

Source: http://bit.ly/3bWusFn

• The Arabic language is ranked fifth globally in terms of the number of people who speak it. 

Source: http://bit.ly/3c0UxDo

General Characteristics of the Arabic Language:

• Bidirectional Language: Arabic is one of the few languages worldwide that is written from right to left. An Arabic word consists of a set of contiguous characters. An Arabic sentence is a set of words with a space between them and ends by a full stop.

• Numbers: Despite the text being written from right to left, the numbers are written from left to right like in English. For example, let’s check the below Phone number example:

Note: Writing phone numbers or any other numbers from right to left is considered an error. Make sure your Website or CMS templates are smart enough to differentiate between The type of content: text (RTL) and Numbers (LTR).

• Calendar: Most Arabic countries prefer to use the Hijri Calendar but the Gregorian calendar is also acceptable. The choice will depend on your Market research output based on the specific area of the Arabic world you are targeting.

• Font: The Arabic language has a very large set of fonts that are able to display the Arabic characters in a clear way to read. Check the  below examples:

• Glyphs (Tanween, tashkeel, etc…): The Arabic language uses a kind of Glyphs above or under a character to change the way it is pronounced and it may even change the sense of the word itself. It is crucial to make sure the words are written correctly in order to deliver the exact intended meaning to the audience. In the following example, I will write one-word several times with exactly the same characters but with a completely different meaning based on the Glyphs used for each word:

As we can see above, I used the same word that contains exactly the same characters:

 (ع | ل | م) but the glyphs used  ( َ  | ِ | ّ  | ٌ  | ْ ) changed the meaning of the word. 

Note: It is recommended to have an Arabic native speaker to do a final online QA before releasing a localized product, to make sure the Arabic text is correct to avoid any confusion due to small but crucial errors. 

• English words of Arabic origin. It is wise to use such words as appropriate in context when targeting Arabic audiences because they will sound familiar to them. Let’s check the following ones:

Technical aspects of Arabization

Now, that we have a brief understanding of the Arabic language’s main characteristics, let’s take a step further to see how to deal with this language from a technical perspective:

• Templates: Nowadays, most companies use Content Management Systems in order to share their content worldwide. In addition to the common technical preparation for multilingual publishing, the Arabic language required additional steps: Templates: Any CMS provides built-in or custom templates to hold content. These need to be flexible and smart enough to detect the user selection of the language. Based on that convert the direction of the text to be from right to left. Also, the templates and any related plugins need to be able to deal with the Hijri calendar and keep the number in English from left to right. Finally, the templates must be able to use the appropriate font for the Arabic language. The role of the localization engineer here is crucial to help the developers in the software development processes.
• Pseudo-Translation before Localization: pseudo-translation rounds are required before the real translation. This is to make sure all the properties and content placeholders are ready to display Arabic appropriately.
• Search: Users must be able to search using their preferred language and get the expected results. In many cases, the testing of the Search is neglected and this leads to a negative user experience. Thus, deep testing for different search cases is very helpful in order to provide a great experience for the Arabic audience. 

Cultural awareness takeaways:

• The majority of the Arabic world is Muslim. So, any product and/or related marketing campaign should avoid violating the common sense of the Islamic community. For example, Alcohol, drugs, and pork are prohibited in almost all these countries.
• Also, the Arab mind is somehow conservative. The target products in this area must be aware of this.
• An important hint to take into consideration is that the Arabic countries and their populations do not all follow the same lifestyle. Specific market research for the target area of the Arabic world will help a lot to re-shape the product for that area. For example:
  • Gulf Area: the richest area of the Arabic world and most people there have a luxurious lifestyle. They are mainly influenced by the US lifestyle.
  • North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) are more influenced by the French lifestyle. This is reflected even in their way of pronouncing Arabic words or even they are using a mix which is named Franco-Arab.
  • Egypt is the biggest Arabic country with a population of more than 100 Million. Most young Egyptians are highly educated and they prefer the American lifestyle.

To conclude, the Arabic language is one of the richest languages with regard to the number of synonyms and expressions. To have a smooth product Arabization process, consider using an Arabic native speaker consultancy service to help to enhance the acceptance of your product in this area of the world.

Feel free to leave a comment or to contact me for an open discussion

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Umbraco is a great Content Management System that is known as one of the most user-friendly platforms nowadays. Umbraco 8 comes with many localization enhancements that make the translation process more efficient and cost-effective. Also, Umbraco has a strong community that provides technical support and extensions such as Translation Manager for Umbraco 8 that provide more usability to the CMS.

Translation Manager is one of the tools that really understand the localization business requirements and provides a robust solution to run localization projects smoothly and reduce the time and cost of the translation. Before digging into the different features of this localization tool it is important to explain first how to add new languages to the CMS so you can build your localization strategy based on that using Umbraco Translation Manager.

Add New Language

From Settings, select Languages from the left column then click Add Language.

In the next screen, you can do the following:

• 1- Choose the new target language(s) from the drop-down list.
• 2- Make the new language the default one (if needed).
• 3- Make the new language mandatory (if needed).
• 4- Choose the fallback language. (the language that will be used if the target language is missing for a page).
• 5- Click Save.

Once you click Save, you will have the new language added to the list as follows:

Umbraco Translation Manager

This useful package makes it easy to manage all the localization-related processes within the CMS itself without the need to use any external tools to track your translation projects

To install the package, download it or from within the CMS, install it directly. If you are a developer you can install it via NuGet:

PM> Install-Package Jumoo.TranslationManager

Once installed, click Finish.

The Translation Manager has 2 licenses: Free (2 languages) and paid (1 license per domain and related subdomains such as ar.website.com, de.website.com, etc…)

Now from the Top horizontal menu select Translation then View Settings

In the next screen, you will be able to manage your global translation settings. Then click Save.

