Multilingual glossaries and dictionaries

The Multilingual Community of Practice compiled this list of glossaries, dictionaries, and style guides to improve how we communicate with the public in languages other than English.

Glossaries and dictionaries

A multilingual glossary is a tool that facilitates sharing common translations among subject matter experts across communities. These glossaries help translators and agencies better communicate with non-English speaking audiences and households.

Education

• The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators in partnership with the Department of Education published a English-Spanish Glossary of Student Financial Aid and Postsecondary Education (513 KB, PDF, 44 pages).
• The Glossary of Spanish Translations of Common IDEA Terms is a glossary of special education terminology commissioned by the Department of Education. It reflects the common use of digital terminology and includes an appendix with terms related to the transition to adult life.

Environment

• The Environmental Protection Agency published a glosario ambiental bilingüe with a wealth of terminology, abbreviations, and acronyms used by their environmental programs.
• The San Francisco Environment Department published a translation glossary page, which provides a link to download a spreadsheet for glossaries in Spanish, Chinese, and Filipino (Tagalog).

Government benefits

• The Social Security Administration published a Spanish Glossary: English-Spanish wordbank of social security terminology, ranging from states to days of the week to health terms.

Health and well-being

• The Digital.gov Multilingual Community of Practice, 10x Multilingual Glossary Tool project team, and an interagency working group developed a translation glossary of health terms in Spanish.
• The Health Resources and Services Administration offers a Glossary for Organ Donation and Transplantation in English and Spanish.
• Head Start offers a Head Start bilingual glossary for translating Head Start materials from English into Spanish.
• The Bilingual Dictionary from the National Cancer Institute is a collection of over 8,300 cancer terms in English and Spanish to provide a comprehensive cancer vocabulary that can be easily used with a variety of audiences when communicating complex information.

Jobs, labor, and unemployment

• Department of Labor English-Spanish glossary (PDF, 5 MB, 73 pages) includes terms related to job-seeking, employment, retirement and other areas related to the department’s work.

Money and credit

• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publishes a glossary of financial terms. It is available for download in several languages:
  • Arabic-English glossary of financial terms (PDF, 983 KB, 81 pages)
  • Chinese-English glossary of financial terms (PDF, 1.4 MB, 81 pages)
  • Haitian Creole-English glossary of financial terms (PDF, 772 KB, 81 pages)
  • Korean-English glossary of financial terms (PDF, 970 KB, 81 pages)
  • Russian-English glossary of financial terms (PDF, 926 KB, 82 pages)
  • Spanish-English glossary of financial terms (PDF, 852 KB, 86 pages)
  • Tagalog-English glossary of financial terms (PDF, 782 KB, 83 pages)
  • Vietnamese-English glossary of financial terms (PDF, 971 KB, 82 pages)
• The Internal Revenue Service publishes a glossary of tax words and phrases used in IRS publications. It is available for download in several languages:
  • English-Chinese [Simplified] (1.5 MB PDF, 22 pages)
  • English-Chinese [Traditional] (1.5 MB PDF, 22 pages)
  • English-Korean (1.4 MB PDF, 20 pages)
  • English-Russian (1.4 MB PDF, 25 pages)
  • English-Spanish (1.5 MB PDF, 18 pages)
  • English-Vietnamese (1.3 MB PDF, 21 pages)
• The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has financial and retirement terminology in its Glossary of Terms: English to Spanish.

Small business

• The Small Business Administration published a Spanish glossary: English-to-Spanish translations of official SBA terms.

Travel and transportation

• The Federal Aviation Administration published a Spanish glossary for the unmanned aircraft systems limited English proficiency initiative .

Voting and elections

• The Glossaries of Election Terminology contains nearly 1,300 terms and phrases used in the administration of elections in the United States. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission offers translations of this glossary in Amharic, Arabic, Apache, Bengali, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Navajo, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Yup'ik.

Related style guides and grammar

• Digital.gov published a resource on Spanish language style guide and grammar, which was reviewed by members of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language.
• Head Start offers a style guide for translations into Spanish.
• The National Institutes of Health has a style guide available in English (PDF, 315 KB, 33 pages) and Spanish (PDF, 427 KB, 32 pages).