SBT Localization is on a mission to save the Ukrainian language. This group of volunteers got into game localization to promote their language in games. And they’re hoping to create a market for Ukrainian localization.
I spoke with Tetiana Cherednychok from SBT Localization. In this episode, you’ll find out:
- Why SBT Localization started with games
- Finding opportunities for localization
- How to recruit more volunteers
- Is translation a valid career in Ukraine
- Interacting with the community
- Why email notifications ruin your day
- Obsessed with… dark elves?!
This is episode #34 of my social practice, also known as The Localization Podcast 🙂 #localization and #translation insight delivered to you by the power of voice, this time with Tetiana Cherednychok.
Andrej Zito
So if there are other people listening to this and their situation in their country is similar. How do you think they should start something like SPT?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I think that first of all they have to
Andrej Zito
Finally we meet.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Uh huh.
Andrej Zito
Welcome to the podcast. How are you?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I’m fine. Thank you. Thank you for having me here.
Andrej Zito
We made it happen. You know, it’s funny. Yesterday, somebody on LinkedIn messaged me that they heard the podcast with Michael, which is about gaming game localization. And she said that I should do all my podcasts about game localization. So I guess this is my second opportunity to do something about games. So spoiler alert, you do something about games? What exactly do you do? And you are in Ukraine, right?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes. What exactly do I do as a video game vocalizer?
Andrej Zito
Yeah, like so you work for SBT.SBT was recommended to me by Oksana tokaj was a guest on the podcast. And let’s start with SBT. What does it mean? It’s a funny thing.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Okay. SBT localization team or in Ukrainian, it is overkill, is it seen as pure cash, like the graph is a non governmental organization. And we are volunteers who localize Winter Games into Ukrainian. And the main goal of our organization is to popularize gaming culture and increase overall awareness of the Assumption by performing educational work in the form of different lectures, presentations, travel, relevant meetings, and conferences. And we also aim to encourage the Ukrainian gamer to seek out Ukrainian localization and Ukrainian content. And thus, we hope that this will stimulate the media markets development. We, as a matter of fact, we cooperate with developers on the official forums. And we strive to show developers and publishers that there is a demand for Ukrainian localization in Ukraine. And such a demonstration is our way to spur its further popularization. And we believe that the Ukrainian gamer deserves Ukrainian localization and they want it and the ready to pay for it, of course, and and we have no doubt that there will be enough Ukrainian speaking players to form a market for that, and this market will be stable and properly commercialized.
Andrej Zito
Right, right, right. So why did you pick games? This may be a stupid, stupid opinion. But I don’t know for a long time. And this means that this may not be in Ukraine. But I think that the countries in Europe, especially in the center, and in the east, they were not very popular for buying games in the first place. But maybe that was the situation when I was teenager. So it was long time ago.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Well, this situation is quiet. But it’s SBT was founded. Because a group of enthusiasts who decided to translate motors gate Enhanced Edition into Ukrainian. Moreover, they wanted to see more games with the Ukraine and causation. Because if I’m not mistaken, there wasn’t even such a notion as Ukrainian or causation by the ban. And it was in 2012. And Ukrainian localization was available only in a couple of games. And that’s it. I mean, like official coordination, yes. And of course, There were an amateur translations, but its quality was rather poor. And you understand that playing such a game with such localization was a disaster. And so Ihor Solodrai the founder, he decided to-
Andrej Zito
Start a company or the organization?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes to take the initiative. And the he initiated the Ukrainian localization of others need enhance solution. Because if not us, then who?
Andrej Zito
Yes, yes. Do you know why he picked Baldur’s Gate by any chance? It’s it’s a it’s a game with a lot of text.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Text. Yes. Baldur’s gate Enhanced Edition is an updated and expanded edition of the classic and even in the sense of legendary RPG Dungeons and Dragons. And I guess that’s why, because the game is it? Yes. It’s legendary. And it’s great. It’s really great game. And
Andrej Zito
Was that was that was the game. Very popular already before in English in Ukraine?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I guess
Andrej Zito
Because it’s definitely a classic. Like, I know that.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes. And it’s huge. It’s, it’s amazing. And it’s like translating world, within a world, you know? And. And while playing it, you can just take some book and read it. Read the book. So I guess that’s why it was picked for localization. And, yes, the game was really great. And it deserved.