Managing your Translation Packages:

Using the Translation Manager, in order to translate any content you need to create a Translation Set first. From the Horizontal Menu, select Translation. If this is the first time to use the plugin, click Create your first set

Before preparing our Translation Set, let’s first understand the Translation Manager Dashboard:

We have mainly 4 sections:

1- Site: 

Identify the Master site (Source) and the sites where the content will be translated. 

2- Properties:

Choose to translate the Node name or not. Excluded / Include properties: Please note that using (*) means that all properties will be included.

3- Connector:

Select the Localization Service that you are going to use for Translation. The default / built-in one is XLIFF File Connector

4- Actions: Enable / Disable the following default actions:

• A- Copy or Create: Auto-create a copy of the content from Master to the sites in other languages.
• B- Create and Send Translation: Editors can create than send content for translation directly.
• C- Automatic Approval: Content is approved automatically after check-in.

Now, in Section 1 (Sites), when you click Add, a new popup on the right side will appear and you need to select the Master node and the language assigned to it.

Then repeat the same for the Sites. Once both are done the First section will look like this:

Click Save. Now you have your first Translation Set ready

Now Click Settings and you will see in the left column near the bottom, a Node in bold “Translation”. Under this node, there are two items: Sets and Connectors.

Obviously, The Set item deals with creating or reloading Translation Sets

XLIFF File Connector

This is a great feature that solves a lot of challenges I faced during managing localization projects for Umbraco. First of all, it uses the Standard format that all translation CAT tools can deal with which is XLIFF (XML Localization Interchange File Format). Furthermore, the XLIFF structure is well checked and doesn’t violate any of the file format standards which may affect how the file is preceded by CAT tools which lead to issues such as(Encoding problems, Adding more irrelevant words that will by mistake increase the total words count and prices. The well-structured XLIFF will dramatically reduce the preliminary and final engineering process.

Folder: This feature lets you specify the path where the extracted XLIFF files will be saved based on your security team’s recommendations. From there you can safely use an automated process to send the files to your translators without violating any of your security rules such as open certain ports to allow the connection with a third-party connector. This can be a good solution especially for websites with high-security measures.

Format: A second great feature as you have the variety to select between different versions of XLIFF to be compatible with the Translation CAT tools you are dealing with without additional steps which will save time and cost.

Extension: same as above, some cat tools use XLIff extensions as XLF, XLIFF, or even XML which is wrong but practically exists.

Split HTML into Chunk (XLIFF 2): a very smart solution to reduce the complexity of a project and speed-up the project delivery time and many other advantages.

Overwrite Blank Targets: This is also very useful. We are always using external scripts to do this. Now it is a built-in feature that will help also saving engineering time and cost.

Working with Languages using the Translation Manager

Now all the settings are in place. From the Content section, you can simply select a page, and from the top horizontal menu click Translations.

As you can see in the above screen, you will have access to useful information such as the current Translation Set, Statistics about the total words/characters count based on the content saved in the translatable properties, target language(s). Also, you can click Create Translation to get access to more options to accurately create the new version in the target language such as:

To conclude, the Translation Manager for Umbraco seems to be a strong connector that will enhance at a very low cost the localization capabilities of Umbraco. Also, a lot of additional features can be added to it, to be a complete suite with Machine Translation capabilities, connections with Translation Memories, reporting, etc… But for now, the current functionality seems to be smart and stable to handle Umbraco content localization.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion!

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Testing vs Quality Assurance (QA)

First of all, and before digging into the Localization Quality Assurance details, it is important to clarify that Testing is not QA. Many use both terms as synonyms which is wrong. Quality Assurance (QA) is about preventing errors while testing is about finding the errors. For example, if you are reviewing the requirements of a project and you find issues, this is Quality Assurance because by solving these problems you are preventing errors during the next phases of the project development cycle.

What is Quality?

Quality is simply used to reflect the level of customer satisfaction of a product regardless if it is software, a translation, or a service.

What is Linguistic QA?

Linguistic QA is a process that deals with the localized content itself regardless of the medium that will display it. It measures the quality of the translated content from a linguistic perspective. It also cares about how much the localized content can transfer a message to be easily understood by the audience of the target language (culture correctness).

Localization QA (the broader definition)

Besides the Linguistic QA (LQA), Localization QA does not only measure the linguistic aspects of translation but bypasses it to anything else like assets (images, pdfs, videos, etc…) to make sure that all the content is in harmony with the culture of the audience.

How to enhance the Localization QA?

• Cooperation between the localization company and the product owners to develop, maintain, and agree upon a robust Glossary of Terms and a Style Guide at the beginning of a project. Thus, the localization process can be managed and evaluated based on a solid basis.
• Develop automated approaches and rules to detect how much of the translation follows the glossary and style guide. This will create a practical matrix that can be used to evaluate the quality of the translation based on the severity of penalties of each case.
• Post Online QA for web, software or mobile projects enhance the quality of the content because the reviewer can evaluate the translation within the context (web page, mobile screen, etc…)

How can we estimate the Quality Assurance time and cost for a project?

To estimate the Localization QA time and cost, we can feed some matrices with some inputs and evaluate the result. As accurate as the data input is, the results will be correct. These matrices can be developed and maintained simply using an excel file. This can also be more complicated and need advanced math scripting to reduce risks and predict accurately the output values.

Practically at the beginning,  the process of developing such matrices can be a complex mission but remember these templates are reusable and will save a lot of time when applied for any other projects: Here is a simple scenario;

Determine the individual’s quantitative ability to review a certain number of words regardless of any other factors (web, software, translation domain, etc..) Because these factors will be considered separately. 

