Spanish Translation Free Guide - Spanish Translation to English: Revision and QA

The Spanish Translation Free Guide explains how to manage editing and quality control of your Spanish translation. You'll find more translation resources at the bottom of the page, including a guide to translation prices. (Did you want a free online Spanish translation to English?)

How to manage editing and quality control of your Spanish translation

Hiring a second native translator to revise a translation can reduce the risk of errors and result in a smoother translation. However, if not managed properly, this step can add expense to your project without necessarily adding value. Here are some tips to make your editing/revision process a success:

1) Be clear about what you want the reviser to do. The word "revision" is used to mean a lot of different things. Do you want the reviser to just check the translation for spelling/grammar errors? To improve the style? Or to compare the translation word for word against the original for accuracy? Be very explicit about your instructions in advance.

2) Specify the format for the revision. Click here for tips on revision format and change tracking from the Spanish Translation Free Guide.

3) Set limits and maintain communication. Occasionally, a reviser will want to re-do the whole translation. Sometimes the reason for this is that there is a serious problem with the quality of the translation, and re-translating is actually necessary. Other times, the reviser will simply have different stylistic preferences from the translator.

If the reviser's reason for re-translating is simply a matter of personal style or a chronic sense of "I can do it better myself," this can cause a number of problems for your translation project. First, the revision can become overly expensive if you are paying per hour. Second, "too many cooks spoil the pot." The translation can lose consistency since it becomes essentially a product of two different writers. Third, if the reviser is not as talented or as knowledgeable as the original translator, the reviser can actually make the translation worse. And last but not least, if the reviser makes too many changes, you need to hire a reviser to check the reviser's work! The reviser, just like the translator, is capable of errors.

Tell the reviser to contact you in advance if he or she believes that extensive re-translation will be necessary. This will give you a chance to discuss the situation and get a third opinion if necessary before proceeding.

4) Don't skimp on the translator just because you have a reviser. Mediocre translator plus mediocre reviser does not equal a good translation! There is only so much a reviser can do with a bad translation without re-translating the document (which, normally, is not what you are paying the reviser for). And if the reviser is no more talented than the translator, a bad translation will stay bad.

5) Don't abuse the reviser. We have heard from translators that some people will machine-translate a document or have it translated by a non-native speaker, then hire a reviser to fix it. They think that they can save money by paying a revision rate, rather than a translation rate, for turning a non-professional translation into a professional one. Don't do this. You will only come out with a very angry reviser, a sub-standard translation, and lots of bad karma.

Go to the Spanish Translation Free Guide article on revision format and change tracking.

Spanish Translation Free Guide - More Resources

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