The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2022 - 33

GS
Needless to say, I felt
rather stupid, and, as you
can see, I've certainly never
forgotten the episode. But
I've always felt that maybe I
wasn't the one who missed
out on something there.
(My reason for retelling this
story will become apparent
in a moment.)
I recently had an
opportunity to speak to
Thomas Wienold, head of
the Language Experience
Lab at SAP, about a tool
that's been around since
2017 but has seen some
interesting development in
just the past few weeks. The
tool is called SAP Translation
Hub (https://bit.ly/SAP-Hub),
a cloud-based solution that
allows for the translation
of documents and user
interface files into 39
languages. It accomplishes
this by sending files through
a two-tiered process, where
the tool searches within
SAP's " multilingual text
repository " (MLTR) for a
proposed translation and
displays it along with a
quality index so that the
end user can decide if it's
a good translation and if
they want to use it. The
remaining strings are filled
with MT suggestions that
originate from SAP's own
neural MT engine, which
has also been trained with
its MLTR. The cost for all
this is approximately the
same as you would pay for
other generic application
programming interfacebased
MT engines (2.42 €,
or USD 3.34 per 100,000
characters), but the
expected quality is naturally
significantly better. In other
words, users can expect
www.ata-chronicle.online
correct and consistent
terminology.
Both SAP's MT engine
and its MLTR are updated
constantly and reflect the
assets that SAP uses for
its own internal purposes.
Furthermore, the MLTR
makes heavy use of
metadata, which allows
for industry-specific
employment of that data.
This is something that
can even be improved by
the possibility of adding a
company's (here SAP's) own
bilingual data to train the MT
engine even more specifically
for their purposes.
Once processed by the
system, users can then edit
the strings in a simple and
proprietary interface.
What's new and makes
this even more attractive to
anyone working with SAP's
data is that it's now also
available via the XTM Cloud
interface and licensed via the
SAP Store (the company's
online marketplace where
customers can discover, try,
buy, and renew solutions
from SAP and its trusted
partners). The XTM Cloud
interface provides access to
SAP's specifically trained MT
engine, just like any other
application programming
interface-based MT engine,
whereas the application
offered in the SAP Store
contains the MLTR lookup
feature combined with
SAP's MT engine via the
two-step process mentioned
earlier supporting user
interface translations. You
can expect other translation
environment tools to also
offer this as a possibility in
the future.
I asked Wienold whether
he sees SAP Translation
There clearly was (and is) a
steep investment in localizing a
first-of-its-kind product in a given
language market, especially
with terminology that has to be
researched and coined.
Hub as a " profit center "
now or at some point in the
future. He responded that
he sees the tool more as
an " enabler " for its users.
The tool is open to anyone,
including competitors, to
which he has no objection.
Nor should he, in my
opinion. In fact, I think
this is a fabulous solution
that other companies
could emulate, especially
those like SAP with a lot
of customers that develop
their own extensions and
products to fit into their
respective ecosystems.
Plus, I just really love
innovative ways to look at
translation. And this is a
prime example.
Jost
Zetzsche is
a translation
industry and
translation
technology consultant. He
is the author of Characters
with Character: 50 Ways
to Rekindle Your Love Affair
with Language. jzetzsche@
internationalwriters.com
American Translators Association 33
https://www.bit.ly/SAP-Hub http://www.ata-chronicle.online
The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2022

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