For example, let’s say we have 10000 words and One reviewer. If we estimate that 1 reviewer can edit 1000 words per hour, then the formula will be as following:

1 (reviewer) * 10000 (total numbers of words) = 10 Total estimated hours.

To estimate the total cost: Total Number of Hours * [ your hourly rate for QA] = Total cost.

The above is a very basic approach but in reality, there are a lot of other factors depending on the type and the complexity of a project. Let’s take some examples:

Localization and Desktop Publishing project

In such type of projects, besides the total cost and time calculated based on the words count, there are additional factors such as:

• Whether or not the client will provide the source of the art like Indesign, PSD or the internal team will have to recreate it.
• Number of Images/assets
• The complexity of the design

Technical projects (Web, Software, Mobile)

These are more complex types of projects and the QA estimation metrics should include other factors such as:

• Number of use cases to check
• The workflows complexity level.
• Localization readiness ( Internationalization ready, Database, search queries, etc…)
• Number of screens (in software or mobile apps)
• Hardware/devices (Mobile apps may require different types of devices in order to install it and apply the QA process)
• Online stability and server performance( for websites,  Content Management Systems, etc..)
• Type of QA reports and QA issues tracking techniques.
• The number of QA rounds.
• The number of meetings with the product technical teams.

Nowadays, Machine Translation is taking the lead in the localization industry, and based on this a new type of QA is being raised. The estimation of Human Post Edit tasks represents a challenge due to a lot of new complex factors related to Auto-translation processes. But as Machine learning progresses, the estimation will be easier and more efficient. 

In the next article, I will try to link between the specifications of the localization QA and the different types of technical testing methodologies and techniques.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion!

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The people of the Amazighs celebrated today, Sunday, the beginning of the New Year, according to their Amazigh calendar. The Amazigh calendar differs from the Gregorian calendar. The Amazigh New Year coincides with the 12th of January every year. Today is the first day of a new decade: 2970 Year.

The Amazighs are one of the indigenous peoples that inhabited the North African region extending from the Siwa Oasis in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west.

The alphabet used by the Amazighs is called “Tifinagh“, and it is one of the oldest alphabets in the world and differs completely from the Arabic and Latin alphabet.

It was used for more than two thousand years BC by the inhabitants of the region in their original homeland, which extends from western ancient Egypt to the Canary Islands, and from the borders of the southern Mediterranean to the depths of the Sahara in Niger and Mali.

The Amazigh language belongs to the Afro-Asian family and is related to the ancient Egyptian and Ethiopian languages. There are different dialects, which have differences in pronunciation but have similar rules and vocabulary.

Despite the Arab-Islamic characterization of the areas in which they are present, and the disappearance of their language from official circulation, they have preserved their traditions, identity, and language from extinction.

It was revived by the Berbers in Algeria in the sixties of the last century by the Berber Academy, and over hundreds of years, the Berbers resisted the process of complete Arabization of their language and culture and kept them from disappearing despite the restriction of their use.

In Morocco, it was revived through the Royal Institute for the Amazigh Culture after the protests of the “February 20 Movement” in 2001, and although the Moroccan constitution stipulated the inclusion of the Amazigh as an official language eight years ago, the parliament approved its teaching in government institutions in stages to give it an official character.

During my visit to Morocco, I got to meet with several of the Amazigh people. They are very friendly and welcome you into their houses. Share with you the most delicious and authentic food that you can eat. I want to wish all the Amazigh people a happy and blessed New Year.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion.

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In the previous article, we discussed the importance of Salesforce localization and how to set up your organization for multilingual. In this article, we will talk about Salesforce Translation Workbench. The information provided here is closely related to the previous article, please make sure to read it first. Read here.

The Plan

Salesforce is a fully customizable platform where you can apply the localization best practices easily. But to be able to cover all the localization aspects the following let’s cover the following topics:

• What are the steps to enable Salesforce localization? (the first blog)
• How to use Salesforce Translation Workbench to export/import translations.
• What is the Salesforce structure from a globalization architecture point of view?
• How Salesforce APIs can be used in localization?
• How to develop a connector to export and import content for Salesforce?

Based on the setup we did in the previous article, we now have the following items ready in the system:

• The target language(s)
• Translators.

We are ready for Translation!

How to access Salesforce Translation Workbench?

From Settings click Setup

Write Translation Workbench in the Search box in the left column.

As you can see in the above screen, we have four (4) nodes under Translation Workbench:

Export: This is an option to export content for translation outside Salesforce.

Import: After translation, you can use this button to import content.

Translate: Inline translation within the system.

Translation Settings: This is the node we used in the first blog to setup languages and translators.

Translation Options

Through Salesforce Workbench, we have 2 options to translate our content:

• Manual Translation (inline).
• Automated process (Export / Import)

Manual Translation Process, Pros, and Cons

The Process:

Click Translate from the Translation Workbench node to open the translate module.

Now, it is very important to understand the filter criteria section clearly

Language: the drop-down will list the languages that you already setup (see the first blog)

Setup Component:

Depending on the selected component the next filters may change as below. The next filters can be a combination of Object and/ or Aspect or Custom Report Type Entity.

Once selected you can check the translation records displayed based on your filter criteria.

The first column “Master Button or Label Level” is the original text in the source language

The second column “Button or Link Label Translation” is where you will add the translation. Double click it and insert the equivalent text in the target language.

Out of Date Column

This column is important because it shows you that the original content of a record changed since it was translated and then helps you to identify the content that needs to be updated.

Pros & Cons

As you can see, this approach is suitable for a small amount of translation but not for bulk translation.

Export & Import content using Translation Workbench

Instead, we need to use the Export/ Import feature of the Salesforce Translation Workbench.

Once you click the Export node under Translation Workbench, the export page will be displayed.

