Translation Quality Review

---
name: translation-quality-review
description: Review translated text for accuracy, register, and fit in context, with a rubric rather than an impression. Use when accepting translations or diagnosing why a localised product feels wrong to native speakers.
---

# Translation quality review

A translation can be accurate and still wrong: too formal, too literal,
or using a term the industry does not use. Review needs a rubric,
because the common feedback of it sounds odd is unactionable.

## Method

1. **Check accuracy against the source meaning, not the words.** A
   literal rendering that loses intent is a failure, and a free one that
   preserves intent is usually right.
2. **Check register and formality.** Languages with formal and informal
   address force a choice, and inconsistency within one product is more
   jarring than either choice would be.
3. **Check terminology against the glossary.** Product terms and
   industry terms must be consistent across screens, which is where
   multiple translators diverge (see translation-workflow).
4. **Review in context, on screen.** Truncation, awkward line breaks,
   and a string that reads differently beside its heading are only
   visible in place.
5. **Verify placeholders and plurals survived.** A dropped placeholder
   or a missing plural form is a defect that renders as broken text or
   crashes (see plural-and-gender-rules).
6. **Have a native speaker who knows the domain do the final pass.**
   Fluency alone misses domain conventions, and domain knowledge alone
   misses tone.

## Boundaries

- Review judges the translation; it cannot repair source copy that was
  unclear to begin with, and ambiguous English produces ambiguous
  everything.
- Reviewer disagreement on style is common and needs a style guide to
  settle rather than repeated debate.
- Automated quality scores catch mechanical errors and cannot assess
  register or cultural fit.