Andrej Zito
So if you didn’t if you guys didn’t work on these games, what else is accessible or available to the, to the gamers in Ukraine? They can only play English games, or do they play Russian games?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I guess they would play Russia. Because Russian localization is was rather popular in Ukraine. And well, as I’ve said before, that there was no such notion as Ukrainian localization. There was such notion is rational causation. So I think that it’s quite obvious that players would choose rational conversation over Ukrainian.
Andrej Zito
Because there was no Ukrainian, right?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes. Yes. Of course.
Andrej Zito
Is it, Is it normal that everybody in Ukraine understands Russian? Or how does it work?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I don’t know if if it’s no worse than Russian. Yes, I understand Russian. I understand it from my childhood, I’m doing well. So in some way, it’s a great experience. But sometimes you just forced to ration content, and Ukrainian just weak because of that.
Andrej Zito
So that’s why you that’s one of the reasons why you founded the organization right to get me to push Ukrainian so that people have also that option.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes. So
Andrej Zito
And are there any plans to further go beyond games? Or are you still focusing on games only?
Tetiana Cherednychok
We are going already beyond but not not very much. Yes. We work on some pieces of literature, art books, so comics also. And some TV series. Yes. If you No, no. Okay. Well, actually, you can visit our website and check the actual information because it It turned out that I will get away with my information to what we do because we do so much that I can just catch up with it. Yes. So you you’d better Visit our website to check the extra extra super information. What else do we do we equipment games, comics, art books, business literature. Stories. That’s Abraham merritts story through the dragon glass. Then Terry Pratchett’s comedy fantasy, the color of magic. And here comes the George MacDonald’s novels, giants heart, the light Princess and the golden key. Also, we worked on comics, by Jim Francis outsider, and we still working on that. And also, we have a couple of our books in our portfolio. They are the art of this stranding, and the art of The Last of
Andrej Zito
The last of us.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yeah the art of The Last of Us part two
Andrej Zito
Yeah right.
Tetiana Cherednychok
And just some applications from mobile devices and widows like cartoons, pets on their own NMS serious mating episode, cartoon series, Hilda, and TV series, Sirius Ozark?
Andrej Zito
That’s a lot of titles.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Find the actual information?
Andrej Zito
And so what I’m wondering right now is how how does the collaboration with you start in the first place? Do people already approach you, Hey, can you localize this for us? Or do you book for the games and the products that you want to localize?
Tetiana Cherednychok
It’s interesting. Because from from the very beginning, we were unknown group of volunteers, and we asked developers to give us the opportunity to localize their games. And, and now we got two recommended developers just reach us and ask to localize their games. Publishers asked to work on their art books, and so on. But as usual, we we localize game, because we have such an opportunity, for example, we are going to have the opportunity to localize the game, the developer is interested in the community’s localization and we just reach them and tell them that we want that we agree and we are ready to do it for free. What’s interesting,
Andrej Zito
The magical word free. But how do you actually, where do you spot these opportunities? Is it like some forums or?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes, uh forums, websites, some of us, our members, they just follow the latest news of all the possible developers. They tell us that, hey, there is an opportunity to localize the game game and hey, you it’s right them. So this is quite like it happens right now. In our team,
Andrej Zito
When you started, and when you had to look for the developers on your own. And you told them that it will be a free localization? What happens afterwards, when you finish your work? Like, do they still charge the users in Ukraine for the localization that you did for free? Or is the whole product free for everyone? Because you localize it for free?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I don’t think that the whole product is free, because of free localization. But yeah, the localization is, okay, what happens next? After we finish it, we deliver the translation to the developer and they take care of everything that is connected to with the font with the special symbols, and we just responsible for their localization and its quality. So the advantage of official localization is that all the issues, which I listed before they are developers responsibility, yes. And the localization process becomes much more easier in that way. But first of all, you have to reach the developer And, like persuade him to give you this opportunity to work with the localization.
Andrej Zito
Yeah. But now you mentioned that the situation is different because you are more popular. So do you, are you now in the position where you have to select what you’re working on? Or can you still accept all the requests for Ukrainian localization?
Tetiana Cherednychok
We actually can select. Yes. Because I remember a couple of discussions in our chat and our, like, Chief people, they said that we can’t take these projects right now, because we have a lot of work to do. And those projects are really important. And so we just have to concentrate on them. But I guess that earlier, yes, we took everything that we could take.
Andrej Zito
What is it that you do? Specifically like you are do translate everything you ever think okay.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes, I, I translate, I edit. I can test localization. Also, I do link for different speeches on different conferences, events, and etc. Also some master classes at the university or some courses. Yes.
