Working with multilingual thesauri

In this lesson you will learn how to create and maintain a multilingual thesaurus. You will build a trilingual thesaurus, which will give you a good idea of how to create thesauri with more than one language.

Here is what you are going to do in this lesson:

  1. Create a multilingual thesaurus
  2. Add new terms with their translation
  3. Use the Relationship Wizard to add relationships between terms
  4. Enter the translation for an existing Term
  5. More methods for adding translations
  6. Display the main browser in different languages
  7. Print your thesaurus in different languages

1. Create a multilingual thesaurus

  1. Follow the steps to create a new thesaurus and name it "My Multilingual"
  2. On the main menu select Define - Languages
  3. Click the New button
  4. Type FRE in the Code field and French in the Description field
  5. Click the Save button and repeat the previous step to add code SPA and Description Spanish
  6. The system will show the three languages currently defined for this thesaurus
  7. Click the Close button to go back to the main browser

2. Add new terms with their translation

  1. Click the New Term button
  2. Type tropical fruits and click the Save button
  3. With tropical fruits selected, use any of the following to open the Relationship Wizard
  4. Select SPA Spanish and press Enter
  5. Type frutas tropicales and click Save or press Enter
  6. Repeat steps 2.4 and 2.5 to enter the French term "fruits tropicaux "
  7. Close the Relationship Wizard to return to the main browser
  8. Doubleclick on tropical fruits to see the term record
  9. Close the window

3. Use the Relationship Wizard to add relationships between terms

  1. Select Tropical fruits and click the +Rel Wiz button on the main browser
  2. Select NT for Narrower Terms and press Enter.
  3. Type coconut and press Enter key. The wizard goes back to the first step, with NT selected and "coconut" in the right-hand side panel.
  4. Repeat steps 3.2 and 3.3 to enter the following NT: Narrower Terms 
    mango 
orange 
pineapple 
plantain 
watermelon 
grapefruit
  5. 3.5 Press Esc to go back to the main browser and click Refresh to see the new terms
  6. 3.6 Doubleclick on coconut to see that Translations does not have any entries.

4. Enter the translation of an existing term

  1. Select coconut and then press Alt-L to open the Relationship Wizard
  2. Select SPA Spanish, press Enter,
  3. Type coco, then press Enter
  4. Select FRE French and press Enter
  5. Type noix de coco and press Enter
  6. Click Close to go back to the main browser
  7. Doubleclick on coconut to see the term record
  8. Doubleclick the Spanish translation SPA: coco to see the term record
  9. On the window menu, select Window - Close all

5. More methods for adding translations

Using Quick Data Entry

  1. Press Ctrl-Q to open the Quick Data Entry window
  2. Type grapefruit and its translation as shown below 
    grapefruit 
FRE:pamplemousse 
SPA: toronja
  3. Click Save

Using the clipboard

  1. Use your mouse to select/mark the following text, then click Ctrl-C to copy it to the clipboard 
    mango
SPA: mango
FRE: mangue

orange
SPA: naranja
FRE: orange

pineapple
SPA: piņa
FRE: ananas

plantain
SPA: platano
FRE: bananier

watermelon
SPA: sandia
FRE: pasteque
  2. Switch back to MultiTes Pro
  3. On the main menu, select Edit - Paste term record, and select Yes when prompted.

6. To display the main browser in a different language:

  1. On the main menu, select Define - Languages
  2. Click on French
  3. Click the Set as active. The main browser is now in French.
  4. Doubleclick on fruits tropicaux
  5. On the Window menu select Window - Close all to go back to the main browser

7. To print your thesaurus in French or Spanish

  1. Use Define - Languages to set French (or Spanish) as the Active Language
  2. On the main menu, select Reports - Report Generator
  3. Go to the Display Items tab and select the following relationships (in this order): 
    ENG: English 
SPA: Spanish 
BT: Broader Term 
NT: Narrower Term
  4. Click the Print/Export button

    Alphabetical Report (French) 

    ananas 
ENG: pineapple 
SPA: piņa 
BT: fruits tropicaux 

bananier 
ENG: plantain 
SPA: platano 
BT: fruits tropicaux 

fruits tropicaux 
ENG: tropical fruits 
SPA: frutas tropicales 
 NT: ananas 
     bananier 
     mangue 
     noix de coco 
     orange 
     pamplemousse 
     pasteque 

mangue 
ENG: mango 
SPA: mango 
 BT: fruits tropicaux 

noix de coco 
ENG: coconut 
SPA: coco 
 BT: fruits tropicaux 

orange 
ENG: orange 
SPA: naranja 
 BT: fruits tropicaux 

pamplemousse 
ENG: grapefruit 
SPA: toronja 
 BT: fruits tropicaux 

pasteque 
ENG: watermelon 
SPA: sandia 
 BT: fruits tropicaux