Client Review & Approval Process
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If your organisation has personnel located in the target country or speaks the language where the translation will be distributed it’s only natural you’d want them to review the translation and gain their input before the document is published or circulated.
A review should be considered as an optional step, not a required part of a translation project. If you trust the translation service you’ve contracted with, you should not be afraid to publish a document that hasn’t been reviewed. A reputable translation supplier will employ only professionals and will include thorough editing and proofreading on every project.
However, if you are going to have your translation reviewed ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible by using this checklist:
Specify that you want to review the translation when you submit the job to your translation agency, so that it can be routed to you at the appropriate time. Don’t wait until the job is completed and a final copy is delivered before you decide to have somebody review it. If you do, making changes may incur additional expense.
Choose your reviewer carefully. Choose a native of the target language, and somebody that is familiar with your products such as an in-country distributor. A few years of college language classes, or vague familiarity with your products, does not equip a person to be a reviewer.
Ensure the translation is reviewed against the source file and not in isolation. Reviewers can be susceptible to ‘red-ink syndrome’ where they feel compelled to change things. This is easily avoiding by ensuring the translation is reviewed against the original source document.
Choose one and only one reviewer. Two reviewers may make conflicting changes requiring your translator to spend time resolving the conflicts, and costing you money. Three or more reviewers are a committee and can cause major problems.
Make sure your reviewer knows that the review is restricted to technical accuracy and terminology recommendations. The reviewer is not to make content changes, or rewrite the translation in favour of their own personal style. Your reviewer also needs to be informed if your translation is intended for use in a broad market. You don’t want them to narrow the focus by substituting words that are only appropriate in one specific locale.
Set a deadline. It’s not that unusual for many weeks, even months, to pass before the reviewer’s comments are received.
Don’t automatically assume that your reviewer’s changes are translation errors. More often than not, changes represent a different way of saying the same thing. Some reviewers get carried away being creative, and sometimes reviewers even make mistakes. There’s always the possibility that the reviewer does not understand the content of the source text as well as the original translator.