Hi Remy,

Locking would make handling automatic propagation difficult. It would also make it difficult to go back and make changes during the translation. (For example, if you change your mind about how to translate a term and have to go back and change segments that were previously translated.)

If you can easily tag the segments in the source file, or if those particular segments can be identified somehow in the sdlxliff file (e.g. by regex), it might be easier just to translate as usual -- using a project TM.

When you are finished, you could filter the segments using the tags you put in the source segment or by regex, etc. (however you can identify those segments) and change their status from "Translated" to something that is not otherwise used (e.g. "Translation rejected").

Changing their status allows you to make sure they are not included when the master TM is updated. You might even be able to use SDLToolkit to batch change the segment status (e.g. using regex) when dealing with large files or a large number of files.

Best regards,
Bruce Campbell
ASAP Language Services

Hi Remy,

You mentioned that the "segments could be marked in the source XML file". I am not sure what you meant, but you could mark them by placing an otherwise unused text tag like "TTTTT " at the beginning of each of those segments in the source file. That would make it easy to translate everything normally into a project TM. Then, when finished translating, regex filter on source segments with "^TTTTT ", change their status to "Translation rejected" and then update the main TM.

If you instead want to label the segments as you are translating, you could have a small AutoHotkey macro to add "TTTTT " to the start of the target for each segment you did not want in the main TM. Then, when finished translating, regex filter on target segments with "^TTTTT ", use a global replace to eliminate the "TTTTT ", change the status of the segments to "Translation rejected" and then update the main TM.

If you don't want to use a project TM, then you could mark your main TM so that it is not updated, and use a temporary TM to collect all the translations as you go. That would allow you to translate normally, with the segments having "TTTTT " at the beginning added to the temporary TM. Then, when finished translating, filter the segments, eliminate the leading "TTTTT ", change their status to "Translation rejected", mark the main TM so it *will* now be updated, and update the main TM. If you want to share segments with other people, using a shared temporary TM like this might be an easy way to manage that.

This involves quite a few steps, so Paul's idea might be easier. There is, however, one part of Paul's post that I am unclear on. He mentions that locked segments can be excluded when updating the TM or finalizing a project, but I don't see that option in Studio 2017. That is why I suggest changing the status of the segments to "Translation rejected", as they are (by default) not included when the main TM is updated. Perhaps exclusion based on locking was introduced in Studio 2019.

In addition, as I mentioned earlier, Paul's idea of locking segments during the course of translation creates problems if you use propagation or want to change previously translated segments that were locked. Using a text tag like "TTTTT " lets you translate (almost) normally, but the trade-off is that you have a more complicated series of actions to perform when finished.

It is easier, of course, if you use a text tag in the source segment, as you don't have to worry about deleting the tag in the target segment. You can also check the main TM after-the-fact or periodically for segments containing the text tag that have accidentally been added to the main TM (i.e. someone forgets to change their status to "Translation rejected") and delete them from the main TM.

Best regards,
Bruce Campbell
ASAP Language Services