Translation Glossary for Dummies.
Translation Memory:
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A translation memory, or TM, is a database that stores "segments", which can be sentences, paragraphs or sentence-like units (headings, titles or elements in a list) that have previously been translated, in order to aid human translators. The translation memory stores the source text and its corresponding translation in language pairs called “translation units”. Individual words are handled by terminology bases and are not within the domain of TM. |
Machine Translation:
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Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT (not to be confused with computer-aided translation, machine-aided human translation (MAHT) or interactive translation is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another.
On a basic level, MT performs simple substitution of words in one natural language for words in another, but that alone usually cannot produce a good translation of a text because recognition of whole phrases and their closest counterparts in the target language is needed. |
Terminology Database:
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A termbase, or term base (a contraction of ‘terminology database’), is a database consisting of concept-oriented terminological entries (or ‘concepts’) and related information, usually in multilingual format. Entries may include any of the following additional information: a definition; source or context of the term; subject area, domain, or industry; grammatical information (verb, noun, etc.); notes; A termbase allows for the systematic management of approved or verified terms and is a powerful tool for promoting consistency in terminology. |
Glossary:
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A glossary, also known as a vocabulary, or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. Traditionally, a glossary appears at the end of a book and includes terms within that book that are either newly introduced, uncommon, or specialized. While glossaries are most-commonly associated with non-fiction books, in some cases, fiction novels may come with a glossary for unfamiliar terms. A bilingual glossary is a list of terms in one language defined in a second language or glossed by synonyms (or at least near-synonyms) in another language. |
Software Localisation:
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In computing, internationalization and localization (other correct spellings are internationalisation and localisation) are means of adapting computer software to different languages, regional differences and technical requirements of a target market. Internationalization is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. Localization is the process of adapting internationalized software for a specific region or language by adding locale-specific components and translating text. |
Source: Wikipedia

