When you translate, you may occasionally need to check a word, want to verify whether a word is used in a certain context, or see how similar phrases have been translated elsewhere. Tackling unfamiliar words is one of the biggest challenges for translators, but there are plenty of free online resources to help you, including glossaries, bilingual dictionaries, translator forums, corpora, and more. The list below is not exhaustive, and there will likely be resources specifically for your language, so please let us know if you have good resources you want to share!
Practical tips
- This glossary of Cochrane terms is a good starting point for translators who are new to Cochrane. It explains methodological terminology commonly used in Cochrane Reviews.
- When you look up a word in a bilingual dictionary or other resources, make sure you choose the right translation from the list of possible meanings – many terms can be ambiguous, and one wrong word can change the entire meaning of a translated sentence.
- If you don’t know which one is the correct option, try and check more than one source to make sure you have found the correct equivalent in your language.
- Remember: Medical conditions or treatments are not always applicable or well known in certain countries and languages, so you may need to put them into context and give an explanation. If an English term has no equivalent in your language, you could, for example, keep the English term and add an explanation in your language in brackets afterwards, or the other way round.
- For all of the resources listed below, please remember that anyone can post information on the Internet, so assess the source, and when in doubt ask for someone else’s opinion or try and verify it with another resource to be sure.
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