How to Clean a Translation Memory

This article describes how to clean a translation memory of poorly translated and inconsistent segments.

Maintaining your Translation Memories

A translation memory can become "dirty" over time due to a number of reasons, including:

  1. Inconsistencies in the source material: If the source material contains inconsistencies, ambiguities, or errors, it can lead to inconsistent or inaccurate translations. These inconsistencies can be carried over to the translation memory and result in dirty data.

  2. Poorly trained machine translation: If machine translation is used in conjunction with a translation memory, poor quality or poorly trained machine translation can lead to inaccurate translations being stored in the memory.

  3. Human error: Errors made by translators or reviewers during the translation process can result in inaccurate translations being stored in the memory.

  4. Lack of maintenance: If the translation memory is not regularly maintained, it can become outdated and contain inaccurate or irrelevant translations.

  5. Use of unauthorized resources: If translators use unauthorized resources, such as online translation tools or personal translation memories, it can lead to inaccurate translations being stored in the memory.

  6. Incomplete or insufficient quality checks: If translations are not properly checked for accuracy and consistency, it can lead to inaccurate translations being stored in the memory.

All of these factors can contribute to a translation memory becoming dirty, which can have a negative impact on the quality of future translations. It is important to regularly maintain and clean the translation memory to ensure that it remains an effective tool for translation.

Cleaning a translation memory in Pairaphrase is easy. To clean a TM navigate to your User Profile page and find the TM you want to clean. Select Clean TM from the Actions to the right of the TM.

Navigation to Clean TM functionality

Pairaphrase provides you with several simple-to-use tools to help you clean your TM. You can edit a translated segment simply by clicking into the segment. You can search both the source and target segments. You can replace segments one at a time or replace all at once.

Segment Editor delete and bookmark functionality

You can bookmark a segment for later review and delete obsolete or inconsistent segments. Keep in mind, as translation memories grow in size they can degrade translation speed. Periodically cleaning your TMs is a best practice. Pairaphrase makes cleaning your TMs fast and simple.

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