Terminology – Research Tips

Terminology is at the very core of translation: after all, as translators our job is to make something in one language understood in another! And contrary to popular belief (!) we are not walking multilingual dictionaries, which means we have to find, research, verify and choose right terms to use in our work on a daily basis.

Long gone are the days of huge tomes adorning the bookshelves – now we have the internet! However, it is one thing to pop a word into an AI tool and quite another to find your way to exactly the right way to translate that super-specific technical, medical or legal term you are unsure about.

I always say you never stop learning as a translator, and that applies to terminology too! Here are some tips for online searches:

1. Search for an exact expression or sentence by putting it between quotes, e.g. [“special particle filter”] or [“St. Mary’s Hospital”]

2. Use search operators:

Searching for [cats AND dogs] will only show you results containing both those words.

[cats OR rabbits] will show you results containing either of those words.

Putting a minus sign before a word will exclude it from the search results, e.g. [domestic animals -dogs]

3. Search only within a specific website by adding [site:] before the domain, e.g. [site:youtube.com puppies]

4. Use the results language to filter the results of your search, i.e. only results in Spanish, or results in French and Arabic. For more details on how this works, see this help page.

5. Use the Advanced Search form on Google to specify more parameters for your search.

A word on machine translation

It may be tempting to use one of the hundreds of instant online translation tools that will appear at the top of your results page, over and over again. Resist the temptation! Machine translation has its place, but not in the professional context. Our clients don’t want the work of a machine! They are paying us to use our critical judgment, language expertise and cultural knowledge to create the best possible version of their source text in the target language. Remember: a machine translation that is 70% accurate has as much value as no translation at all! As the professionals we are the ones who make translations 100% accurate.