Background:
As a well-known e-commerce website based in the US, the Goat.com tried to further attracted Chinese consumers and thus decided to get the product listings on its website translated into Chinese. The job full of marketing copies for sneakers had a word count of over 500,000, and were required to complete within 2 months with a delivery every week.

Challenges:
a.While most sentences were simple and short, each pair of sneakers had a unique story to tell, from its design, famous player, history to significance. Simple as they might seem in just dozens to hundreds of words, the stories were so legendary or epic that their details had to be carefully verified on the Internet for accuracy and authenticity throughout the course of translation. Some, not explicitly shown in the texts though, had to be aware of as a background by the translator so that he/she might subtly weave them into the translation for better understanding by audience.



b.Myriads of jargons, from shoe structure (e.g. eyelet, midsole, tab, sock lining, lace, and buckle), materials (e.g. webbing, nubuck and suede) to technologies (e.g. Flywire, Auto Lacing and Torsion Spring), added to the complexity of the job.
c.The tight timeframe of 2 months for 500,000 words, or an output of some 8,000 words per day, made it a “Mission Impossible”.
d.Extremely high requirements: every sentence and every character in these marketing copies were supposed to be fluent and idiomatic to strike a chord in Chinese consumers’ hearts. As such, the mastery of both English and Chinese skills of linguists was required to understand correctly and communicate properly.

Solution:
Following actions were taken to address the challenges:
a.Leveraged an online CAT platform. As many linguists as required were able to work simultaneously on the platform and share a translation memory (TM) in real time. Each of them was allowed to search for any expression or term that might had just been translated and saved in the online TM by others one second ago.
b.Maintained a glossary beforehand and kept it updated. The job came with no glossary or reference. Before it started, we managed to get a Chinese national standard vocabulary for footwear GB/T 2703-2017, from which an initial glossary was made. Then it was confirmed by the customer before being uploaded to the platform.
c.Developed a style guide before the job started.


d.Set up a WeChat group where the linguists and the PM might discuss together in real time. Meanwhile, linguists might raise any questions about any sentence or word on the platform, as there were many English idioms and abbreviations (e.g. Ntrl Grey for Natural Grey and Rtr for Retro) that might be difficult to understand correctly. Then the customer was able to answer the questions timely, within a day typically.

e.The glossary was updated and submitted to the customer for confirmation every time a new batch of translation was delivered. If the glossary was revised by the customer, the online one as well as the TM would also be updated accordingly by a dedicated person in a timely manner.

Conclusion: Nothing is difficult to the man who will try! Despite the difficulty and complexity of the case, Yijie worked so hard to accomplish the job within the timeframe, which was attributable to our expertise, attitude and professionalism that were highly regarded by the customer.