Feb 28, 2012

memoQuickie: prefix matching for terms

Prefix matching is a powerful memoQ termbase feature which adds lookup flexibility for many languages. Possible settings are
  • Yes - matches any prefix occurrence
  • No - exact match only
  • 50% minimum
  • Custom - for use with wildcards (pipe character and asterisk)
Defaults can be defined when creating the termbase. Below is an example of four term entries followed and segments with various matches (displayed to the right of the segments). Note how the match patterns fit the definitions above.




 


Note that in Segment 7, only one match for Mann is found, the one with prefix matching set to "Yes", because Mann has fewer than 50% of the characters of Mannequin. In Segment 3, only the entry with the asterisk wildcard at the end matches. Why are there not more matches (like Mann in Segments 1, 2, 3 and 6)? memoQ looks for the longest possible match in the termbase.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Kevin,

    When I translated from English into my language (Serbian) which has 7 cases and different verb forms, I tended to use quick term entry function only (to 'cut corners'). Just before running the QA, I used to go into the termbase and edit the entries (adding the pipe character and asterisks where appropriate). All looked fine until I ran the QA - memoQ reported that the vast majority of terms were missing. Reason: it did not save the previously made changes. Any idea how to solve this?

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  2. @Čedomir: The only thing I can think of is that you didn't replace the original entries with the ones using wildcards. Try a small test (like this one), but before doing QA, look at the database entries (in Termbases: Edit mode) to ensure that your wildcards are in fact there. I have never seen them *not* be saved unless I wasn't paying attention somehow myself.

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  3. Hi Kevin,

    I tried two different approaches, of which one worked. I used to customize entries directly on the list, while I should have done it in the lower third of the monitor (first click on the term and then change it in the designated window below, NOT by double-clicking the term on the list and changing it there). Although, changing the terms prefixes directly on the list seemed to work, memoQ did not save the changes unless they were made in the lower part of the window. I'd love to see that change in the future...

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  4. Ah! I think my brain was switched off - I was thinking about the edit window which opens from the context menu of the results list in the translation view. Of course you were talking about the edit view for the full termbase. That's what comes of my habit of always inserting these wildcards as I work and add terms. (This approach also improves matching during the work.)

    In any case, I just tried it in my current version of memoQ, and although it appeared that the changes were made in the edit list, these were in fact all lost when I closed the termbase. As you found, only changes made in the lower part of the term editing window of the termbase editing view are saved! I consider this a serious bug. I hope you have reported this to Kilgray Support.

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