Amazon (Fidel Softech Pvt. Ltd.)
Successfully transcribed and made audio records for an IT/translation project within a strictly limited time window – 2 languages, a total of 4,600+ minutes transcribed and recorded – for one of the world’s leading localization and language engineering companies. 

Background
Amazon (Amazon.com) is the world’s largest online retailer and a prominent cloud services provider.

The company was originally a book seller but has expanded to sell a wide variety of consumer goods and digital media as well as its own electronic devices, such as the Kindle e-book reader, Kindle Fire tablet and Fire TV, a streaming media adapter. 

Project Summary
Type of Project: Voice collection, transcription

• Languages: Danish, Singaporean English
• Industry: IT, translation company
• Volume: Danish - 2100 minutes, Sing Eng VC - 1250 minutes, Sing Eng Transcription - 1250 minutes
• Deadlines: 2-3 weeks
• PoliLingua’s customer since 02.08.2020

Project features
We already live in the new era of digital assistants without even noticing that we use them more and more often. Moreover, today in 44% of cases, the use of an assistant is done from a phone. According to Google, 20% of searches on Android phones are already done by voice. In 2020, this rate could rise to 30% (or it could be even higher because many people stuck home with their smartphones because of the coronavirus pandemic).

Designed to make our lives a little easier, the digital assistants react to our voice commands. They are always ready to serve and, although they don’t have ears, they listen carefully to complete your next assignment. To do that, they must have impeccable voice recognition abilities and that’s where they still need our help.

The most efficient way to teach AI to recognize human speech is to feed it a lot of speech data which includes many hues of the oral communication we often take for granted – accents, speech tones, particularities of pronunciation, etc.  Having digested enormous amount of data, AI would be able to do exactly what it is asked to do, and we would be happy to have a digital assistant that helps us to pull off a vast number of tasks in a shorter time frame.  

Challenges

• Tight deadlines
• Large volumes of work
• Limited budget

Everyone wants their project to be performed perfectly, on a low budget and within a brief time, but everyone says it’s impossible and the three aspects contradict one another. If you share this popular opinion, it’s okay, but bear in mind that ‘impossible’ means no one’s yet come up with an idea how to make it possible.

With well-proven working procedures at hand, you can do wonders and carry out almost any extensive project within narrow deadlines AND on a tight budget.

We don’t mean to brag, but over the course of time we created a tried and tested method that lets us meet even the toughest project requirements.

Working on the project in question we could use our know-how technique successfully proving once again its applicability, efficaciousness and - which is equally important – our mission capability.

Project Highlights
Our services cover the translation/transcription of focus group recordings, interviews, TV commercials and podcasts.

PoliLingua has a wide portfolio of professional transcribers, capable of transcribing audio or video recordings. Although this process is similar to subtitling, it is sometimes more economical, as no specific coding is required to mark times or measure the duration of the on-screen dialogue.

For transcription, a translator simply listens and transcribes into a Word document what the speaker/commentator says. Generally speaking, they will show the time elapsed between two paragraphs.

The job of transcribing audio files requires rigour, concentration and patience. It also requires an ability to listen and adapt. Discretion and respect for professional secrecy and deontology are among the qualities required of this job.

Moreover, each sector of activity has its own lexicon. Thus the transcriber must have a good general knowledge enabling them to deal with a variety of topics.

In addition to an aptitude for synthesis, the transcriber has a perfect knowledge of the French language and the grammatical and spelling rules. In particular, he or she devotes time to the proofreading phase, which enables him or her to correct any inattention errors.

As far as technical skills are concerned, the transcriber has a good command of voice recognition software. He or she also knows how to use computer hardware, sound equipment and remote control devices. Indeed, some clients can send him/her the recorded files directly, but he/she must also be able to manage a sound recording on the spot.

Solution summary

• Carried out the project on time
• Established strong collaborative relationship with participants and contractees
• Delivered the highest quality outcomes in two languages
• Exhibited resourcefulness to our client’s changes and adaptations
• Improved time-management and interpersonal skills