How to make a translation glossary
I like writing about the glossary (or terminology list). It connects the soft art of translation to the hard art of business practice. I’ll use the answer I wrote for a paper called “Opening the Black Box, Part I.”
To ensure uniformity of translation throughout the product (and, as the international effort grows, throughout the company), it is a good practice to put in place a glossary, which contains approved translations of key words and phrases. A translation glossary gives the equivalent of the key terms in the target language.
Translation Glossary/Terminology List - Example
The Explanation column in the example is very important for preserving contextual information for the benefit of the translators. Note also that the glossary plays the important role of dictating what should not be translated.
Here are some key moments in the life of a glossary:
- Client hands off early version of product to localization vendor for creation of glossary.
- Localization vendor compiles list of key terms, with contextual comments.
- Client conducts training session for translators and editors (optional, and too often overlooked)
- Translator translates (or, in some cases, doesn’t translate) into target-language equivalents.
- Vendor returns glossary draft to client.
- Client sends glossary out for review by stakeholders most likely to complain about undesirable translations, in order to avoid these complaints once the product has been released. (This is extremely important, and should be performed by in-country partners and co-workers whose livelihood depends on the quality of the translation.)
- Client returns glossary comments to vendor, who incorporates them.
- Once approved, the glossary goes to translators, reviewers, editors and client for continued reference.
A typical glossary will contain a few dozen up to a few hundred terms. It’s a big piece of the translation-quality puzzle and it represents the good business sense of establishing terms up front to avoid unpleasant surprises at the end.