According to Common Sense Advisory, having your website developed in 82 different languages rather than just one, increases your traffic by a whopping 47%. Considering this, it is clear that translation is essential for business growth.
However, what’s more important to ensure effective communication with your target consumer base is that you go for only high-quality translation services.
A poor translation can distort the original message, create misunderstandings, and damage a brand’s reputation. Conversely, a well-done translation not only bridges language barriers but also maintains cultural sensitivity and relevance.
In this article, we will outline what quality control means in translation. In addition, we will also provide ten essential rules for maintaining excellent translation quality.
What is Quality Control in Translation?
First things first – what do we mean by quality control in translation?
Well, in translation, a quality check is a systematic process in which we verify if a translated text meets the standard of accuracy, fluency, and cultural appropriateness.
Typically, it involves a thorough review and revisions of translations, as well as checking whether the text conveys the original meaning without errors or misinterpretations. To make sure the end result is accurate, the entire process is divided into several stages, such as paper reviews, automated quality assurance checks, as well as professional editing.
With quality control, businesses can make certain that their translated content effectively communicates with their audience.
It is understandable that for a cohesive brand image, translations not only need to be linguistically correct but also contextually and culturally suitable for the intended readers. Hence, quality control is essential for all companies implementing some type of translation services.
What is High-Quality Translation?
Here are some features that make up a good translation:
Cultural Sensitivity
Culture has a huge impact on language. Therefore, effective translations need to go beyond word-for-word conversion and consider cultural differences and context to resonate with the target audience.
For example, a marketing slogan that works well in one culture might need a complete reimagining in another. Consider Coca-Cola’s famous campaign “Share a Coke”; in some cultures, sharing might not be a widely embraced concept, and a more culturally fitting approach would be required.
Natural Flow
One of the qualities of a good translation is that the text feels as if it were originally written in the target language. This can only be achieved if the translation tool tries to replicate the natural tone and style of the target audience.
For instance, idiomatic expressions such as “break the ice” need to be translated in a way that makes sense in the target language—in Spanish, this might become “romper el hielo,” which conveys the same meaning and natural flow as in English.
Clarity and Precision
High-quality translations are always clear and precise. The meaning should always be conveyed to your audience directly, and complex ideas should be simplified.
For example, in technical documentation, a phrase like “insert the component carefully to avoid damage” should be clearly translated to maintain instructions without ambiguity, ensuring that the audience understands exactly how to proceed.
Adherence to Context
Understanding the broader context of a text is crucial for producing accurate translations. This involves considering the subject matter, the purpose of the content, and the target audience to ensure that the translation aligns with the intended message.
For instance, translating a legal contract requires adherence to specific legal terminology and conventions to preserve the original intent, while a blog post on lifestyle tips might need a more relaxed and engaging tone.
Adaptability
A good translation is always adapted based on the document’s purpose, whether marketing content, legal text, or technical documentation. Make sure to always adjust the style and tone to suit the context, ensuring that the translation meets the needs of different formats and fields.
For example, while translating marketing material, using creative language to appeal to emotions is key, whereas in a user manual, the tone should be more instructional and direct to clearly guide the user.
10 Tips for Ensuring High-Quality Translations
Here’s a checklist of ten essential tips to ensure translation quality:
Pre-Translation Preparation
Automated translation tools perform better when the source text is clear and well-structured. Before running the text through a machine translation (MT) engine or an AI translation tool, review the content for ambiguous phrases, complex sentences, or idiomatic expressions that may confuse the software.
Keep sentences short and avoid using overly technical or creative language that may not translate well. Simplifying the source text improves the tool’s ability to generate a more accurate output, minimizing the need for post-editing. Consider utilizing quality assessment tools that also check your source content for mistakes, unclear or complex segments, allowing you to refine them before proceeding with the actual translation.
By preparing the content before translation, you enhance the quality of the initial automated output and save time on revisions.
Select the Right Translation Engine
Not all engines are created equal, and different engines excel in different types of content.
Some engines are specifically trained for certain industries, such as legal or medical and others can be trained on-the-fly based on the project and context. By choosing the right translation tool tailored to the specific content type, you can improve the initial translation quality.
It’s beneficial to test different engines with sample content to see which one provides the most accurate and natural results for your needs.
Leverage Translation Memory
Translation Memory (TM) tools store previously translated segments of text, which can then be reused in future translations. When combined with MT or AI translation, TM helps maintain consistency across large projects, as the tool will automatically suggest translations based on past work.
This is especially useful for repetitive content like user manuals or technical documents. Using TM alongside an automated translation engine ensures that key terminology and phrases remain consistent throughout a project, enhancing both the efficiency and quality of the translation process.
It also helps to speed up the process by reducing the amount of new content the engine has to translate from scratch.
Use Consistent Terminology
Consistency in terminology is crucial for maintaining quality in automated translations, especially for technical and specialized content.
