Measuring translation quality

Welcome to our blog post.

For today’s article I want to look at the area of how you go about quality checking translations, and specifically how the back translation process is used to validate translations. There are numerous models out there in the LSP world for checking quality and for subsequent blog post I would like to examine these in more detail but right now I want to explore how (and if) back translations can be of help.

A quick introduction to quality and translation; quality in any field is extremely difficult to quantify and this is particularly true in the LSP sphere where requirements vary greatly. The quality requirements for a translation that is used to give the overall gist of what is being discussed may be very different to the requirements of a piece that is highly technical and requires the reader to follow line by line and point by point. A process that is most widely used for quantifying quality in regards to translation is to see how ‘fit for use’ the translation is. For example marketing translations should be persuasive, slick and friendly if the object (same as the original) is to persuade people to buy products in a slick and friendly way. The ‘fit for use’ model can be really useful but difficulty arises when, once having had work translated, the buyer has no way to verify if the translation is ’fit for use’ (for example – they may not speak or read the target language). Back translations can help to authenticate if a translation is ‘fit for use’.

First a brief overview of how back translation works and what it is. The process of back translation is very straightforward. Typically, a translation assignment involves the translator translating the document, then an independent reviewer proofing and editing the text. This process may be more or less complex depending on the nature of the assignment and the organisation involved in providing translation services. Back translations add to this process by retranslating the translated text back into the original source language. Although not an identical word for word match, once translated the text should provide a close resemblance to the original. If the retranslated text appears to have no resemblance to the original, or worse, contradicts the original (and assuming that this was not the purpose of that translation process) then you could classify the translation as of low quality and not fit for use.

The below diagram illustrates how the back translation process works:

The benefit of processing a back translation is twofold. Firstly, as mentioned above, it can be used as a tool to help validate the quality of a translation. If the quality of a text is in doubt a back translation with give a good understanding of the translation. Secondly, back translations can be used to understand how well a text is suited to a specific market. Writing styles vary greatly from culture to culture, and using text that can be easily followed once translated is important. For example if you have a text translated that is full of colloquial terms and expressions and then the subsequent back translation misses the meaning of these, the problem may not be in the translation but the source material. Back translation can be a useful method for checking the usability of source material in a potential market.

Back translation can be used by a range of businesses and many industries will have back translation as a required part of their translation process. Pharmaceutical companies for example may need to have all their translations back translated as part of the validation process or for compliancy reasons. Here a miss-translation or an error in the translation could prove fatal. Similarly, back translations may be required by organisations who need to confirm that once translated their material will make sense to their target market. Theatre production companies who are touring with a translated script may feel back translations would be useful for their needs. This is even more so the case when they are unable to validate the credentials of the translator who undertook the original translation. Other bodies that may require back translations include legal companies who need to source the meaning of text that has already been translated and market research organisations who need to understand the finding of an already translated market research survey. The question is how useful is the back translation process?

A document that has been back translated will never be a word for word match of the original. The translator processing the back translation will only have the translated file as their source file which, unless it is a literal word for word translation, will be the original translator’s interpretation of the text. When reviewing the back translation, this will need to be taken into consideration. As well as that it can only help identify if there are issues with quality not correct them.

We have undertaken a number of back translations for our clients - all undertaken for a variety of reasons (compliancy, legal, self-review etc) and without exception they have all be successful. As a validation tool it really can be useful for determining the accuracy of the original.

There are many different tools and models out there for measuring quality and we would be interested in hearing any experiences you have had in using any of these methods (including back translations).