Schnelldruckklemmen

German: Schnelldruckklemmen

Quick-release terminals. I love the counterintuitive ones.

ICC (insuficiencia cardiaca congestiva)

Spanish medical acronyms (like French ones) are all totally different from the English; German acronyms tend to be more similar. It makes medical translation exciting though.

Spanish: ICC = insuficiencia cardiaca congestiva = congestive heart failure (more or less)

Anyway, I got this one from the Spanish/English glossary [pdf] of the California Department of Social Services. Thanks, California!

Rechnernetz

German: Rechnernetz, contrast with Netzwerk.

In German technical documentation, Netz typically means a power mains/grid (depending on which side of the Atlantic you're writing for) - or more abstractly, "power". Netzwerk means "network". Where it gets slippery is Rechnernetz vs. Rechnernetzwerk.

So: Rechnernetz = computer power or computer power grid, perhaps.

The context in this case is a test bench that has separate power to the computer (for test data) and the bench itself - the emergency stop shuts off the bench, but not the computer, so you don't lose data. I was about 2000 words in before I realized that we weren't talking about the computer network - of which there is also one. Built-in hub, even.

Terzband

German: Terzband

A Terz is a third-octave; a terz guitar is one tuned a third-octave higher than normal. (This may also be "tierce".) In Germany, third-octaves are used for noise standards, so Terzband is "third octave band".

Hilfswiderklage

German: Hilfswiderklage

Subsidiary counterclaim [e.g.]. I really kind of need a list of the different instruments of legal action in the different languages I work with.

Point d'étape

French: point d'étape

Progress report or interim report.

One of the differences I see between French and German translation is that it seems that French is much more fluid in the number of alternate English translations a given French phrase can have. Don't get me wrong, German has some of that - but so very often there's a really clear forerunner, so to speak.

The situation's even worse in Hungarian. Those Hungarians have vocabulary all over the map.

TnT

Spanish, English: TnT

Medical abbreviations are relatively easy to track down in German (thanks to Beckers), but in Spanish it's a lot harder.

TnT is troponine T (e.g. [here] at Scripps [cardiac markers]), but it's the first I'd hit it, and the letters "tnt" aren't all that Googlable. Finally found it in Spanish here, and that page is pretty rich in useful cardiac-related Spanish terminology.

My work would probably be a lot easier if I invested just a little money into some reasonable dictionaries - but they're so darned heavy.

Batterie de résistances

French: batterie de résistances

Surprisingly, this is simply a term for "resistor". My context today is a call for offers for an electrical test bench; I'm learning a lot about French electrical terminology. (No time like the present!)

Good FR>EN technical reference: Parks Canada.

What, another blog?!?

Yeah, yeah. I've been posting the occasional vocabulary post to the Xlat project blog, but you know? It's just not really germane over there. So welcome to blog #15, my new "terminology research" blog.