The Royal Academy of Spanish Language (RAE), the organization that defines the Spanish language standards, introduced spelling changes which came into effect on the 1st of January 2011. 

The new rules include:

New names for the letters B, V and Y, unique for all Spanish-speaking countries

B becomes be (it should no longer be called "be larga" in America).
V becomes uve ("be corta" disappears) and y becomes ye instead of i griega.

"ch" and "ll" are no longer considered separate letters of the alphabet

This brings the number of letters in the alphabet to 27, i.e. the 26 of the English alphabet, plus ñ.

Orthographic accents can be dropped

Writers may choose whether the word "sólo" used as an adverb, as well as demonstrative pronouns such as "éste" or "ésa" carry an accent.

The "q", used to represent the phoneme "k" is dropped

As a consequence, Iraq will now be written as "Irak" and Qatar as "Catar".
Also, quórum becomes cuórum.

Prefixes such as "ex" and "anti" are now attached to the word they precede

For example, in "exmarido", and "expresidente".
But prefixes will continue to be written with a space when they precede two words, as in the case of "pro derechos humanos".

Some words become monosyllabic, and are no longer accented

Examples of such words are: guión, Sión, and truhán.

The accent on the conjunction "o" between numbers can now be omitted.

Languages are living organisms ... that is what makes translation so exciting!

Research, uitgevoerd door de Boston Consulting Group en gepubliceerd in janauri 2011, heeft aangetoond dat het aantal terugroepacties van medische apparatuur in Europa en de Verenigde Staten gelijk is, ondanks dat het goedkeuringsproces in Europa aanzienlijk sneller is.

Door analyse van de openbare gegevens over diverse terugroepacties van medische apparatuur in Europa (equivalent aan een Klasse I-terugroepactie in de VS) heeft de studie aangetoond dat het aantal terugroepacties in Europa identiek is aan het aantal terugroepacties in de Verenigde Staten en dat ook de therapeutische mix en het soort terugroepactie gelijk zijn aan de VS.

Het rapport verklaart dat deze eerste beoordeling van vergelijkbare terugroepacties in de VS en Europa niet suggereert dat een ander goedkeuringsproces en snellere goedkeuring ten koste gaan van de patiëntveiligheid in Europa.

Lees hier het volledige rapport (Engels).

Cogen's translation QA process goes full circle and is ISO 9001:2008 certified -
for your peace of mind.

Well translated documentation is crucial to the success of your company on your international markets.
Accurately translated and clearly phrased information will make your customers prefer your brands, time and time again.
It will make your products easy to use and to maintain without the help of a call center, and expedite their certification process by regulatory bodies.

Cogen applies a full circle translation QA which covers all the steps, from the selection of the best translators to the analysis and monitoring of your reviewers feedback.

It all starts with finding the right people -

Cogen's translator profiling process is unique: for each new customer, our Language Resources Team pre-selects translators on their experience in the subject matter and their references. After a first internal screening on their professional quality, at least three samples per language pair are submitted to the customer, asking for his preference.
Based on that feedback, a team is put in place (one main translator and at least one back-up), which will handle all your assignments and which Cogen's translation project management tool will assign by default to your projects.
From then on, a relationship grows between translators, in-country reviewers and customer contacts, strengthened over the years by training sessions, meetings, and exchanges through Cogen's translation project management portal.

But they need some help - a terminology tool, ...

Each company has a unique set of terms and expressions which, if used consistently in all languages, increases the quality and readability of product documentation. To make sure that terminology is adhered to, Cogen has developed a terminology management tool which highlights, in the content sent for translation and for review, all occurrences of your glossary terms, with their translation.

... in-context terminology searches in your translation memory,

For the duration of each translation project, Cogen opens the access to your translation memory to all translators and reviewers at work, so they can check terms and phrases in context. The search is multi-directional, from each source to each target language, and pulls up results within a paragraph and with the document name it comes from.

... feedback from your in-country staff,

The feedback of your in-country reviewers in precious: they know best how to talk to your customers. Cogen has developed an application which cross-references the reviewed content with the original translated content, and highlights the differences. At the end of each project, the output of this analysis is sent to the translator, for future reference.

... QA technology,

Cogen's validation application verifies that your source and translated content remain perfectly aligned at all times: it cross-checks, after translation and after each review iteration, the overall document length, the number of content segments, the figures, the formatting.

All supported by metrics.

