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Wise quotes

"Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery." (Mark Amidon)

Many critics, no defenders,
translators have but two regrets:
when we hit, no one remembers,
when we miss, no one forgets. (Anonymous)

“We have too many high sounding words and too few actions that correspond with them.” (Abigail Adams)

Funny translations

Airline ticket office, Copenhagen: We take your bags and send them in all directions.

Cocktail lounge, Norway: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

Hotel elevator, Belgrade: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

Useful Links

Below is a list of links to must-have software, dictionaries, glossaries, and other interesting stuff for translators. We have also posted a list of forums for translators, which may be helpful for those who can't find translations for some terms in other resources. Links are not intended as advertisements for any particular product or website. The aim of this list is to share helpful information with translators. The list will be regularly updated. But be sure that TranslatorsFamily.com offers something that can't be found in the above-mentioned resources. For example, you can find a uselful tool for multiple search of terms on our website Term Search Page

Software for translators

Project Management:

http://www.projetex.com/download.html - Projetex is project management software for Translation Agencies. Designed to simplify the task of corporate and freelance workflow management, Projetex provides multiple benefits for translation industry business, be it a large translation agency team, or compact one-man translation business. There is a demo version on their site. Freelance translators can take advantage of Translation Office since Projetex is good for companies: http://www.to3000.com
We use it for our project management and it saves us a lot of time. The drawback is the price, so it may be more cost-efficient to use Excel and Word to do the accounting (of course, if you do not have many clients, projects, and outsourcers).

Terminology Management:

http://www.anylexic.com - Terminology Management Software.
Good for downloading Microsoft glossaries and searching for translations in them. However, it may be superfluous if you have glossaries in the translation memory or terminology base of the CAT tool you are using.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-assisted_translation - Description and comparison of many CAT tools. Links to the website of each CAT tool. More articles about CAT tools can be found here: http://www.transref.org/
We use many different tools to automate the translation and editing/QA processes. The most popular is undoubtedly Trados. Unfortunately, there are too many CAT tools on the market and not all are compatible with each other.

http://www.lingvo.ru - ABBYY Lingvo is one the most popular electronic collection of dictionaries. It can be used online, but the offline version is more convenient and complete.
We use it in our everyday work. A great deal of additional dictionaries are also available for download via Internet, namely http://www.lingvoda.ru/dictionaries/, http://lingvodics.com/ and other sites. Even though Lingvo dictionaries are very large, some terms cannot be found there (but can be found, for example, in Multitran. However, Multitran also lacks some terms which are available in Lingvo). Therefore, translators have to use at least two dictionaries: Lingvo and Multitran. In addition, some translations require more reference materials, such as specialized dictionaries, websites and related articles, translator forums, etc.

Quality Assurance:

http://www.apsic.com/en/products_xbench.html - integrated reference tool aimed to provide a clear and structured view of the terminology of any translation project. It is a freeware.
We use it mainly for QA purposes because it has rather powerful Quality Assurance features, checking for consistency, numeric values, and more. At the same time, it does not have the quintessential spell check feature; look to the LTB QA tool mentioned below for that tool.

http://atools.dotsrc.org/ - Ando Tools is a free package of MS Word and Excel add-ons designed for translators, proofreaders and localization engineers. Freeware.
One of the most useful features is segmentation validation in a Trados translation in Word. For all that, it can be used only in Word. Note: the link is dead already, however we have this tool in our archive.

Other software:

http://uz-translations.net - this link may be very helpful for those searching for books, audio books, software, and other materials for translators, linguists, and philologists.

 

Dictionaries, term search, glossaries:

http://www.multitran.ru/ - large, powerful online dictionary with more than 4 million words in its English-Russian dictionary alone.
The most widely used dictionary by our team. We use both online and offline versions. However, sometimes the bigger online version has problems on the server and slows down. One should remember that the dictionary is updated by users, so it may contain errors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/ - the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
Multilingual encyclopedia. Useful for searching for terms and articles in many languages. One should remember that articles can be updated by users and may contain errors.

Google.com - search engine. Some helpful tips for translators on how to use Google in their work: http://www.google.ru/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861 , http://www.lingvofanclub.info/howto.htm (Russian).
Nowadays, the translation for any term can be found. But you have to be a professional translator to choose the best variant among hundreds of translations.

http://www.prolingoffice.com - online and offline Russian-Ukrainian and vice versa dictionary and machine translator.
Rather efficient machine translator and helpful dictionary. Nevertheless, its translations require thorough editing by a human.

http://www.microsoft.com/language/en/us/search.mspx - Microsoft Language Portal - Online Terminology and Glossary Search Online collection of Microsoft glossaries that is vital for any Microsoft translation project and helpful for most software localization projects.
We always use it within our team translating IT texts. However, it lacks connection to CAT TMs (like Trados), so we had to spend a lot of time finding and converting most of the glossaries into a translation memory for Trados and other CAT tools that simplifies term searches.

