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How to manage fallback languages in your Glossary?

Setting up fallback languages in your Glossary ensures that translators and LINA always receive relevant terminology suggestions in the LingoHub Editor, even when a specific target term hasn't been defined for a regional locale.

How fallback languages work in a Glossary

Glossary fallbacks operate specifically as Editor suggestions:

  • Editor suggestions: When working on a project in a target locale (e.g., Austrian German de-AT), LingoHub checks your Glossary for a match.

  • Fallback lookup: If no entry exists for de-AT, but a fallback language (e.g., German de-DE) is configured for that term column, the Editor automatically displays the de-DE term as a reference suggestion.

⚠️ Important: Enabling a fallback language on a Glossary column will overwrite and sync its content with the selected fallback language. Future updates made to the fallback language term will automatically apply to the target language column as well.

Example: Glossary fallback suggestions in the Editor

Consider a Marketing Glossary with English (en) as the primary source language, localized into German (Germany) (de-DE) and German (Austria) (de-AT):

Source term (en)

Target term (de-DE)

Target term (de-AT)

Active fallback setting

Editor suggestion for de-AT

car

Auto

(empty)

Fallback → de-DE

Auto (from de-DE)

user

Benutzer

Benutzer

Fallback → de-DE

Benutzer (Direct term match)

workspace

Arbeitsbereich

Arbeitsbereich

Fallback → de-DE

How to enable fallback translation in your Glossary

  1. Open the AI tab in the top navigation bar and select Glossary from the left navigation menu.
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  2. Click on the Glossary you want to edit (e.g., Marketing Glossary).
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  3. In the Glossary table, select the term cell in the target language column where you want to enable fallback behavior (e.g., German (Austria) de-AT).
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  4. Click the sidebar toggle icon in the top-right corner to open the Term info.
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  5. Click the three-dots menu icon at the top of the Term info.
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  6. Click Enable fallback translation in the dropdown menu.
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  7. In the pop-up window, select your preferred fallback language (e.g., German (Germany) de-DE) from the dropdown menu.

  8. Click Enable to confirm.
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