When faced with an unusal set of terminology, such as a report on milk machines at a milk farm, it often helps to stop and spend 10 minutes in preparation before we start the translation.

Go to the web and look up some milking machines.  Find out the terms. If the paper is from German into English, then look up some German milking sites too.

If the company featured in the project has a website, look at their website.  If it is a contract between IBM and The ABC Electronics Company, look up both of those companies' websites.  A wealth of their terminilogy is just sitting there.

Make a list of at least a dozen new terms before you start.  This will help you get the whole meaning of the contract when you start.

I have found that google IMAGES is a tremendous help.  A few years ago, I could not find the meaning for a specific word... which turned out to be an electronic pager. It wasn't in any dictionary for my language. I found it by typing the term into Google Images, and voilà ! there were dozens of electronic pagers nicely photographed.

But don't assume everything is on the net.  Occasionally paper dictionaries are hiding some really good terms and examples, especially if your work is from decades ago.  In a recent court case, I had to translate several contracts from 1977 and 1978.  The terms were a bit outdated.  I found good language resources in some old versions of published dictionaries. 

by Nicholas Shu, Toronto Canada

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