Every field in the world, whether it is a medical field or legal field, has its terminology that cannot be understood by the layman. The research and development that results in the emergence of innovative products have also increased the significance of terminology management.
From technical products to medical devices, the terminology is used in their user manuals and training material to make consumers understand the working of the equipment. Suppose you want to launch medical software in a foreign market.
The first step in penetrating the foreign market is to speak with customers in a language that they understand. However, the language translation is not enough because languages in different countries are spoken according to regional and cultural nuances. Here comes the need for medical software Localization services.
Localization services will make your medical device resonate with the market. It is very important to keep consistency in the content throughout the translation services.
For this purpose, you need to prepare the terminology management. In terminology management, you need to come up with termbases and glossaries and provide them to translators.
If you are unable to provide terminology management to the translators then it will make the translator confused which will lead to ambiguous translation services. On the other hand, if the translator is provided by the terminology management system, then he must check the context of the word.
Therefore, it is better to use the context of the terms in a terminology management system.
Determine Terminology in the Concept Stage
Generally, you must think about the terminology when you are in the developing stage of the project. In this way, all the people included in the project stage can know about the concept of the project and they will try to be consistent in content.
The people are developers, technical writers, training staff, marketers, linguists, and QA testers should be involved in determining the terminologies.
Each one of them has a different viewpoint, brainstorming is done, and they come up with words that make sense in the content and to the people.
How to Develop Terminology
Many latest tools can be used for tracking the different terms. You don’t need to use a fancy tool, instead use an Excel spreadsheet. It is required to write metadata describing what should be included in terminology translation.
Moreover, you can take the assistance of ISO 1087-1:2000 for terminology management. According to this standard, the requirements for terminology translation are
- Entering the number
- Use preferred Terms
- Chosen terms
- Definition
- Notes
- Examples
Don’t forget to use context. Context is very important for translators to understand the terms properly, especially in the medical field.
In this way, translators can provide impeccable medical terminology translation. You can also use a different type of metadata that depends upon the source material and your industry. Some important things that need to be include are
- Different parts of Speech
- Comments
- Status
- Target Audience
- Software application
- Protocol
- Different parts
- The presence of the product
- Graphics.
Include Your Medical Translation Agencies
If you know that products that you are developing are excellent, then try to extract terms from them. Another method is to take the assistance of medical translation services in developing the glossary.
For this option, you need to coordinate with a medical translation provider and collaborate with internal teams. Let’s dive into the workflow.
- The medical translation agency can provide you with the glossary depending upon the extracting terms from the candidates, and they also add metadata.
- They will send you the initial glossary to prove it and give feedback.
- The translators will translate different terminologies.
- The medical translation agency will send the translated terminology to in-country reviewers (ICRs) to approve them and to give their feedback.
- Eventually, they will change the terminologies into a term-base and distribute it to the translation team.
Start Developing the Terminology in the Middle of the Project
Let’s say you have started the translation project but didn’t work on terminology. What will you do? Panic not. It’s never too late to start, however you have to work harder.
Here you need to develop the glossary of terms with a medical translation agency. After that, the translation company will check the translation memory to check the consistency of the translated content.
Translation memory consists of already translated terms, translators will validate the translations then get approval from the IRS
Wrapping Up
Any mistranslation in the medical field will have havoc results on human life. For seamless medical translation services, you must start with self-assessment. You must find out which terminologies; you need to work on and how to manage them.
Which tools can be use, how will you communicate with the internal team and translation agency,you must keep beacuse all the stakeholders on the same page before authorizing any content .
The terminology management system plays a significant role in producing state-of-the-art translation services and it provides a solid platform for consistent and accurate translation services.
