Translation Glossary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ

Accredited translator
A translator who has received accreditation from a professional institute such as the ATA. Accreditation - a requirement for membership - is usually issued on the basis of examination, continuing education, and experience.

Acrobat
A family of programs from Adobe used for creating and viewing PDF files.

Adaptation
Unlike a literal translation, an adaptation is aimed at bringing the target text in line with the spirit of the target culture, thus producing a text which is not obviously a translation but rather reads more as thought it was written in the target language.

Alignment
A manual process that consists of aligning, i.e. creating equivalent segments, between a source text and the corresponding target text. The resulting table of equivalents is then used as a translation memory. Alignment makes it possible to use previous translations completed without translation memory tools.

Ambiguity
A frequent weakness of source texts. An ambiguous phrase presents at least two possibilities for the translator, who has at best a 50% chance of making a mistake if the context does not clarify the issue. An ambiguity can often be resolved by contacting the author of the source text.

Apostille
Official state-issued stamp or attachment to any public or private document that makes the document legal for use in any country that has signed the Hague Convention on Documents.

ASCII
American Standard Code Interchange Information pronounced /æski/. It is a 7-bit character set encoding based on the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that work with text. Most modern character encodings - which support many more characters than did the original - have a historical basis in ASCII.

ASP
Active Server Pages. ASP is a server-side scripting environment (not a scripting language) developed by Microsoft that allows embedding of scripting commands in HTML documents to create dynamic web pages. ASP is particularly useful for reading from and writing to databases in the background, and displaying the results on web pages.

Background information
Information relating to the subject matter of the source text or the topic of discussion. It facilitates the translator's or interpreter's task by providing context, terminology, definitions, etc.

Back translation
Translation back from the target language into the source language by a second translator. For example, if a document has been translated from English into Spanish, the back translation would go from the translated Spanish back into English to allow an English speaker to verify that no meaning has been lost in the translation process.

Bandwidth
Defines the number of bits that can be transferred between local and remote hosts on the Internet. For modem users, bandwidth is usually limited to 56 Kbit/sec, but depending on various factors such as network congestion, it may fluctuate well between 1Kbit/s and 50 Kbit/s. For higher speed connections such as cable modem or DSL, bandwidth may easily go beyond 1 Mbit (1024 Kbit/sec).

Bilingual
A bilingual person is, in its broadest definition, anyone with communicative skills in two languages, be it active or passive. In a narrow definition, the term bilingual is often reserved for those speakers with native or near-native proficiency in two languages.

BMP (Bitmap Graphics)
Stands for Bitmap. A simple graphics file format developed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. BMP files can store graphics from 1-bit (2-color) up to 24-bit (16.7 millions of colors). But since the BMP format does not support any method of compression, images may consume quite a space on your hard drive.

Certified translation
A translation that has been reviewed and deemed to be correct and a true reflection of the source text. There are two levels of certification depending on the client's needs. A translation can be certified by the translation company as being a true and accurate translation (Corporate Certificate of Accuracy -- COA) or it can be certified by the translator before a notary public (Affidavit of translation) to legally deem it a correct translation.

Character and Style Sheets
Character and Style sheets are a feature of page layout programs such as Adobe PageMaker, Adobe InDesign, and QuarkXPress. They allow the designer to maintain consistency and make quick changes to text throughout a document.
Style sheets are especially useful in long or multi-page documents such as annual reports and newsletters or anytime you'll be making frequent changes (such as when trying to develop a template or base document).

CJK
CJK is a collective term for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which constitute the main East Asian languages. These languages all have a shared characteristic: their writing systems all completely or partly use Chinese characters.

CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and black)
To reproduce full-color photographic images, typical printing presses use 4 colors of ink. The four inks are placed on the paper in layers of dots that combine to create the illusion of many more colors. CMYK refers to the 4 ink colors used by the printing press. Also Known As: 4-color and process colors.

Computer assisted translation (CAT)
Translation with the aid of computer programs, such as translation memory tools, designed to reduce the translator's workload and increase consistency of style and terminology. Basically a database in which all previously translated sentences are stored together with the corresponding source text. If, during translation, a sentence appears that is similar to or identical with a previously translated sentence, the software suggests the matching target sentence as a possible translation. The translator then decides whether to accept, edit, or reject the proposed sentence. Not to be confused with machine translation!

