Top Crowdin Features for Linguists: Your Daily Productivity Checklist

The work of a modern linguist is fast-paced. You need speed, rock-solid consistency, and, most importantly, the full context of what you’re translating. 
Crowdin localization platform is more than just a place to translate. It provides a powerful toolkit designed to make your daily work easier and faster. If you translate, edit, or review in Crowdin or consider it as your localization management solution, here are the top 5 features you must use to boost your efficiency and translation quality.

1. Context: Stop Guessing, Start Translating

Translating without context is like driving blind. Crowdin’s context tools let you see exactly where the text appears, eliminating guesswork and speeding up your work.

Screenshots

Screenshots show the text exactly where it appears on the screen and solve ambiguity issues, especially for short UI strings.

• Linguist Value: It solves the ambiguity problem. You immediately know the function of the text, which is important for the correct verb form, tone, and formatting.

• Hands-on Tip: Always check the screenshot before you translate short, singlewords. If a segment lacks a necessary screenshot, ask your Project Manager if they can add it to the project. Requesting this context saves everyone time later.

In-Context Preview

The In-Context Preview is a live and interactive version of the application or website. As you type your translation in the Crowdin editor, you see it update in real-time in the actual design.

• Linguist Value: This feature is the ultimate check for text running out of space and layout issues. Languages like German or Finnish often get longer than English. The live preview lets you fix text that breaks the design or overlaps other elements before it leaves your desk.
  
  
• Hands-on Tip: For any text that appears on buttons or in small spaces, use the Preview to test different wordings. This guarantees a polished User Experience.

Context Harvester (AI Context)

The Context Harvester is an AI-powered feature that is a huge time-saver for project timelines. It helps speed up the process, making your job easier. It automatically analyzes the project’s code to find out how and where each text string is used.

• Linguist Value: This feature solves the problem of missing textual context. Instead of just seeing a string key, you get an AI-generated note saying: “Used as the title of a large, primary button that starts the sign-in process”.
  
  
• Hands-on Tip: If a string is confusing or lacks a screenshot, check the “Context” panel in the sidebar for AI-generated context. If this context is still missing, ask your Project Manager if they can run the Context Harvester tool to provide more information. If you still need clarification, use the Comments feature to flag the segment.

Context tells you how to translate one segment. But to guarantee high quality across the whole project, you need consistency. Crowdin's next set of tools is designed to keep your language uniform from start to finish. 

2. Tools to Maintain Consistency

On a large project, keeping phrases and words consistent is a huge challenge. Crowdin’s memory and glossary features are your absolute best tools for achieving linguistic uniformity.

Translation Memory (TM)

The TM is a database of all past, approved translations. It gives you instant suggestions so you never translate the same phrase twice.

• Match Levels: Look closely at the percentage. 100% matches usually mean you can insert the suggestion directly. Fuzzy matches (< 99%) need careful editing to fit the current sentence.
  
  
• Leverage: Always review the TM suggestions panel. When reviewing, confirm the original translator used TM matches to keep the style consistent.

Glossary

The Glossary is the one source of truth for mandatory terms and product names.

(from GIPHY)

• Mandatory Terms: Crowdin will highlight these terms right in the editor. You must use the approved term unless it absolutely breaks your target language's grammar.
  
  
• Forbidden Terms: If a term is on this list, Crowdin flags it during the automated check, saving you from a major mistake later.
  
  
• Best Practice: At the start of any new project, download and quickly review the main Glossary terms. Knowing the key product names early prevents hours of corrections later.

Even with perfect context and consistency, small errors happen. Now, let's explore how Crowdin's Quality Assurance (QA) tools catch mistakes before they become problems.

Pro Tip: Use Crowdin AI to instantly check your translation for correct glossary terms and TM consistency before you save. We'll cover more advanced AI tools in a dedicated section below!

3. Quality Assurance for Catching the Errors You Miss

Linguists are the final quality check, but Crowdin’s QA Checks are your smart helpers. They catch the mechanical mistakes that slip through when you're rushing.

(from GIPHY)

Automated QA Checks

These are simple rules that flag common errors:

• Placeholder / Variable Mismatch: Alerts you if you removed, added, or mistyped a dynamic variable (e.g., %{username}). This is critical – a missing variable can break the whole software.
  
  
• Tag Errors: Checks for missing or corrupted HTML/Markdown tags (like <b> or**).
  
  
• Length Restrictions: Tells you if your translation is too long for the space available (essential for mobile apps and buttons).

Pro Tip: Finish translating a file, then quickly run through the “Warnings” section. Fixing these simple errors takes seconds and guarantees a clean delivery.

AI Proofreader Agent

The AI Proofreader Agent is an app that handles proofreading tasks automatically. It works at the speed of AI to accelerate the localization process.

NOTE: Install AI Proofreader Agent from the Crowdin Store to use it.