Develop a glossary of key terms and phrases, and ensure that the translation engine is programmed to use these consistently. This helps to avoid variations that could confuse readers or introduce inaccuracies.
Automated tools like glossaries and terminology databases can be integrated with advanced translation systems to ensure that specific terms are translated the same way every time.
This step reduces the need for post-editing and ensures that industry-specific language remains accurate throughout the project.
Conduct Automated Quality Checks
Automated quality assurance tools can perform a variety of checks on the translated content, such as verifying numerical accuracy, identifying untranslated segments, and checking for grammar errors. Integrating these tools into your translation workflow helps catch errors that the machine might overlook.
For example, advanced QA tools can be set to flag inconsistencies in terminology or formatting errors that could otherwise go unnoticed.
These automated checks provide a first layer of review before a human editor steps in, making the entire process more efficient while ensuring that the translation meets the established standards.
Customize Translation Engines with Domain-Specific Training
Training your translation engine with domain-specific data is a vital step in improving translation quality.
By feeding the system with a corpus of previously translated documents in the relevant field, you can tailor it to better understand the specific terminology, style, and tone required for your content.
This customization ensures that the automated translations are more accurate and contextually appropriate from the start, reducing the amount of time needed for post-editing. It’s particularly useful for technical, medical, or legal content, where precision is paramount.
Set Up a Two-Step Post-Editing Process
While automated translation tools have improved significantly, post-editing remains a critical part of quality assurance.
A two-step post-editing process involves an initial light edit to correct obvious errors, followed by a more thorough review for fluency and readability. During this stage, the editor ensures that the translation aligns with the original intent and adheres to quality standards.
This process helps to polish the automated translation into a final product that reads naturally and accurately in the target language. By setting up this structured post-editing process, you can ensure that even machine-generated translations achieve a high level of quality.
When translating highly sensitive material where accuracy is imperative, consider implementing back-translation during post-editing.
Use Style Guides
Style guides provide detailed instructions on tone, voice, formatting, and specific linguistic preferences, ensuring that translations remain consistent throughout a project.
In an automated translation workflow, a style guide serves as a reference for both the translation engine’s training and human editors during post-editing.
For instance, it can define how to handle acronyms, capitalization, or brand-specific terms. Using style guides as a quality assurance tool helps to ensure that both the translation tool and post-editors maintain consistency in style, which is especially important for projects involving multiple languages or large volumes of content.
Implement Real-Time Feedback Loops
For projects with continuous translation needs, implementing real-time feedback loops between translators, editors, and the MT engine can significantly improve quality. This involves creating a system where human reviewers provide feedback on the MT output, which is then used to refine the engine’s future performance.
Real-time feedback ensures that errors are corrected quickly, and it helps the translation system learn from its mistakes.
Additionally, this can also help editors address recurring issues, making the process more efficient and ensuring that translation quality improves over time.
Conduct Final Quality Assurance Checks
The final step in ensuring high translation quality is conducting a thorough quality assurance review before delivering the content.
This includes a final check for linguistic accuracy, formatting consistency, and cultural appropriateness. Even after using MT and post-editing, a final human review ensures that the translation aligns perfectly with the original content’s intent and meets all project-specific requirements.
This final quality assurance step is crucial for catching any remaining issues and ensuring that the translation is of the highest possible standard, ready for publication or distribution.
Achieve Unparalleled Translation Quality with Transifex & AI
Whether you are working on software localization, website translation, or multilingual content, Transifex provides the tools and expertise needed to maintain top-notch translation quality throughout your projects.
Transifex offers an AI-powered platform designed to help businesses achieve the highest translation standards with minimal effort. Transifex AI generates on-brand, contextual translations by leveraging style guides, glossaries, and Translation Memory (TM), ensuring consistency and accuracy across all projects.
After translation, the Transifex Quality Index (TQI) provides an in-depth evaluation of translation quality, assessing clarity, fluency, terminology consistency, and adherence to style guides. By leveraging TQI, teams can automate quality checks and receive actionable insights to refine translations.
These capabilities, combined with a structured post-editing workflow and real-time feedback loops, ensure that the final content is polished, accurate, and contextually appropriate, making Transifex the ideal choice for achieving high-quality translations at scale.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the basic rules for translation?
The basic rules for translation include understanding the source material, choosing the right terminology, adapting the content to the target culture, and thoroughly reviewing and proofreading the translated text.
It is also important to maintain consistency through translation memory and adhere to style guides to ensure that the translation aligns with the client’s brand voice.
How do you evaluate the quality of a translation?
Translation quality is evaluated through several criteria, including accuracy, fluency, and cultural appropriateness.
Accuracy ensures that the translation reflects the original meaning, while fluency focuses on readability and grammatical correctness in the target language. Cultural appropriateness ensures that the translation resonates with the target audience.
Peer reviews, automated QA checks, and feedback from clients are common methods for evaluating translation quality.
