Concordance search

Owned by Damian Rozmiarkowski (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jul 12, 2024 by Damian Rozmiarkowski
5 min read

Introduction

XTM Cloud contains a separate Concordance module:

It is also accessible directly in XTM Workbench as a separate dedicated docked panel:

Apart from that, you can also search for a particular source/target string in a segment directly from the segment context menu in XTM Workbench, once you right-click on that segment.

To see a step-by-step guideline to activating and using Concordance, see How to use Concordance search in XTM Workbench.

How does Concordance search actually work?

Mechanism

You might wonder about the difference between the Concordance search result and the TM search results. This is the explanation.

Although Concordance draws its data from XTM Cloud translation memory, it is a completely separate module, and it works in a different way.

Although Concordance draws its data from XTM Cloud translation memory, it is a completely separate module, and it works in a different way.

Its sole purpose is to give the most accurate results and it does so in the following way:

  1. It searches for a particular expression across the TM database.

  2. It then limits the search results to 50 only, within one language pair.

  3. It rejects all the duplicates among these 50 results.

  4. It displays the best-matched results in the panel, starting from the top.

  5. You can then sort the results by selecting one of the criteria in the Sort by section. When these are used, the results are first sorted by the selected criterion and secondly by the score. The default criterion is Score:

In other words, Concordance displays 50 (source or target) results from the TM (depending on your search criteria) and removes duplicates amongst the displayed phrases.

For example, if you were to have 50 counts of TM:

(English) Alice has a cat. <--> (Polish) Alicja ma kota.

and the 51st TM entry was:

(English) Alice has a cat <--> (Polish) Alicja ma psa.

Keep in mind that this last unique entry might not then be taken into account by the Concordance search.

Restrictions

There are certain limitations associated with using the Concordance search.

  • First of all, it is not possible to save the search criteria on the user level, contrary to, for instance, the terminology module. It means that you need to set up the search criteria from scratch, each and every time you open up the Concordance search panel

  • Secondly, when it comes to a separate Concordance module in the XTM Cloud UI, concordance search can only be set for a concrete language combination(s), i.e. you cannot set up a specific source language without selecting a specific target language. For instance, it is not possible to search for en-US phrases in all available target languages at once, where en-US is the source language. You can only choose from those language combinations, for which some translation memory already exists.

Searching based on matching type

The mechanism described above applies to any search criteria, but you can still set the type of segment to be chosen as a search basis for the requested expression by selecting one of three match types:

  • Broad match → finds segments with any of the words in the search phrase along with other words or characters.

By default, the broad match search engine is used. It applies stemmed forms such as Load balanc, Load balance or Load balancing in the search results for the searched-for phrase: "Load balancing".

  • Phrase match → finds segments that contain the entire searched phrase; the phrase itself, however, does not necessarily have exist as a standalone segment – it can constitute part of bigger text.

  • Exact match → finds segments that only contain the words in the search phrase and in the sequence strictly defined in the search field.

Considering the above, more accurate results might be displayed in the Concordance search by using "Phrase match" or "Exact match" options. The most TM-alike search would be the "Phrase match" option.

You can also choose to perform a Concordance search with source and target language words, or phrases, either in the whole set of TM databases connected to the project (All TM) or just in the Approved TM. Not approved status is displayed as an icon. If you are not sure what the status of the TM search result is, left-click the Metadata column to open a popup with additional details about the segment.

IMPORTANT!

Keep in mind that any translation inserted in a segment in XTM Workbench is saved in the translation memory (TM) right after the linguist leaves the segment, and not only after this translation is confirmed. Therefore, if the search is performed across all translation memory (All TM), the recent translation will also be available in the Concordance.

If you would like to perform a search only across approved translation memory, select the Approved TM option, as shown in the above screenshot.

LSP case: the XTM Cloud UI vs. XTM Workbench

There is a significant difference between the Concordance function in the XTM Cloud UI and the one in XTM Workbench as far as subcontracting is concerned.

Concordance in the XTM Cloud UI only permits searches in the local translation memory, which is the subcontractor's own TM. In other words, if a particular LSP does have access to the Contractor's TM, they will not find it there.

On the other hand, the Concordance function in XTM Workbench can be used to perform searches of this kind across client translation memory data.