This year I’m completing 6 years working as a project manager with Amara On Demand. Over those years, I had and continue to have the pleasure of working with people from all around the world – both from the internal Amara team and from our team of linguists. Today I want to share a little bit about that.
For a good quality translation, and especially for localization, we need translators and subtitlers that are not only fluent, but have native level fluency in several languages. As we always strive for the best quality possible, the Amara On Demand team is comprised of people that are native to many different parts of the world.
Working with translators and subtitlers from all around the world can be fun, and can also be challenging. Learning more about different holidays, even different calendars around the world is always interesting for me. Having lived in the western world my whole life, I have only learned more about how some cultures have the lunar calendar as their main one after having to deal with schedules and deadlines that took that into consideration. Having to consider how a great part of the world may be on holiday while the western world continues to work has expanded my world view greatly – having to handle this “hands on” made things more palpable for me.
The biggest challenge working with people from so many different parts of the world is communication. Not only taking into consideration all the different time zones, to ensure everyone has time to read what we’re trying to communicate and able time to take the needed actions or reply. But also making sure that everyone understands the message, and the most important thing in my opinion, that everyone feels comfortable enough to let us know if something is unclear or if they have any questions.
Good communication, especially in this field where we have pre-set deadlines that need to be followed, also includes being able to inform us when things are not going according to plan, so that everyone is on top of what needs to be done in order to correct that or adjust the client’s expectations.
Each language team has its own peculiarities, that come with their native countries/regions of the world and their cultures, and being able to speak clearly to everyone, be understood and have a good enough relationship that everyone feels comfortable to foster that communication I mentioned above is not an easy task. All sides need to have a certain level of understanding and take everything seriously, and at the same time also always consider that we’re all human beings with their own backgrounds, personal lives and individual challenges.
Amara has many initiatives and having such a diverse team of linguists working with us at Amara On Demand helps us to deliver the best quality possible, with so many people providing their expertise in their own native language. This diversity in our teams also helps us understand the challenges and boosts our work towards the creation of a more inclusive media landscape across language borders.
