If you’ve never worked with a language service provider before, you may be wondering what a translation memory is.
Translation Memories (commonly known as a “TM”) rely on actual human translations, which are precise and contain client-specific terminology. TMs are used with translation software and automatically suggest stored identical or similar matches as new documents are translated. This means sentences, paragraphs or segments of text that have been previously translated never need to be translated again, dramatically improving the quality, speed, consistency and efficiency of every translation project.
As our translators work, your TM suggests identical or similar content our team has translated in the past for you to easily re-use – helping ISI work faster while ensuring consistency.
ISI’s tool breaks the source text into segments, identifies matches between segments and the source text, per language combination. Our linguists can accept a match, replace it with a fresh translation, or modify it to more accurately match the source. The finalized translation then goes into your database.
Segments where no match is found are translated by the translator manually. These newly translated segments are stored in the database where they can be used for future translations as well as repetitions of that segment in the current text.
Cool. But how will this save my company time and money?
At the beginning of a new client relationship, depending on the document content, type and language combination, projects may reflect a majority of new words and very few leveraged words (previously translated words). Over time, the number of new words that require translation will decrease and leveraged words will increase, thereby reducing spend and turnaround time.
If your organization is utilizing staff members for translation, it is unlikely that they are using a translation memory. This means that your team members must manually translate every word every time they translate a document. They need to remember which divisions or departments prefer this word or phrase over a different selection, which can lead to inconsistent messaging and an overall erosion of continuity in the target languages. Not only is this inefficient, it costs your company time, which affects the bottom line. Not to mention that the bilingual associate(s) handling translation were likely hired for another purpose. Think about how much more effective they could be in the roles for which they were hired if they were able to dedicate all of their time to it.
If you are interested in learning more about how translation memories can benefit your organization, reach out to ISI Language Solutions today.
