Glossary Search Tips
Glossary Search Tips*
Most sites for translators give lists of glossaries; there are many on this site as well. How do you find your own glossary, on a certain topic - with just the term you need?
Follow these steps to find:
- a glossary in a specific field
- a term in a glossary
- a bilingual glossary in a specific field
- a term in a bilingual glossary
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To find a glossary in a specific field: +field +glossary Use the word for glossary in the same language as the field. |
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To find a term in a glossary: +term +glossary Use the word for glossary in the language of the term to find the definition of the term in that language. |
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To find a bilingual glossary in a specific field: +field +glossary +source_language +target_language Example: To find a finance glossary in French and English, the query would be: +finance +glossary +english +french or+finance +glossary +english +français
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To find a term in a bilingual glossary: +term +glossary +source_language +target_language Example: To find the word "underwriter" in French and English, the query would be: +underwriter +glossary +english +french or+underwriter +glossary +english +français
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Use Alta Vista to search for terminology on a page that has been translated. Search for a word in the source language, and add the target language to the query, with the goal of finding a page with a button to click leading to the identical page in the second language. In the following example, if the translation gods are willing, there will be a button to click on the page leading to its equivalent in the second language; if not, the word "English" will be referred to somewhere on the page.
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Example: +årsredovisning +english |
Try searching for a word in the source language on a page in the target language, with an explanation or translation.
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Example: Search for the following word, with the language set to French; you will find a page in French with the proper terminology for the word "riksdag," which is written in parentheses. +riksdag Verify the source to ensure reliability. |
Many words have the same roots in different languages; this lets you use the search engine's truncation feature to "translate". Enter the beginning of a word and end it with *; Alta Vista will search for all words that start with those letters. For example, truncate the Swedish word silanisera by searching for silani* in English. Add a word which will keep the results in the right field (in this case, the topic was dental implants and the search was qualified with +implant). One of the hits was for silanization. Verify the results by searching for +silanization +dental in English to confirm that usage is correct.
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Example: +silani* +implant Search for the term in English; and there is the answer: silanization. Verify the results by searching for the English term to ensure that it is used properly by the right native speakers. |
Use the search engine to verify that a term is actually used by a certain group. For example, to check whether a word is used in British English, search by "host."
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Example: host:uk ombudsperson host:uk ombudsman Run these two searches to find out which is more common in British English; the results:
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Change the language in the URL. Search for a word on a page, and if there is an indication in the URL that the page is in one language and might be in others, replace the letters indicating the language.
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Example: Use the EU search engine to search for the word områdespakt. http://europa.eu.int/en/record/europact/sv/chap4.html Change the /sv/ to /en/ and there is the translated page. http://europa.eu.int/en/record/europact/en/chap4.html This works with EU documents, or with bilingual English and French documents from the Canadian government . |
*Tips based on the workshop, "Stumped? The answer may be on the Net... somewhere"