Translation Quality Control

Step one: the right translator for the document

Quality begins before translation. When a document arrives, the coordinator identifies its type and purpose and assigns it to a translator who works with that type: civil status and identity documents to translators who handle official documents daily and know registry conventions; contracts and court documents to legal translators; medical records to translators with clinical backgrounds; financial statements to translators who know IFRS terminology; manuals to technical translators in the relevant field; marketing and literary texts to translators who write. For language pairs where we use freelance specialists, the same matching applies, and a specialist new to us is tested before receiving client work.

The translator receives the purpose along with the document ("for UKVI", "for the Public Registry", "for a German Standesamt", "for a treating oncologist"), because purpose changes decisions: how a degree title is rendered, whether an apostille page is translated, how a diagnosis is worded. Reference material from the client (previous translations, glossaries, passport spellings, instructions from the receiving institution) is attached to the assignment and is binding.

Step two: review by a second linguist

Every translation is reviewed by a second linguist who compares it with the source sentence by sentence. The reviewer checks meaning (nothing added, omitted or distorted), terminology (correct for the field and consistent with the glossary), completeness (every page, stamp, seal, annotation, footnote and table row), target-language quality (grammar, register, natural phrasing for the reader) and formatting (structure mirrors the source closely enough for side-by-side comparison, tables align, numbering matches). Reviewers are chosen for the same expertise as translators, so a legal translation is reviewed by a legal linguist and a medical one by a medical linguist.

For published and marketing material a third pass by a native editor of the target language follows, focused on style rather than accuracy. For large projects with several translators, the reviewer also harmonizes terminology across the whole set so that the same term is not rendered three ways by three people.

Step three: the names and numbers check

Official, financial, medical and technical documents go through a separate check that ignores the prose and looks only at the data: personal names against the passport spelling supplied by the client; dates, personal numbers, passport and certificate numbers, cadastral codes, registration and tax numbers, account numbers and IBANs, amounts and currencies, laboratory values and units, dosages, part numbers, drawing references and standard citations, all compared digit by digit with the source. Running totals in financial tables are re-added. Where a Georgian document uses a comma as a decimal separator and the target language uses a point, the conversion is verified.

This check exists because the most damaging translation errors are not linguistic. A birth date off by one digit, a surname with one letter different from the passport, a transposed account number or a dosage with the decimal in the wrong place can cost a client a visa, a registration or worse, and none of these errors is visible to a reader who is judging the prose. The data check is done by a person who did not translate the document and is signed off separately.

Glossaries, translation memory and consistency

For every corporate client and every large project we maintain a glossary of names, defined terms, product names, job titles and preferred renderings, and a translation memory that records every sentence we have translated for that client. The glossary makes terminology decisions once and applies them everywhere; the memory ensures that a clause in this year's contract reads the same as in last year's, that a product description repeated across a catalog is identical, and that repeated content is not charged twice. For private clients, we keep the spelling of family names and previous translations on file so that a second document months later matches the first.

Software supports this process (translation memory tools, terminology databases, automated checks for numbers, tags and untranslated segments) but does not replace the human review. Machine translation is not used for client documents unless agreed in writing for a specific low-risk project, as explained on our confidentiality page.

Queries, pre-notarization check and after delivery

When the source is unclear (an illegible stamp, a name spelled two ways in the same document, an abbreviation with several meanings, a clause that is ambiguous in the original), we ask you rather than guess. Queries are collected and sent once, with our proposed reading, so that you are not interrupted repeatedly; where you cannot answer, the translation marks the uncertainty transparently (an illegible passage is marked as illegible; an ambiguous term keeps the source in brackets). We do not silently "improve" a source document, and we do not silently pick one reading of a name.

Before a translation is bound and notarized, a final pre-notarization check confirms that the document is complete, that the binding order is correct, that the names match the passport, that the apostille and certifications are translated and that the number of sets is right, because a correction after notarization means repeating the notarial act. After delivery, if you or the receiving institution find an error that is ours, we correct it and reissue the translation, including a new notarization where needed, at no cost, as quickly as the notary's schedule allows. If a change is needed because the source document changed or the recipient's requirements changed, we quote the update honestly and charge only for the new work. Existing translations from elsewhere can be reviewed under the same process through our editing and review service.

How you can help the review

Send complete, legible documents with all pages and reverse sides. Provide the passport spelling of every person named, and any previous translations, glossaries or instructions from the receiving institution. Tell us the purpose and the reader. Answer queries promptly when we send them. Each of these shortens the review and removes a source of error we cannot otherwise control.