Article 05 / 09
TM vs MT in XLIFF files: what's the difference?
Translation memory and machine translation both fill XLIFF segments. Learn how XLIFF distinguishes TM from MT.
Both translation memory (TM) and machine translation (MT) can populate XLIFF segments.
But they are fundamentally different.
Translation memory
TM provides:
- human-created translations
- previous approved content
- exact or fuzzy matches
Machine translation
MT provides:
- automatically generated content
- no guaranteed human review
- external engine output
How XLIFF distinguishes them
XLIFF often stores origin metadata:
- origin="tm"
- origin="mt"
This distinction matters for quality control.