User Guide

SYSTRAN Desktop 7 User Guide 201
Entry Definition
Canonical Form
Dictionary entries should be in their canonical or natural form, which is dependent on the
language.
• In French, as in most Romance languages, the canonical form of a nominal or adjectival
entry is the masculine singular, while in German it is the Nominative singular (row 1).
• In English, the verb should be entered in the infinitive form (row 2), and should include
the particle “to” (to jump) in the entry.
• In German, nouns are naturally capitalized and should therefore be capitalized in the
dictionary entry (row 1).
• Acronyms (in most cases) should be entered in uppercase (row 3).
UD Entry Example
English
French
Spanish
German
car
voiture
coche
Wagen
to jump
sauter
saltar
springen
CAP
PAC
PAC
GAP
The software will interpret the entry and create a target version that corresponds to the plural,
gender, and other characteristics of the source text.
Use of Uppercase Letters
Uppercase letters should be used only when they are consistent with their native format.
Otherwise, the software interprets the uppercase as an additional linguistic clue.
• The use of uppercase in most languages is an indicator of proper nouns and acronyms.
In English, for example, entries should be in lowercase unless they are proper nouns
(row 1), acronyms (row 4), nationalities (row 2), days, or titles.
• In German, uppercase is required when coding a noun (row 3).
You should not enter a term in uppercase if it can appear in lowercase in some
text.
UD Entry Example
This example shows the English entry in uppercase to tell the translation engine to use
uppercase in the translation. Entries must be in their natural form and, since in English
nationalities and languages are always in uppercase, and they must be entered in the
dictionary in uppercase.
English
French
Spanish
German
John Smith
Jean Dupont
Juan Gomez
Johann Meier
Majorcan
Mallorquin
mallorquín
mallorquinisch