Andrej Zito
How did you how did you end up with SBT? Did they also recruit you or?
Tetiana Cherednychok
My, my supervisor recruited me. When I was a senior at the University, I had to work on my paper. And my supervisor told me that she knows a group of people who translate Winter Games and I heard Winter Games and Yay, one thing. And that’s how it started. I got interest. Just like to work with my paper Yes, to do the research. And it turned out that I found something much more important than the research paper.
Andrej Zito
Right. But were you studying translation or?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes, I was a student at Borys Hrinchenko Kyiv University at the Department of English philology in translation. And yes, I was one of the best students.
Andrej Zito
Oh, you’re a nerd.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yeah. No, seriously.
Andrej Zito
Okay. You’re a nerd. Got it. So What games do you like, personally before you started working on them?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I liked RPG games. My favorite one is Skyrim.
Andrej Zito
Skyrim. Okay.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes, yes. Because, well, even though the game was released in like, what 2018 11? 2011? Yes. And I have been exploring its world for hundreds of hours. I still find something new every time I start a new game in Skyrim and it story landscapes creatures music just captivated me, you know, and still to this day, this may be my favorite experience I’ve ever had with the game and interestingly, that this game gives you an opportunity to be wherever whoever you want, but I still always pray for a female Dark Elf. Yes, and I don’t know what what’s wrong with me? Because I remember this. This obsession with Dark Elves even from the tests for a Boolean. When I started it, for the first time, I also chosen the Dark Elf and
Andrej Zito
They’re like the corrupted elves, or they’re usually the mid magicians, no? Dark Elves.
Tetiana Cherednychok
I do them as rogue. I yes, I I like to make them stealthy and with Archer. Good in archery and
Andrej Zito
I know when I played. What was the what was the third one? Morrowind, right? Morrowind. I picked the the cat race. I don’t know me. They’re the sneaky ones. Pretty determined to be the stealthy class, right?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I tried to play for also kanji and other races, but I just couldn’t I started a new game and I picked my dark female. Oh, I need it.
Andrej Zito
So how are you guys? Going back to SBT, How are you guys organized? How do you organize your work as volunteers? Do you have any formal structure? Like somebody deals with the developers? Then somebody organizes the work and distributes it to different translators? Or is it like, complete anarchy?
Tetiana Cherednychok
No, we don’t have complete anarchy? Our she won’t let it happen. We have, like our head and two co founders. And they like and they like rule
Andrej Zito
The project managers? Or do you have a dedicated project manager,
Tetiana Cherednychok
Actually any member of the team who meets requirements, and one of which are responsible responsibility and reliability can become a project manager in our team. But you have to prove that you are worse to be the project manager of course. And usually, we have project manager. Not that that’s not what I wanted to say. We have like a group of editors, yes, who are in priority to become project managers. But also, if translators are also like capable to do this, we will let them to manage the projects.
Andrej Zito
Are you one of the translators? Who’s capable of managing projects?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes, I am. Yes, I manage a couple of projects. One of them is Kingdom come. And the other one or the other? Couple of them. I cannot
Andrej Zito
You cannot name?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes. Yes, I manage. I manage.
Andrej Zito
We all manage our lives, right? How do you recruit more people? So you mentioned how you got recruited as a volunteer, just did your strategy change over time, how you find new people,
Tetiana Cherednychok
We visit different translational scientific and gaming conferences with speeches, and people become interested in our activity. And also we do social media work, where we announce that we are looking for talented people how you can join us. And actually, we always have such an announcer and an announcement. In our monthly reports, if you read them you I think that you saw that we may get it, maybe that doesn’t matter. And so it’s not a secret that we are looking for new passionate widow gain localizers. And usually people volunteer because they want to become a part of Ukrainian localization of Ukrainian we do game localization movement. Yes. And also we received letters from students who want to, to improve their skills, right. And both work with our team and learn from our team. And also they are in such a way they can pass some credits in their practical classes of translation. The win win situation for for them. Maybe, I am not sure.
Andrej Zito
You mentioned the movement.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Mm hmm.
Andrej Zito
Is it something official? Or is it just how you think about SBT debt? You guys started this movement?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Well SBT is official, so I guess our movement is official.
