Services
Review of existing translations.
An independent read of a translation you already hold, checked against the English source by a qualified linguist working in that pair, and returned with a written finding you can put in the file.
What comes to us
What we review.
Agencies accumulate translations. Some were bought, some were done in-house between other duties, some came out of a tool, and by the time anyone asks whether they are right, nobody remembers which is which.
- Files from a prior vendor, where the contract has ended and nobody ever checked the work.
- Translations done by bilingual staff or volunteers — fluent speakers, but not trained translators, and usually working without a glossary or a second reader.
- Machine-translated text, already posted or about to be. We assess it as text; what produced it does not change how a resident reads it.
- Documents whose English has since been revised, so the translation now describes a program that has changed.
- Sets that have drifted, with the same term rendered three ways across four documents.
Deliverable
What comes back.
One of three findings, in writing, naming the reviewer's language pair, the source file the translation was checked against, and the date of review.
- Accurate as issued
- No substantive change needed. You get the written finding, and a short list of optional improvements where any are worth making.
- Corrections applied
- A corrected file with tracked changes, so every edit is visible and reversible, plus a note on each substantive change saying what was wrong with the original.
- Retranslation recommended
- The text sits below the point where editing is honest work. We say so, explain why, and quote the retranslation.
Findings separate errors of meaning — a mistranslated deadline, a reversed instruction, a benefit described as available where the English says otherwise — from questions of register and terminology, and both of those from typography and layout. The first category is what makes a notice unsafe to publish. The rest is quality, and you can decide how much of it is worth paying to fix.
Cost
When review is cheaper, and when it is not.
Review is sold as an alternative to retranslation, so it is worth being plain about where it stops being the cheaper option.
Review is the cheaper path when a translation is broadly sound and its problems are localized: terminology, a handful of sentences, a section that was skipped, formatting that broke on export. You pay for reading and light editing rather than for the whole word count again.
It stops being cheaper when the text has to be reworked sentence by sentence. Past that point editing costs more than translating, and it produces a document that reads as patched rather than written — which readers notice, and which leaves the agency defending a text nobody would have chosen to write that way. When a document is below that floor we stop, tell you before the hours accumulate, and recommend retranslation instead.
Certification follows the same rule. We certify a reviewed document only where the text warrants it. If corrections bring it to standard, the certificate is issued against the corrected version and never against the file as it arrived. If it does not reach that standard, no certificate is issued and the finding says so. A certificate that is easy to obtain is worth nothing to the agency holding it.
Review is quoted separately from translation, by document and language. See pricing.
Related
- Document translationNotices, forms, applications, outreach materials, and public-facing web copy — translated, reviewed, and returned in the layout you sent.
- Certified translationA signed, dated certificate of accuracy accompanying each delivery, in the form agencies and courts expect for the record.
- Formatting and layoutText expansion, right-to-left scripts, and CJK line breaking handled so the translated file prints and posts like the source.
Send the translation you are unsure about.
Attach the translated file and the English source it was made from, and you will have scope and a price for the review back same business day.