nakōdo (仲人): a matchmaker

One of the main goals of TM-Town is to help you - the freelance translator - get found when someone needs translation in one of your fields of expertise. Today TM-Town is releasing a first-of-its-kind translator search engine which will hopefully be a big step toward helping you reach clients in your areas of specialization.

What is Nakōdo?

Nakōdo is a first-of-its-kind translator search engine by TM-Town that utilizes state-of-the-art natural language processing technology to match translation professionals with clients in need of high quality translation.

With Nakōdo a visitor enters the text of a document she or he needs translated and the language of the desired translation. TM-Town's system analyzes the terminology of the document and compares it against documents translators have loaded into TM-Town's system and recommends the best specialists who have translated similar material. During this process the content of all documents (both the document the visitor needs translated and the documents translators have loaded) stay private and secure.

The Results

Nakōdo returns three scores for each recommended translator:

• Similarity Score
• Quantity Score
• Match Strength

The Similarity Score is a reflection of how closely the material of the document that needs translation matches the most similar document in a translator's portfolio. The Similarity Score is a number between 0 and 100.

The Quantity Score is a reflection of the amount of material that translator has loaded that has similarity to the document that needs translation.

The Match Strength can fall into one of three categories and is TM-Town's interpretation of the strength of a match after considering all factors:

• Golden Match
• Strong Match
• Weak Match

The Similarity Score is independent of the amount a translator has loaded into TM-Town. In other words, a translator could load only one or two documents in their specialty and still come out on top in Nakōdo's search results if the content strongly matches the document that needs translation.

Video Demo

Watch a demo of Nakōdo in action:

Blacklist Tool

Is it possible that Nakōdo will leak confidential information about me or the translations I have done?

If a visitor searches a query such as "ABC Company" and a translator were returned in the matches, this may convey to the visitor that this translator has done translation work for "ABC Company" (whether true or not). For some translators this may be a highly undesirable outcome (other translators may find it desirable).

To protect translators, TM-Town provides translators a simple tool to maintain a blacklist of terms. The blacklist works by redacting any term a translator enters across all documents that translator has loaded. This means that if a translator adds "ABC Company" to their blacklist that translator would NOT appear in the results for a query of "ABC Company". If "ABC Company" appears as part of a much longer query submitted to Nakōdo, that translator may still appear in the results based on matching of other terms in the translator's document ("ABC Company" was redacted from the translator's document, but the rest of the document has high similarity to the submitted search query).

Nakōdo Blacklist Tool Video Demo

Any terms entered to your blacklist will not affect your actual documents. In other words, the terms you blacklist will not actually be redacted from the documents you have loaded into TM-Town, they will only be redacted for purposes of displaying results in Nakōdo.

Opt-in Only

Nakōdo is currently in Beta and only available to TM-Town members. At first you will only see your own results (other translators will not be able to see your results unless you opt in). After a number of translators have opted in you may begin seeing other translators in your results.

If you like what you see, please be sure to opt in. Not only will you have a better chance of getting matched with clients who need translation in your field(s) of expertise but you will make the search engine more useful for end clients and LSPs to begin using, as a search engine without translators is unfortunately not very useful.

If you are a Language Service Provider (LSP) or end client interested in using Nakōdo please email TM-Town to learn more and get notified when Nakōdo becomes public. If you are a translator, sign up for a free TM-Town account today, load in some work and give it a try yourself!