All languages are highly nuanced. Many words have multiple meanings, and certain terms won’t mean the same thing to everyone or will have meanings that are dependent on context. For this reason, translation is both complex and potentially subjective. The management of terminology is therefore incredibly important.
Terminology management is the practice of specifying how certain words or terms should be translated during a project and ensuring that translations are consistent. The preferred translations and related information can be identified and stored using a term base.
What is a term base?
A term base (termbase) is a translation glossary in the form of a terminology database that stores approved translations for terms together with usage rules and reference notes. While translation memories (TM) store segments or phrases, term bases focus on single words or specific terms. A term base can support multiple languages, can be assigned to specific projects and may be identified for use in particular contexts.
Term bases are especially useful when translating projects that feature:
Technical or specialised vocabulary.
Terms that should remain in the original language.
Language specific to a brand.
Words that vary in their meanings according to context.
Multiple translators.
What are the benefits of a term base?
There are four primary benefits to be gained from using a term base during a translation project:
Efficiency
A term base will save time as it minimises the need for researching words, consulting with other team members and checking previously translated material. Translators may not have ready access to the context and information that the content is based on. In the absence of a term base, translators may spend a great deal of time researching terms and could make the wrong choices.
Consistency
When multiple translators are working on a project, there will be significant potential for inconsistent translations. Even a single translator could inadvertently select differing translations within larger projects. Using a term base ensures that translations remain consistent throughout.
Accuracy
The correct and precise definition and/or usage of terms can be identified in advance to ensure accuracy and to prevent misunderstandings.
Maintenance of brand voice
Terminology management ensures that important terms that have been carefully curated to render a brand’s voice are appropriately translated.
How is a term base created?
Term bases vary in their complexity as they must feature the appropriate level of information for the projects concerned. But here’s an overview of the process:
Selection of management tool. It would be usual to utilise the tool that is integrated into the CAT tool to be used for the project. CAT tools include Trados Studio and MemoQ.
Definition of the structure. It is necessary to decide which fields or attributes should be included for each entry. These can be divided into three levels:
a. Concept – defines a concept rather than a term. This facilitates the identification of the corresponding term in other languages.
b. Language – defines the source language of each term entered and any language-specific requirements regarding the target language including locales. For instance, there are many differences between British English and American English.
c. Term Level – the terms that represent the concept and where these terms where sourced from should be identified. Is each term a full form of the word, a short form, an acronym or a synonym? The status of the terms such as “preferred”, “allowed” and “forbidden” should be indicated. It is also useful to identify the part of speech and grammatical gender where appropriate.
Categorization. Term bases should be categorized as the meanings of many words are context dependent. For example, a term base could be categorized as relevant to politics, construction, manufacturing or travel.
Identification of the terms for entry. Terms relevant to the project must be identified.
Creation of entries. For each term identified, the relevant information must be entered in the designated fields. Clear and concise definitions for each term should be provided including explanations and examples. When creating definitions, the target audience must be considered as definitions should be tailored to their level of understanding. Context and brand voice should be considered.
Organise the term base. The use of categories and tags will facilitate retrieval of terms and management of the term base.
Validation. Definitions should be validated by an expert to ensure that each term is translated appropriately.
Specification of editing rights. It is important to specify which linguists or other potential users of the term base may edit entries.
Assignment of the term base to a project. It may be assigned in read, write or quality assurance (QA) mode. In read mode, if terms are found in the source text, they are returned on the CAT pane of the translation editor. In write mode, linguists may add or edit terms. Here, new terms are manually updated using search and replace. In QA mode, the system checks whether approved translations have been used.
Review and maintain. A term base should be reviewed regularly to ensure that it is both accurate and complete. It may need to be updated to include new terms or to remove outdated terminology.
Which words and terms should be included?
The required inclusions in a term base will vary according to the nature of the project and the vocabulary it features. Words should be entered in their basic form. This means that nouns should be rendered in their singular form and without any articles. For example, “cat” not “the cats”. It is the infinitive form of verbs that should be entered and adjectives that change according to the gender of the noun they describe should be entered in their masculine or default form. Terms that should be considered for entry include:
Brand, service and product names.
Industry specific terms including abbreviations and acronyms.
Slogans or tag lines. Slogans are difficult to translate and may require transcreation.
Scientific and technical terms.
Words that should be rendered in the source language.
Perfect preparation prevents poor performance
It certainly takes time and effort to create the right term bases, but that effort will always pay off. Term bases save time later in the project and ensure both accuracy and consistency. Misunderstandings are avoided, and brand voices are maintained by utilising carefully created term bases.
Term bases are the foundations upon which all quality translations are built.
