The difference between a TM and a Glossary?

The difference between a TM and a Glossary?

A translation memory, or TM for short, is a type of database that is used in software programs designed to aid human translators. A translation memory consists of text segments in a source language and their translations in one or more target languages. These segments can be blocks, paragraphs, sentences or phrases.

Translation memories work best on texts which are highly repetitive, such as technical manuals. They are also helpful for making incremental changes to texts. If a translation memory system is used consistently on appropriate texts over a period of time, it can save localization professionals considerable work.

While a Glossary is a terminology database containing a bilingual list of approved translations keywords and phrases (e.g. corporate and marketing terms), creating glossaries requires little effort while making a big difference in the quality and consistency of the finished translation.

The glossary helps translators to ensure each time a defined key term appears, in any language, it is used consistently and correctly. Moreover, the glossary becomes even more important for consistency if you use more than one translation resource. By helping to eliminate uncertainty in the translation process, the glossary will enforce consistency, shorten the time it takes to translate a document and reduce the overall cost of translation over time.