Coding Chinese Verbatim
Our client is the film and home entertainment specialist arm of a global media research corporation, looking to bring an understanding of the power of film advertising within the Chinese-speaking market to their end-client through a monthly ongoing online self-completion survey to a selected panel of over 1000 respondents across multiple Chinese-speaking countries.
![]() |
It was key to find an ongoing solution to identify effectively and correctly the films mentioned and code them efficiently so that they could fulfil their client’s requirements for accurate, timely and up-to-date information through a supplier who can handle the Chinese responses in all their relevant variants as a single project. They approached RP Translate, already a key supplier for multilingual coding projects, as a particular specialist in traditionally difficult-to-handle areas.
The initial perception of this project was that once the majority of the film titles had been identified in the first two waves, subsequent waves should be simply a question of applying the established codeframe and adding a small number of additional films as they are released into the market. In cost and time terms, this inferred a larger initial set-up cost, then proportionately reducing costs for subsequent waves. However this turned out to be false.
Multilingual coding costs are calculated using an algorithm based on the number of items to code and the number of codes required with time factored in relating to any research requirements. In this particular case, the time taken to code each wave of responses was remaining constantly higher than anticipated, even with what appeared to be an established codeframe.
RP Translate worked together with the client to analyse the key issues encountered and produce a methodology which could be consistently applied to take full advantage of the previously-coded waves. The solution was a bi-lingual, searchable spreadsheet of film titles covering both written forms of Chinese from all relevant countries** and a fixed fee per wave thus ensuring that the client could fulfil their client’s brief in the most time-efficient and cost-effective manner.
Chinese is notoriously difficult to code. It is a language to which most standard coding approaches cannot be applied due to the unique difficulties presented in the source material for coding. RP Translate’s unique understanding of Chinese and its intricacies empowered the client to develop a cost-effective solution to the challenge presented and working in partnership created a solid platform to carry the project forward with confidence.
From an initial position, RP Translate’s solution has allowed a fixed fee per wave to be introduced, and more than a 50% cost-saving for the client from the starting point on a month-to-month basis. Timings have also been significantly reduced, allowing our client to budget both their time and costs effectively and with confidence for this particular project on a longer-term basis.
UPDATE February 2014 : After the first set of coding, the client engaged RP Translate for a 12-wave/12-month period, the initial projected period of study. Its success was such that the study period has now been extended into its second year.