Andrej Zito
But is it like officially part of your agenda? Because I know that in the beginning, you we’re introducing SBT as a volunteer organization that does games, but movement is something like, at least for me movement is something like, you know, stronger, like there’s a bigger, maybe even political agenda, or is it just like, okay, let’s localize games, so that our next generation doesn’t have to play games in Russian or English?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Well, there is something in it. Yes. And we, we try to, to create a market if I can say it. Ukrainian localization perspective in the future?
Andrej Zito
Yeah. You were mentioning that when we had our first chat about the prospects of Ukrainian locate localization? Is it sort of a help also for the people who are interested in becoming a translator to to create more opportunities for them? And is it a valid career?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I don’t think that it would be a valid career just yet. Because it’s not so strong right now. Yes. Because developers still believe that we don’t need to clean and equalization winner games. And that’s why it’s rather hard to build a career in this field. Yes. And what was the next question?
Andrej Zito
But this is this is a good answer, because I’m just thinking because you told me that you were studying translation yourself. So the people who study translation, where do they end up working? If it’s not localization?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I guess it’s translation engine, a agencies mostly, or freelance work? Or interpreting, I guess, rather eat mainly some editing work or copywriting, something like this, I guess.
Andrej Zito
The workshops that you guys provide, is it something extra on top of the standard translation education that people get at the university in Ukraine, or, what do your workshop specializing
Tetiana Cherednychok
our workshop are specializing on localization, of course. And we provide them for a request for a request from the university. Yes. And we can just visit and provide the workshop. And
Andrej Zito
Is it mostly about game localization?
Tetiana Cherednychok
It’s all within one game.
Andrej Zito
I thought he was localization in general.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Now, just the game localization?
Andrej Zito
So what did they teach the translation students that they have no idea about localization?
Tetiana Cherednychok
They teach like general stuff. Translation transformations, some methods of translation, ways of translation. What do you do before you translate? Yes, what do you do while you’re trying to play and after and mostly eat the CRV but the practice the practice that you will need for your job is different from that practice that you do in the university? Because, you know, the demands are higher and you don’t have such you don’t have much experience to provide such a great translation. Yes. And I can’t say that my experience in university wasn’t useful. It was useful Of course, but you still need to learn some something you and you need to work on yourself. You have to improve yourself constantly. To become a professional.
Andrej Zito
How many teammates do you have right now? In the whole SBT?
Tetiana Cherednychok
If I’m not mistaken 51 teammate. But I guess that we have the half of this, of this people just more active than the other half.
Andrej Zito
So does it mean when you join as a volunteer that you can always pick how much more Work you’ve put in? Or are there any contracts and like a minimum amount of work that you need to put in? If you’re part of SBT?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I guess, we have a certain amount of work that you have to do within a month. It’s like a conditional piece of off translation that we divide it nearly 1000 words, if I’m not mistaken. And if you do one, such a piece that you can go with you prolong your participation in the team, but if you like don’t know, don’t do anything for two months, if I’m not mistaken, you get a warning that, hey, you have to do something about it. And if it’s continuous, then just this members they are
Andrej Zito
Exposed.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Thank you.
Andrej Zito
I think that’s the right word. I don’t know what you’re doing, and maybe you exterminate them. But so my very basic question is, how can you sustain your life as a volunteer? Or do you? Do you get paid for some of the projects? Or is it all free work for the developers or the publishers?
Tetiana Cherednychok
The all the work is free. But sometimes the developers contact us and we can, like, recommend some of the translators most experienced point, the best ones? Yes. And they themselves, they work with the developers and get paid.
Andrej Zito
Mm hmm.
Tetiana Cherednychok
So but volunteer work is volunteer work, it’s free.
Andrej Zito
So do you have other? Do you have like a main job that you do? Or is SBT your main activity right now?
Tetiana Cherednychok
SBT my main activity but I have a job.
Andrej Zito
Okay. What is it that you do?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I freelance translator. Yes. I think that I’m soon going to be a university teacher.
Andrej Zito
What? Okay. Okay
Tetiana Cherednychok
So I’m going to have SBT as my main activity, my work and teaching.
Andrej Zito
Oh, gosh, do you still have time to sleep?
Tetiana Cherednychok
No. Not so much.
Andrej Zito
One of the things that I’ve noticed on your website is that people can support you, like the community. How does that work? Like I’ve noticed Patreon?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes. patrons, they donate some money, and we can just give, like a little
Andrej Zito
Rewards or?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Rewards, yes. Small rewards for the work, but it just it’s nothing compared to what people run. Like, I mean, professionals what they learn. It’s just enough to buy an ice cream.
