It’s a well-known fact that translation accuracy, reliability and effectiveness very often comes down to the finer points. For business-critical texts and content, a broadly satisfactory translation is not enough. Industry terms and wordings, context and nuance must all be competently conveyed. Grammar and spelling must be error-free. Whatever the application and context, you need a 100% guarantee of reliability and fitness-for-purpose.
We offer two services to support you here:
Proofreading & Revision of Professional Human Translations
The four-eyes principle – Better to play it safe!
Over the years we’ve developed extremely robust quality control processes for our human translations in any language. These have been built on the four-eyes principle: every translation is carried out by a qualified native-speaker translator and is then given a professional ‘second opinion’ by a further qualified native-speaker translator.
This process is a tried and tested industry standard, and is even a process requirement of the translation standard ISO17100 to which we are fully certified.
All our quotations include the option to have your translation independently proofread, whatever the language. We recommend this step not because the translation would be substandard without it (our translators and translator teams are all hand-picked experts), but because we know that for your business-critical documents and content you need 100% peace of mind.
During proofreading we check the source text has not been misinterpreted or the sense altered, even subtly, in the translation. We also fix any grammatical, stylistic and spelling anomalies. If there’s a glossary or list of preferred terms we double-check these have been used correctly and consistently. Finally if you wish, we can also make suggestions to improve clarity, consistency and readability. And if you’re in a hurry, we’ll pull out all the stops to ensure you meet your deadline!
We can support you with revision / proofreading of human translations in the following ways:
- You can opt for our all-inclusive translation + proofreading service, leaving everything to us
- If you’ve had a draft translation carried out yourselves, we can carry out a line-by-line check of your translated copy against the original version
- Finally, we can review your translated version as a standalone document (without referring to the original language). We aim to improve clarity, consistency and readability, and also double-check spelling and grammar
Post-editing & Validation of AI-generated translations
There are now numerous automatic or machine-generated translation systems available with a few mouse clicks. Whether FOC or subscription-based these systems now offer rapid draft versions with often impressive translation accuracy for simpler, more straightforward texts.
However users should be careful not to be lulled into a false sense of security by apparently fluent AI-translated content. AI systems have very limited contextual understanding or awareness, which can lead to potentially serious problems lurking below the surface. The flaws of this technology in the translation sphere include:
- Marketing and brand messages can be diluted due to word-for-word translations
- Legal, financial or regulatory documents when plainly-written may exhibit poor readability at best. More complex documents can contain serious errors or even be non-sensical in places
- Mistakes in technical, training and health & safety translations can lead to real-life risks or even cause harm
- For multi-language projects, varying levels of accuracy are common across different language versions of the same source text
- Nuances and other culturally relevant phrases are often inaccurate or lost
- Local phrases and expressions can be mis-interpreted or lost
- AI systems can sometimes ‘hallucinate’ producing surprise interpretations, particularly for more unusual language pairs
In summary mistakes arising from use of AI-generated translations can be costly in terms of organisational risk management and reputation.
However all the above risks can to a great extent be mitigated by professional post-editing of the AI outputs with line by line validation to ensure fitness for purpose.
We offer three levels of service for this:
| AI-Translation Post Editing: Lite (2 eyes) | AI-Translation Post Editing: Full (2 eyes) | AI-Translation Post Editing: Full + (4 eyes) |
|---|---|---|
| Rapid workrate, lowest pricing. | Quick workrate, low pricing. | Medium workrate, medium pricing. |
| Suitable for non-core internal comms, such as intranet pages, staff emails and employee surveys. | Suitable for non-core external comms, such as low-priority website pages and social media posts. | Recommended for internal and external comms, such as company newsletters, customer service materials, employee handbooks. NOTE: for core, business-critical content we would always recommend human translation, plus revision where appropriate. |
| The source text is fed into an AI-translation tool. After which, it is quickly proofread by a qualified translator who will make any necessary corrections to meaning. | The source text is fed into an AI-translation tool. After which, it is post-edited by a qualified translator whose aim is to make the text sound more fluent, as if it had been written by a human. The post-editor will also make any necessary corrections to meaning. | The source text is fed into an AI-translation tool. After which, it is post-edited by a qualified translator whose aim is to make the text sound more fluent, as if it had been written by a human. The post-editor will also make any necessary corrections to meaning. The text will then be proofread by a second qualified translator, whose role is to ensure that the translation is accurate, that its tone matches the source text, and that it reads fluently, as if written by a human. |