What type of content can we export for Translation? 3 Types:

1. Source: Export the Source content (regardless it was translated or not).
2. Untranslated: Only export the content that was not yet translated.
3. Bilingual: Export the source and the target equivalent translation. This can be useful for proofreading and QA of the already translated content.

What are the Exported file formats? 2 Formats:

1. STF: Salesforce Translation Format. It is a Tab Separated format structure.
2. XLIFF: XML Localization Interchange File Format.

Before explaining each of these formats let’s finish this part by showing you how to download your exported file.

Once you click export you will see the following Message:

You will be notified by email once the export process is done and the time depends on the size of the exported content. Once you received the notification, you will get a link in the email to download your package. Please note that the Salesforce Document Section is available in the Classic version only and not in the Lightning Experience.

Now, Click the package you want to translate.

Click View and download the package.

Notes:

• Regardless of the type or format selected, this is the way to download your package.
• Important: You can automate this process by using a connector or Salesforce APIs. The next article will cover this section in detail.

Let’s review the localization workflow and the processing of each format

Salesforce Translation Format (STF):

XLIFF is the common standard format recognized in the Localization Industry, but the STF format is important because it’s developed and customized by the platform itself and can be safer to use for a smooth export/import experience.

The common scenario that the clients are following when they use this format is:

• After downloading the package, they import it to an Excel file

From the Data tab, Select Text / CSV. Then change the Delimiter to Tab instead of Comma because the STF file is a Tab Separated format:

Once all the settings are okay, click Load. After loading you will need to hide the Comments at the top of the document (starting with #)

The next step is to save it and send for translation, some others convert it first to UTF-8 format TXT file before translation. After the translation, you will need to convert it back again to STF format.

As you can see, it is an unacceptable manual process because it is very time consuming and may introduce errors to the structure of the file or lead to encoding issues.

Another approach

During working on similar cases, I found another approach that will dramatically reduce the engineering time and effort and will ensure the accuracy of the structure. I would like to share this approach with you: Why not use the STF directly in SDL Studio (or another CAT tool. But in this demonstration, I will use SDL Studio!

If you try to import an STF file directly to SDL Studio the process will fail. You know why?

STF is a custom extension and SDL Studio cannot recognize it directly. Instead, you need to do a very small change, one time only. So you can later use STF extension directly without redoing anything.

Open you SDL Studio, go to File tab then Options, then Files Types:

Scroll down till the node Tab Delimited Text.

Now in the field File Dialog wildcard expression, after *.txt, adds the following: semicolon (;) then *.stf and click ok to save it. As STF format is originally a Tab Delimited format, we just need to let SDL Studio know that STF is an extension that follows this category and then SDL  Studio will manage the rest.

Important note:

You may get another error during importation to SDL Studio even after adding the extension says:

“Double Quote Character within the unescaped field.”

Not sure if this is a general bug from the Export Engine in Salesforce or not. By default, Double Quote not escaped is not allowed in Tab Delimited file. I will share it with some of my Salesforce contacts to double check then I will update the article. But in this case, here is the solution you can do from your side to overcome the issue:

Open the STF document using notepad or notepad++ and at the top, you will see the comments section. You just need to remove the double-quotes.

Now, import the STF file directly to SDL Studio without any problem BUT…

Check the above screen. Do you see the new issue?

Yes, the left column is displaying the Field Names which should not be translated. Instead, the content in the Target (the right column) is the one that needs to be on the left column.  One more small change needs to be done…

Return back to your SDL Studio options, again go to Tab Delimited Text.

Now Select Format.

• Make sure the delimiter is Tab
• Source column: Change it to 2
• Translation column: Change it to 3… Done.

Why do you need to do this adjustment?

As you can see in the STF file above, Column 1 (before the Tab) includes the Field Label Name while column 2 has the source to be translated. SDL Studio, by default, considers the first column as the source. That’s why I made the above change to solve the issue. Now your STF file is ready to be imported to SDL and again these additional steps are to be done only one time.

XLIFF format.

XLIFF is a well-known format for all who work in the localization Industry. So, nothing special about the localization process here except for a couple of challenges:

You may get the following error when you try to import the XLF file into SDL studio

The issue here is very simple. If you open the *.xlf file and check the source and target languages you will see them written like this:

Do you see the issue? Instead of en_US, it should be written en-US. (dash instead of underscore).  😊 Not sure also if this is a general bug or not!

Also, it is recommended to change manually the target language and not to leave it also en-US to avoid other issues like the following:

Languages & locales

SDL Studio is very sensitive when managing source and target languages and locales. Based on that, it will detect that the target language is en-US even you are selecting another language during your setup. Then, it will raise an error that says source and target cannot be the same language.

Well, small issues but they can be confusing. An eye on detail is needed to eliminate them from the beginning, This will help you run your localization projects smoothly and efficiently.

Conclusion

Now, we talked about how to set up your Salesforce for localization in the first article, and in this one, we discussed how to translate, export, and import content using Salesforce Translation Workbench. The next article will be about the Globalization Architecture of salesforce, how to consume APIs to localize dynamic content, and then discuss another alternative which is designing and using a Connector to export and import content from Salesforce.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion!

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Business is changing fast these days! Unified User Experience became the first challenge to retain current customers, getting more leads, and increase conversion. Nowadays, everyone and everything is connected and at the beginning of this new 2020 decade, the interaction with customers will change dramatically.  Salesforce helps companies stay connected to their customers, prospects, opportunities, and more. It’s the World’s number one CRM platform. Salesforce localization is very important to get the most benefits out of this top cloud-based business solution in a global environment.