Andrej Zito
Right, right. Okay. And, yes, go on.
Tetiana Cherednychok
And this money mostly goes on our, like templates, or for our speakers on our own in different conferences, we pay for the tickets, for some, I don’t know, maybe hotels and so on. So something like this.
Andrej Zito
What kind of tools to do use for the projects?
Tetiana Cherednychok
We use Crowdin. It’s a web based platform for managing translation and localization for software products and recommendation. And it was created by Ukrainian developer series with Russian and the guy the guy is from the monopoly. The system is focused on developers and made in maintaining the project’s Yes, the output from is great for localization, localizing software, mobile applications, the websites, web applications, I guess anything that you want to acquire and it always enable automatic translation, if I’m not mistaken, and automatic translation processes. And it supports 40 popular formats and platforms. So you just have no problem with exporting some files and importing as well.
Andrej Zito
Do you usually get the binary files from the developers? Or do they send you just a bunch of strings in spreadsheets?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Usually they do. Yes, they send a bunch of four books for Excel with strings, and we import them into crowdin. And, like, custom the file in order we need it. And we’ll work with this file in Chrome to translate, edit, and write and then we just send the file in that format that we were sent
Andrej Zito
So when the developer sent you the strings, mostly with a excel sheet. How do you get the reference? Like, how do you know what you’re translating?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Often we don’t know what we are translating. But there is a special call, usually it is in this spreadsheet with the context. And from that screen, we can guess, or figure something out what we are translating? Yes. And that’s why that’s how we work. Also, we can ask the developer, of course, or search for information in the internet, of course,
Andrej Zito
Are they usually collaborative? When you have a lot of questions, because it’s like, okay, these guys are doing it for free. Just don’t bother me.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Usually, they are not collaborating. Yes. But some of the developers are really great to work with. And they are always ready to, to help to support to give advice to provide some extra references, yes, if needed, and we love them. These developers Yes, but quite often, we just have to guess or find information ourselves.
Andrej Zito
You usually get the game as well, but at least give you the game as a reference or no?
Tetiana Cherednychok
If the game is on the stage of development. We can have some walkthrough videos for example. But if the game is already released, we can buy it.
Andrej Zito
Oh have to buy it.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Mostly I guess we have to buy it because I I can’t remember. Maybe there was I’ve won my I don’t want to say something bad about the developers. But yes, we buy a game and we play it and see for our own eyes. What’s going on there.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, I wanted to ask you if you have some something spicy on warhorse, but maybe you can say something good.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Working on it. They are great.
Andrej Zito
Yes, I know. They’re from Czech Republic. Okay. This might be a broad question, but I understand the reason why you started the organization. And so, if there are other people listening to this and their situation in their country is similar. How do you think they should start something like SBT
Tetiana Cherednychok
I think that first of all, they have to want to start something like this. Because just starting on help, and they have to realize that they think they will be doing is for a reason, not just for fun. Because I think that when which issues is rather important for every country, and how should they start? Yes, how would what should they do? First of all, if we are talking about founding the community of local music of localizers and yes, they should start from the awareness of the responsibility of the quality of the vocalization that they will be You delivering? Yes. And then they need talking about starting a volunteer localization organization, it will be more difficult because you will need people, of course, organizational statute activity reports to show the community what have you done and are used to working on? You have to do regular meetings? Yes. And it’s just the small part of this stuff that you have to take care about to be able to perform on some good. If you want to have more, if you want to look, seriously indie developers.
Andrej Zito
Do you think do you think that games are the the main entry point? Or should the people decide based on what they’re passionate about?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I think they should decide because if people don’t like games, they wont to be translating games, because they will be just like, your duty not their passion.
Andrej Zito
Yeah,
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes. So I think it could be anything, books, comics, films, I don’t know, TV series cartoons. What else? I didn’t know, anything, it can be anything.
Andrej Zito
And they should probably be ready to have some savings or have a main income job right. For some time, is there actually, is there actually any plan to eventually Monnet not monetize, but turned us into a regular company? That does Ukrainian localization? And you guys can get paid to work full time,
Tetiana Cherednychok
I think. Yes. But it’s just the matter of time. Because if to look, back in 12, in 2012, there were no just big titles with Ukrainian localization. Right. And the ones that have been they were just on piracy basis, if it’s, if it’s possible to call it that. And today, we have hundreds of small games in which we have with Ukraine localization as well as big titles on different platforms, including we are, and these are such titles as a true serious motorists gate, how flyff and soon it will be Kingdom calm. And of others. Yes. And I think that Ukrainian market is not a small one, but it has to struggle for the Ukrainian localization just for now. And Rome wasn’t built in a day. I can say about our situation here.
