Reduced cost, terminology consistency and faster turnarounds

Our in-house, qualified and experienced translation memory (TM) specialists ensure that individual client glossaries and translation memories are carefully built and maintained, so that our clients get the best possible advantage from the relevant translation tools.

Using TM tools allows us to store client-approved translations of specific terms or phrases in a linguistic database. During subsequent translations this archive is searched for identical matches, which are then used as the basis for new translations. The greatest benefit to our clients is increased consistency. Also, since the translator wastes no time in looking up previously translated terms, the translation process can be significantly faster.

We work with the leading TM packages and successfully use these tools to achieve significant cost savings, increased consistency and faster turnaround times for our clients.

As soon as we have gained a clear understanding of your requirements, we will be able to determine whether we can successfully apply TM to your specific project.

FAQs
A translation memory is a linguistic database that stores source sentences and their corresponding translations as segment pairs for future use. Usually a segment is a sentence, but it could also be just a few words, like a heading. The translation memory ‘remembers’ each segment that is translated and stores the source/target segment pairs in the translation memory database. If an identical or a similar segment comes up later, it does not need to be translated from scratch. Instead, the translation can be retrieved from the translation memory, and once checked for suitability in the context, reused. Translation memory can be used to improve consistency, shorten turnaround times and reduce costs.
CAT stands for Computer-assisted translation (or Computer-aided translation) and it is a piece of software or web-based platform that provides the right environment and contains all the relevant resources to support translators with their work, such as translation memories, glossaries (termbases) and quality assurance tools. More recently some CAT tools also integrate with machine translation solutions allowing translators to use machine translation if needed and then post-edit the output directly within their CAT tool.
Ideally all translated content should be stored in translation memory databases as you never know when you might need to retrieve it for future projects. However, there are content types that benefit more than others from the use of Translation Memory. Large volumes of work that contain repetitions are an ideal candidate as the use of translation memory will definitely help with maintaining consistency, shortening turnaround times and reducing costs. Another great candidate is content that is being regularly updated or reused in various projects.

Highly creative short texts that you are not likely to be reusing again can certainly be processed using Translation Memory, but the advantages will not be as significant as in the previous case due to the lack of repetitions.
We always analyse your content against your translation memories and generate a report illustrating exactly what segments are found in the memory. The similarity between the new content and the content in the memories is marked as a percentage, with 100% being an exact match and everything under 100% a fuzzy match, meaning that there are changes between the new content and the content in the translation memory.
An exact match means that the segment was translated before and that there are absolutely no differences between the segment from the content we are translating now and the segment present in the translation memory. You might think that if a segment has an exact match in the memory, it will not need to be translated again and you would be almost right. Although having an exact match in the memory is very useful, this does not necessarily mean that it will be the right translation for your new context. At Planet Languages we always ensure that exact matches are carefully checked for in-context accuracy and text coherence.
Whenever similar but not identical matches are identified in the translation memory, these are referred to as fuzzy matches. These matches generally range from 50% to 99% in terms of similarity to previously translated content. Everything under 75% is often considered entirely new text as the level of similarity is too low to be of any relevance.
Upon receipt of your project, we will analyse the content against your translation memories and provide you with the relevant discount figure based on the figures in the translation memory report. The content repetitions and various matches – 100%, 95-99%, 85-94%, 75-84% and under 75% – are charged at different fractions of the normal word rate based on the similarity to the content in the translation memory. For example, 95-99% matches will be easier to amend than 75-84% matches so the rate will be lower.
A translation memory is a linguistic database that stores source sentences and their corresponding translations as segment pairs for future use. Whenever translators work on similar content to the one that is stored in the translation memory, they are provided with matches that help them maintain consistency and increase their productivity.

In contrast, a machine translation system is a piece of software that was trained to automatically translate text from one natural language to another. In this case the linguist is automatically provided with a translation that they then post-edit to ensure the level of quality is in line with the client’s requirements.