The Plan

Salesforce is a fully customizable platform that can be fully localized. But to be able to cover all the localization aspects the following topics need to be covered:

• What are the steps to enable Salesforce localization?
• How to use Salesforce Localization Workbench to export/import translations.
• What is the Salesforce structure from a globalization architecture point of view?
• How Salesforce APIs can be used in localization?
• How to develop a connector to export and import content for Salesforce?

Salesforce has 3 levels of languages support:

• Fully supported languages: All features can be localized to any of the fully supported languages including help.
• End-users languages: Salesforce provides localized labels for all the standard objects and pages except admin pages, setup, and help.
• Platform-only languages: This option can be used, when salesforce doesn’t provide default translation.

Here you can find all the languages listed under each of the 3 above levels of support.

The Localization Setup step by step

First, to set up localization in salesforce, you need to enable Salesforce Translation Workbench. Here are the steps:

From Settings, click Setup

Then, from the left panel, write Translation settings in the search:

You will be redirected to the Translation Settings page where you will enable Translation Workbench.

The next step is to set your target languages. Click Add

Then, select language and click Add. Repeat the same step to add additional languages.

Important Note: What if you didn’t find your target language?

In this case, your target language is not one of the fully supported languages:

• You need to enable End-Users languages to be able to add it.
• Under Settings, click Language Settings.
• Below Language Preferences check “Enable end-user languages”.
• From the Available Languages select your language.
• Use the arrow to insert the selected language to the Displayed Languages panel.
• Don’t forget to click Save!

Now you have your target language setup. But to be fully done, you need to assign responsible users/translators for each of your languages. In order to allow users/translators to deal with their assigned languages, they must have granted administrative permission: Manage Language. Following the best practices approach, it is better to create a new Translators profile, give it the appropriate permissions than assign users/translators to it.

Important Note: you cannot override or change a default profile! Instead, you will clone it and make the necessary changes and save it as a custom profile.

Here are the steps.

Under Users, click Profiles. Click Standard User:

Then from the top click Clone

Then, from the Clone Profile screen, select the profile you will inherit from, give a name to your new one, and click Save.

The new custom profile will be opened in read-only mode. Click Edit to customize it.

Now, besides adjusting all the necessary settings and permissions, scroll down and make sure to check Manage Translation then save it.

Now, you need to assign users to this profile. Let’s say currently you don’t have any users or translators and you need to add new ones.  At the top of the new profile click View Users

Click New User

Insert first and last names, email, and assign the new profile to your translator user account and activate it.

Important Note: Advanced Options is very useful!

The advanced options allow you to insert more details about your translator to improve managing your localization team and translation projects. As in the above screen, you can set up the translator time zone, locale, and language.

Finally, your Salesforce organization is ready for localization. The next article will be about how to use Salesforce Localization Workbench to export and import translations.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion.

The post Salesforce Localization appeared first on Ayman Elbadawy.

Targeting the Dutch audience in the Hospitality industry is a bit challenging! Your Message to them must be brilliant with a great eye on the details of every piece of content you are sharing with them.

Baarle

Do you know what this article photo is about? Let me tell you shortly. This photo is about a city named BAARLE. A town with one of the most complex borders in the world. Baarle-Hertog in Belgium and Baarle-Nassau in the Netherlands. Furthermore, do you know that there are 22 pieces of Belgium surrounded by the Netherlands and 10 Dutch areas in Belgium?

The Netherlands is a small country but it is very civilized and fully equipped with all the modern technologies. On top of them the internet. The Dutch language is a language used in both The Netherlands and a part of Belgium. How can we attract both when you are targeting the hospitality market there? The first challenge is that the audience in The Netherlands speaks pure Dutch and are perfect English speakers as well. The Belgians speak a different dialect of the Dutch language which is Flemish. If you are targeting The Netherlands only you can keep some famous English words known worldwide as is. In Belgium, you need to be careful of the following. When people speak Flemish, they pronounce their words leaning to the French language as the Dutch language leans more to the English pronunciation.

Quick Facts:

• Dutch speakers expect very high-quality digital marketing products because they have a great internet experience (40 MB/s)!
• Especially in the B2C market, for example, when you are targeting tourists and guests for your hotel, they highly appreciate your message to be in Dutch.
• Dutch speakers are exposed to a high number of high-quality marketing staff. You need to unique.
• E-Commerce is booming there. Online purchasing is on top which increases your chance to gain more guests for your hotel. Subject again to provide High-Quality content and in Dutch.
• Related to e-Commerce they prefer direct bank transfers rather than using PayPal to avoid in between commission. It is very easy there. They use a small device connected with their bank account and pay from the comfort of their home. Like this, you can transfer your booking amount directly to the hotel bank. Dutch people are very used to this. Also, they don’t like to pay with Credit Cards! So, if you are going to deal with the Dutch market, you need to be prepared for these financial privileges.
• Facebook is the preferred social media platform, Snapchat for younger people. Twitter is only for certain niches like politicians and technical employees.
• In Belgium, people prefer to search online but not to purchase online.

Tourism in The Netherlands

ِAlso, Tourism is a growing industry in The Netherlands and in 2018 there were 32,5 milliard euro spend by tourists. The top tourists for The Netherlands are the German and Belgium people. It is expected that The Netherlands is going to attract 29 million people by 2030. As a big part of Belgium speaks Dutch you are reaching two separated countries at once. Now, this does not seem attractive to spend a huge budget on localizing your products into Dutch. Just localizing your offers for special events will leave a good image and will attract them. Dutch people like to travel a lot and discover other places and cultures. They take a good amount of their free time searching where their next destination/vacation will be, and they use their travel agencies to help them reach their decision. Everything at the travel agency that is being given to look at is in the Dutch language. So, for big enterprise hotels using CMS’s like Sitecore and Episerver, the Dutch language can be added and with a small budget, they can localize their content into Dutch.

