Uploading memory files to a Translation Memory allows Lilt to better find translation matches and provide translation suggestions within Lilt Translate. This article walks through uploading memory files to new or existing Translation Memories.

All the Translation Memories you are the owner of are located under the Memories tab on the My memories page.

Files can only be uploaded to existing Translation Memories. If you want to upload a memory file to an empty Translation Memory, you'll need to first Create a New Translation Memory by clicking the Create new memory button in the upper-right.

Once you have located the Lilt Memory you want to upload your memory files to, click the Translation Memory card or its Edit memory button to open up the Translation Memory view.

On the Translation Memory view, navigate to the Manage resources page. This page displays all documents that have been uploaded to the Translation Memory.

To add memory files, click the Upload memory files button in the upper-right and select the type of memory files you want to upload. Selecting one of the dropdown options will bring up a window for you to locate and select the files you want to upload. After the selected files are loaded into Lilt, they will be available to view on the Manage resources page.

TM supported file types: JSON, SDLTM, TBM, TMQ, TMX, TMX.ZIP

TB supported file types: CSV, TBX, TSV, XLSX

File limitations:

  • Memory files can contain as many terms as you like, so long as the file adheres to the TM Size limits. In particular, individual files cannot exceed 200 MB. If files exceed this size, zip them before uploading. Once uploaded, the file will be parsed into individual, editable entries.
  • See the Memory Maintenance Best Practices article for information on how to structure CSV files for uploading Termbases.
  • Termbase column entries cannot contain more than 10,000 characters. When uploading a file where any column entries are more than 10,000 characters, Lilt will not process the file and will display the following warning:
  • When importing JSON files as TM entries into Lilt, use the format shown below to ensure your memory entries are properly imported:

    [
      {
        "srclang": "es",
        "creationdate": "2019-04-04T11:24:22Z",
        "text": "Introducción[editar]",
        "units": [
          {
            "trglang": "en",
            "text": "Introduction"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "srclang": "es",
        "creationdate": "2019-04-04T11:24:22Z",
        "text": "Aumentar",
        "units": [
          {
            "trglang": "en",
            "text": "Increase"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]

Memory types:

  • Memory (TM): Choose this option if you want your memory files to be indexed for Concordance, used to train the MT, and used as TM results. The Contextual AI model learns from uploaded data immediately upon upload. Note that deleting documents from a Translation Memory does not affect the Contextual AI model (i.e. the Contextual AI model does not unlearn the deleted resources). However, there is a recency bias, meaning the most recent documents have a stronger input on the translation output.
  • Memory (TM, concordance only): Choose this option if you want your memory files to only be indexed for Concordance but not used to train the Contextual AI and not used as TM results.
  • Termbase (TB): Choose this option if your Termbase document does not have a header and you want all entries to be added to the Termbase entries of the Translation Memory.
  • Termbase (TB, with header): Choose this option if your Termbase document has a header at the top of the file that you want to exclude from adding to the Termbase entries of the Translation Memory.

Metadata: If you load in a file with metadata, Lilt creates and populates custom fields for each TM/TB entry as the file is added to the Translation Memory. Metadata can be useful for providing context about translations. Metadata fields for each Translation Memory entry can be modified from within Lilt by opening a TM/TB entry for editing. More details on this can be found in the Managing Termbase and Translation Memory Entries article.

When uploading a file with metadata fields, you will be presented with a popup form to map the metadata fields to existing metadata fields or new metadata fields.

Deleting Memory files

  1. Select the memory files you want to delete by clicking the checkbox next to the resource name. Alternatively, you can select all files with the Select all button. If any files are selected, this turns into a Deselect button that will deselect all the resources currently selected.
  2. Click the Delete button in the upper-right to bring up a popup to confirm you want to permanently delete the selected resources. Deleting a resource permanently removes all that resource’s TM/TB entries from the Translation Memory.