What is MultiTerm?
November 18th, 2008 by sarab
If you are a translator working with the Trados CAT tool, you may have seen a component called MultiTerm in your product package. So, just what is this tool and how practical is it for every-day translation jobs?
MultiTerm is ideal for translators working with bilingual glossaries or ongoing projects with highly specific terminology. Many times clients will send their glossaries in an Excel sheet with their own translations of product names or terminology for the sake of consistency between terms found in user manuals, online material, etc. In these cases, it is critical to use the glossary sent by the client. What the MultiTerm product does is convert the glossary into an .xdt file which is recognized by Trados and can then be linked to the Trados workbench. What this means for the translator is that instead of searching through countless entries of an Excel file looking for the right term, Trados will automatically recognize if the term is in the glossary, and if so, it will display the corresponding translation in the “Term Recognition” window on the Workbench.
While there are several steps involved in the process, I have found that it is well worth the time and energy to learn how to use this product, as well as its other features. Not only is this ideal for translators, but it is also great for project managers who are using several different translators for a document with very specific terminology.
November 19th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Unfortunately, the acceptance (utilization) rate of MultiTerm among Trados users is probably less than 10%. This is largely due, I believe, to numerous compatibility issues between different versions and the general poor level of mastery of the tools by users. Too many people forego the advantages this tool offers and rely instead on time-consuming concordance searches, which if performed with poorly maintained translation memories can have very unfortunate consequences.
One of the hallmarks of a good terminology database in MultiTerm is the inclusion of important attribute information, such as an indication of which products a term applies to, the status of the term (for example: preferred, approved, under review, barred, etc.), subject domain, etc. MT termbases creates from a customer’s Excel list (as mentioned in this post) can be used to perform final QA in TagEditor to audit compliance with obligatory terminology.
One important part of the MultiTerm suite for me is MultiTerm Extract, which I use for term mining in existing TMs or large jobs that I am starting. I have used this tool on many occasions to create rather nice dictionaries for customers after months or years of work and give them a little “extra” benefit for a long-standing relationship. If terminology work is carefully considered in the project quotation process, this tool can pay for itself in a short time. There are many other tools out there for similar work, butr the integration with MultiTerm makes the Extract module the right choice for Trados users.
November 19th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Thanks for the contribution Kevin. You are right about the compatibility issues and lack of mastery of the tools by users. I think that if more translators knew how much time would be saved with MultiTerm, more would take the time to learn how to use it, as well as MultiTerm Extract. Enjoy the blog!