Term bases: Inside an entry

A term base entry at a glance

In memoQ, a term base entry corresponds to an object or a concept. The entry contains names for this object or concept – these names are the terms. A term base entry contains the terms in multiple languages. In each language, multiple terms can be assigned – multiple names can be given – to the same object or concept. Here is an example:

In other words, a term base entry has a three-level structure:

1. Entry
2. Language (or Language version)
3. Term

Properties: there is more to a term base entry than words

A term base is much more than a simple collection of source-language words or expressions and their target-language equivalents. When you look at a term base entry, you can learn a host of things about the object or concept it represents, and also a lot of things about each term that depicts the entry.

These are the properties of the entry. They appear at the entry level and the term level.

• Entry-level properties are about the object and concept, or help putting the entry in a larger concept – such as the originating project, the client, or the subject field.
• Term-level properties usually specify linguistic properties of a particular term.

Entry-level properties

The following individual properties are available for the entries:

• ID: This is the unique identifier of the entry in the term base. You cannot change it.
• Note: A note about the entry. For example, you can include a reference to the source of the terms.
• Project: Use this field to indicate the translation project identifier where the entry was created.
• Domain: This is the domain of the term base entry. The domain is a more precise designation of the subject field.
• Created by: This is the user name of the person who created the entry.
• Modified by: This is the user name of the person who created or last modified the entry. If the entry was modified, the Created by field shows a different name.
• Client: This is the client the term base entry was created for.
• Subject: The subject field designation of the term base entry.
• Created at: This is the date and time when the entry was created.
• Modified at: This is the date and time when the entry was created or last modified. If the entry was modified, the Created by field shows a different date and time.

  Note: The creation and modification dates, IDs and authors are updated automatically, but the Subject, Domain and Note can be changed in the corresponding fields.

  Important: The Project, Domain, Subject, and Client properties are inherited from the project if you are editing the term base entry within a project (for example, when adding new terms from the translation grid). Inheriting means that memoQ fills in these fields from the details of the project, but you can change them after this.

• Image: One image illustrating the term base entry. For example, you can include an image of the object represented by the entry.

  See also: For more information on adding and editing entry-level meta-information of term base entries, see these topics: Editing term base entries, Adding a new term pair.

Language-level properties

There is one property that belongs to each language in the term base entry, and not to the whole entry or to a specific term. This is the definition for the entry. You can add one definition per language.

This restriction follows the principle that each entry represents one object or concept. This means that two different terms for a single object – a single term base entry – cannot have different definitions because then they would not belong to the same object or concept. On the other hand, a definition is text, that is, it must be in a particular language – this is why the entry structure allows for one definition in each language of the entry.

Term-level properties

Each term in the term base entry can have a different set of term-level properties.

There are two types of term-level properties:

• Properties that control memoQ's behavior when looking up terms. Such properties determine when a particular term is found and when it is not.
• Properties that provide information on the linguistic characteristics of each term.

Properties that control term lookup and matching

Each term can have prefix matching and case sensitivity properties. In addition, each term can have a 'forbidden' flag.

Matching:

• Fuzzy: Use this value to get hits independently of prefix or suffix matching. In case of German, for instance, you have "Mutter" in your term base. With the Fuzzy setting, it also finds "Mütter". German has a lot of compounds like "Festplattenspeicherplatz". When your term base contains "Festplatte" and "speicher", it will be highlighted in the source cell containing the word "Festplattenspeicherplatz".
• 50% prefix: Use this value to set the prefix matching sensitivity of the selected term base entry as permissive. This is the default setting. In case of project memoQ will find both project and projects, but it will not find project-specific.
• Exact: Use this value to set the prefix matching sensitivity of the selected term base entry to insensitve. In case of project memoQ will find project but it will not find projects and project-specific.
• Custom: Use this value to allow wildcards in the term base. Use the pipe (|) to specify the beginning of a variable part in a word, or use the asterisk (*) to specify that anything can come after the last character. If your term is Wassert|urm, memoQ will find Wasserturm and Wassertürme but it will not find Wasserschutz. You can enter several words with pipes and asterisks. For example bankovn|í operac|e will retrieve bankovních operací and bankovními operacemi as well.

  Important: Regardless of the settings, memoQ will not find any hits where the selected term base entry is not at the start of the expression, i.e. it is not a prefix of the expression.

Case sensitivity:

• Yes: Use this value to set the case sensitivity of the selected term base entry to sensitive. The term can contain small caps, capital letters or both. Later it will be offered as a translation result only if the same word, strictly typed in the very same way, occurs in the source document. For example, if you create a new term base entry for the name Will, it is worth setting its case sensitivity to Yes as you probably do not want it as a translation result every time a segment is written in future tense.  
• Permissive: memoQ will be sensitive to capital letters only. Uppercase letters in the term must be uppercase in the text, too, otherwise memoQ will not return a match. On the other hand, lowercase letters in the term will be matched by uppercase or lowercase letters, memoQ will not be sensitive there. For example, if the term base contains the term 'ALPAC', the text must also contain 'ALPAC' to receive a match. However, if the term base contains the term 'Alpac', the text can be 'ALPAC', 'Alpac', 'AlPac' etc., as long as the initial A is in uppercase: 'alpac' will not match.  
• No: Use this value to set the case sensitivity of the selected term base entry to insensitive. No matter how the term is typed in the source text, the results will include the same term written either in small caps or in capital letters, or both. Case is simply not relevant with this setting.

  Forbidden term: You can make a term 'forbidden'. A forbidden term indicates how a term should not be translated. It makes sense to add target-language terms to an entry and make them forbidden. If a source term is set to forbidden, it will not appear on the Translation results pane. If a target term is set to forbidden, it will appear on the Translation results pane in black. The use of forbidden terms can automatically be checked for.

Properties that provide information

• Example: Use this field to give a usage example for the term. This is usually a phrase or a sentence containing the term.
• Part of speech: You can indicate if a term is a noun, an adjective, and adverb, a verb or belongs to any other parts of speech.
• Gender: You can indicate if a term is masculine, feminine, or neutral
• Number: You can indicate if a term is in singular or plural.