A question to fellow Multiterm users: I am about to start a termbase that can potentially get huge in the future. Should I assume it will be easy to split it in half into separate category groups (say, T1: A–L and T2: M–Z) or languages, or should I rather create 2 or more separate termbases in advance to avoid any possible bugs/problems and spare myself the process?
Also, what is the estimate for a number of entries that would make for a huge termbase & a cumbersome translation process?
MultiTerm has a file size limit, and therefore a limit for the number of terms it can handle. The number of entries depends on the data, e.g. number of languages and fields, but as a ballpark number, 500,000 terms is the limit. That's over all languages, so for a bilingual termbase, 250,000 entries. Sounds like a big number, but with the IATE termbase, you can easily reach it.
Marta Kiezik
While we can support many scenario's in MultiTerm, it can get complicated given its tight dependency on the term base definition structure. Followed by any terms you may wish to cross reference.
That said I always advocate to start simple and adapt as you need. Having two termbases is not my personal view of ideal.
So I would say start off with 1 termbase. As if and when you decide its best to split, then by using the Glossary Converter it could help split. For this there would be a key requirement to have clearly defined term domains/category identification.
I hope this gives you some peace of mind
Lyds
Thanks for your contribution, Gerhard. The numbers give me some idea and my anxiety is capped for now.
Hello Lydia, and thanks very much for your reply! I think that I will go down the path of least resistance and just create another base (part two) in the case I hit the limit in the future. At least this is what agencies seem to prefer.
For future reference, does having a few languages in the base, with some of them having additional categories like 'Note' while others do not, correspond to the idea of clearly defined terms?
There's definitely more peace of mind with more information. Thank you again.
Hi Marta Kiezik
When you ask
does having a few languages in the base, with some of them having additional categories like 'Note' while others do not, correspond to the idea of clearly defined terms?
That is totally fine. The field of note will be available to all languages and its your discretion when you apply it. In fact with MultiTerm you dont see empty fields only those that have values in it. So if DE has a note it will be seen. If ES does not have a note, you wont see it.
When I mentioned clearly defined structure, Im thinking of scenarios like this:
2 Excel lists.
Excel 1 has 3 terms definitions (fields)
With 2 columns for Term 1 and Term 2
Summary: Term 1, Term 2, Category note, Category 1, Category 2
Excel 2 has 9 term definitions (fields)
1 columns called Term with | used to separate terms
Summary: Term 1, NOTE, Category 1, Category 2, ...
They over lap by 1 category, however where they overlap is were there is often issues.
See:
Excel 1 has note where as
Excel 2 has NOTE
The inconsistent format of "note/NOTE" means you cant easily merge or manage the terms and arguably your terms definitions are not clearly defined.
Other complications is when you manage synonyms vs term entries.
Is it 2 term entries for the word Apple (fruit or tech) as supported in Excel 1.
Or 1 term entry which supports 2 terms (fruit | tech) as supported in Excel 2.
Another area to be wary of
I hope this added info give you peace of mind
Lyds
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