• The agent can be customized with a unique prompt to guide how it proofreads for each project.
  
  
• It can work in different modes, such as proofreading when a translation is updated, or by processing assigned tasks.
  
  

• This tool is useful for projects that need quick, efficient results where automatic proofreading is enough, or it can serve as a check before a human reviewer. 

Linguistic Quality Assurance (LQA)

For large teams, high-stakes content, and regulated industries, you need more than simple QA checks – you need a structured review. LQA is the right tool for that.

NOTE: You need to install LQA app from the Crowdin Store to use it.

LQA turns the review process into a measurable exercise. As a reviewer, you don't just “approve” a translation; you formally score errors based on a customizable checklist. This typically involves grading the mistake (e.g., Critical, Major, Minor) and assigning a specific category (e.g., Accuracy, Terminology, or Style).

• Linguist Value: It provides actionable feedback. The original translator doesn’t just see a “fail”; they see exactly why the translation was rejected (e.g., “Major: Terminology - Incorrectly used the term ‘widget’”). This helps improve translations quickly.
  
  
• Hands-on Tip: When conducting an LQA review, focus on being fair and objective. Use the scoring system as intended: save “Critical” for errors that could break the product or cause major legal issues, and use “Minor” for small style or grammar preferences. This ensures the LQA score truly reflects the linguistic quality of the content.

4. Collaboration: Talk Directly About the Text

Localization is a team sport involving translators, reviewers, and PMs. Crowdin’s Comments and Discussions features let you ask questions, suggest changes, and resolve issues right on the segment itself.

Using Comments Like a Pro

• If the source string is confusing or a TM match looks wrong, use the comment panel to ask your PM or a reviewer for clarification.
  
  
• If you see a typo in the source text (English), or if you think a bad translation has been added to the TM, flag it as an issue in the comments.
  
  

• Once your question is answered or the issue is fixed, make sure to mark the discussion as resolved so everyone knows that segment is ready to be finalized.

Private Chats

For communication that isn't tied to a specific string (like project coordination, asking a general question to a manager, or discussing timelines with a fellow translator), Crowdin offers a Conversations feature.

Easy as it can be!

Let’s move to the most interesting part – AI tools.

5. AI-Powered Productivity

For many linguists, AI still means “unreliable machine translation”. However, Crowdin's current AI tools are better described as a co-pilot. Their goal is to maximize your efficiency by handling the heavy lifting of first drafts and quick lookups.

AI Assistant

The AI Assistant is built right into the editor to speed up your daily segment work. It often uses context like Translation Memory and Glossary to give you better suggestions than standard Machine Translation.

• Use the AI’s suggestion as a strong first draft for your translation, not the final product. It saves you the time of typing out a basic sentence.
  
  
• Ask the AI to quickly rewrite your draft to be “more formal", "more marketing-focused", or "more concise". This is great for adapting NMT output to a client’s specific style guide.
  
  
• The AI can perform quick lookups for complex terms, saving you a trip to a dictionary in another tab.

Agentic AI (Crowdin App)

Agentic AI is a more powerful, task-oriented tool. The AI Assistant helps you translate one segment faster, while Agentic AI is an installable app that performs bulk actions across the entire file or project.

NOTE: Agentic AI is an app available in the Crowdin Store.

How to Master Context, Tone, Text Lengths & User Roles with Crowdin's Agentic AI

How Agentic AI can be helpful for a linguist:

• Change the tone of an entire file instantly. For example, you can tell the Agent, “Change the tone of all translations in this file from formal to informal”. It handles the repetitive editing for you.
  
  
• Use the Agent to find and fix global issues, such as asking it to “review this file and add a comment to any segment missing a placeholder” . This saves hours of manual QA checking.
  
  
• If you notice a typo in the source language, you can ask the Agent to “fix the typo in the source string and update all related segments”. This is a manager-level task that simplifies maintenance.

• If a source file gets an update and you need to review the translations again, you can instruct the Agent to “remove approvals from all strings in this file”, instantly setting them back to ‘translated’ status for re-review.

Control Note: The Agentic AI suggests the change in the chat, but you must manually click to accept and apply the changes.

Beluga Academy

“Launch Your Career as a Freelance Translator” is a free course aimed at translators and linguists who want to enter the localization industry or align their skills with current market standards.

The course provides a practical introduction to modern localization workflows, with a clear focus on Crowdin as a widely used platform by agencies, tech companies, and open-source projects.

Key topics covered include:

• An overview of the Crowdin translator environment, including project structure, task assignment, and collaboration
• Hands-on use of the Crowdin editor, translation memories, terminology, filters, and context
• The role of AI and machine translation within Crowdin workflows, and the importance of post-editing and quality control
• Practical experience through Crowdin open-source projects to build confidence and early portfolio experience

By the end of the course, participants gain a clear understanding of how professional localization workflows operate within Crowdin, and how to take the first steps toward a sustainable freelance translation career.