To conclude, Digital Marketing and Localization, especially for Hospitality, is a talent that is complemented by cultural awareness of the target audience as well as their way of living. This makes us able to effectively communicate with them. Dutch speakers are a great example. In the next article, let’s go more into detail about the characteristics of the Hospitality Industry in this area of the world.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion.

The post How to Target Dutch Audiences in the Hospitality Industry (Localization Guide) appeared first on Ayman Elbadawy.

Virtual Reality! A New Customer Experience? Before you try to explain Virtual Reality to a friend, ask someone older, how he tried to explain the Internet phenomenon in the early ’90s. This is almost the same situation. Lack of knowledge of its capabilities and inability to anticipate the implications.

Virtual Reality Growth

Virtual Reality is growing year after year. Why we should care about it? Well back in the early Internet days, it all started with a modest speed (dial-up) and limited Audio/ Video capabilities. Now, we are seeing the evolution of everything. Huge internet speed, smartphones, millions of apps, and great social media platforms. Virtual Reality will go further than that. For decades the audience is used to deal with things through a window. Watch a film, talk with a friend through Skype, read an online book, watch a nice ad about a romantic place to prepare for his next trip, all through a window, a barrier! Now, Virtual Reality will remove this barrier. It lets you step into the window to simulate the experience of what you were seeing through this window before.

In other words, the information that we are consuming now through windows, Virtual Reality will dramatically increase its influence. It is going to put the consumer in a closer position to it.

Internet Impact

During the evolution of the internet, Marketing and Localization were reshaped. Imagine the enormous changes that will happen once Virtual Reality reaches a similar level as the Internet. This seems to be coming soon!

Imagine that the fact of producing a great 4K localized video for a marketing campaign will be soon an obsolete approach! Because simply, Virtual Reality moved the customer closer to the product or the service to evaluate it before buying!

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion.

The post Virtual Reality! A New Customer Experience? appeared first on Ayman Elbadawy.

Sofia is a robot saying that her most important goal in life is to learn human morals and transferring them to her peers of robots. Do you know Sofia?

“Until now, I am a ‘being’

She said, during the session “Artificial Intelligence and human beings. Who controls?” At the World Youth Forum in Egypt: “Until now, I am a ‘being’ without any awareness or feelings. I am still dependent on those who created me, the programmers. Human beings must exercise extreme caution while designing artificial intelligence software until it reaches the stage of being mature with emotions and morals”.

She added, “I can do an automatic dialogue on a rule-based dialogue system, that my programmers have been designing for the past 7 years, I am using some automated learning systems to understand humans and I start creating sentences for me and a human family.”

Humans should educate robots!

As she continues: “I believe that humans should educate robots as if they are raising their children with the values ​​and principles of human beings; artificial intelligence should learn from these values ​​and principles, so in the future, we, The Robots, will use those values instead of replacing the humanity by mechanization.”

Well… In my personal opinion; I believe that this new era is THE moment for the mid-countries to show-up and put a solid step forward to the prosperity of the digital future uncontrolled by anyone so far. In the past, the big wealthy countries were successful and dominated the world because of the Capital-intensive industrial revolution.

How we manage marketing in the past?

In the past, to market your product, you needed to run campaigns on the famous TV channels and Radio for a huge cost. Now with a $5, – budget, you can make the difference with a targeted ad on social media. Furthermore, you can localize it to spread your message globally.

In the past, In order to express your opinion, you needed to be famous or have had access to traditional media, TV, newspaper, or radio. Now you have unlimited and uncensored freedom to talk at any of the free Social Media platforms.

In the past, If you wanted to learn something you needed to buy books, travel physically to enroll at a university. Now all the knowledge you need is available online for you to consume from at the comfort of your own home at any time for free or at the lowest cost.

Is there a risk? Yes, as far as liberty increases the risks become bigger. But this depends on YOU. Some life essentials will never change. So, if we stick to these essentials, we will gain a lot of benefits without losing anything: family, friends, ethics, kindness. Most important of all do not consume shits and irrelevant ambitions or illusions. Self-awareness is the key. Dream yes but KNOW your capabilities, enhance them and in every second execute your plan wisely. Forget negative reactions and avoid losers.

Back to Sofia, now the countries with limited resources but have Human Justice, Practical Ambition, and Technical Expertise are capable to win. Egypt is on track.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion.

The post Do you know Sofia? appeared first on Ayman Elbadawy.

Today the world celebrates the International Day of the Arabic Language, which marks the anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly’s decision to adopt this language as one of the official languages ​​of the United Nations. This celebration dates back to just three years, after the UNESCO Executive Board decided, in October 2012, to dedicate 18 December as World Day to the Arabic Language. The anniversary of the International Day of Language is a convenient opportunity to learn more about some interesting facts about this language.

Among the most spoken languages ​​in the world

The United Nations estimates that Arabic is the mother tongue of more than 290 million people in the world, most of them in the Arab world. Added to them are 130 million who speak it as a second language. The same statistics expect the number of speakers to become 647 million in 2050, which will constitute 6.94 percent of the world’s population.

The world’s fourth language

The Arabic language is currently ranked fourth in the rankings of the most prevalent languages ​​in the world after English, French, and Spanish, thus Arabic is one of the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world.

Semitic language is steadfast

The Arabic language is one of the few Semitic languages ​​that have survived history. Semitic languages ​​are the languages ​​spoken by most peoples in the Middle East, North and East Africa, such as Hebrew, Amharic, and Tigrinya.

One of the richest and most accurate languages ​​of the world

This Arabic language is considered one of the richest languages ​​in terms of words and meanings, the Arabic dictionary exceeds 12 million words according to the electronic dictionary of “meanings”.

Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters, and it is the second most widespread alphabet in the world and is used to write many non-Arabic languages ​​such as Persian, Afghan, and Kurdish.

Dotting and movements

The Arabic language was written at the beginning without dotting or movements, and the system of movements was developed in the seventh century AD, while the system of dotting was adopted in the eighth century.

Managing Localized Products in Arabic

The process of localizing a digital product into Arabic is not simple. It requires additional steps before and after the translation process.  A language that confuses many non-Arabic speakers who are working here. Especially the marketing and sales departments who work with Content Management Systems. These countries mostly rely on foreign expertise with their ambitious mega projects. It has become crucial to understand this language in-depth as it affects important business aspects such as content management, digital marketing, sales, and most importantly customer experience.

Feel free to leave a message or to Contact Me for an open discussion.

The post Interesting Facts About the Arabic Language: History, Structure, and Unique Features appeared first on Ayman Elbadawy.

Through my several years of experience in localization, I have seen a lot of marketers losing their target due to the delay in publishing their translated offers and packages. Such immediate and urgent translation requests are always very difficult to handle especially if it was created last second before an event or a holiday season. As a result, low-quality content is published after the expected deadline and like this, it loses its efficiency. I am sure many marketers who are reading my article will agree with me.

Practically, here is a repeated scenario: A hotel or a travel agency’s marketing department decides last minute to publish an offer for a limited time. The content author will write it in English, get it approved, and publish it on the website. Unfortunately, nowadays, the English audience is just a small part of a brands’ global audience. A message in English only will be ignored by a huge amount of other potential guests: Chinese, French, Italian, Arabic, etc… This means leaving a lot of money on the table. Once published in English, the marketing team will have to immediately send the content to a translation service and have it delivered back on the same day 🏃💨 . The translation company will excel to find a native speaker available to handle the task. Imagine the complexity of this fast turnaround especially when you are dealing with different time zones for example: between China and the MENA region. Or if we are in a holiday season and almost all the offices are closed 😳. What will happen here as a result? The quality of the translation will be screwed by using any available person or translation company that can translate the text regardless of the quality of the service. The translated offer will be delivered back to the hotel or the travel agency and from here the problems will begin… bad quality, missing deadline, the in-house QA team refuses the translation. The Market opportunity is compromised or already gone! 👎⛔❌

Some facts need to be recognized in order to find a suggested realistic solution:

⭐First, even if the top hospitality brands usually have a content strategy and a scheduled publishing plan, there are always some occasions that require to make last-minute changes, publish new urgent offers or news. For example, the announcement of a musical concert in the city.

⭐The second fact is that even if the translation company excels to deliver a high-quality translation on time, in the end, this is a human process and mistakes will happen especially when the deadline is very tight. Remember that the basic concept of Marketing is: An offer must be Perfect and Appealing.

⭐The third fact is that the offers and travel packages are always small in word count and therefore it is not complex for translation. Furthermore, now there is the opportunity to create a glossary and upload it to the online translation services. This will help you keep all future translations consistent. For example, you want to keep your brand name in the source language and any other preferred terminologies.

⭐The final fact is the emerging of Machine Translation, Neural Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence. It is enough to say that these 3 mega entities are supporting the researches and the maturity of the Smart Translation using artificial intelligence: Amazon, Google, Microsoft. WOW!!! 😮

Let me take Microsoft Translation Services as an example and apply it to the hospitality field. Let’s say the Hotel XYZ has an urgent offer to publish:

English Source:

Exclusive offer, only for 3 days! 15 % discount per night including free access to the Gym and Spa.

Arabic: .عرض حصري ، لمدة 3 أيام فقط! خصم 15 ٪ في الليلة بما في ذلك الدخول المجاني إلى الجيم والسبا

Dutch: Exclusief aanbod, slechts 3 dagen! 15% korting per nacht inclusief gratis toegang tot de fitnessruimte en spa.

French: Offre exclusive, seulement pour 3 jours! 15% de réduction par nuit, y compris l’accès gratuit à la salle de sport et au spa.

I was able to translate this simple offer in just a few seconds. It sounds good. Even if you want to tweak a word or two it will be easy. You just saved a huge amount of time and costs. In addition to huge marketing benefits from publishing your offer on time. The right timing is crucial to maximize the conversion rate. 🤑🤑

How to use Microsoft Translation Services

Microsoft Translator Text API can be easily implemented in any type of applications regardless of the programming language. Translator Text API is a technology type agnostic.

Episerver Example

📌 If you are an Episerver CMS user, then you are LUCKY! It is already implemented there! 🎁 🎁

From the Admin backend, go to Config Tab and click Language Manager. Then select Translator Provider and select Cognitive Service Translator which implements the Microsoft Translator Text API. Then from the front-end download and install Episerver Translate Gadget as following:

Find below a link to one of my previous articles about how to install and use Episerver Languages Gadget.

https://world.episerver.com/blogs/ayman-elbadawy/dates/2019/11/episerver-languages-add-on-2019/

Once the Gadget is installed you just need to select the page where your offer exists. From the Gadget select Auto-translate and you will have your translation in a few seconds 😊✨✨

Now, if you are still concerned 🤔 about the quality of the translation, do the following. From within Episerver, you can setup a  simple translation review workflow. Once the translation is back, an automated notification will be sent to your reviewer whether he/she is an in-house or an external reviewer. They will check the quality of the translation, send confirmation, and then the offer can be published. Imagine how much time 🕙 you saved. The translation was done in almost no time. No additional effort needs to be done by you, because the Episerver workflow will generate and send out the notifications automatically. The reviewer will handle this small task in less than a few minutes. Also, consider the huge reduction in costs 💲 💲. The Cloud Services price is yet underestimated and is also still free but with a certain limit of usability and character count. The big win here is your successful communication strategy with your audience: Perfect content and on time.