Concordance
Relating a term to its context. In computer assisted translation (CAT), this more specifically applies to a function making it possible to obtain the list of contexts for the term, in order to define its sense more precisely and its equivalent in the target language.

Conference interpreter
Interpreter with highly specialized skills, qualified for conferences, who provides simultaneous interpreting of a speaker's words from one language into another.

Consistency
Quality of a text in which the same object or the same concept is always expressed by the same term, or where the same action or idea is always expressed by exactly the same phrase or group of phrases.

Content Management System
A content management system (CMS) is used to manage the content of your organization. This could be the content on your website, your internal documentation or your product catalogues.

Cookie
A cookie is information that a website puts on your hard disk so that it can remember something about you at a later time. (More technically, it is information for future use that is stored by the server on the client side of a client/server communication.) Typically, a cookie records your preferences when using a particular site.

Court interpreter
Interpreter with special subject knowledge, providing interpretation during legal proceedings. Requirements regarding accreditation and certification for court interpreting vary by state and country.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheet)
A standard for specifying the appearance of text and other elements. CSS was developed for use with HTML in web pages but is also used in other applications to provide a single "library" of styles that are used over and over throughout a large number of related documents, as in a website. A CSS file might specify that all numbered lists are to appear in italics; or that all headlines are to be bold and underlined. By changing that single specification the look of a large number of documents can be easily changed.

DTP - Desktop publishing
It is the process of using the computer and specific types of software to combine text and graphics to produce documents such as newsletters, brochures, books, etc.

Dictionary
As opposed to a glossary, a dictionary contains two or more languages in a specialized and abridged form. The most basic form of dictionary is simply a table of equivalent words. The complexity of languages and their usage, however, rapidly creates the need for more complex data bases. These include, for example, functions for the processing of abbreviations and synonyms.

Editing
Reading a text to identify errors, inconsistencies, incorrect grammar and punctuation, poor or inappropriate style, and, in the case of a translation, conformance with the source text, and making appropriate changes and corrections to the text. In general, the number of revision stages is proportional to the demands on the text quality: a translation intended for publication may, for example, be revised by the translator and by one or two third parties (e.g. the author, a subject expert, a second translator, an editor), whereas an internal memo may not require any revision after translation.

Electronic dictionary
A working dictionary on the computer (hard disk or CD-ROM). The functional operation of these dictionaries varies, depending on their editors. When associated with CAT software, these dictionaries make it possible to recognize source terms recorded within the dictionary and to propose an equivalent translation automatically.

EPS
Stands for Encapsulated Postscript, a file format used to transfer PostScript language artwork between applications. EPS files can contain either outline or bitmap data. Most commonly EPS files contain outlines.

FIGS
French, Italian, German and Spanish - sometimes treated as a group.

Firewall
A software or hardware solution to protect a single computer or a computer network from attacks by malicious users. Some firewalls can stop both outside attacks and malicious programs trying to send unauthorized transmissions to outside parties.

Free translation
Translation in which more emphasis is given to the overall meaning of the text than to the exact wording (cf. literal translation).

Freelance translator
Self-employed translator, who may undertake work for translation/localization companies and/or directly for end clients. Often specializes in one or more particular fields, such as legal, financial, commercial, or technical.

Fuzzy matching
A computer search technique that makes it possible to find not only the exact equivalent of the term needed, but also all the elements with a certain degree of similarity to it. This technique is particularly applied within electronic dictionaries or when using CAT, where it allows the translator to obtain, for example, the translation of an adjective on the basis of a corresponding noun included in the dictionary or the translation of a similar (but not identical) phrase already recorded in the translation memory.

GIF
Stands for Graphics Interchange Format. The GIF format is limited to 8-bit or in other words 256 color images. Unlike JPEG, the GIF format is lossless therefore it does not produce artifacts on images.

