La Vanguardia Case Study

La Vanguardia translatedinto Catalan usingLucy Machine TranslationLucy Software and Services GmbH is headquartered near Heidelberg, Germany.

Development labs and sales/support centers are located in Germany and Spain.

Lucy Software and Services GmbH

Daisbachtalstr. 7

D-74915 Waibstadt

Tel. +49 7261-949809-0

info@lucysoftware.com

Lucy Software and Services GmbH

Neumarkterstr. 81

D-81673 München

Tel. +49 89-2000-196-0

info@lucysoftware.com

Lucy Software Ibérica S.L.

Copèrnic, 44, 1r

E-08021 Barcelona

Tel. +34 93 396 87 90

info@lucysoftware.com

SPAIN

GERMANY

INTERNATIONAL CENTRAL OFFICE

www.lucysoftware.com

Automatic translation of the Spanish version was the only viable option, but this in turn posed various problems.

Writing a bilingual version (ES/CAT) of the newspaper or manually translating the articles every night would have been too time-consuming and prohibitively expensive.

.cat

www.lavanguardia.cat Número 46.917 1,20 euros

032013

123456

Start 5 p.m.

First edition11.30 p.m.

Second edition2.30 a.m.

30 minutes linguistic review10 minutes journalistic review

DIMARTS, 19 DE MARÇ DEL 2013

Fundada el 1881 per Don Carlos i Don Bartolomé Godó

Among our customers are major corporationssuch as: Bosch,Coca-Cola, Honda,Lanxess, Metro, Nikon,SABMiller, SAPand Volkswagen

Language Technology Consultancyand Machine Translation

OUR COMPANY CLIENTS

The unique combination of skills and technologies offered by Lucy Software and Services enables you to efficiently solve your language and translation-related business challenges for global business success.

READ MORE INSIDE

Staff:20 post-editors12 editors

Timeline:

LA VANGUARDIA translated into Catalan, while all newspapers have experienced a loss, La Vanguardia has seen a significant increase in sales.

Post-Editing effort:READ MORE INSIDE

75,000 words/day + weekly supplement1,000-1,500 words/hours post-edited for high quality output

IVÁN SUÁREZ

IVÁN SUÁREZ

HERMESNewspaper PageStatus: TO PUBLISH

LV’s Intranet / Style Guide Portal / Web Access for quick check

www.lucysoftware.com

Preproccessing filters500+ Proper names

Customised SystemGrammar:440 modified rulesLexicon:16,000+ custom entries

HERMESNewspaper PageStatus: FINISHED

Graphics

INDESIGN file

Graphics

INDESIGN file

BILINGUAL PUBLISHINGPOWERED BY MT

Writing a bilingual version (ES/CAT) of the newspa-

per or manually translating the articles every night

would have been too time-consuming and prohibi-

tively expensive. Automatic translation of the

Spanish version was the only viable option, but this

in turn posed various problems.

The biggest challenges in the project were:

high linguistic quality, bilingualism, the timeframe,

and the costs.

About La Vanguardia THE CHALLENGE SOLUTIONEstablished in 1881 and a member of the publishing

Grupo Godó, La Vanguardia is the third largest newspa-

per in Spain and Catalonia’s leading daily newspaper. It is

a general daily newspaper with a national approach,

edited in Barcelona. It has approximately 850,000 readers

and a daily circulation of some 200,000 copies.

Up to 2009, only two newspapers were published in both

languages: El Periódico de Catalunya, the second most

important paper in Catalunya, and El Segre, a local

newspaper with a low daily circulation but very important

in its area.

In 2011, the celebration of the 130th anniversary of La

Vanguardia (LV) was the perfect occasion for publishing a

Catalan edition. The two newspaper editions were also to

help the newspaper consolidate its market leadership in

Catalunya and its third place ranking in Spain.

Machine Translation technology was the only feasible

option given the constraints of time and budget. In

addition, La Vanguardia needed a tailor-made program,

able to satisfy their requirements.

Lucy Software worked to customize and integrate the Lucy

LT into a dedicated workflow:

Linguistically the system was adapted to comply

with the linguistic requirements of the style guide LV

developed.

Technically, the machine translation program was

integrated to seamlessly fit into the journalist's

workflow, both into the Hermes Content Management

System and into InDesign. Journalists and post-editors

were to post-edit in the same editing environments.

Reliability and high performance were also a

must. No bottlenecks should appear during the tight

closing timeframes. A mirror backup installation was

set up in case the main installation should fail at any

point in time.

For the preparation of a dedicated post-editors workspace,

several applications were implemented.

High quality: La Vanguardia is regarded as

having a high standard of written Spanish, the

Catalan version should follow suit.

Bilingualism: The journalists should eventually

be able to write their articles either in Spanish or

Catalan and the system would translate them into

the other respective language.

Timeframe: daily publication of two language

editions with a tight deadline.

Costs: The economic crisis had affected the press

worldwide and had tightened the budgets in the

newspaper industry. La Vanguardia has many times

been acknowledged as an example of a well-written

Spanish newspaper to which some of the top

Spanish writers have contributed.

The Catalan version of the newspaper should be on

a par with that high level of language and be a

point of reference for well-written Catalan.

SPANISHEDITORS

CATALANPOST-EDITORS

CATALAN EDITORSFINAL QA

HERMESNewspaper PageStatus: TRANSLATED

INDESIGN file

Catalan Spanish

And what is most relevant,

while all newspapers have experienced a loss,

La Vanguardia has seen a significant increase.

The rise in number

of copies was 4%,

the rise in the number

of readers was 7%.

57% of the readers choose

the Spanish version whereas

43% read the Catalan edition..cat