Most computer-assisted translation software was designed in Europe and North America, with languages like English, German and French in mind. Those languages put spaces between words, count words easily and use similar punctuation. Chinese does none of these things. That is why a setup that works perfectly for a French translator can feel clumsy, or even unreliable, for a Chinese one.

If your work involves Chinese, either as source or target, it pays to look closely at how your software handles the language. The right features save hours on every project; the wrong ones create invisible errors.

Segmentation without spaces

CAT software splits text into segments, usually at sentence boundaries. In English, a full stop followed by a space and a capital letter marks the end of a sentence. Chinese uses the full-width full stop 。 and no spaces at all, so segmentation rules must be configured specifically for it. Poor rules produce segments that are too long, which reduces memory matches, or that break mid-sentence.

Check that your software includes proper segmentation rules for Chinese and lets you adjust them, for example to split at semicolons in long legal sentences.

Counting characters, not words

Chinese projects are typically quoted and paid by character rather than by word. Your software should count Chinese characters accurately, excluding punctuation and spaces, and report English word counts for the other side. Mixed-language documents, common in technical and business content, need both measures at once.

Inconsistent counts between client and translator are a frequent source of disputes. Agreeing which software and which counting method will be used avoids that friction from the start.

Simplified and traditional scripts

Mainland China and Singapore use simplified characters; Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau use traditional ones. Background on the shared character set behind Chinese, Japanese and Korean writing is covered in this overview of CJK characters. Good translation software stores the two variants as separate target languages with separate memories.

Automatic conversion between scripts exists, but vocabulary also differs between regions. A converter will change the characters but not the terms, so a Taiwanese reader may still find the text foreign. Use conversion only as a starting point, followed by human editing.

Punctuation and spacing checks

Chinese uses full-width punctuation, while English uses half-width. Mixing them up is one of the most common visible errors in Chinese translations. Quality checks should flag half-width commas in Chinese text, missing full-width marks, and unnecessary spaces between Chinese characters and numbers. These automated checks catch in seconds what proofreaders might miss on page forty.

Fonts and display

Before committing to any cat tool, open a real Chinese file in it. Characters should display clearly at a comfortable size, without boxes or substitution symbols. Rare characters, often found in personal names and place names, must render correctly too. Export the translated file and check it in the final application, because a document can look perfect in the editor and still break in InDesign or a website template.

Terminology for technical and legal content

Chinese technical vocabulary evolves quickly, and the same concept may have different accepted terms in mainland standards and Taiwanese usage. A well-maintained termbase, separated by region, keeps translators aligned with the client's preferred terms. For certified and legal documents, consistent rendering of company names and personal names across all documents is essential.

Machine translation inside the editor

Many translators connect machine translation to their editor for draft suggestions. For Chinese, quality varies considerably by engine and by subject. Test several engines on your own content, and make sure engines can be switched off for confidential documents. Treat any machine suggestion as a draft that needs careful human revision, especially for marketing and legal texts.

Collaboration across time zones

Chinese projects often involve teams in Asia, Europe and North America. Cloud-based editors with shared memories let a translator in Shanghai and a reviewer in New York work on the same project without exchanging files. Comments on segments replace long email threads, and project managers see progress in real time.

Names, numbers and units

Chinese documents often express large numbers in units of ten thousand rather than thousands, so 1,500,000 may appear as 150万. Dates follow year, month, day order with their own characters. Good quality checks understand these patterns and do not raise false alarms, while still catching genuine mismatches between source and target figures.

Personal names deserve their own attention. Chinese names translated into English may follow pinyin, Wade-Giles or a person's own preferred spelling, and Western names rendered into Chinese need consistent characters. Storing approved name forms in the termbase prevents a client's chief executive from appearing under three different spellings in one annual report.

Making the right choice

When evaluating software for Chinese work, run a real pilot. Translate a few thousand characters of typical content, check segmentation, counts, punctuation checks, display and export. Compare how quickly linguists work and how many corrections reviewers make. The software that performs best on your actual content is the right one, regardless of how impressive the feature list looks.