http://www.industrystock.ru/, http://www.industrystock.com, http://www.industrystock.de - industry portal with intelligent search engines for products and services as well as manufacturers, dealers, suppliers and service providers in Business to Business.
Useful for searching for translations of terms related to different areas of industry and business. Some of the terms (initially in German) are very difficult to find in Russian dictionaries. Each language has its own search results, which makes it difficult to find the translation in the required language. Our team translated a great deal of term from German into Russian for this website through a translation agency.

http://www.proz.com/wts, http://slovotolk.com/, http://www.dictionarylink.com/ - search many dictionaries, search engines, and glossaries from one page.
There are so many dictionaries on the Internet that it is difficult to choose the best one. No need to choose just one; try many with “multisearch.” However, all of these multisearch sites contain an insufficient number of places to search. A more advanced multisearch with more searchable links is presented on our website here.

http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ - a 100 million word collection of samples of written and spoken language from a wide range of sources, designed to represent a wide cross-section of current British English, both spoken and written.
Good online context search for many words. However, the texts are only in English.

http://en.uk.open-tran.eu/ - open search in translated texts taken from CAT tool TMs from many translators.
Good online search for context and translations of words, phrases, and even sentences. However, you cannot add this search to your own TM to use it more easily during translation.

http://www.acronymfinder.com/ - world's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms.
Very useful online search for abbreviation meanings. It's a pity it is monolingual.

English Thesaurus and Encyclopedia:

http://www.britannica.com
http://www.yourdictionary.com
http://thesaurus.reference.com/
http://www.merriam-webster.com/
http://www.wordsmyth.net/
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
http://dictionary.reference.com/
http://www.dictionarylink.com/
http://lookwayup.com/free/
http://www.answers.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.encyclopedia.ru/
http://www.encyclopedia.com/
http://www.krugosvet.ru/
http://bse.sci-lib.com/

Online dictionaries and search engines for IT translators:

http://whatis.techtarget.com
http://www.webopedia.com
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia
http://www.microsoft.com/language/en/us/search.mspx
http://www.techterms.com/
http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/
http://foldoc.org/
http://www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/index.html
http://java.sun.com/docs/glossary.html
http://www.fileinfo.net/
http://home.mcafee.com/VirusInfo/Glossary.aspx

Online dictionaries and search engines for Medical translators:

http://www.stedmans.com
http://www.medilexicon.com/medicaldictionary.php
http://www.dorlands.com
http://www.med.miami.edu/sitemap/
http://www.ukhealthcare.uky.edu/patient/glossary/glossary-a.htm
http://www.online-medical-dictionary.org/
http://www.mondofacto.com/facts/dictionary?
http://www.medicdirect.co.uk/medical_az/default.ihtml

Online dictionaries and glossaries for Oil and Gas translators:

http://www.noria.com/dictionary/
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/lagniapp/glossary.html
http://www.alken-murray.com/fuel-glossary.htm

Glossaries of Energy terms:

http://www.electromn.com/glossary/index.htm

Online Electronics Dictionaries:
http://www.electropedia.org/
http://www.the12volt.com/glossary/glossary.asp?l=A

Gambling glossaries:

http://www.seriouspoker.com/
http://www.bkgm.com/glossary.html
http://www.conjelco.com/pokglossary.html
http://www.thegoodgamblingguide.co.uk/glossary.htm
http://www.casino-info.com/gambling_tips/glossary_a_b.html
http://www.sportsbetting.com/tips/casino/dictionary-gambling.html

Military glossaries and searh engines:

http://www.feldgrau.com/glossary.html
http://www.logisticsworld.com/acro.asp
http://www.janes.com/news/defence/
http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/

Marketing Glossaries:

http://www.marketingterms.com/
http://www.quirks.com/glossary/index.aspx
http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/mkt/dictionary/

Dentistry Dictionaries:

http://www.dentistonweb.com/wisdomTooth/dictionary.shtml
http://www.bracesinfo.com/glossary.html/

Forums for translators

(good place to ask for help of colleagues in case of difficult terminology)

http://multitran.ru/c/m.exe?a=DisplayForum&HL=2&L1=1&L2=2 (only Russian)
http://forum.lingvo.ru/actualforum.aspx (only Russian)
http://www.trworkshop.net/forum/ (only Russian)
http://www.proz.com/forum (multilingual)
http://www.translatorscafe.com/cafe/MegaBBS/category-view.asp?catlock=1 (English)
http://www.translatorpub.com/sections/forum/ (English)

To join our team as translator or/and proofreader contact us with your CV and cover letter:
E-mail - tatianasemerikova@gmail.com