About Quality

Three days ago, I received an email from a prospective customer commenting that many language learning programs available -and especially some delivered through the internet- contain many spelling errors. He was then asking us whether our Product, the Personaltrainer series, also has the same problem.

First and before I explain how we treat Quality at L-Ceps, I would like to point one thing out: “I totally agree with him”. From my experience with language learning software, there are often programs out there that have many many spelling mistakes or sometimes also the audio is of poor quality or the speakers use some kind of strange accent. What I found most striking is that I also found these problems in some of the biggest companies selling language learning software (especially I found errors in not so popular languages they offer). Sometimes it is very helpful to read online reviews about the software that you like to purchase (I find the ones at Amazon for instance quite good) in order to find out if the software is of good quality.

So how do we ensure quality at L-Ceps?

Let me point out a few things that we have incorporated to minimise the possibility of errors:

• Selection of Translators: In most cases we use certified translators with excellent references that reside in their native country. We do not like to work with translators that have been outside their native country for some years, because naturally they loose being in touch with the day-to-day developments in that language. All our translators have college degrees.
• Selection of Speakers: We take great care to select speakers that speak accent free standard dialect of the respective language. We also ensure that the speakers have a clear and good sounding voice and we give the speakers a special training before recording.
• Quality during recording: We have developed a special software for recording in which the speaker directly records the sentence into the computer. We also use the Samson C01U USB studio condenser microphone in order to ensure high audio quality.
• Checking and Testing: I think we spend around the same time checking and testing the final language learning product than we spend developing it. We hire natives of the respective language and let them go through each of the words and sentences of the final product in order to ensure everything is perfect.

So does that mean, all our products are totally error free?

No of course not!

We have found few errors also in our software. But if we find them, we quickly rectify them and update our product. I think no company can guarantee a 100% error free product, but from what I have just described you can see that we have (1) the processes in place to minimise possible errors and (2) the attitude to quickly rectify any errors once we get to know them.