Translation Glossary

The glossary is a per-language dictionary of terms that must translate in a specific way - brand names, trademarks, product SKUs, industry vocabulary, technical terms. When machine translation runs, these terms are extracted, protected from the MT engine, and re-injected with your pre-approved translations so provider-specific quirks (DeepL deciding your brand name is a common noun, Google inventing an overly literal German translation) can’t break your tone or compliance.

When to use it

  • Brand & product names that should stay identical across languages ("Acme") or use specific localisations ("Apple" → "Apple" in most languages but "苹果" in Simplified Chinese).
  • Legal / compliance phrasing where the exact wording is regulated.
  • Industry vocabulary where MT engines tend to pick the wrong sense (e.g. "router" in networking vs. woodworking).
  • Internal terminology that shouldn’t be translated at all (product codes, UI labels, internal tool names).

Adding terms

At PerfLocale → Glossary, click Add Term. Fields:

  • Source - the term in your default language.
  • Target language - pick which language this rule applies to. Repeat for each target language that needs a specific translation.
  • Translation - the exact target text. Leave blank + check Do not translate to enforce "keep as source".
  • Case-sensitive - on by default; turn off for general vocabulary.

Terms apply to machine translation only; human translators see a glossary hint in the editor but aren’t blocked from deviating.

Enabling MT integration

Toggle Settings → Translation → Machine Translation → Glossary Integration. When enabled:

  1. Before sending text to the MT provider, PerfLocale masks every glossary term (replaces with a placeholder like __GLSS_0__).
  2. MT provider translates the surrounding content only.
  3. After the response, PerfLocale swaps the placeholders back for your pre-approved translations.

This works across all supported MT providers (DeepL, Google, Microsoft, LibreTranslate, External Agency). It also works with DeepL’s native glossary API when you supply a DeepL glossary ID - PerfLocale passes it through.

Programmatic access

Add / query / remove glossary terms at scale via the Glossary methods in the Developer API, or via WP-CLI:

wp perflocale glossary add --source="Acme Corp" --target=de --translation="Acme Corp"
wp perflocale glossary list --target=de
wp perflocale glossary export

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