Thread by @translationtalk

Good morning! Yesterday we looked at factors which represent professional service-providers, next to being reliable, trustworthy, and discplined (just to mention a few). It goes without saying that our clients expect a top-notch translation delivered at the agreed deadline.

In a perfect world, the source files are perfectly formatted, client's TM (translation memory) is well-filled, reference files are informative & glossary is perfect.
But it's seldom this smooth ride. Being able to do proper terminology research is crucial for your success.

So where do we start our terminology research? There are surely tons of sources on the net, but not all are suitable. A good start is always EU's terminology database #IATE (Interactive Terminology for Europe) bit.ly/2Iug79l

Another must is EUR-Lex with access to European Union law, where you will find all directives in EU languages. Invaluable site where you can download the documents in your preferred languages. bit.ly/38Ab4yM

If you're dealing with texts around IT and computer technology, let me recommend Microsoft Language Portal with all their official terminology. Source/target is always English, so the workaround for DE>ES will be DE>EN>ES - but still very useful. bit.ly/32zdolF

Let me add "Electropedia: The World's Online Electrotechnical Vocabulary" from The International Technical Commission with lots and lots of term within electrical and electronic technologies. electropedia.org

I often look for resources from authorities or official state / EU bodies as these offer the official #terminology. This can be good to have in mind in case a client asks afterwards about your choice of terms. It's often convincing if you can point them to a EU directive.

And there is Google & Co. Keep in mind that the problem today is not the lack of search results, but you get *too many* results. 99% of the suggestions spread over 229 pages are irrelevant, only a fraction of the remaining 1% will be helpful. So this calls for proper filtering.

You can easily apply Boolean search in Google to exclude irrelevant search results (bit.ly/36ww8n1) which means you work with AND or OR operators.
Add site:.de if you're only looking for websites in Germany or define a certain period of time.

As there were questions:
To narrow the period of time in Google: Tools > Any time > Past hour / Past 24 h etc or even custom your own range.

Apart from searching official databases or googling, you can also browse one of the many glossary collections, for instance @Glossarissimo glossarissimo.wordpress.com
for many monolingual & multilingual resources and terminology for translators and interpreters. #xl8 #1nt

I have also used the software WordFinder (@WordFinder_EN) for a while now. It's a really helpful tool which improves my productivity: a large selection of various dictionaries which you can select as you like.
(Disclaimer & FYI: I am not affiliated with them in any way.)

Now and then when I'm deep into a technical text, looking for a translation of a certain component and the usual sources won't help, I first search for the source term and what manufacturers there, then take a note of the item number of the very component. ->

-> If they are a global player you will easily find a country-specific website in your target language. Chances are good you will there find exactly the same item (as the item numbers are often global) in your target language.