What is a TM?

A Translation Memory (commonly abbreviated to TM) is a form of database that is used in software programs designed to aid human translators.

A translation memory consists of text segments in a source language, and the segment's corresponding translation in one or more target languages.

These segments can be:

	Paragraphs
	Sentences
	Phrases

Translation memories are typically used in conjunction with a dedicated Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tool, word processing program, terminology management systems, multilingual dictionary, or even raw machine translation output.

CAT tools have been designed to "assist" a human translator. They are used interactively as a translator works his/her way through a translation project. However, Machine Translation (MT) is a machine-automated means of translation which may, or may not, have an input from a translator in a post-translation editing phase.

A translation memory, in its most basic form, consists of text segments in a source language and their translations in one or more target languages.

This is referred to as a text-based TM. These segments can be blocks, paragraphs, sentences, or phrases.

Individual words are handled by terminology databases, or glossaries, and are generally not stored in TMs.

Object Oriented TMs

More sophisticated TMs - such as those employed by Alchemy Software Development products - are referred to as object-oriented TMs.

An object-oriented TM contains not only text but all of the elements that make up a project such as text, graphics, software strings, co-ordinates, pagination information and more.

Object-oriented TMs have an inherent advantage in that they empower the end-user to leverage from all aspects of a project, thus reducing time-to-market, cost and allow for a consistency of quality across multiple projects.

Fuzzy Matches

Some translation memories systems attempt only literal matching, that is to say that they can only retrieve segments of text that match entries in the database exactly, while others employ fuzzy matching algorithms to retrieve similar segments, which are presented to the translator with differences flagged.

The translator then makes the final decision on whether to leverage from the suggested translation, or to enter a completely new translation. If the latter, the new translation will then be captured as a new segment in the TM and can be used in future translations.

Using a TM is a dynamic, interactive process between a human translator and technology, with the aim of reducing the time, cost and terminological inconsistencies within a translation. The more powerful the TM technology is the more ROI can be leveraged from translation efforts over time.

Translation memories work best on texts which are highly repetitive, such as technical manuals. They are also helpful for making incremental changes to texts, corresponding, for example, to minor product changes, or product updates.

Traditionally, translation memories have not been considered appropriate for literary or creative texts, for the simple reason that there is so little repetition in the language used.

However, others find them of value even for non-repetitive texts, because the database resources created have value for concordance searches to determine appropriate usage of terms.

If a translation memory system is used consistently on appropriate texts over a period of time, it can save localization professionals considerable time and money.

Main Benefits of TMs

Ensuring that the translated content is consistent, including common definitions, phrasing and terminology. This is important when different localization professionals are working on a single project.
Accelerating the overall translation process; since translation memories "remember" previously translated material, localization professionals have to translate it only once.
Reducing costs of long-term translation projects; for example the text of online helps, software warning messages or collections of web pages need to be translated only once, and can be used several times.
For large localization projects, savings (in time or money) thanks to the use of a TM package may already be apparent even for the first translation of a new project, but normally such savings are only apparent when translating subsequent versions of a the original translated project.

Locating TM Matches

Alchemy CATALYST and Alchemy PUBLISHER provide convenient keyboard shortcuts for translation memory and glossary lookups.

The extended cursor keys are used to manage lookups in Glossary files.

The extended navigation keys, such as [End], [Home], [PgUp] and [PgDn] are used to lookup translation memories.

Use the [ALT] key in combination with the extended keys on your keyboard to lookup translations or terms in translation memories or glossary files.