ITU Language Tools

As part of its commitment to multilingualism and the use of all six official languages of the Union (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) on an equal footing, ITU makes use of a range of language tools and technologies to facilitate the work of translators, authors and editors. For more information and access, please contact LING-IT-support@itu.int.

ITU Translate

Machine translation is increasingly used by ITU staff and delegates to complement the work of professional human translators and expand the scope of content available in translation.

ITU Translate is a custom-developed AI-based set of translation tools tailored specifically for ITU's technical content. It supports various commercial engines as well as an in-house engine trained on ITU data, ensuring high-quality machine translation in all six official ITU languages.

ITU Translate translates different types of documents, preserving the original formatting, as well as web pages. It can be accessed as a self-service tool installed directly on ITU's website, as an integrated feature of ITU's document management system and via a dedicated web interface.

AI-powered language tools

ITU is developing a range of AI-powered language tools to increase the availability of multilingual content, increase efficiency and harmonize texts. ITU Editing is a customized editing tool based on the ITU English Style Guidelines, supporting different editing styles and types of text. It is currently in beta testing. ITU Summarize is an in-house AI-based solution generating offline indexing and precis-writing. It is currently in the prototype phase.

ITU Style Guide

ITU style guides codify ITU practices in drafting, translation and editing to ensure uniformity in ITU documents. Available in each of the six official languages of the Union, the style guides facilitate the work of authors, text processors, translators, editors and proofreaders.

Links to Style Guides

Arabic Style Guide
Chinese Style Guide
English Style Guide
French Style Guide
Russian Style Guide
Spanish Style Guide

Terminology databases

The ITU Terms and Definitions page provides a useful collection of technical terms specific to ITU's work, with reference in particular to ITU-R and ITU-T texts.

ITU is part of UNTERM, the multilingual terminology database maintained jointly by the UN Secretariat and some specialized agencies of the UN system. ITU is responsible for the domains related to ICTs and telecommunications within UNTERM. Most entries are currently available in all six official languages. Relevant entries from TERMITE (the former in-house termbase) are additionally being transferred to UNTERM.

Computer Aided Translation (CAT)

ITU in-house and freelance translators use eLUNa, a CAT tool developed by the UN as part of their gText project. eLUNa is a web-based translation tool, combining access to previously translated sentences, terminology and machine translation.

Translators also use LogiTermWeb, a search tool provided by Terminotix which finds previously translated sentences. The internal server is accessible only inside ITU or via PC remote, and is updated every night. The external server is available for freelancers working outside ITU during the period of their contract with ITU.

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