What is Back Translation? Why Your Business Needs it Today?

Many businesses deal with sensitive content for which having access to high-quality assurance for translation is quite important.

Once the complete translation process, proofreading, and editing are done, it might appear like it has reached its final step.

But, there is one more phase that businesses can choose if they want to improve the quality control process.

That step is known as “Back Translation”.

Back Translation: A Brief Overview

Back translation is the technique which involves taking a previously translated document and then translating it back into its original language.

For example, if the source document (in the English language) is translated into German, the back translation process includes successful German to English translation.

The back translation process aims to verify that the translation required is highly accurate.

Most translators utilize this technique to carefully compare the actual translation to the back translation. This is done to ensure that both documents fully match, which assists to validate the translation quality.

When the entire is completed, any differences between the two documents can be highly reconciled.

Why Does Business Need Back Translation Today?

Being one of the most effective ways to ensure the top-notch quality translations, Back translation is needed by many businesses today due to many reasons:

1- Improve the Quality Control

As a client, you will be getting translation in languages in order to clearly speaking your customers language you hardly read. Because you can’t identify by yourself whether those texts meet the standard or not. You need to depend on the ability of your translators.

The back translation method transforms everything.

It enables you to assess the translation’s accuracy for yourself – without having to understand the translation language or even receive a second opinion from someone who does..

This enables you to go through the quality control process on the project, which some different QA methods don’t do.

In other words, it gives you a hands-on way of dealing with the risk involved in producing materials in different languages.

2- Clear Documentation

The back translation method can provide you with clear and robust documentation of every phase of the rigorous quality assurance in translation process.

This offers you complete transparency of the wording reviewed, action taken, any editing done to the translation as well as the rationale for those decisions.

3- Validate Translation Quality

Another crucial benefit of this type of back translation is that the translation matches their satisfaction level.

It keeps repeating, “As there are ways to say the same thing in English, there is also more than one way to say the similar thing in different languages.”

This implies that clients should not think that back translation includes a word-for-word reading of what was written in the original text.

This is generally true when a degree of transcreation was required to accurately translate a document. However, personally appreciating the translation quality can be highly satisfying to clients.

4- Works with transcreated text

At times, clients most probably ask how back translation could work with transcreation.

The usual thought is that since languages are varied, and at times, there is no same way to state something in a different language, then how can the back translation maybe be accurate or valid?

The answer is simple: make use of comments to state what is not obvious in the translation. For instance, for transcreation projects, the trilingual table is the general output of the process, but, when it comes with an extra column – the comments column.

In a transcreation project, the comments column is important for explaining the rationale of the translation exactly – as the words deviate so much from the source.

According to the exceptional translation company in Kolkata, there is no such comments column as there is no requirement in the back translation project. However, if an editor experiences the need to explain a translation, they can include a comment to that row.

Conclusion

It may cost a bit and require more time than a simple translation, however, both translation companies and customers have to consider back translation as an investment in quality, instead of an unneeded expense.

Back translating is swiftly getting more important as many businesses go global. Accuracy of well-translated documents is paramount to tapping into new markets and sticking to local regulations.

If you want professional help with back translation, call us today at +91-8527599523 or simply request an free quote.