Term bases in memoQ

Term bases are terminology databases used in CAT tools. memoQ term bases have some unique characteristics which, if mastered, make them more useful than similar features found in most other translation environments.

A term base in memoQ is like a glossary or a dictionary but with considerable additional options. One of the most useful of these is "forbidden terms", a concept introduced by Wordfast in the early 2000s. This means that not only the "best" or alternative choices for translating a term can be recorded, but also the "bad choices" to be avoided generally or in a specific project. It is possible to recognize these forbidden terms by their black marking in the memoQ translation results and to detect their use when a QA check is run.

To get the most benefit from terminology recorded in memoQ, it is particularly important to understand term entry properties and how to optimize these generally for a particular language and specifically for individual terms.

A memoQ project can use any number of term bases though attaching too many to a project can slow down response times considerably. Each term base attached to a project is given a rank, and this ranking order can be changed on the Term bases page of the open project. These changes are local, so in memoQ server projects, changes in rank made by one individual do not affect the ranking seen by others. However, changes made in the Project Management dialog for the server project will affect the rankings seen by everyone in the project.

Terms can be added in parallel to any number of selected term bases at the same time, and special keyboard shortcuts are available to enable terms to be sent to any of the first nine ranked term bases attached to a project.