Creating a translation glossary using free software: a study of its feasibility with Japanese source text

In this paper, we (a) explain how translators can benefit from creating their own glossaries; and (b) evaluate how easily a translation glossary can be created from Japanese source text using free software applications. As our study shows, a major hurdle arises from the fact that Japanese text does not include spaces; it must be segmented, i.e., broken into “usable chunks” (Fahey, 2016), before a concordancer (in our case, AntConc 3.2.4) can be used to analyze it for glossary creation. We segmented our Japanese text using an application (ChaSen 2.1) designed for this purpose. This application’s output was problematic, forcing us to devise workarounds that became labour-intensive and time-consuming. Our completed glossary (shown in Appendix 1) is fit for purpose, but the complications in the process of creating it call into question the feasibility of using free software to make translation glossaries from text written in Japanese.