Terminology management
A term base is the approved list of your product and industry terms in every language. It is the difference between documentation that reads like one company wrote it — and one that did not.
Why the same word must stay the same word
In everyday writing, synonyms are style. In technical, medical and legal content, they are defects. If your manual calls a part a “valve housing” on page 4 and a “valve casing” on page 40, a technician wonders whether those are two parts. Multiply that across 12 languages and 200 documents, and you get support tickets, failed audits and translations that contradict each other.
Terminology management is the fix: decide once what each thing is called — in the source language and in every target language — and enforce it everywhere. Link Translation has built and maintained term bases for clients since 2005, and every translator and reviewer on your projects works against yours.
What we build for you
- Term extraction — we mine your existing documents, translations and glossaries for candidate terms, so the term base starts from how your company actually writes
- Term base construction — approved translations per language, definitions, context examples, and forbidden terms (the words you specifically do not want)
- Validation with your experts — your engineers or reviewers approve terms once, instead of correcting the same word in every document forever
- Maintenance — new products bring new terms; we keep the base current as part of ongoing work
- Enforcement — automated QA checks flag any translation that deviates from an approved term before the file reaches you
Consistency across suppliers, not just projects
A term base pays off most when more than one party touches your content. Your in-house writers, your other translation suppliers, your distributors editing local materials, even an MT engine producing first drafts — all of them can work against the same approved terminology. That makes the term base a quality tool for your whole documentation chain, not just for the projects we handle. It also makes independent review sharper: when a reviewer checks a translation, “correct terminology” is a defined standard, not an opinion — which shortens review rounds and ends the debates about whose wording wins.
Where it fits in a project
For a first project, terminology alignment happens before translation starts: we extract key terms, you approve them, and only then does translation begin. That single ordering decision prevents the most expensive kind of rework — finding out at review stage that a core term was rendered three different ways. From the second project on, the term base is simply there, working quietly alongside your translation memory. Both are included in how we work; neither is a paid add-on you have to remember to request.
If you want to start with terminology alone — a term base built and validated before any translation is commissioned — that works too. Send us a sample of your documentation and you get a fixed quote within 24 hours, covering 30+ languages.
Frequently asked questions
What is a term base, in plain terms?
A structured dictionary of your company's terms: the approved translation for each one, terms you have banned, definitions, and usage notes. Translation tools show the approved term to the translator the moment it appears in a sentence, so consistency is built into the workflow instead of depending on memory.
We already have glossaries in spreadsheets. Is that enough?
It is a good start, and we can import it. The problem with spreadsheets is that nobody opens them mid-sentence. Converted into a term base, the same content is checked automatically during translation and QA — and it stays current, because updates flow into every future project.
How does terminology work save money?
Consistent source text produces more repeated sentences, and repeated sentences are stored in translation memory so you never pay full price for them twice. Fewer terminology errors also means fewer review rounds and less rework after delivery. The saving compounds with every project.
Who owns the term base?
You do. We build and maintain it, but it is your asset, delivered in standard exchange formats (like TBX) you can take to any tool or supplier. We think you should stay because the work is good, not because your terminology is locked in.