Terminology QA: too many false positives
Thread poster: Michael Davies
Michael Davies
Michael Davies  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 15:07
Member (2009)
Danish to English
+ ...
Oct 8, 2020

One of my customers uses Memsource for all translation work - I use the desktop client working on a downloaded MXLIFF file. When the actual translation work is done, I run Memsource's QA, including the terminology check. This is mandatory as a condition for completing the job.

However, the QA flags up a huge number of false positive terminology errors (as much as 95% of the "errors") - many of them obviously wrong - it seems that the filter is set so low that even, if only the first
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One of my customers uses Memsource for all translation work - I use the desktop client working on a downloaded MXLIFF file. When the actual translation work is done, I run Memsource's QA, including the terminology check. This is mandatory as a condition for completing the job.

However, the QA flags up a huge number of false positive terminology errors (as much as 95% of the "errors") - many of them obviously wrong - it seems that the filter is set so low that even, if only the first 2-3 characters of a much longer word match something in the terminology base, it is flagged as an error. This is a real time thief since it takes considerable time to 'ignore' all the false positives - they cannot be blanket ignored since there are invariably a (very) few real errors, which, of course, must be corrected before delivery.

I have drawn my customer's attention to this issue but have, so far, not received a reply and there is no change in the number of false positives.

When I work with Trados Studio (for other customers), I set the terminology match to 85%, which results in only a handful of false positives. Does anyone know if my customer is able to set the terminology match percent in the server version of Memsource in order to reduce the number of false postives?
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Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 17:07
English to Russian
You can deselect the Terminology checkbox Oct 8, 2020

On QA tab, there is a dropdown list where you can select checkboxes for the scope of QA. Just deselect the Terminology checkbox and press the same button that invokes the list. I always do that for exactly the same reason.

This picture shows this item selected: https://www.memsource.com/uploads/2017/01/Partial_QA2.png
You need to deselect it.
Then press R
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On QA tab, there is a dropdown list where you can select checkboxes for the scope of QA. Just deselect the Terminology checkbox and press the same button that invokes the list. I always do that for exactly the same reason.

This picture shows this item selected: https://www.memsource.com/uploads/2017/01/Partial_QA2.png
You need to deselect it.
Then press Run, not Project default. If you press 'Project default', it will select all checkboxes including Terminology.

[Edited at 2020-10-08 16:49 GMT]
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Michael Davies
Michael Davies  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 15:07
Member (2009)
Danish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Deselecting the terminology checkbox in the QA menu Oct 9, 2020

Thanks for your reply, Stepan. I am already aware of the possibility of deselecting any (or all) of the checkboxes in the QA menu and make use of this function for other parameters during the translation process.

However, I do not see this as being useful for terminology since there may (amongst all the very many false positive terminology 'errors') be a few actual errors, which need to be corrected. Deselecting 'terminology' would mean that these are not caught - and will be actual
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Thanks for your reply, Stepan. I am already aware of the possibility of deselecting any (or all) of the checkboxes in the QA menu and make use of this function for other parameters during the translation process.

However, I do not see this as being useful for terminology since there may (amongst all the very many false positive terminology 'errors') be a few actual errors, which need to be corrected. Deselecting 'terminology' would mean that these are not caught - and will be actual faults in the delivered translation. I'm sure neither my direct customer nor the end client would be happy with this!
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Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Germany
Local time: 15:07
English to German
In memoriam
Terminology QA is a tradeoff Oct 9, 2020

Michael, first of all, are you aware that you can ignore warnings "in batch" in Memsource? You can mark a whole page or more of errors, click ignore on the first one and they are all ignored. That saves some time compared to endlessly clickering down the list. Of course, it would be even better if the client would not insist on manually ignoring all the warnings.

Anyway, it remains a problem that terminology QA creates an enormous amount of false alarms. This is even worse in Englis
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Michael, first of all, are you aware that you can ignore warnings "in batch" in Memsource? You can mark a whole page or more of errors, click ignore on the first one and they are all ignored. That saves some time compared to endlessly clickering down the list. Of course, it would be even better if the client would not insist on manually ignoring all the warnings.

Anyway, it remains a problem that terminology QA creates an enormous amount of false alarms. This is even worse in English to German, in most cases the percentage of false alarms is more like 99.9% (mostly due to the compounds and grammar variations in German that no QA is able to recognize). That renders this kind of QA nearly useless. I believe that you have to work with your client to improve this. Make it clear to the client that a term base is only valuable if it is well maintained. For example, by removing trivial term pairs from the term base. I can't speak for your language pair but in EN>DE it often makes no sense to create terms for verbs, since verb forms are manifold in German and will not be recognized, and also since using the same word over and over is considered bad style in German. Terminology should focus on technical terms where variation in the target is absolutely not allowed.

Of course, in many projects a term base is used more as a reminder, as a source of translation suggestions, rather than a "hard" terminology rule. But in that case, you can (and should) simply disregard the terminology QA.
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Wolfgang Schoene
Ana Kardum
 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 17:07
English to Russian
actual errors Oct 9, 2020

Well... I just use (or not use for a purpose) terms when I translate. You can always see them highlighted. If I accepted and used a term, there is a reason for that. If I skipped a term, there is a reason for that again. Therefore, when I run QA, I definitely know that I used terminology correctly. However, I admit this may not work for other language pairs.
Also, check if your termbase contains Fuzzy or Exact match type terms. Select any term and press 'edit' either for its source or targ
... See more
Well... I just use (or not use for a purpose) terms when I translate. You can always see them highlighted. If I accepted and used a term, there is a reason for that. If I skipped a term, there is a reason for that again. Therefore, when I run QA, I definitely know that I used terminology correctly. However, I admit this may not work for other language pairs.
Also, check if your termbase contains Fuzzy or Exact match type terms. Select any term and press 'edit' either for its source or target. In a browser window, find the Match type section and check if it is Fuzzy or Exact. If you client set all terms to Exact match type, then ask them to convert all terms to Fuzzy.


[Edited at 2020-10-09 13:48 GMT]
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Terminology QA: too many false positives






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