| Commonly used phrases and terms in the translation industry |
| WORD |
DEFINITION |
| Language |
The monther tongue of a translator. |
| Ad Hoc Interpreting |
Ad
Hoc Interpretation is a form of translation that generally takes place during
informal conversation. This type of translation is often used in business
settings where not all parties speak the same language. |
| Language |
The
language in which a translator is comfortable translating into and out of.
Although not a mother tongue language, a translator's level of comfort with
their ´B´ language should be extremely high. |
| Back translation |
A translation of a
translation. |
|
Language |
The language in
which a translator understands and can translate out of, but cannot translate
into. |
| Computer-assisted translation |
The
translation process with the assistance of computer programs. These programs
can include localization tools, translation memory software, and terminology
management tools. (Also known as computer-–aided translation) |
| CJKV |
An
industry acronym sometimes used to refer to the Chinese, Japanese, Korean and
Vietnamese languages. |
| Desktop
Publishing (DTP) |
DTP
is a specialty service that handles the foreign language fonts of a
translation project. DTP is often included as a service with many translation
vendors. |
| Dialect |
A
variety of a language that is distinguished by features of grammar and
vocabulary, and by its users who are generally set apart from others
geographically or socially. |
| FIGS |
An
industry acronym sometimes used to refer the French, Italian, German and
Spanish languages. |
| Full Match |
Full
match refers to a text segment which corresponds exactly with a text segment
stored in a translation memory (TM) tool – this can also be referred to as a
100% match.
|
| Fuzzy Match |
Fuzzy
match refers to a text segment that is not a 100% match for an text segment
that already exists in a translation memory (TM). The TM tool calculates the
degree of similarity to text segments.
|
| Gist |
A
gist translation is provided when the translator only produces a high level
outline of the contents of the text. |
| Globalization |
Globalization
refers to adapting products or services to a target foreign market. This
adaptation can include making changes to packaging, labels, and adapting to
legal, cultural, and regulatory requirements of the target countries. |
| Glossary |
A
glossary is a dictionary of terms for a specific project. Clients can be
involved in the creation of the glossary in order to ensure the industry
terms have been caputred accurately. |
| HTML |
HTML
is an acronym for HyperText Markup Language and uses tags to provide
consistent formatting for webpages. Specifically, text can be organized into
headings, paragraphs, lists and links. |
| Internationalization
(i18n) |
Internationalization
refers to the process of designing and producing products and services that
are culturally and technically ready for any user in the world. |
| Literal
Translation |
A
translation that closely matches the sentence structure and text of the
source language. As a result of language variations, a literal translation
usually produces grammatically incorrect and distorted translations. |
| Localization |
Localization
is the process of modifying an existing text to make it understandable and
culturally suitable to a new target audience. |
| Machine
Translation (MT) |
Machine
Translation is a form of translation where a computer program analyses source
text in order to produce a target text. Machine Translation, however, is not
a stand-alone process and is supported by human translators with numerous
editing phases.
|
| Mother Tongue |
Mother
tongue or native language refers to the language that was learned first by a
person. |
| Per–word rate |
A
per-word rate refers to the industry standard for estimating the cost of a
translation project and is generally quoted using the source text word
count. |
| Proofreading |
Proofreading
refers to checking the quality of a translation as well as verifying
spelling, grammar and sentence structure. |
| Quality assurance (QA) |
Quality
assurance refers to a myriad of tasks aimed at producing an error-free
product or service translation. |
| Source
Language |
The initial language of the translation or the language from which the text will
be translated. |
| Target
Language |
The
new language into which the text or product will be localized. |
| Translation |
Translation is the activity of interpretating one language (the source
language) and producing an equivalent text in another language. |
| Translation
Memory |
Translation memory is a translation tool that stores text segments and
their translations. |
| Translation Process |
The
translation process encompasses all the steps involved in interpreting the
source text, and converting it into the target language. View our translation process for more
details. |
| Voice Over |
Voice–over
is a form of translation where a translated voice runs over-top of the
original voice and language. |
| Word count |
The number of
words in the source text. Translations are generally priced based on the
number of words in the source text. |
