SDL - What is the value of language variant codes?
Thread poster: Nigel Lindup
Nigel Lindup
Nigel Lindup
Switzerland
Local time: 14:37
French to English
+ ...
Mar 2, 2021

Good day, In creating TMs in Trados, do colleagues find it useful to specify the language variant, e.g. Spanish (international) or English (United States)? To me it would seem more efficient to have everything for one language in the same TM. Your experiences would be interesting, thanks.

 
Renée van Bijsterveld
Renée van Bijsterveld  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 14:37
Member (2007)
English to Dutch
+ ...
Different for source/target Mar 2, 2021

For me a global language code would be OK for the source language, but a variant specific code can be helpful for the target. So EN --> NL-BE, or NL --> EN-US.

 
Nigel Lindup
Nigel Lindup
Switzerland
Local time: 14:37
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Rephrasing question Mar 2, 2021

Thanks Renée, I didn't express my concern clearly. My question is really, following on from your answer, *why* is it useful to specify the language variant? What is the need to keep them separate in a technical manner - why not just look at matches when they occur and edit if they aren't appropriate to the job at hand?

 
Renée van Bijsterveld
Renée van Bijsterveld  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 14:37
Member (2007)
English to Dutch
+ ...
Easier Mar 2, 2021

If you translate into two different variants, variants with considerable/noticeable differences, and you have two separate TMs, you can be sure to only get matches that are correct for the variant you are translating into at that time. So you don't have to scroll through possible translations and select the right one for the specific variant.

For reference purposes, you could add the TM for the other variant as a reference TM (so for look-ups, not for saving new segments). Or you c
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If you translate into two different variants, variants with considerable/noticeable differences, and you have two separate TMs, you can be sure to only get matches that are correct for the variant you are translating into at that time. So you don't have to scroll through possible translations and select the right one for the specific variant.

For reference purposes, you could add the TM for the other variant as a reference TM (so for look-ups, not for saving new segments). Or you could analyze the file against the other variant to see if you can expect matches, if there are no matches, you only use the TM for your variant.


[Bijgewerkt op 2021-03-02 13:32 GMT]
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LEXpert
LEXpert  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:37
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
+ ...
Mostly for Trados to facilitate its inner workings Mar 2, 2021

I think Trados mostly does does this in order to facilitate auto-substitutions of dates, numbers, etc., the defaults of which may very among different target variants (dd/mm/yyyy vs mm/dd/yyyy, for instance).
Note that with the AnyTM functionality, you can easily use any TM with any project.
Sometimes the codes cause problems, like when a client persistently sent me a file I could not use because it was a language variant code that had been deprecated in the latest versions. When I f
... See more
I think Trados mostly does does this in order to facilitate auto-substitutions of dates, numbers, etc., the defaults of which may very among different target variants (dd/mm/yyyy vs mm/dd/yyyy, for instance).
Note that with the AnyTM functionality, you can easily use any TM with any project.
Sometimes the codes cause problems, like when a client persistently sent me a file I could not use because it was a language variant code that had been deprecated in the latest versions. When I finally figured it out I managed to manually replace the code with the current code.
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SDL - What is the value of language variant codes?







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