Searching with English and French Criteria
If you are conducting a basic search and are familiar with only one of our official languages (English or French), you can include equivalent terms in the other official language so that you can broaden your search. The bilingual search feature allows you to choose current equivalent terms in either English or French from subject categories provided by the Government of Canada's TERMIUM Plus®, linguistic data bank.
Example – your search criterion is "milk" and you want to include the French equivalent but you do not know what it is.
- Step 1 – You must first enter "milk" in the "Enter search criteria" field.
- Step 2 – In "Select a search field", make a selection (please refer to number 3 below to read the important notice).
- Step 3 – Select "Yes" in the "Use bilingual search?" dropdown. Selecting this option will display a "Bilingual search" language selection dropdown and a notice explaining the selection process.
- Step 4 – After reading the notice, select the desired language combination in the "Bilingual search" dropdown i.e. "English to French" and click on the "Search" button. You will be presented with a page advising that you will link to TERMIUM Plus® and that you alone will be responsible for the criteria selected for your search.
- Step 5 – If you select "No", you will be returned to the Basic search page. If you select "Yes", you will be presented with a set of subject categories relevant to the word "milk" with appropriate French terms to choose from.
- Step 6 – You will select from the list of available terms and click on "Continue". This will add your selected terms to the original search criteria "milk" in the "Enter search criteria" field and start the search in the Canadian Industrial Designs Database.
Important notice:
- When you want to use the bilingual search feature, you should enter a limited number of search criteria and only in one language, English or French. Entering too many criteria may increase the search time and the resulting list of equivalent language terms may also be very lengthy.
- The bilingual search feature is geared toward simple searches and will not work with Boolean or other advanced query operators.
- The bilingual search feature will be useful only with the following two "Select a search field" options: (1) Description and (2) Finished Article.