Translation memory systems
Cut costs and improve quality with a digital memory bank.
Translation memory system
Programmed to succeed: a translation memory (TM for short) is a storage system popularly used among translators. The TM can’t do the translating itself, but it can help the linguist and save you some money as the client.
Translation memories are a feature of CAT tools and act as the translator’s storage bank and digital memory. During the translation process, the segments pass through various stages: “not translated”, “in review” and “confirmed”. As soon as a segment has been “confirmed”, it is stored in the TM. As soon as a segment has been stored, it will be displayed when similar or identical segments occur at a later date. It is then easy to enter the stored translation into the current piece of work.
Economise with translation memories
Quite apart from delivering a more consistent translation, the biggest benefit of a TM is that it can put money back in your pocket. When analysing your documents, the CAT tool will recognise whether similar terms or sentences have already been translated previously, thanks to the segments stored in the translation memory. There may be segments that are identical ‒ a 100 % match ‒ or segments that match a previous translation by a certain percentage. These are called ‒ yep ‒ matches. Said matches are priced on a sliding scale, so we can offer you lower costs depending on the number of matches that have been identified, and how much of a match they are. The more translations stored in a translation memory, the higher the match rate and the lower the price. To summarise: the TM grows with every new project, allowing us to offer you our services at a cheaper rate.
Advantages of translation memories
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The price drops based on similar
or identical text units - Consistent translations
- Source text format adopted
- Integration of terminology databases for company-specific terminology
- Quality assurance for future translations
- Faster and more efficient process
Translation memories created subsequently
Do you already have bilingual documents, but want to maximise the advantages of a translation memory for future projects? Not a problem. We can be of service in this instance too. By using the “alignment” function, we can compare two officially identical texts and create a translation memory afterwards. The segments are checked to see if they match up, and then stored in the TM. In this way, the contents are available to translators in future projects, and you can benefit from the cost savings.
FAQs about translation memories
CAT tools provide technical assistance in the translation process. The translation itself is performed by a human being. In machine translation, the machine does all the work and the result is polished up by a translator.
A translation memory is a storage system where completed translations are filed away. This can enhance consistency across different projects. It also means that clients can save money, as we offer a price reduction for repeated segments.