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Source content uses both US and UK English. What impact can this have on translation?
Thread poster: Jennifer O Neill
Jennifer O Neill
Jennifer O Neill
Belgium
Local time: 15:55
Nov 27, 2023

I'm a technical writer and have joined a company where the content is written in UK and US English depending on the regional market. Content reuse means that a document may have sections written in different versions of English (the writers call it "hybrid English"). Most content is in UK English. The volume of US English is growing. I don't know if our customers notice.
For translation, all English content is in the same translation memory (TM). Our term base, Multiterm, is currently in U... See more
I'm a technical writer and have joined a company where the content is written in UK and US English depending on the regional market. Content reuse means that a document may have sections written in different versions of English (the writers call it "hybrid English"). Most content is in UK English. The volume of US English is growing. I don't know if our customers notice.
For translation, all English content is in the same translation memory (TM). Our term base, Multiterm, is currently in UK English only.
What is the impact on translation using 2 versions of English in the same TM? Can Multiterm work with 2 versions of English simultaneously?
Thanks. ▲ Collapse


Abdi Muhumed
 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 15:55
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Yes Nov 27, 2023

Yes, I think it can cover both. The TM should capture both without issues, I sometimes get mixed source English texts like that, didn’t have issues.

[Edited at 2023-11-27 18:39 GMT]

Abdi Muhumed
 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 15:55
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
Tidy up texts after translation Dec 5, 2023

In my experience, Multiterm works fine with whatever you feed into it, and a certain amount of fuzzy logic, so it recognises/recognizes similar strings as well as identical spellings.

If you set Trados e.g. to UK English, it will show a lot of the variant spellings with red lines under, and you can check for the last handful in the final run when you check the target file. A search in Word, for the letter Z or iz will show them up in the margin, and you can then go to the ones you n... See more
In my experience, Multiterm works fine with whatever you feed into it, and a certain amount of fuzzy logic, so it recognises/recognizes similar strings as well as identical spellings.

If you set Trados e.g. to UK English, it will show a lot of the variant spellings with red lines under, and you can check for the last handful in the final run when you check the target file. A search in Word, for the letter Z or iz will show them up in the margin, and you can then go to the ones you need to change, one by one.

I sometimes proofread/edit texts in hybrid English - or Scandi-English, with influence from both sides of the pond. It takes concentration, but when I am complying with a style guide, I look for the relevant points one by one.

You could perhaps use an app like PerfectIt or Xbench - they sometimes show false errors, but I believe you can set them to the spellings you want.

Depending how critical it is, there are several ways you can tailor your output to its purpose. ▲ Collapse
 


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Source content uses both US and UK English. What impact can this have on translation?







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