My.cogen.com, Cogen's translation project management portal, illustrates the output of these tools with metrics about the content review percentages and the evolution of the quality ratings of your reviewers, as well as project status follow-up.

March 2010 - An independent report looking at the translation processes employed by 187 companies of various sizes, industries and geographies, has found that the best-in-class performers systematically track the reuse of translated content and, in so doing, reduce translation costs by 17%.

The report concludes :

"The best-in-class performers are 1.5 times as likely as the industry average to track the reuse of content.

By tracking performance in this way, they can identify where and when they are able to reuse translations.
This helps drive continuous improvement in how content is developed, applied and leveraged, ultimately enabling these companies to reduce translation costs by 17%".

To extend these advantages to its customers, Cogen provides online access to a content harmonization tool, and metrics about content reuse evolution, through a secure portal.

Read more ...

Directive 2007/47/EC amends Directive 90/385/EEC on active implantable medical devices and Directive 93/42/EEC on medical devices.

The changes concern, among others, the essential requirements which medical devices must satisfy in order to be lawfully placed on the market, the corresponding conformity assessment procedures and the classification of devices.

Since Directive 2007/47/EC is addressed to the Member States, preliminary transposition into national law is indispensable for the application of the corresponding provision by the various economic operators.

Article 4 of the Directive states that the Member States "shall apply the transposition measures as from March 21 , 2010".

As no provision is made for a period of transition, a number of questions have been raised, and the following interpretation by the Commission's services are meant to be a guide to uniform practice throughout the EU.

Juni 2009. Cogens kwaliteitsmanagementsysteem krijgt nog meer formele erkenning.

Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance (LRQA), een wereldwijd erkende kwaliteitsbeoordelingsinstelling heeft een onafhankelijke beoordeling uitgevoerd en vastgesteld dat Cogen volledig voldoet aan de voorwaarden van de ISO 9001:2008 norm.

"Deze certificatie is het resultaat van de voordurende inzet van het bedrijf om kwaliteit na te streven,” aldus Véronique Respaut, Quality Management Expert bij Cogen na het horen van het nieuws. "Zoals onze opdrachtgevers heel goed weten, zet het hele bedrijf van CEO tot elk teamlid zich elke dag weer volledig in om de kwaliteit te verbeteren.”

Cogen was al ISO 9001:2000 gecertificeerd. "Wij vonden het niet genoeg om gewoon die certificatie te verlengen,” voegt Véronique Respaut hieraan toe. “We wilden betere garanties bieden aan onze opdrachtgevers voor wat betreft de manier waarop wij onze klantgerichte processen managen zodat ze perfect voldoen aan hun eisen op het gebied van dienstverlening.

De norm voegt stringentere eisen toe, zoals:

• Toevoeging van wettelijke en regelgevingseisen naast die van de opdrachtgever;
• Integratie van outsourced procesregelingen binnen het kwaliteitsmanagementsysteem;
• Toelichting over de competentievereisten op het gebied van Human Resources;
• Bijzonderheden overwerkzaamheden na de levering;
• Uitbreiding van de onderzoeksmethoden naar klanttevredenheid
• Meer bescherming van de zaken die de klant toebehoren, met inbegrip van persoonlijke en vertrouwelijke gegevens;

"Waar ik vooral trots op ben, is dat Cogen deze certificatie heeft behaald voor het hele gamma van haar werkzaamheden,” geeft Hélène Keufgens, CEO van Cogen, aan. “Het feit dat de herhaalbare processen worden erkend als zijnde waterdicht is van onschatbare waarde voor onze internationale opdrachtgevers, waarvan een aantal in zeer sterk gereguleerde bedrijfstakken opereert.”

Neem voor meer informatie contact op met:

Jérôme Legris : +32 6789 2504 - Dit emailadres is beveiligd tegen spambots, u heeft javascript nodig om het te kunnen bekijken

Cogen is een ISO 9001:2008 gecertificeerd bedrijf dat taaldiensten aanbiedt en werkt voor opdrachtgevers in de VS, Europa en Azië sinds 1980.

Onze missie is om bedrijven die industriële apparatuur, medische apparaten of complexe consumentengoederen maken te helpen om meer productdocumentatie te maken in meer talen, binnen geregelde en door harde cijfers bepaalde processen die inhoudelijke consistentie garanderen en tijd en geld besparen.

Cogen biedt internationale projectmanagmentdiensten, consultancy over optimalisatie van vertaalprocessen, management van woordenlijsten, vertalingen en meertalige publicatiediensten.