Machine Translation
    1. Phrase
    2. Global
    3. Machine Translation

    MT Glossaries

    Content is machine translated from English by Phrase Language AI.

    Available for

    • Team, Professional, Business, Enterprise and Software UI/UX plans

    Get in touch with Sales for licensing questions.

    Available for

    • Team, Ultimate and Enterprise plans (Legacy)

    Get in touch with Sales for licensing questions.

    MT glossaries are a feature available in Phrase Language AI that ensures terminology is handled correctly by machine translation (MT) engines.

    MT glossaries function similarly to term bases but are used by MT engines instead of linguists. Terms added to a glossary are applied by the machine translation engine before a linguist sees the translation, ensuring provided terms are consistently substituted.

    While Phrase ensures that glossary terms are correctly sent to the MT provider, the final translation result depends entirely on how the selected MT engine handles those terms. Refer to each MT engine's documentation for details on how glossary matches are applied.

    Where MT Glossaries Are Used

    MT glossaries are available wherever Phrase Language AI is used:

    • Phrase TMS

      MT glossaries apply during machine translation in enterprise localization workflows.

    • Phrase Strings

      MT glossaries apply during machine translation in software and UI localization workflows.

    • Phrase Portal

      MT glossaries apply to file-based and text translation through configured MT profiles.

    • Phrase Studio

      MT glossaries apply during machine translation in media localization workflows.

    • Phrase Language AI via API

      MT glossaries apply to high-volume MT workflows outside the Phrase Platform.

    Use cases

    The type of content being translated can significantly affect whether a glossary is needed. Glossaries are most useful in the following situations:

    • Product names

      Prevent MT engines from translating branded terms.

      Phrase Language AI must translate to Phrase Language AI.

    • Ambiguous words

      Provide context for words with multiple meanings.

      The word bat can mean a piece of sports equipment or an animal. A glossary can instruct the engine to use the sports-context translation.

    • Borrowed words

      Override translations that lack cultural context.

      Bouillabaisse in French translates literally to bouillabaisse in English. The English language borrowed the word from the French in the 19th century. An English speaker lacking French cultural context may not know that bouillabaisse is a fish stew dish. A glossary can override a translation so that bouillabaisse from French translates to fish stew in English.

    Configure MT Glossaries

    Available MT glossaries are accessible by clicking on the MT glossaries tab in the Phrase Language AI page. The MT glossaries tab presents a searchable list of glossaries, with different columns providing specific information about each glossary.

    Create a Glossary

    To add a glossary, follow these steps:

    1. From the Phrase Language AI page, click on the MT glossaries tab.

      The MT glossaries table is displayed.

    2. Click New MT glossary.

      The New glossary window opens.

    3. Provide a Glossary name.

    4. Select languages for the glossary.

    5. Click Create.

      The new glossary page opens.

    MT glossaries can also be automatically created by uploading existing term bases from Phrase Strings.

    Add a Term to a Glossary

    To add a term, follow these steps:

    1. From a glossary page, click New.

      The new term pane opens with empty fields for all languages in the glossary.

    2. Fill in terms for each language.

    3. Click Add.

      The new term is added to the glossary.

    Delete a Term to a Glossary

    1. From a glossary page, select one or multiple terms you want to delete.

    2. Click Delete.

    Import Terms to a Glossary

    External terminology (or glossary) files can be imported in Excel (.XLSX) or .TBX file formats. The size limit for a file that can be uploaded is 1 GB.

    .XLSX file preparation

    .XLSX files must be formatted in specific manner before being imported.

    To prepare the file, follow these steps:

    1. In the .XLSX file, organize all terms into columns with each column representing one language.

    2. In the first row, apply the language code for each language.

      Example:

      A

      B

      C

      1

      en

      de_de

      it

      2

      Agreement

      Abkommen

      accordo

      3

      Joint Committee

      Gemischte Kommission

      Commissione mista

      4

      Federal Council

      Bundesrat

      Consiglio federale

    3. Save the file.

    File import

    To import terms to a glossary, follow these steps:

    Note

    Files exported from term bases may be imported into glossaries, but will be rejected if they contain synonyms (more than one term per language in a concept) or terms containing a pipe character.

    1. From a glossary page, click Import.

      The Import TBX/XLSX window opens.

    2. Click Choose file and select a file to import.

    3. Click Import.

      Terms from the selected file are added to the glossary.

    Edit a Glossary

    To edit an existing glossary:

    1. From the MT glossaries page, click the name of an MT glossary.

      The MT glossary page opens.

    2. Click Edit.

      The name, owner and languages of a glossary can be edited. Languages cannot be edited if the MT glossary contains ent

    Delete a Glossary

    1. From the MT glossaries page, click the name of an MT glossary.

      The MT glossary page opens.

    2. Click Delete.

      The confirmation window opens.

    3. Click Delete.

    Attach a Glossary to an MT Profile

    An MT glossary must be attached to an existing MT profile and show Up to date to be applied.

    Note

    Depending on file size, it can take up to 15 minutes until a glossary is attached.

    To attach a glossary, follow these steps:

    1. From the Phrase Language AI page, click on the machine translation profile that requires a glossary.

    2. Click Attach glossary.

      The select window opens.

    3. Select from the dropdown list the required glossary or glossaries.

    4. Click Attach.

      The selection is added to a list of glossaries attached to the profile.

    MT Glossary Limits and Requirements

    • Glossaries can have a maximum of 100,000 entries in total.

    • The total number of glossaries is limited by the purchased plan.

    • Glossaries are only available through Phrase Language AI and are not supported by all MT engines. If supported, this is indicated in the machine translation profile along with supported glossary languages.

    • If glossary languages are not supported by the MT engine, the glossary upload might fail with an error. Rozetta T-4OO, in particular, supports a limited list of languages.

      To resolve the issue, disable the MT engine in the machine translation profile and reattach the glossary.

    • If a glossary contains duplicates, some MT engines may reject it.

      DeepL, in particular, treats any term appearing more than once for a language as a duplicate. If duplicates exist in any language within the glossary, the entire glossary is considered invalid for the affected language pair, and will be rejected.

      Tip

      The conditional formatting functionality in spreadsheet applications can be used to identify and remove duplicates.

    • The glossary and job languages (and their codes) must match for the glossary to be applied.

      Note

      If using Google AutoML MT engine, multiple locales within a single MT glossary are not supported.

    • While Phrase ensures that glossary terms are correctly sent to the MT provider, the final translation result depends entirely on how the selected MT engine handles those terms. Refer to each MT engine’s documentation for details on how glossary matches are applied.

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