Gisting
Producing a rough translation or outline of a text to provide an insight into the subject and overall content of the source text. Being less expensive and less time-consuming than a complete translation, gisting can be used, for example, to determine whether a text contains useful information before a translation is commissioned. The term gisting is sometimes used in connection with machine translation, which is used by some translation providers for that purpose.

Globalization
Involves preparing software or a website with the goal of ensuring that the structural modifications for localization will not hinder its functionality. This would take into account, among other things, both the format of data and the space needed in some parts of a screen to cater for texts which are considerably longer than the original text.

Glossary
In principle, and as opposed to a dictionary, a glossary is a specialized, single-language dictionary. It includes the term and its definition and possible additional attributes such as its source, field or even its gender and number depending on the needs for use.

HTML
Stands for HyperText Markup Language. A simple markup language used to create web pages. Uses tags rather than commands, that is there are no variables, functions, loops, etc. one would expect to find in a programming language. Tags are used to mark up blocks of text, which will be interpreted by web browsers. For instance, to display a text block bold, just add < B > to the beginning and < /B > to the end

Human Translator
Human translators are native speakers who physically translate the text themselves which results in a 100% accurate translation vs the so-called 70% accurate translation that you get from machine translation.

I18N (Internationalization)
The process of ensuring at a technical/design level that a product can be easily localized. Internationalization is thus part of globalization.

Interpretation
While a translator works with the written word alone and has a single target language, i.e. his or her mother tongue, an interpreter works only orally, and usually "live", translating in both directions. In fact, the professions of a translator and an interpreter are very different.

Interpreter
Provides oral (spoken) translation of a speaker's words from one language into another.

JPEG
Stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. Frequently used to refer to the JPEG graphics file format, which uses image compression algorithms to reduce file sizes dramatically.

Justification
The alignment of text on a page. Most text is written left aligned (right ragged). Fully justified text looks neater is harder to read.

Kerning
The amount of spacing between adjacent characters of a font. Not all characters have equal width, so space that should be left between different character pairs must be defined.

Keystroke
Often used as a measure of line or page length in defining the size of a translation job. Includes all visible characters as well as spaces and line breaks/paragraph marks. (See also standard line and standard page.)

L10N
see Localisation

Leading
The amount of space between lines of text within the same paragraph.

Leverage
This is the process that takes elements from previous product translations and automatically incorporates these into new revisions.

Literal translation
Translation that closely adheres to the wording and syntax of the source text. A literal translation usually appears "stilted" and unnatural and is therefore to be avoided unless there is a specific reason for translating literally.

Locale
A set of attributes specific to a language and geographical region, e.g. date format, currency format etc. An example of a locale is: English (U.S.).

Localization
The global adaptation of a product (software, website) to bring it in line with a market that uses another language. The localization of software, for example, implies not only the translation of all the technical (manual, online help, etc.) and advertising documentation, but also the adaptation of the various screens, keyboard shortcuts, images and text areas, and not forgetting the indexing which must be completely recreated in the target language.

Machine Translation
Sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT, is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of computer software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another. At its basic level, MT performs simple substitution of words in one natural language for words in another. Using corpus techniques, more complex translations may be attempted, allowing for better handling of differences in linguistic typology, phrase recognition, and translation of idioms, as well as the isolation of anomalies.
Current machine translation software often allows for customization by domain or profession (such as weather reports) - improving output by limiting the scope of allowable substitutions. This technique is particularly effective in domains where formal or formulaic language is used.
Improved output quality can also be achieved by human intervention: for example, some systems are able to translate more accurately if the user has unambiguously identified which words in the text are names. With the assistance of these techniques, MT has proven useful as a tool to assist human translators, and in some cases can even produce output that can be used "as is". However, current systems are unable to produce output of the same quality as a human translator, particularly where the text to be translated uses casual or subject-matter specific language (jargon).

Mother-tongue
One's native language. Often used as an indicator of a translator or interpreter's ability to translate into a particular language. Because a person who has lived in another country for many years (perhaps from childhood) may be more fluent in their second language than they are in their first (i.e. their mother-tongue), the term "language of habitual use" or "dominant language" is often preferred.

MultiTerm
Terminology program published by Trados. A component of the translator's Workbench translation memory program, but also available as a separate product.

