Quality control in translation

Since I originally trained as both a translator and proofreader in a company that was committed to high quality standards in the texts it delivered to clients, quality control has always been an important theme for me in my translation work. Every translated text was checked by another translator and we applied the same exacting rules we used for proofreading to our own texts.

One of the more anxiety-inducing aspects of being a freelancer is that you are largely responsible for your own quality control. There is a good chance that the texts you translate won't be proofread or even checked by a native speaker, meaning that it's important to deliver texts your clients can trust. Furthermore, direct input from other translators tends to be quite rare and so it can be more challenging to maintain a clear sense of the quality of your own work relative to industry norms.

In this post, I want to describe some of my own quality control processes and address some potential factors that can impair translation quality.
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Stages of the translation and checking process

As a rule, I use a three-stage process for every text that I translate. Firstly, the translation itself, which is generally carried out in MemoQ. This translation software breaks the German source text into small segments which are displayed to the left of my translation, which makes it harder to miss out individual German words in translation and almost impossible to miss out entire sentences. 

Secondly, I then check each line of my English translation against the German original. The focus at this stage is to ensure that I haven't missed out or misunderstood anything, as well as to root out any more obvious errors. 

Thirdly, I then export the English to a normal file (usually MS Word) and read it through again just in English, looking for grammatical and stylistic errors. Ideally, I carry out this final read-through on a different day so that I come to it with fresh eyes and can spot anything that sounds like "Translatorese" rather than English. 

Breaking the proofreading process up in this way makes it possible to focus on one thing at a time. I find I can translate better and more freely if I'm not hung up on getting everything exactly right first time, and I can proofread the English better if I'm not distracted by the original German. This process is also intended to replicate the "four eyes principle", insofar as this is possible with just two eyes.

For certain text types, this will become a four- or even a five-stage process: a monolingual read-through of the source text for texts with lots of formatting/complexities, and/or a second monolingual read-through of the target text for more creative texts which need to be checked first for style and "flow" before then being checked for grammatical errors.

Sources/categories of error 

One obvious worry for any translator is coming across a term or concept in a text that you don't understand. Now this isn't so bad if you realise you don't understand it. Rather than just guessing and hoping for the best, there are now lots of platforms for researching and discussing difficult terms: I am not entirely sure how translators were ever able to cope before the Internet. I also consult with native speakers, if necessary (while respecting the confidentiality of the text, naturally). If I remain uncertain what is meant even after this, I either ask the client themselves prior to delivery or highlight my proposed translation with a comment in the delivered document. Obviously, I try not to overwhelm clients with such queries and comments, but I believe they appreciate that I flag these issues up rather than feeling I am attempting to shirk my responsibilities as a translator. As a client, I would be rather suspicious of a translator who never professes to have any doubts about how to translate the texts they work on. I am lucky in my language combination that my clients will often understand English well enough to be able to judge whether my proposed translations are plausible.

A bigger worry is cases where you think you've understood the German but actually you haven't. More occasionally, I am also embarrassed to discover that I've been misusing an English term I thought I understood for years. The problem here is not so much how to avoid making the error (though thankfully, my German and English are good enough that it doesn't occur very often) as how to even make yourself aware that you're making it. I try to encourage an attitude of healthy paranoia when writing and checking my translations - checking the meanings even of words that I think I know. It's also important to read the sentences in context and consider whether they sound plausible.

Other categories of problem include: overlooking a word in the German so that it doesn't appear in the English; translating a word or phrase inconsistently; misreading or mixing up words or phrases in either German or English (reading "Wirtschaft" as "Wissenschaft", for instance; confusing "sie" (they) with "Sie" (you); mixing up "phosphor" and "phosphorus" or "conductor" and "composer"; typing "you" rather than "your" or vice versa); producing sentences that don't sound like natural English.

Approaches and tools to reduce errors

The three-stage process described above is intended to make it easier to avoid some of these problems by focusing on different potential sources of error at different stages rather than trying to deal with everything at once. Looking at texts with "fresh eyes" is definitely a good way of spotting errors that were invisible to begin with. Ideally, it would be best for a second pair of eyes to look at a translation, but this is usually not practically or contractually possible (I learned from my in-house experience that the best practice for translation checks by a second person is for the corrected text to be returned to the original translator after checking so that they can approve corrections and see what mistakes they made).

In general, I find that anything that helps you to "see" the text differently or more clearly makes it easier to spot problems. I have invested in a larger monitor screen for this reason, and sometimes I will also print out my translations so I can read them through on paper. I also try to read my translations aloud so I can hear what they sound like. In addition, it's important to be regularly exposed to (good-quality) English texts in your field so that you retain a sense of what they're supposed to be like; the fact that I also work as a proofreader is an advantage in this respect.

Proofreading has also made it second nature for me to consistently apply a standard set of style guidelines to every job I work on (with some variation for different clients and UK/US English). This helps significantly because I don't have to keep making certain decisions over and over again, or wondering how I did it elsewhere: I can be confident that I am following a consistent approach. I also try to make a habit of checking for specific errors I know I have a tendency to make, such as the you/your typo pair (which doesn't get picked up by spellcheck).

As I have already mentioned, the use of translation memory software also helps significantly with some of these issues, since it makes it impossible to overlook entire sentences and has both automatic and manual functions to improve consistency, including the ability to search throughout multiple texts at once. MemoQ also offers a helpful "Quality assurance" function that helps to spot certain errors such as repeated words or missing key terminology. Finally, unlike MS Word, the search function in MemoQ is able to identify the difference between German and English apostrophes/speech marks. That said, used improperly, TM software can be a source of certain errors; for instance, if it fills in an imperfect match from the translation memory and you don't edit it.    

Other helpful tools include spellcheck, which seems obvious but is neglected by some translators. Using "skip all" is a helpful way to ensure that proper/brand names are spelt consistently throughout a text. Obviously, the limitations need to be respected here too: some of the MS Word default spellcheck settings need to be changed (for instance, it ignores words wholly in upper case) and others are just annoying (mine thinks that "und" is an English word). I also still make use of glossaries of terminology for some clients, though I now find these are largely being superseded by TM software. However, no technology could replace the humble sticky notes I keep by my side as I work so I can scribble down any issues that need to be checked. I then work through this list all in one go after completing the first stage of the translation, rather than constantly interrupting my flow by checking them as I go.

Finally, it is important to be open to dialogue with clients. As mentioned previously, where absolutely necessary to ensure quality, I do send queries/comments to clients before delivery. In order to ensure quality across the board, I try also to alert them to errors I spot in the German text (since you work intensely on texts as a translator, you can sometimes spot things that wouldn't be noticed at a glance even by a native speaker). Very occasionally, I realise after delivery that my translation contained an error; in those cases, I will make sure to alert the client rather than trying to conceal my mistake. Clients themselves will also sometimes return to me with queries about my translation and I endeavour to respond to these queries as quickly and helpfully as possible. In this way, we can work together to produce the best possible texts.

Ultimately, of course, there are limits to how far a translator can reasonably be expected to go to control the quality of their own work. It is not economically viable to spend hours painstakingly checking and re-checking for errors. With the best will in the world, it is inevitable there will very occasionally be small errors. But to my mind, that's all the more reason to take steps to ensure that at least the errors that aren't inevitable (the "evitable errors") can be avoided. And of course, the most important thing of all is to learn from past mistakes and learn from them so that the quality of my translation work improves further in future.