'We told you last year we call it a housing, not a casing'
A client's engineering reviewer sends back a German translation with forty corrections. Most are the same thing: the translator used standard terms where the client has its own. The client says they supplied a glossary last year. Your PM finds it, eventually: an Excel file attached to an email to a PM who has since left. It was never loaded into the termbase. Two other translators have also been working on this client's documents without it.
Nobody was careless. The glossary simply never made it from an inbox into the translators' tools.
Why terminology drifts
- Client glossaries arrive in varied formats and are not always imported into the CAT tool.
- Terms agreed during queries or reviews stay in emails instead of the termbase.
- Different translators keep their own notes, which never reach colleagues.
- Termbases are not updated when a client changes a preferred term.
- Nobody checks consistently whether approved terms were used before delivery.
What drifting terminology costs
Client complaints and rework, which eat margin and patience. Reviewers correcting the same terms again and again. Inconsistency across a client's documents, which matters a great deal in regulated or technical content. And a risk to the relationship with clients who feel they have told you something before.
| Source of terms | Where it ends up today | Where it goes in the build |
|---|---|---|
| Client-supplied glossary | Email attachment | Imported into the client termbase after checking |
| Translator query answers | Email thread | Proposed as a term for approval |
| Reviewer corrections | Tracked changes in a file | Proposed as a term for approval |
| Client in-country review | Comments in a PDF | Proposed and confirmed with the client |
How we build terminology management
- Each client gets one termbase per subject area, held in your CAT tool or TMS, for example Trados MultiTerm, memoQ termbases or Phrase termbases, or in a central store that syncs to them.
- Existing glossaries are gathered, cleaned and de-duplicated, with conflicting entries listed for a PM or the client to decide.
- New terms can be proposed by translators, reviewers or PMs through a simple form, and suggested automatically from query answers and reviewer corrections.
- Proposed terms go to an approver, either your lead linguist or the client's contact, with context, and are added once approved, with notes on usage and forbidden alternatives.
- The current termbase is attached to every new job for that client automatically, so no translator starts without it.
- Before delivery, a QA check flags segments where a source term appears but the approved target term does not, using your QA tool such as Xbench or Verifika, or the checks built into your CAT tool.
Approving terminology is a linguistic and client decision. The build makes sure decisions are captured once and used every time.
What changes
Forbidden terms deserve their own mention. Many clients care as much about words they do not want, such as a competitor's product name or an outdated brand term, as about the ones they do. Recording those as forbidden alternatives means QA can catch them too, which is often what a client's reviewer is checking for first.
We also keep an eye on the source side. When a client's own source documents use two names for the same thing, translators face a choice the client never made. Those cases are listed as queries for the client, so the decision is made once and recorded.
Translators start every job with the current approved terms. Corrections from reviewers and clients are captured and do not need repeating. QA flags missed terms before the client sees them. Clients see their preferences respected, which builds trust, and reviewers spend time on genuine quality points instead of the same terminology.
Does your terminology look like this?
- Client glossaries are attached to old emails.
- Different translators use different terms for the same client.
- Reviewers correct the same terms repeatedly.
- Terms agreed in queries never reach the termbase.
- There is no automatic check for approved terms before delivery.