If you are a native speaker and a regular reader of this blog, you probably have noticed that my English sounds a bit odd at times. I live in Germany, and English is only my second language. I also write for German computer journals sometimes and often find this more time consuming since I know most technical terms only in English.

Most of the software we use is also available in German, but we usually prefer to install the English version. It is easier to find help on the Web if you know their English terms. However, we don’t do these on the desktop machines of our users. There, we only install the German versions.

That’s why I find this newly published Microsoft terminology spreadsheet very useful. It translates more than 12,000 technical terms into over 40 languages. It also contains the new terms that were introduced with Windows Vista and Office 2007. If you are working with non-English software I’d recommend downloading this Excel file now. I am sure you’ll need it sooner or later.