Comparison of source text, machine translation and revised output with focus on meaning, register, terminology and fluency.
Academic case study · Business Translation Practice
Translation, MT & QA at NOVA FCSH
Applied practice in post-editing, terminology, CAT, specialized translation and quality control.
This case study brings together academic work completed during the second semester of 2026 in the BA in Translation at NOVA FCSH. It is not commercial experience. It is documented evidence of structured practice in translation, post-editing, terminology and QA.
Bilingual terminology resources for business, financial and energy domains.
Extended business translation project using segmentation, terminology, consistency control and a translation note.
Post-editing checklist built around verifiable pre-delivery criteria.
01 / Scope
Nine practice areas, one consistent quality discipline.
The course portfolio combined tasks with very different requirements. Together, they required switching between research, translation, revision, technology, terminology and audience adaptation.
Business and economic translation
Journalistic text on UK businesses, recession, state support and economic terminology.
MT post-editing
Analysis of machine-translated output and identification of issues in meaning, register, terminology and fluency.
Bilingual terminology
EN-PT termbase covering business, financial and energy terminology with contextual evidence.
memoQ project
Translation of a guide to doing business in the UK, including terminology work and a translation note.
Post-editing checklist
Turning quality criteria into reusable pre-delivery checks.
UK GDPR
Legal-administrative translation focused on institutional accuracy and reader clarity.
Institutional terminology
Analysis of Entry/Exit System, Schengen and geographic designations using institutional sources.
Marketing
Promotional material for the fictional MiHaus app.
Tourism / advertising
Royal Caribbean promotional translation focused on rhythm, brand and persuasive effect.
02 / MT and post-editing
Grammatically correct is not the same as linguistically ready.
One task started from a machine translation of an economic text. The exercise required comparing the source, automatic output and human revision, then identifying segments that required intervention. The analysis exposed common MT limitations: literalness, unsuitable register, terminology inconsistency and formulations that appear acceptable in isolation but fail in the wider text.
The main lesson was to separate surface correctness from actual quality: a sentence can be grammatical and still sound artificial, unprofessional or inappropriate for its context.
03 / Terminology + CAT
Consistency should come from a system, not memory.
Terminology work included an EN-PT bilingual termbase and later a larger memoQ project based on a guide to doing business in the UK. That project required managing segments, terminology, consistency, translation and a translation note. It was ultimately completed individually, requiring autonomy across the full workflow.
Selected entries from the academic termbases
Examples are taken from the academic portfolio. They are shown as evidence of the terminology process, not as a prescriptive glossary for every context.
| EN | PT-PT | Domain |
|---|---|---|
| Feed-in Tariffs (FiT) | Tarifas garantidas de venda à rede | Energy |
| Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) | Sistema de armazenamento de energia em baterias | Energy |
| Share Capital | Capital social | Business |
| Sole Trader | Empresário em nome individual | Business |
| Corporation Tax | Imposto sobre as sociedades | Tax |
memoQ / CAT
What the memoQ project made visible
- Segmenting and controlling a longer document
- Using terminology to maintain consistency
- Managing translation, revision and technical issues at the same time
- Need for export and formatting QA before delivery
04 / QA
A checklist turns the intention to deliver quality into verifiable steps.
Another task involved building a post-editing checklist for business translation. The goal was to move revision away from “it looks fine” and toward a process that could be repeated before delivery.
Terminology consistency
Number and value formatting
Fidelity to source meaning
Tone maintenance
Natural translation
Cohesion and readability
General formatting
Punctuation and basic errors
Cultural adaptation / localization
Proper names and consistency
05 / Specialized contexts
The same method had to work across very different text genres.
UK GDPR
Accuracy of obligations, principles and legal designations while keeping the text clear for non-specialists.
Entry/Exit System
Validation of names and acronyms using sources such as IATE, EUR-Lex and official EU pages.
MiHaus
Creation of a slogan, value proposition and promotional description for a fictional digital product.
Royal Caribbean
Adaptation of promotional copy with attention to aspirational tone, rhythm and brand consistency.
06 / Method development
The most useful part of the portfolio was identifying how to make the workflow more rigorous.
The final reflection did not treat the exercises as perfect outputs. It identified weaknesses and converted them into concrete changes to the working method.
Monolingual review
Read the final text only in Portuguese to catch calques and unnatural wording.
Terminology
Record source, context, variant and reliability level in terminology resources.
Post-editing
Classify edits by error type to make interventions easier to justify.
Technical QA
Reserve specific time for formatting, export checks and final segment verification.
NOVA FCSH · Applied academic practice
Training does not replace commercial experience. It makes linguistic judgment demonstrable.
This academic work is one part of the evidence. The PT-PT Localization QA sample shows how I apply the same principles in a product workflow closer to a professional scenario.