UI Phrases

Mike's Notes

I'm looking for a list in English of standard phrases or terms commonly used in the User Interface (UI).

eg;

• Font Size
• Home
• Password
• Edit
• Save As
• Help
• Forgot Password
• Reset Password
• Export
• Import

This would serve as the basis for creating an online translation database that supports multiple languages and writing systems, again using the words commonly used. It seems pointless to recreate the wheel.

Resources

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/reference/microsoft-language-resources
• https://download.microsoft.com/download/b/2/d/b2db7a7c-8d33-47f3-b2c1-ee5e6445cf45/MicrosoftTermCollection.zip
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TermBase_eXchange
• https://appstore.rws.com/Plugin/198
• https://www.reddit.com/r/TranslationStudies/comments/1ayr1i1/how_to_turn_a_tbx_file_into_a_spreadsheet/

References

• Reference

Repository

• Home > Ajabbi Research > Library >
• Home > Handbook > 

Last Updated

21/09/2025

UI Phrases

By: Mike Peters

On a Sandy Beach: 21/09/2025

Mike is the inventor and architect of Pipi and the founder of Ajabbi.

I have been experimenting with importing the Microsoft Term Collection. It is a freely downloadable zip file containing a collection of files, one per language, in an XML format ".tbx". There seem to be about 100 languages. Each file record contains a source term in US English, and a translated term in the target language, eg French, German, Ukrainian.

Success

I was able to extract the terms that Microsoft uses. There are about 37,399 unique English terms. Some of them are useful, most are not, while others are missing. 

Languages

To extract the language translations, the main challenge is converting the XML files into a tab-delimited format in the correct Unicode.

I'm trying a range of tools to see what works.

TermBase eXchange (TBX)

"TermBase eXchange (TBX) is an open XML-based standard that allows you to represent structured, concept-oriented terminological data in a database, which is known as termbase." - Wordbee

.tbx File Format

"TermBase eXchange (TBX) is an international standard (ISO 30042:2019) for the representation of structured concept-oriented terminological data, copublished by ISO and the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA). Originally released in 2002 by LISA's OSCAR special interest group, TBX was adopted by ISO TC 37 in 2008. In 2019 ISO 30042:2008 was withdrawn and revised by ISO 30042:2019. It is currently available as an ISO standard and as an open, industry standard, available at no charge.

TBX defines an XML format for the exchange of terminology data, and is "an industry standard for terminology exchange"." - Wikipedia