Andrej Zito
All right, right. Right. How do you interact with your community? Or are you trying to build a community around as bt or is it more like a Ukrainian gaming community? Let’s say,
Tetiana Cherednychok
We here? Well, of course we interact with our community. Yes. We provide different ways. That Yes, yes, we, we. We do different giveaways. We provide some webinars, we organize different meetings, so anyone can come and join. And I think it’s a great idea, because that’s how is pretty gross, yes. And becomes more popular and bigger. And, of course, the demand for Ukraine localization increases as well.
Andrej Zito
Have you been trying to stream some of the games?
Tetiana Cherednychok
We have. We have streams on regular regular basis. Yes, our great dragon Well, does a great job with it. But I tried a couple of times to stream and, and I think that I failed. And I don’t do this anymore. So,
Andrej Zito
Can I see your stream somewhere?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes, you can. But please.
Andrej Zito
All right. Um, how about you tell me? Yeah, this is a good question. I usually ask people about their during their life. And with you I’m especially curious since you said you don’t sleep. I’m not sure if you’re eating. So how do you manage your day with your main job and with SBT? Well,
Tetiana Cherednychok
I wake up, and I work.
Andrej Zito
I probably don’t sleep.
Tetiana Cherednychok
I wake up from my nap. I work? Yes, seriously. The I spent the whole day near my computer. Because I have my laptop for working with text and computer for playing games for a work. And road, it’s quite easy. I can do some physical activity but not so much because I have injured me and I have to be careful about it. But in so my day I wake up.
Andrej Zito
Do you start to start with your paying job first? Or it depends on the project.
Tetiana Cherednychok
It depends on the project because sometimes I have like urgent job, and MBT and sometimes I have ordered more origins up at my work current work. And yeah, I have to manage it.
Andrej Zito
That’s my next question like how do you manage that? How do you keep track of all the requests? And what do you have to do? What-How do you know what is urgent?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Well, I write the deadlines down.
Andrej Zito
Do you have a spreadsheet? Or is it the pen and paper?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes, it’s pen and paper because it’s the most comfortable for me? Because I tried Trello I love Trello and SBT uses Trello but for me it just doesn’t work. When I worked for now, I’m working as them. I manage clase de Yes. And I had four places where I had to put down the dumb stuff. We had to take some notes. It was the spreadsheet of SPT credit projects, the whole bunch of them. Then it was travel Of course. Then it was my pen and paper work. And also I had printed the the table yes and I cross the with markers. just visualize what’s origin what’s less origin with colors and some marks.
Andrej Zito
I was just going to suggest because recently I was looking at Do you know Zapier. Zapier?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I am I’m not sure
Andrej Zito
It’s the it’s the thing that connects different tools together. So let’s say if you if you do something in a spreadsheet, it can move the cart in Trello or do something you know, you can do you can connect many different apps. And I have Yeah, but yes, you cannot integrate it with pen and paper. So.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Okay, thank you. I will write the name down. How is it again?
Andrej Zito
It’s a ZAPIER zapier.com. There are more alternatives like this one, but this one has a nice UI.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Thank you.
Andrej Zito
One more question about your day in your life. How do you do with emails?
Tetiana Cherednychok
You have an empty seat already.
Andrej Zito
You start your day with checking the emails to see what has happened or do you start just working on the important things to unfortunate projects?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I try to answer all the all the letters in the morning. But some of them comes during the day and I try to answer them immediately in order not to like have a lot of them. Well, that’s it. Sometimes I have to think about what to answer. Yes. And or ask maybe somebody if it’s connected with the work. And what was the question?
Andrej Zito
About emails? It’s a very broad question. Yeah. Do you? Do you have your notifications turned on?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Always.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, that’s the problem.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes.
Andrej Zito
You should turn them off.
Tetiana Cherednychok
I do when I go to sleep.
Andrej Zito
You can turn them off even during the day, you know,
Tetiana Cherednychok
No I cannot because I’m afraid I’m going to miss something.
