TuMatXa - Translation Memory Repository

Tumatxa is a web-based manager of translation memories. It has been developed by CodeSyntax, a Basque company working in the fields of web applications and language technologies.

What are translation memories?

Translation Memory or TM is a technology widely used in professional translation and localization (unlike machine translation). The idea is simpe, units or sentences from the original text and its translation are stored aligned into a database. When the system happens to find the same sentence (or a similar one), it would propose the previous translation.

These are some of the most popular TM software programmes: Trados, Djvu, Wordfast, Transit, or Translat. The standard for mempory exchange among those applications is called TMX. Some resources online:

Translationzone.com. Portal set up by Trados, probably the best known system.
TMX, the standard.
Proz.com a commercial site that works as a community site for translators.
Lantra-L, a mailing list for translators.

How dows Tumatxa work?

Tumatxa has been designed to aid in the process of translation. It lets translator and institutions that manage big volumes of translated text manage memories, terminology and translations on a web-based environment, overcoming restrictions posed by generators of TM. Networks of translators have it easier now to work together and share their efforts. Memories stored at Tumatxa can even be consulted (to clear terminology doubts, for instance) without specific TM software, just making online searches.

A free Zope product

Tumatxa is free software. You can download it here. But, BE AWARE, this is not a desktop application for the average Internet user or translator. This is a web application, it runs on the Zope web application server on machines with Linux as its OS. Zope expertise is needed in order to install it on a WWW site or an Intranet.

Features

The main feature of Tumatxa is its usefulness to manage TMX files, the standard format for translation memory exchange. Tumatxa is fully compatible with Trados when importing and exporting TMX files. When TMX files are uploaded, they become directly searchable and editable. A given memory can be enriched adding new segments (merging it with a new TM file). And the user may search and select several memories, in order to pack them all in one single file and download it. Besides TMX, it also supports the .po file format used by GNU Gettext.

Two demo repositories of this Zope product are available at this site Tumatxa.com, check them and enjoy.

The name

Tumatxa is a Basque-jargon word derived from English too much and meaning cool! or so. TuMatXa also comprises the initials of TMX, the standard for translation memory exchanges.