The simple but powerful translator workbench is designed to help translators work efficiently on various kinds of content.

To ensure the workbench runs smoothly on your computer, you should use the latest version of Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari.

Orders, Collections and Jobs
Starting work
Translation tools
- Spellcheck
- Triple brackets
- Deflated HTML tags
- Character limits
- Glossaries
- Translation Memory
- Post-editing machine translation
Validating Jobs
Submitting Jobs
Declining Collections
Keyboard shortcuts
FAQ

Orders, Collections and Jobs

Orders are submitted by customers and contain Jobs—individual blocks of text (files are handled outside of the workbench). Jobs are grouped into Collections based on customer preferences.

You, as a translator, will pick up and work on Collections (a Collection may contain just one Job, or many Jobs).

Starting work

Follow these simple steps to start working on a translation:

Sign in to Gengo
Browse the list of available Collections and choose one you would like to translate
Note the Collection information; pay attention to the allotted time and how much you will be rewarded (paid)
Read the customer's instructions (normally at the top, or on the comment section for each job on the left side —make sure to click the comment bubble icon)—
Click on “Start Translating” and enter your translations in the target fields

View options

Switch between horizontal and vertical layouts, depending on your preference.

With the horizontal layout, the source text is on the left side of the box, and you'll enter your translation on the right side.

With the vertical layout, the source text is on the top of the box, and you'll enter your translation on the bottom.

Please do not copy and submit the source text together with your translation. You should only submit your translated text (unless the customer specifically requests otherwise, which happens very rarely).

The list of Jobs can be filtered according to their states (All, Empty, Revising, Cautions and Errors). Normally you should focus on "empty" Jobs. You can select “All” to unfilter.

If you are working on a Collection that contains too many Jobs (hundreds or thousands), the workbench may get slower as you progress and load more and more Jobs. To avoid from overloading the workbench, we recommend you to use the filter to view only "empty" Jobs. This will hide all Jobs where you have already entered any text, helping you keep a healthy speed in the workbench. Before you do this, please make sure those Jobs are actually finished, so you don't hide Jobs that are only half-done.

Jobs and Segments

Within a Collection, a Job can be identified as a block of text inside a white square box.

Each Job inside a Collection has an individual Job ID. You can view it by placing your mouse over the "🛈" icon on the top left of the Job box. If you need to contact Support about a specific Job, please take note of this Job ID.

Sometimes you may find that Jobs are also divided by segments (specially when customers use TM). Inside of the Job white square box, you can see that segments are separated by a horizontal line.

Once you start typing your translation in one of the segments, you will notice that the rest of the segments get a red error warning that means "empty segment" and the "submit" button at the top turns red and says "fix errors to submit".

This is normal, so please don't worry about it. Once you complete all the segments, the error warning will disappear and the "submit" button will turn green again.

In order to submit your translations, you will need to complete ALL the Jobs of a Collection, and ALL the segments of each individual Job.

Also, it's important to know that, when the customer receives the translation, all segments of each job are combined into one single block of text to look like the original source text they ordered. The system automatically adds a space after each segment (a segment is usually a sentence), since there should be one space between sentences.

For this reason, be careful to NOT add an extra space at the beginning or at the end of a segment.

Since the system already adds a space when merging the segments of a job, if you add spaces too, this would result in double spaces on the final text the customer receives, as in this example:

Double spaces can be marked as a mistake when a Language Specialist performs a GoCheck review of your translation.

Commenting

Communicate with the customer and other translators by clicking on the comment icon located to the left of the job window. Please remember to always be courteous and professional when communicating with customers, and never share your contact details.

Flagging issues

Use the flag function—click on the flag icon (⚑) located to the left of the Job window—to notify us and the customer when:

Source text is not in the correct language
Content is unsuitable (see our Quality Policy)
Not enough context to complete translation
The customer is making unreasonable requests
The word count is wrong
There is a technical issue with the job (e.g. the text is garbled)

Please remember to always be courteous and professional when communicating with customers, and never share your contact details.

Translation tools

A number of built-in tools can be used to aid translation:

Spellcheck

Auto spellcheck is provided for the following languages:

Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (US), English (British), Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Europe), Romanian, Russian, Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Spain), Swedish, Tagalog
Spelling errors are displayed as a dashed red line below the word

Triple brackets

Triple brackets around text are inserted by customers to markup words that [[[should not be translated]]].

