What is Translation Quality?

Every translation service provider or translation agency talks about translation quality, but few actually define what they really mean by quality.

Is translation quality so obvious that there’s no need to define it? Is it as simple as a measurement of the number of spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, or how closely the translation follows the original? While these are basic indicators, they still do not describe what quality translations are.

Quality always relates to a purpose. Can you imagine the translation of a patent document or a Star Wars movie script rendered in Shakespearean writing?  It would be weird, wouldn’t it? In translation, the purpose is to relay the original message in a different language.

High quality translations enables you to convey your message to people who do not speak your language. Poor translation quality comes about when it fails to convey the message or the message is conveyed in such as way that is not be acceptable to the intended recipient. It can be due to poor sentence structures, too many spelling errors, wrongly placed punctuations, etc.

More often than not, a translator is confused with a writer. While both a translator and a writer require strong writing skills and a superb command of languages, a translator is not a writer. In fact, never!

When a translator translates, he is a messenger of the original writer. The role of the translator is to get the original message to the intended audience in another language.

As such, it is important that a translator has a strong grasp of the language of the original writing to ensure that he understands the message correctly. A responsible translator will seek clarification of the original message if he thinks something doesn’t make sense. He must have an innate understanding of the original message before he can relay it in such a way as to achieve the same impact in the translated message.

Quality translations are translations that are fit for its purpose, by which the message get sent across to the intended audience successfully, whether it is an explanation on how to use a software, a legal letter, a marketing message, etc.

It will be excellent if the intended audience can’t tell that the messages were translated. They think that the messages were originally written for them in their language.

At Sage Languages, this is the level of quality that we want to provide.