Translation memory

A translation memory (TM) is a database that stores "segments", which can be sentences, paragraphs or sentence-like units (headings, titles or elements in a list) that have previously been translated, in order to aid human translators. The translation memory stores the source text and its corresponding translation in language pairs called “translation units”. Individual words are handled by terminology bases and are not within the domain of TM.

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Software programs that use translation memories are sometimes known as translation memory managers (TMM) or translation memory systems (TM systems, not to be confused with a translation management system (TMS), which is another type of software focused on managing the process of translation).

Translation memories are typically used in conjunction with a dedicated computer-assisted translation (CAT) tool, word processing program, terminology management systems, multilingual dictionary, or even raw machine translation output.

Research indicates that many companies producing multilingual documentation are using translation memory systems. In a survey of language professionals in 2006, 82.5% out of 874 replies confirmed the use of a TM.^[1] Usage of TM correlated with text type characterised by technical terms and simple sentence structure (technical, to a lesser degree marketing and financial), computing skills, and repetitiveness of content.^[1]