It is always best practice to ensure each Glossary entry contains a translation for each term, for all languages in the Glossary. Often, as our Glossaries evolve, some terms can be left without a translation. Overtime, this leads to an unhealthy/weak Glossary. To ensure your Glossary remains in good health, you can translate Glossary terms from within the Glossary itself.
Translating your Glossary is simple, but for best results, some preparation is required.
Preparation
While the Smartling Glossary does not have a source language because it is multi-directional, translating in Smartling requires translating from a source language to one or more target languages.
With that in mind, it is recommended that you create a files project specifically for translating Glossary terms. This project should contain the same languages as your Glossary, or Glossaries. To ensure the chosen project has the same languages as the Glossary, export the Glossaries you will be translating terms from, and proceed to add any missing languages to that project.
It is also recommended that you create a separate project for Glossary term translation, as your translation vendor may require different invoicing arrangements for this type of translation.
If you have a number of Glossaries with variations of the same locale, you could enable cross-locale leverage to make translations for one locale available for another. Alternatively, you could create a project per Glossary.
If you purchase translation services through Smartling, contact your Customer Success Manager to make arrangements for translating your Glossary.
Cross-checking Glossary Languages with Project Languages
Account Owners and Project Managers can access the Glossary by the following steps:
- Go to Account Settings
- Under Linguistic Packages, click Glossaries
- Click the ellipses beside the Glossaries you want to export, and click Export
- Choose to download an Excel or CSV file, and ensure to select all languages
- Now you have a list of all languages in the Glossary, proceed to create a files project with all the Glossary languages listed
- If you already have a designated project for Glossary term translation, proceed to add any missing languages to that project
Identify Terms Missing Translation
- From the Glossary List, enter the Glossary that requires term translation by clicking the Glossary name
- Within the Glossary, ensure all languages are visible by clicking the View Configuration
- Choose your preferred Focus Language
- Under Additional Language Columns, select all other languages
- Your Glossary is now displaying all terms for all languages. Here, you can get a high-level view of the existing translation of terms and exactly what terms are missing translations.
- If you want to perform a quick sanity-check on the existing translation of terms, it is recommended that you use the Term has Translations filter, and filter for terms with a translation in a specific language, and proceed to Request Translations for that specific target language as required.
- If most of your terms are missing translations, it is recommended that you select-all terms in the list and proceed to Request Translation for all target languages
- If only some of your terms are missing translations, it is recommended that you use the Missing Translations filter, and filter for terms missing translations in a specific language, and proceed to Request Translations for that specific target language.
Note: Continue reading for more information on terms that are excluded from translation.
Translating a Glossary term through Smartling will overwrite any existing translation for that language, so don’t select terms that you’ve already translated unless you want to change the translation.
Terms Excluded From Translation
DNT terms and terms that are "disabled in the CAT Tool" cannot be translated. If you request translation of these Glossary terms, they cannot be authorized for translation. If you wish to request translation for these types of terms, ensure these settings are not selected (disabled).
Request Translation for Glossary Terms
- After you have identified terms that are missing translations, select the term(s) you want to translate
- Click Actions > Request Translation
- In the Request Translation dialog, you need to select a source language to translate from, a Project to translate in, and target languages to translate the terms into. You can get a cost estimate and configure the Job due date from the Job Details page, once it has been authorized (step 6).
- The source language selected will determine the projects listed in the dropdown, so it is essential that your project contains one of the Glossary languages are its source language
- The Project selected will determine the target languages listed in the dropdown, so again, it is essential that your project contains the same languages as the Glossary
- Click Continue
- On step two, select the workflow for this translation Job.
- You can choose a specific workflow for each language by click show workflow details
- When you're ready, click Authorize Job to commence the term translation
When Terms are in Translation
Your selected Glossary terms will automatically be packaged into a Job, authorized for translation, and can be found in the Project Jobs Dashboard and within the Glossary as "In Progress".
The Job name will be titled "Glossary" together with the date of authorization and the Glossary Job number, e.g. "Glossary YYYY-MM-DD (1)" for the first Job, "Glossary YYYY-MM-DD (2)" for the second Job, etc.
Each Glossary term will be created as an individual string and added to your chosen workflow (step 5 above).
The Definition, Part of Speech, Language Notes, and Term Variations attributes of the term are captured as string instructions.
To find Glossary strings in translation, filter your Strings View for the URI: /Glossary. Alternatively, you can access a prefiltered Strings View via the Glossary by clicking the string icon.
You cannot edit the term, Language notes, or Term Variation attributes while a term is in translation.
Once a glossary translation job has been created, do not attempt to add additional languages to the job. If a language is added to an in-progress glossary job, the translations will not be pushed back to the glossary. Instead, create a new job for the terms in the additional languages.
When terms are translated
When a Glossary term/string is Published, the translation will be automatically delivered to the Glossary it was requested from, and found as a term for the respective language.
If you decide to send a translated term for translation in the future from the Linguistic Assets page, it will overwrite the initial translation.