Native speaker competence
Oral and written command of a language equivalent to that of a person who not only learned the language as a child and has continued to use it as his/her language of habitual use, but who also has had some language training.

Non breaking space
Used to keep words together that would otherwise appear on separate lines due to word wrap.

Online dictionary
A dictionary that can be viewed on the screen, from resources available on the Internet.

Paragraph Style
A description of how a paragraph of text is presented. For example, a level 1 heading might be 18pt bold Arial with a 10pt space above and a 20pt space below. A paragraph style affects a whole paragraph. Parts of a paragraph can be reformatted using a character style.

Parallel text
Text in the source or target language that is comparable to the text to be translated in terms of subject matter or text type. Includes previous translations of the same type of text.

PDF
Stands for Portable Document Format. Developed by Adobe to address the need for a universal format to share documents across different platforms that will look exactly the same without loss of any formatting information. PDF files can be edited in a very limited way.

Phraseological dictionary
A data bank for storing standard phrases describing concepts or actions likely to be repeated within the framework of a series of documentation. For example, if the phrase "Press Enter to open file" recurs frequently in the instructions for using a piece of equipment, the writer can select this as such from his or her dictionary of phrases. Beyond saving time, this tool makes it possible to guarantee the phraseological consistency within a text.

Postscript
A page description language created by Adobe. A Postscript file has no concept of tables or paragraphs. A Postscript file is essentially non-editable.

Proofreading
Proofreading means the critical revision of a text. In translation, this task mainly consists of checking aspects of spelling, grammar and syntax plus the general coherency and integrity of the target text. Proofreading constitutes the translator's quality assurance; a factor that is always necessary within a purely human procedure. Proofreading should always be carried out by an experienced translator.

Registration Marks
Cross marks or circles printed to assist the printer in aligning multiple colors.

Repetition rate
Percentage indicating the amount of terms or segments that are repeated within a text. The repetition rate is an important notion within CAT since it determines, in advance, the percentage of a text that will only need translating once. Greater phraseological and terminological consistency increases the repetition rate and thus the efficiency of the translation process.

Resolution
Describes the output precision of computer peripherals such as screens, printers and scanners. For computer screens resolution is defined as the number of pixels that can be displayed such as 800 x 600 (the first value is the number of pixels on a line, and the second value is the number of lines). For other devices, DPI is commonly used to define resolution. For both measures of resolution, it is always the higher the better.

Rollover
Used to define the change occurring in certain elements of a web page when a visitor moves the mouse cursor over and out of those elements (e.g. on and off states of a button). Requires JavaScript.

RTF
Stands for Rich Text Format. A standard established by Microsoft for cross-platform text and graphics interchange. Although RTF is not a very sophisticated format, it does a good job in storing font, color and formatting information, but page layout may not be always reproduced correctly.

Segment
In order to create a translation memory, the CAT software divides the source text into segments. The segment usually corresponds to a phrase, at least in running texts. Segmentation is governed by complex rules based, in principle, on punctuation. See also translation unit.

Simultaneous interpreting
Oral translation of a speaker's words into another language while the speaker is speaking. The interpreter usually sits in a booth and uses audio equipment.

SME - Subject Matter Expert
Someone who is considered an expert in their particular field.

Software localization
see Localization.

Source
In translation, and as opposed to "target", the term "source" defines everything connected to the language of the text to be translated.

Source text analysis
A pre-translation process aimed at evaluating the qualitative and quantitative properties of the source text. The main purpose of source text analysis is to determine the procedures to be followed and the translation tools required in order to optimize work on projects of some considerable size. Among other advantages, analysis makes it possible to extract a list of terms and collocations and their frequency, to establish a list of terms not found in a specific dictionary, to analyze a term within its various contexts (concordance), to determine the repetition rate and the terminological and phraseological consistency, or to establish a provisional glossary.

Specialized language competence
Familiarity with the relevant subject matter and control of its special language conventions.

Specialized terminology
The term used within the profession to define highly specific vocabulary within a given field. With today's increasing specialization within professions and the rapid evolution of applied techniques, it is increasingly difficult to obtain dictionaries containing up to date, specialized terminology.

