The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2020 - 37

capabilities, I don't think I would be
writing this article. I would probably still
be copy-and-pasting "covidiot" into my
web browser's search box.
When the research/translation phase
is done, I save the target files and paste
them into the master Excel spreadsheet
containing the glossary. After a little
maintenance (checking for possible
duplicates, implementing changes to
previously created term pairs based on
new research), the glossary is ready for
converting and publishing.
Excel spreadsheets, although a
convenient intermediate step in glossary
creation, are not, in my opinion, good
to use as actual glossaries. We want the
terms from the glossary to be offered
to us consistently and effortlessly as
suggestions while we translate. Excel
cannot do that for us. That's why I always
convert them to termbase files to be used
in CAT tools. The universal .tbx format I
publish enables sharing across tools and,
for my own use, I convert the glossary
from .xlsx to .sdltb (this is a termbase
file format used in SDL MultiTerm,
the terminology tool of SDL Trados
Studio). To perform these conversions,
I use a super handy tool called Glossary
Converter.7 (This tool is tied to SDL
Trados Studio and SDL MultiTerm and is
not a standalone application.)

PUBLISHING THE GLOSSARY
I have a website for my translation
business and publish the glossary in the
blog section. I described my wishes to
my "web guy," Teo, and let him do the
rest. While I have designed, built, and
managed my own websites in the past, I
realized over time that it's best to focus
on my core linguistic abilities and leave
this type of work to experts. Yes, it does
cost money (I actually ended up spending
several hundred dollars to publish this
free glossary) but it also saves a lot of
time and frustration. Besides, I'm sure we
would all appreciate it if Teo sought help
from professional translators when he
needs something translated. It feels good
to be a part of an ecosystem of experts!
I announced the glossary on several
translation discussion groups and on social
media. I don't have much of a following
on Twitter so the response there was a bit
underwhelming, but the response from
the translation groups and from LinkedIn
www.atanet.org

Figure 4: Working on language equivalents in SDL Trados Studio
was very good. I saw my hitherto sleepy
website go from single-digit visitorship in
most months (mostly myself and Teo, I
suspect), to around a thousand new visitors
after my glossary was published.

HOW TO USE THE GLOSSARY IF CZECH
(OR ENGLISH) ISN'T YOUR THING
Chances are very good Czech is not one
of your working languages. I hope this
article might encourage you to delve into
glossary building beyond the obligatory
Excel spreadsheet or (the horror!) jotting
down terms in a notepad or (should I
even go there?) on sticky notes destined
to peel off the wall behind your monitor
and fall into a dust-bunny inhabited
terminology limbo.
If you're interested in creating your
own COVID-19 glossary with English (or
Czech) as one of the languages, you can
take my glossary as a starting point. Just
get rid of the Czech (or English) and use
the resulting monolingual list of terms as
a starting point to provide your language
equivalents. To make this easy, I have
published the Excel spreadsheet with my
glossary on my blog as well.

LET'S KICK THIS PANDEMIC BY
WORKING TOGETHER
This is not a great time we're going
through right now. We do have, however,
a chance to reassess and to come closer
together in response to the challenges we
face. My glossary is a tiny attempt to go in
that direction. I can see a culture of more
robust sharing and participation emerging

in our profession and I strongly hope this
is also a trend for humanity as a whole.
NOTES
1	

You can access the blog at
www.czechtrans.com/blog.

2	

https://eur-lex.europa.eu

3	

https://terminotix.com/index.asp?lang=en

4	

Special footnote for my children (on the
off chance they ever read this). Okay, this
does sound a bit nerdy.

5	

www.sdltrados.com

6	

www.intelliwebsearch.com

7	

https://appstore.sdl.com/language/app/gloss

Tomáš Barendregt is a
medical and pharmaceutical
translator working in Czech and
English. He has over 25 years
of experience as a freelance
and in-house translator and
interpreter. Tomáš lives in the Driftless area
of southwestern Wisconsin, an ideal place for
someone living the dual life of family man and
ice-hockey enthusiast. He has lived half his life in
the U.S. and half in the Czech Republic. He works
as a Czech localization specialist at Blueprint
Technologies. Contact: tomas@czechtrans.com.
Remember, if you have any ideas and/or
suggestions regarding helpful resources or tools
you would like to see featured, please e-mail Jost
Zetzsche at jzetzsche@internationalwriters.com.
American Translators Association

37
http://www.czechtrans.com/blog https://eur-lex.europa.eu https://www.terminotix.com/index.asp?lang=en http://www.sdltrados.com http://www.intelliwebsearch.com https://appstore.sdl.com/language/app/gloss http://www.atanet.org
The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2020

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