Sentro Translation & Localization Services

Translation Memories

Translation Memory (TM) is one of the most important features of Translation Support Programs used for supporting the translator during translation process and ensuring consistency in target text. What translation program does is simply to save the source and target sentences in a database called “Translation Memory” for each sentence. For subsequent sentences, translation program accesses the units here, meaning that it scans the database, where the TM is saved, for similar sentences and retrieves them for the translator. If the sentence is a perfect match, translator makes the checks and proceeds with the subsequent sentence. If the sentence is different, the differences are marked while being shown to the translator. Here, translator makes the necessary changes and enters the new sentence into the database and goes on with the next sentence. Sentences in the source text are saved, as they get translated, in a database with the support of this program by being combined in a format specific to the program. TMs thus composed through recording and saving each sentence in both source and target languages in a database, support translation process. Therefore, language and style consistency is ensured and total quality of the translation is enhanced.

Working with TMs eases collective changes to be made on the text, as well. Source and target texts are held together on the documents in translation process and such documents are called documents with “language pair”. After the translation is proofread and necessary editing is made, and the same is made on similar texts and documents as well, where required, an operation called “clean up” is applied on the document. This operation deletes the target source in documents containing the “language pair”, and thus creates the target document where the final form of target text is applied.

There are many solutions based on TMs available in the market, however, programs such as Trados, Transit, Wordfast, DejaVu, Passolo and Catalyst are among the most common ones. Using these and other translation programs competently, our Company also protects the confidentiality of their customers due to the individual TMs opened separately for each customer. Kind of a “motor” for translation support programs, TMs seem to be guiding the industry in the future as well. However, to use TMs, documents to be translated should be in electronic environment and this may require use of Optical Character Recognition programs. Documents can be easily processed once they are transformed into electronic format and it’s possible to offer high quality translation products with the help of translation programs.

Terminology Consistency

Consistency in terminology is particularly important in technical translations. Terminology Databases used to provide this consistency support translators during translation and ensure that same words are used for same terms. Our translation and proofreading team ensure terminology consistency for long term projects due to the in-house terminology platform we have, where the new terminology is continuously saved. These terminology lists, sent afterwards to the customers for approval, are included in this in-house terminology platform to ensure that the words preferred by customers shall be used in future projects also. Here, we use various Terminology Management programs. Provided as a package with translation support programs, these terminology management programs work in integrity with the TM and project management programs, thus, each project is ensured to be processed with its own TM and terminology list.

Checked and reviewed by our proofreaders once the translation is completed, the translated documents are also checked with different controlling programs for ensuring conformity to terminology lists. With the assistance of such programs, our proofreaders check issues such as whether there are any missing parts, or whether terminology is used correctly, or if there are any missing/extra numbers etc. and edited/corrected final versions of documents are sent to customers. Therefore, obtaining a terminology list from the customer before initiating the translation ensures that the job is done with a higher quality and with the exact terms preferred by the customer.

Consistency in terminology is also important for software and online or mobile applications. Inconsistency in menu names, button/key references and similar issues may be harmful and even dangerous for the user, since, for instance, these may lead to a misuse of the program and the user will not be able to locate the menu or the key where it is indicated to be. For this reason, paying attention to terminology consistency and using required support software to ensure this is a must to provide top quality translation products.

Design and Format Support

Texts are not “plain” anymore, as they used to be. Appearing in “rich text format” more frequently in time, texts are now in their “ready to be printed” form, prepared in Adobe Indesign and similar design formats, or web file format if to be placed on a website. Delivering your translation as a turn-key project, we ensure that you save from costs for design or transform into web formats due to the support we can provide for such file formats.

Software Translation

Programs installed on computers, web based applications and applications running on portable devices require quite a different translation method. Such programs and applications require specific translation programs and software localization knowledge since the menus, windows and info texts in them have different file formats and structures. Providing such expertise, we support you in all stages when you desire to translate your software to any language you prefer.