Structured Document
A document with a structure that complies with a certain standard. An HTML document is an example of a structured document.

Style Sheet
A document that contains a list of formatting styles corresponding to paragraph styles or tag mark-up.

Target
In translation, and as opposed to "source", the term "target" designates everything related to the language into which the text will be translated. The "target" or "translated" text is the objective of the work to be carried out. The target language must be the translator's mother tongue.

Target audience
The group of people that an interpreter addresses. Used mostly in connection with simultaneous interpreting. Sometimes used in the sense of target readership.

Target readership
The group of people for which a text is translated, for example subject experts, novices, prospective customers. It is important to specify the target readership when commissioning a translation so that the translator can choose an appropriate style and vocabulary.

Terminology analysis
Analysis of the vocabulary within a text or specific field, mainly carried out with a view to creating special dictionaries. An important process within pre-translation, it is also a means of providing a long term guarantee consistency and quality within texts (thanks to regular updates).

Terminology software
A data processing tool that makes it possible to create, edit and consult dictionaries or electronic dictionaries.

Text (TXT)
Data presented with alphanumeric characters, usually in the form of words, sentences, and paragraphs. Typically, the term text refers to pure text stored as ASCII codes (that is, without any formatting). Objects that are not text include graphics, numbers (if they're not stored as ASCII characters), and program code.

Text expansion
An increase in the length of the target text as compared to the source text.
Text expansion must be anticipated by the graphic artist wishing to use the same page format for both the source text and the translation. This is also the case when translating texts for software screen features, where the space reserved for a text is usually extremely limited (e.g. Print (English) > Imprimir (Spanish).

TIFF (TIF)
Tagged Image File Format. A graphics file format often used for archiving images. Web browsers cannot display TIF images.

TMX
Translation memory exchange format, designed to allow easier exchange of translation memory data between tools and/or translation vendors with little or no loss of critical data during the process. Supported by the latest versions of most leading translation memory programs. (For a full specification, go to www.lisa.org/tmx/tmx.htm)

Trados
Publishers of the Translator's Workbench translation memory program.

Translating
The act of rendering written text from one language into another.

Translating competence
Ability to render text into the target language correctly in terms of language, subject matter and idiomatic style, taking into account the text function of both the source text and the target text.

Translation company
Provides translation services using in-house and freelance translators. May specialize in a particular field - such as legal, patents or technical - and may offer value-added services such as typesetting, publishing, project management, quality assurance. The term is often used synonymously with translation agency.

Translation memory
A translation memory is a data bank in which a source text and the corresponding target text are recorded in the form of translation units. This memory - the basis of CAT software - makes it possible to find content that has already been translated, or to find modified content that it then submits to the translator for updating.

Translation unit
A translation unit consist of the source segment and the corresponding target segment, recorded as equivalents in a data base. It thus constitutes the base unit for the translation memories.

Translator
Renders written text from one or more languages into an other language, usually into their language of habitual use.

TrueType
A popular scalable font format developed with the joint effort of Apple and Microsoft that did not want to adopt Adobe's Type 1 format for their operating systems namely MacOS and Windows.

Type 1
A scalable font format developed by Adobe that uses a subset of the PostScript language.

Unicode
A character encoding scheme which addresses the shortcomings of ASCII and other competing encoding schemes. Unlike ASCII, which has space for only 128 characters (7-bit), Unicode can store 65536 characters (16-bit) to cover virtually all alphabets in the world.

Voice-over
Commentary in, e.g., a film, television program, video, or commercial spoken by an unseen narrator. Foreign-language voice-over consists of two parts: translating the narrative, whereby, e.g., timing (coordinating the voice with the film sequence) is an important consideration; recording the voice-over, which may be performed by a linguist with special training and/or expertise or by an actor or voice talent.

Whispering
Similar to simultaneous interpreting, whereby the interpreter sits close to the listener and whispers the translation without technical aids.

Word count
A standard measure of the size of a text. Translation projects, for example, are often priced on a per-word basis.

WYSIWYG
Pronounced /wIziwIg/, is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, used in computing to describe a system in which content during editing appears very similar to the final product. It is commonly used for word processors, but has other applications, such as Web (HTML) authoring.