organizing translation resources

One key decision that translators using CAT tools have to make is how to organize their resources. By resources I mean primarily translation memories and terminology bases storing one’s legacy translation solutions. The basic approach is creating a single translation memory (TM) and term base (TB) for all projects in a given language combination (for example: English to German, French to Spanish). This is the so-called big momma approach, and it has the obvious advantage of keeping everything in a single place and easy to manage. But it also has the disadvantage of not allowing you full control over the systematic use of a client’s language and style in your translations. A second approach is setting up one translation memory and term base for each domain (for example: legal, business, medical etc.). This gives you more control over how previous translation solutions will be used again – if a term or expression has one translation in corporate language and a different translation in medical language, then you will surely profit from this approach. But it increases your management efforts, i.e. you will need to dedicate an additional amount of your time when moving your resources between tools or even when upgrading your primary CAT tool. A third approach is organizing your resources by client: one TM and one TB for each client. That way, you have full control over how a client’s preferred translations will be used throughout the project and in future projects. This is key in companies with a strong corporate identity or clients who are especially sensitive to the way their products or services are portrayed in their translated materials. Of course, having a TM and a TB for each client (even if it is only for each big client) means a lot more resource management effort on the part of the translator. I don’t think there is one approach that is best for all translators. Rather, I think that translators should consider what their (and their clients’) needs are and then devise a plan to achieve the highest productivity and quality possible. As for me, I prefer to have a mix of the third approach (TMs and TBs for each client) and the second approach (TMs and TBs for each domain), creating client-specific resources only for really big or especially demanding clients, and even then in most cases I use a client-specific TB and a domain-specific TM. I found this to be very productive in my personal case – I work primarily for direct clients and a few translation agencies with higher quality standards. What I don’t find productive at all is the big momma approach, as I work with 3 language combinations, 2 primary domains of specialization with several sub-domains and several occasional working domains. Besides, my preferred CAT tool allows me to use several secondary TMs and TBs for each project and select one of them as the primary resource, so adding resources sent to me by a client or used for other clients/domains is like a breeze. I am sure there are other approaches, though. So, what about you, fellow translators? What method(s) do you have in place to organize your legacy translation solutions?

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