How to manage your terminology and why it's important – Text United

Consistent terminology is a key part of delivering high-quality translations. In TextUnited, managing your terminology makes sure that key terms are consistently translated across all your projects, helping maintain translation accuracy and lowering the chance of errors. This article will guide you through the process of managing your terminology on TextUnited and explain why it's important to get it right.

Why Terminology Management Is Important

Terminology management helps maintain consistent use of specific terms across all documents, reducing errors and improving quality. For example, the word "handle" in a medical translation might have multiple equivalents in French, but once defined, it must be translated the same way in every project.

TextUnited's terminology tools simplify this process by storing and proposing terms as you translate, which helps keep consistency across all your projects.

How to Manage Terminology in TextUnited

Managing terminology can be done at two levels in TextUnited:

Project-Level Management using the Glossary.
Account-Level Management using Concepts.

We’ll start with the Account-Level management process, as it forms the basis of managing terminology across all your projects.

Account-Level Terminology Management (Concepts)

To manage terminology for your entire account, follow these steps:

Log in to your TextUnited platform. (Refer to these guides for creating an account and logging in.)
From your Dashboard, click the hamburger menu (☰) in the top-right corner.
Select Terminology from the dropdown.

Select Terminology

4. Click Concepts, Import, and Export to start managing your terminology at the account level.

Concepts, Import, and Export

Once you’ve selected Concepts, Import, and Export, it will take you to the Concepts section, where you can manage, import, and export terminology.

Concepts Viewer

Adding Concepts and Terms

In the Concepts window, click ADD CONCEPT.

ADD CONCEPT button

2. A modal window will appear where you can:

3. Select a domain.

4. Enter a concept type and description.

5. Add individual terms and translations.

Add Concept Modal

Use the “+ ADD A TERM” button to add multiple translations within the same concept. You can also specify attributes such as Status, Gender, Number, Part of Speech, Abbreviation, Notes, and Sample. Once done, click Save to store the terms.

Add a Term

Importing and Exporting Terminology

In the Concepts section, you can also import and export terminology files for broader management or sharing with team members.

EXPORT and IMPORT buttons

How to Import Terminology

1. Click IMPORT at the top of the Concepts window.

IMPORT button

2. Click SELECT FILES and choose the terminology file to import.

SELECT FILES button

3. Once the file is uploaded, the terms will populate your account's terminology database.

How to Export Terminology

Click EXPORT at the top of the Concepts window.

EXPORT button

2. Choose the format (CSV) and export your existing terms.

Project-Level Terminology Management (Glossary)

When you create a translation project, TextUnited automatically generates a Glossary for project-specific terms. This helps maintain consistency in key terms throughout the project and makes them accessible to translators, proofreaders, and project managers.

Using the Glossary in a Translation Task

1. Go to TASKS in the menu.

TASKS

2. Select a task and click Open under Action.

Open button

3. Click Translate to access the translation segments.

Translate button

Here, you’ll see the Source text on the left and the Target text on the right. TextUnited proposes translations based on the Glossary and terminology database, helping maintain consistency across the project.

Source and Target text (Example: English (Source language) to Polish (Target language))

Adding Terms During Translation

1. To add a new term, look to the top-right side of the segments. Under Terminology, click Add a term.

Add a term button

2. In the modal window, enter the source and target terms, then click Save.

Source and Target

3. These terms will now be available in the Glossary and future projects. These terms will be available in the whole project, for all translators. Once the project is completed, they will be added to the account's terminology and reused in future projects. Go back to your Task window and click the “Translate” button for the Glossary:

Translate button

You will see all the terms available in the Glossary:

Glossary

Managing Terminology Consistency with QA

To keep terms consistent, TextUnited has a Quality Assurance (QA) feature that flags incorrect or inconsistent translations during the review phase.

1. To view the QA report, click QA Report in the top menu of the window where you can translate, view your source and target segments:

QA Report

2. The QA report will highlight segments with incorrect terminology, allowing you to make corrections before finalizing the translation. Click “Yes”:

Click “YES”

Once you click “YES”, a page like the following will open showing the QA report: