Felix Add Glossary command

[S. Patrick Eaton]

Hello, everyone.

Just now I used the "Add Glossary" command in the Excel interface to add
a list of 386 E-to-J terms to my main glossary, and it worked very
nicely. Then I loaded a different set of J-to-E glossaries, switched the
order of the columns in Excel so that the Japanese terms came before the
English ones, and then used the "Add Glossary" command again to add the
same list of terms (although this time J-to-E) to the new glossary, but
this time only 363 terms were added.

Except for the change in column order, the list itself remains the same,
so what accounts for the difference in the number of terms added the
second time? Does this command have a function for not adding terms that
are already included in the target glossary? (It might actually be quite
convenient if that were the case, but there are also cases were having
multiple translations for the same term would be highly desirable.)

Also, while on the subject of glossaries, does anyone have a good
strategy for keeping multiple glossaries in different language pairs in
sync? In our work, for example, it would often be quite useful to add a
glossary entry to our E-to-J glossary and to add the same entry in the
opposite order to our J-to-E glossary. Aside from periodically using
Xelif to reverse one glossary and then adding it to the other, has
anyone come up with a convenient way to keep two such glossaries more or
less in sync?

Best regards,

Sako Eaton

[Ginstrom IT Solutions]

> From: S. Patrick Eaton [mailto:eaton...@canon.co.jp]

> English ones, and then used the "Add Glossary" command again to add the
> same list of terms (although this time J-to-E) to the new glossary, but
> this time only 363 terms were added.

Is it possible that there were repeats in your second list?

> Xelif to reverse one glossary and then adding it to the other, has
> anyone come up with a convenient way to keep two such glossaries more or
> less in sync?

It sounds like it could be useful to have a feature to assign languages to the pairs, and then designate which language is the source and which is the translation. Then if you use Memory Serves, you'd be able to keep the glossaries in sync between multiple translators working in both directions.

Does that sound like a useful feature?


Regards,
Ryan

=================================
Ryan Ginstrom
Felix Translation Memory Software
sup...@felix-cat.com
http://felix-cat.com/
+81-(0)98-958-1297
=================================

[S. Patrick Eaton]

Quoting Ginstrom IT Solutions:
>> From: S. Patrick Eaton [mailto:eaton...@canon.co.jp] English
>> ones, and then used the "Add Glossary" command again to add the
>> same list of terms (although this time J-to-E) to the new glossary,
>> but this time only 363 terms were added.
>
> Is it possible that there were repeats in your second list?

Repeated terms, yes, but often with different translations or different
context information. I guess such entries get skipped? It's not a big
deal if they do, but it was an unexpected result.

>> Xelif to reverse one glossary and then adding it to the other, has
>> anyone come up with a convenient way to keep two such glossaries
>> more or less in sync?
>
> It sounds like it could be useful to have a feature to assign
> languages to the pairs, and then designate which language is the
> source and which is the translation. Then if you use Memory Serves,
> you'd be able to keep the glossaries in sync between multiple
> translators working in both directions.
>
> Does that sound like a useful feature?

To the extent that I understand what you described, it does sound like
it might be useful. <g>

Best regards,

Sako Eaton

[Ginstrom IT Solutions]

> From: S. Patrick Eaton [mailto:eaton...@canon.co.jp]

> > Is it possible that there were repeats in your second list?
>
> Repeated terms, yes, but often with different translations or different
> context information. I guess such entries get skipped? It's not a big
> deal if they do, but it was an unexpected result.

If two entries have the same source and translation, but different context, then the new entry will replace the old one. (If the translations are different, then two separate entries will be created.)

How do you think it should be handled if two glossary entries have the same source and translation, but different contexts? I could see maybe combining the differing contexts into a single entry, instead of discarding the old entry like Felix does now.

[S. Patrick Eaton]

Thanks, Ryan!

Quoting Ginstrom IT Solutions:

> If two entries have the same source and translation, but different
> context, then the new entry will replace the old one. (If the
> translations are different, then two separate entries will be
> created.)

That makes sense.

> How do you think it should be handled if two glossary entries have
> the same source and translation, but different contexts? I could see
> maybe combining the differing contexts into a single entry, instead
> of discarding the old entry like Felix does now.

Combining the context information might not be a bad idea. Of course, if
it's only the context information that is different, it might not be
important which one gets entered. I haven't checked in this particular
case, but I suspect there are a lot of cases where a number of people
might have added the same terms to the list at different times and
simply described the context differently.

Essentially, as long as the terms get into the glossary--whatever the
context--there shouldn't be a problem.

Best regards,

Sako