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Dictionary limitations

Understand the limitations of the dictionaries and their terms.

Consider the following limitations when creating dictionaries and terms.
  • The name of the dictionary cannot contain the following symbols: /:*?\"<>|$@ orwhitespaces.
  • Dictionary terms cannot contain the following symbols: &:< >.
  • Each dictionary term is limited to 255 characters.
  • No language validation is done on the terms added to a dictionary.
  • Common nouns that have more than a 1-1 translation should not be included in a dictionary, as this can result in mistranslations. Context-dependent words should not be added to a dictionary.
  • A dictionary term should not contain multiple variants of the source term separated by a slash. For example, adding the English source term shareholder/stockholder with the French translation actionnaire to a dictionary will not result in the desired output. Instead, create separate entries with the different variants.
  • Similarly, do no include several translations separated by a slash for one source term. For example, adding the French source term actionnaire with the English translation shareholder/stockholder will result in the source term always bing translated as shareholder/stockholder. In such cases, choose only one preferred translation.
  • Spelling mistakes should be normally avoided in the dictionary terms. However, if you are aware of usual misspelled words in the content that you will process, you may want to consider adding such words to the dictionary to ensure that they are properly translated.
  • Terms included in the dictionary are translated as is: they are not automatically inflected for person, number, or gender, unless fluent terminology is used.
  • Words that are already correctly translated by the machine translation engine should not be included in a dictionary.
  • If the same term is added to the dictionary multiple times, the entry will be uploaded only once.