Clicking on the text within the triple brackets in the source automatically copies it to the target at the same position where your cursor rests
If the text is not copied to the target, you will not be able to submit the Job

Deflated HTML tags

To avoid confusion we “deflate” HTML tags into shorter numbered tags. For example, <strong>Hello</strong> becomes {1}Hello{/1}

By clicking on the deflated HTML tag in the source, it is automatically copied to the target at the position where your cursor rests
If the tags are not copied to the target, you will not be able to submit the Job

Note: opening tags do not always have matching closing tags (i.e. there is not always a {/1} to match a {1})

Character limits

Customers can request that their translations are no longer than a certain number of characters (e.g. 140 characters for a tweet).

The character limit is shown in the bottom right corner of the Job window and will turn red if exceeded
If this happens, you will not be able to submit the Job

Glossaries

Customers can provide a glossary of terms that they would like to be translated in a specific way (e.g. product names).

For more detailed instructions on how to use the glossary feature, please read this article.

Glossary matches are highlighted in green in the source text. You can see a list of corresponding translations by opening the matches panel (click on the lightbulb icon)
Click on the highlight to insert the corresponding glossary match translation into the target at the position where your cursor rests

Translation Memory

Translation Memory (TM) is a database that automatically stores and matches segments (based on sentence structure) that have previously been translated, and reuses them to aid translation.

The different types of matches can be found by opening the matches panel (click on the lightbulb icon), and are based on how closely the stored text matches the source text.

New / Unique (0–74%)—no/unusable match
Fuzzy (75–99%)—a partial match
Exact (100%)—a perfect character-by-character match
Contextual (101%)—an exact match where both the preceding and following segments are also exact matches

Click on fuzzy matches to insert them into the target text. Exact and contextual matches will be pre-inserted into the target before the collection is started. All matches should be checked and edited before submitting.

Learn more about how TM works.

Locked segments

You may encounter "locked segments" in some collections where TM is enabled. A locked segment is already pre-filled with the translation and it does not need to be translated or edited. These segments are shown to provide context to the rest of the collection, so please use them as a reference for other segments, the client's preferred tone and word choice.

A locked segment can be identified by a padlock icon and by being grayed out. It is not included in the word count or the rewards, it does not affect the allotted time, and it will not be selected for a GoCheck review.

Post-editing machine translation (PEMT)

In jobs with PEMT enabled, the target section is pre-filled with a machine suggestion, which we expect you to use as a reference to make the appropriate edits before submitting. Your resulting translation must be accurate and read naturally in the target language.

Learn more about how PEMT works.

Validating Jobs

Before translations are submitted, they are validated. This happens automatically, and there are two types of warnings that may occur:

Errors—Missing triple brackets or deflated HTML tags, character limitation exceeded (highlighted in red, indicating that the Job cannot be submitted)
Cautions—Spelling errors, missing glossary matches (highlighted in yellow, indicating that you should check before submitting)

To see Jobs with validation cautions and errors:

Open the issues panel (click on the red/yellow warning icon)
Filter Jobs by "Cautions and Errors"

You can submit your Jobs once all errors have been resolved.

Submitting Jobs

When you have completed all the Jobs in a Collection, you will be able to submit them to the customer.

Can't complete all the jobs in a Collection because a single job is in the wrong source language? See what to do here!

Keep in mind that, when you hit submit, all Jobs in the Collection will be submitted (even if some are incomplete!). This includes TM matches and the partial translations that you or a previous translator may have left there.

You should avoid in all cases submitting incomplete or incorrect translations, as these reach directly the customer and you won't be able to edit them. So, before you submit your translations, please make sure you have already completed them all and reviewed them carefully.

Once you are sure of this, just click the green "Submit" button at the top right.

Before you finally submit the Jobs, you will see a confirmation pop-up window.

After the Collection has been submitted, you will be returned to the Dashboard.

Declining Collections

If for some reason you cannot complete all Jobs in a Collection before the allotted time expires, you can decline it by selecting “Decline Collection” from the “Submit” button.

When you decline a Collection, you decline ALL the Jobs that it contains
If you have translated any Jobs, these will also be declined
You will not receive compensation for any jobs you may have translated, unless you complete and submit ALL the Jobs in the Collection
All the Jobs in the Collection will become available for other translators to complete
If you are declining a Collection because of a problem with the Jobs or a technical issue, you can flag it at the same time

Keyboard shortcuts

A number of keyboard shortcuts can be used:

FAQ

How much and when will I get paid?

You will be paid the reward amount shown in the Collection information. When the Jobs are approved, the rewards are added automatically to your account balance, and you can request a Payout twice a month.

If you do not complete and submit all Jobs in a Collection, you will not be paid.

What happens if my Collection expires?

If you don’t meet the deadline, all the Jobs will become available for other translators to complete.

What should I do if I have a disagreement with a customer?

Contact support@gengo.com

What should I do I do if I encounter a technical issue?