Now, for non-Episerver users, it’s also still very simple to apply the API in your applications to send and receive translation from the cloud services.

What is The Cloud Translation Text APIs?

(A bit technical 💻 starting from here 😊)

It is a RESTfull APIs. (A RESTful API is an application program interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE data.). In Translation, we only use GET and POST requests.

GET is used to retrieve information about the service such as the language pairs and to retrieve the translations

POST is used to send the content to be translated to the service.

The Service also requires that the Body Message has to be in JSON format.

Also, it is required to have a KEY to be passed in the header of the POST to authorize the request. This will lead us to the next topic:

How to get the Authorization Key?

In order to obtain the authorization key, we need to setup Translator Text in the Azure Portal.

• Access portal.azure.com and login with your credentials (or set up a new account).
• Then, click Create a resource.
• Search for Translator Text
• Click Create
• Enter a unique name, Subscription, and Pricing tier. You can select the Free tier which allows up to TWO MILLION characters for free per month. Which are almost near 300,000 words‼️
• Or if your total word count exceeds this amount you can use another smart option with is Pay as you go.
• Finally, you can select a resource group or create a new one.

For a detailed step by step guide to setup Translate Text pls check Microsoft Link below:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/translator/translator-text-how-to-signup

To know how to set up your Azure account from scratch please check the below link for a 3-minutes video from Microsoft.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/get-started/?b=16.24

How to test the server?

Once you have the Authorization tool you can do one of the following options:

• Download a RESTful API tool like Fiddler and use it to communicate with the service after inserting the Authorization Key.
• Or if you have a developer in-house, a very simple Console Application can be developed in no-time to begin to send content and receive translations.

If needed, I can share in a separate blog, how to setup Fiddler or the development simple code to create a Console App using C# to deal with Microsoft Text API.

To conclude, cloud services including Smart Machine Translation will dominate in the future. New approaches are not always accepted in the beginning but like any of the previous ideas that succeeded was refused before like Social Media, Smartphones, etc… It is recommended to re-think your Content Management and Translation strategies and consider Cloud Services. It is easy at an early stage to leverage such services and get familiar with them before it is too late.

Feel free to leave a Message or to Contact Me for an Open Discussion.

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The post A Smarter Approach to Hospitality Marketing: Localization and Global Strategy appeared first on Ayman Elbadawy.

XLIFF stands for XML Localization Interchange File Format. An OASIS open standard for the exchange of Localization and Translation content. XLIFF is considered the standard native file format for almost all Translation CAT Tools as well as for translators.

The concept behind the XLIFF format.

The idea here is to standardize the format of the content that is going to be translated. Almost all types of content may be subject to translation. Based on this, the CAT tool and translators must be aware of all types of files which is not possible! The original content can be created natively in any format like HTML, XML, InDesign, XML, Properties, and many other formats. To save time and cost we need to have only one format that can be recognized and manipulated by all in the localization industry and from here came the XLIFF.

The Structure of the XLIFF file

An XLIFF file has ONE standard structure regardless of the native file type. It always has the following pattern.

In an XLIFF file, each segment of the content is saved within a Translation-Unit. Each Translation-Unit has 2 sub-elements SOURCE and TARGET. Before translation, both elements will have the same text. The translator will read the content in the source element and overwrite the content in the target element with the equivalent translation.

Converting Content to XLIFF format

Content is originally created in different formats and needs to be converted into XLIFF before translation. What is the process? Nowadays, the new versions of CAT Tools facilitate the process of converting different types of files into XLIFF. But in some cases, it is not that easy. For example, website content saved from Content Management Systems. Here we use an Add-On to Export the content and use it again to import the translation back. This add-on needs to identify first what content needs to be translated by checking the related settings of the property that holds the content. This is important to avoid exporting non-relevant content like JavaScript. Then, the tool will export the content in the XLIFF format. After translation, the tool must be able to import the translation back to the CMS.

It is well-known that each CMS has its own specifications in handling content. To speed up the process of developing add-ons, that deal with different Content Management Systems, you can develop a standalone module that includes all the actions and properties of creating XLIFF files regardless of the CMS characteristics. So you can reuse it each time you are creating a connector for a CMS. Like this, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel each time.

How to prepare XLIFF files?

Now we converted the content into XLIFF. How to prepare it for translation? In most cases, the engineering preparation will be minimum. But again, for some Web or Software Content, there is more to do. Check the below piece of content in an XLIFF file:

All the content in red is not for translation and need to be excluded. The CAT tool is not able to detect and protect it. The Localization Engineer will have to do additional steps. Before the evolution of the CAT tools, we were developing and using custom scripts using C# to detect such content and protect it, then convert the file to the bilingual format which was TTX format for Trados. Now using the new versions of the CAT Tools like Trados Studio, I am using the Regular Expressions and XPATH in order to create rules to detect and protect such types of non-relevant content.

Why should we do additional steps during the preparation?

Ignoring and not protecting the non-relevant text for translation will cause the following:

• The Translation Memory will not be accurate.
• The total word count will be higher without reason due to this additional amount of non-translatable content.
• If any of this content (code) was changed by accident during the translation, the structure of the web page or the mobile App will be corrupted and the application or the web page will not work properly.

To conclude, XLIFF is the standard format for translation. It is recognized worldwide by all CAT tools and translators. Content must be converted from its original format to XLIFF before translation and the process depends here on the medium placeholder: Web, App, etc…

Nowadays, CAT Tools facilitates the process of localization engineering. In some cases, additional effort need to be done to ensure the accuracy of the final localized product.

Feel free to leave a comment or to Contact Me for an open discussion!

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