Translation Memory (TM):

Every CAT Tool has a Translation Memory (TM) to save and update the translations. The TM is a linguistic database and it saves the source text, target text and few parameters. These saved translations are used/reused in future projects. They also allow to refer an entire sentence or one or many words in TM.

Let us see an example:

Source (English): This is my computer.

Target (French): C’est mon ordinateur.

Now, the TM saves these two segments besides the parameters like creation date, creation time. TM ==> This is my computer + C’est mon ordinateur + parameters

Now, these saved segments can be reused in future translations.

It is to be noted well that saving the translations and reusing them is one of the main reasons of using a CAT TOOL.

Segmentation:

Almost all CAT TOOLS certainly have the segmentation and its rules. So, what is segmentation?

Segmentation is the process of dividing a paragraph or a large text into a smaller unit called “segment”.

A segment may be a sentence or few words or one word.

Why do we need to segment the paragraphs or bigger texts?

Answer: CAT TOOLs create segments and provide them for translation to the translator.  It is always better to work on a single “segment” instead of a bigger paragraph. 

There are two types of segmentation in CAT TOOLS:

• Paragraph-based segmentation
• Sentence-based segmentation

Some CAT TOOLS offer you the possibility to choose between these two types.

Some even offer the possibility of defining your own segmentation rules.

Paragraph-based segmentation:

The bigger text for translation is supplied as a paragraph in CAT TOOLS for translation or review. This segmentation is used specifically in some situations. The paragraph-based segment is supplied as 1 segment and the translator works on this segment.