Customize your translations with DeepL glossary
DeepL glossary ensures accuracy and consistency, perfect for simple and complex projects—from marketing assets to technical materials. Set specific translations for certain words and phrases to align with industry jargon and boost your teams' global communication effectiveness. And with DeepL Pro, businesses can make the most of DeepL glossary.
What makes DeepL glossary unique?
DeepL glossary is unique from others on the market because our approach is more advanced—using word structure and grammar to intelligently adapt translations.
In comparison to a find-and-replace tool, our glossary can perform morphological adaptations that account for case, gender, and tense. And that's not all—here are some additional reasons for using our glossary:
Deliver a consistent experience
Our translation glossary helps keep technical terminology, product names, and company-specific phrases consistent across multiple languages, ensuring cohesive communication internally and externally
Translate faster and more efficiently
With a predefined list of translations for specific terms, your team saves time and money in the long run by removing the need to repeatedly translate the same terms
Enhance accuracy
Automatically applying glossary terms significantly improves translation precision, ensuring that your internal and external messaging remains consistent across multiple languages
Benefit from the 100+ language combinations
Create glossaries with different language combinations to accelerate your communication across the globe seamlessly
Keep your data secure
Our commitment to ultimate data security includes proprietary data centers, adherence to the highest certification and compliance standards, robust data encryption protocols, and a strict policy to never use Pro customer data to train our models.
Share your glossaries
Shared glossaries are useful when collaborating with different teams on a project, as they increase productivity. All those involved in the translation process can use the same terminology, which helps maintain consistency.
Create or manage glossaries via DeepL API
API support makes it possible to build glossary functionality into your products, further streamlining the translation process across your applications.
To create or manage glossaries via our API, create or log in to a DeepL API Free or Pro account and specify the glossary_id parameter in your translation requests.
You can browse our Help Center for a quick reference and commonly asked questions related to the glossary function in our API.
How to get started
Web translator and desktop apps
To get started using a glossary, simply click on any word or phrase in the translation. DeepL will provide a list of alternatives for you to choose from.
Selecting one will prompt DeepL to ask if you'd like to always use this specific word as the translation in the future.
Manually add custom glossaries
You can also manually enter glossary additions by clicking the “Glossary” button at the top of the target language box. Moreover, Advanced and Ultimate users can upload their own CSV file glossaries.
Did you know that DeepL's glossary feature is smart? It adapts terms to the context of your translation and can even restructure entire sentences for better results.
To find out more about DeepL glossary, check out this resource.
Case study: Deutsche Bahn and DeepL
See how Deutsche Bahn uses DeepL glossary to customize its translations.
What makes a good glossary for localization?
To kickstart your journey towards crafting a tailored terminology, combine the following elements into a single document:
Brand-specific terms, such as company jargon or product and service names
Industry-specific terms
Audience-specific terms
Terms that should not be translated
In addition, it's essential to tap into your internal resources. Engage with your sales and marketing teams to enrich the collection of terms you include, so you have a good base of terms for creating your own customized glossary.
Commonly asked questions
If you’ve used different solutions before, you might have come across different expressions for similar functions, such as term base (or terminology database), a dictionary, or a translation memory. In some solutions, these cover some of the functions our glossary offers; in others, they are a separate function with a different purpose.
Translation memories are databases that Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tools build during translations being made by a human translator. The CAT tool checks for similarities in any new translation project a translator is working on, and “reminds” the translator of similar segments they might have translated previously. This ensures consistency and expresses the translator’s own voice throughout a project.
A glossary is a list of set terms, such as brand terms or internal terminology, that can then be used in translation tools to make sure that a defined term is always translated the same way. They also often require less effort to build and maintain.
A term base is just another term for a glossary. Some term bases allow the addition of definitions, explanations, or other context for translators; others simply contain the expressions in various language pairs.
Custom models can be trained on a company's existing translation memory and used for customization. They can usually pick up terminology and styles, as well as be re-trained based on translation outputs. However, results can be less predictable.
In comparison, glossaries require less time and effort to manage, are much more predictable, and can be tailored to the individual needs of a specific team or department.
Need glossaries for your company?
If you're in need of unparalleled translation quality, robust data security measures, stringent GDPR compliance, and tailored precision with customized glossaries, then explore our plans in more detail and find the perfect solution for your needs.
Should your requirements require an extensive array of glossaries, don't hesitate to contact us directly for personalized assistance.