Andrej Zito
That’s a problem. You should have maybe like one channel, how people can reach you. If there’s something really, really, really urgent. It’s like if there if the if the world is ending, just call out away. Just let me work on my own. Because then your whole day is managed by your notifications. It’s not like you manage your day?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes, it is. I mean, about notifications? Yes. It’s sometimes it’s hard. I just sit and answer those messages. Yes. In those letters, and hey, I have to do some work of my own.
Andrej Zito
It’s very, it’s very, very tricky. Okay. What are you curious about right now?
Tetiana Cherednychok
If any kingdom come, of course. But also, I’m curious. How, how am I going to manage this project in a way that localization turns out to be perfect? Yes, because it’s a huge project. And I really want it to be as good as possible.
Andrej Zito
Is it like your first big project? You’re managing it?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes.
Andrej Zito
I can see the pressure.
Tetiana Cherednychok
You, you saw my table?
Andrej Zito
What do you think is wrong with our industry?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I thought about this a lot. But I am. I cannot say, and I can’t think of anything. But I think that it’s just because I’m still not so much experience. I just don’t understand the whole picture. So I’m just going with now it’s all great.
Andrej Zito
It’s bigger in Ukraine. Right? Maybe we can start with that. Yes. industry could be bigger. Okay. What are the things that you changed your mind about?
Tetiana Cherednychok
I have changed my mind about the process of localization? Because before its bt, I didn’t even think about how is it done? And I didn’t even start to think that. There are some people that translate with their games. And working with SBT, I just turned my whole world.
Andrej Zito
Are there any absurd or stupid things that you do?
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes. A lot.
Andrej Zito
Okay, not sleeping, it’s the first one.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes. Also, there are a couple of them, but there are two that just irritates me. It’s my obsession to do everything perfect. And this stupid desire to cope with the smaller tasks and then go for a big one. But often, it turns out that small tasks take even more time than the big one. And it’s hard and I just, I always do the same mistake, I do small tasks, and I will just postpone the big ones. And
Andrej Zito
So that’s funny because you mentioned this because you see the whiteboard.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes, I do.
Andrej Zito
So that’s a new thing that I did. I read this book called atomic habits, which is about how we can create good habits and get rid of the bad ones. One of my bad habit was exactly like you said, I wanted to first get rid of the small task because I wanted to have a PC on my mind. Yeah, then I can start working on the big thing. But you know, right. As you work on the small things, more small things come in. Or they take longer. Or once you’re done with the small things, it’s so many things that then you’re like.
Tetiana Cherednychok
I don’t want to do my big thing.
Andrej Zito
And yeah. So I’m, I use the the whiteboard to track two new habits that I’m implementing, and one of them is that I have to start every morning with the most important thing. Great, yes, that’s what I did. Yeah, in the end, it actually feels, it feels much better to start with the big things because then I feel like the the smaller things, like they first of all don’t matter that much. Or I can make them more efficiently, because I have less time. And I don’t try to the same thing that you said before, like trying to be perfect. It’s like, it’s like for some of the small tasks, you don’t have to make them perfect. You just have to make them you know, like, acceptable level. And here’s what happens when you start with a big thing that you get done. And then you’re like, Okay, like doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. Like all the small things, you can get them faster, because you don’t care that much about the quality.
Tetiana Cherednychok
But I care about the quality. And it’s just
Andrej Zito
I know Yeah, but the quality is debatable thing, right? Like, what is quality for you may be too much for some other people. It’s about you know, managing the whole backlog of the things that you have to do. Okay, final words from Tetiana. This is where you can speak to the minds of the localization people.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Oh, can I can I just give some say something in Ukrainian for my SBT
Andrej Zito
sure.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Okay, so I will buy this Cisco crane, is it necessary to provide?
Andrej Zito
That’s it? Yes. Well, I’ll need to ask Oksana to
Tetiana Cherednychok
Translate it for you. I said that scale down this cliff the cliff of localization and that the Ukrainiansation of the universe marches on.
Andrej Zito
Oh, it’s going to be everywhere.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Yes. Be prepared.
Andrej Zito
All right. We’re right on time. Thank you Tetiana very much for the interview.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Thank you for your patience.
Andrej Zito
We did it.
Tetiana Cherednychok
I guess I did it on a acceptable level. Not the perfect one.
Andrej Zito
All right, right. It’s not a perfect. Alright. Anyway, thank you very much.
Tetiana Cherednychok
Okay.
Andrej Zito
Bye bye.
Tetiana Cherednychok
All right.
