Why this became a separate product
Five years ago, checking translation was a step inside a translation job. You translated, someone proofread, and the proofreading was part of the price nobody itemised.
That has changed across the entire industry. Every major language provider now sells quality checking as its own named product, with its own price and in some cases its own patents. The reason is straightforward: when a machine produces most of the words, the scarce thing is no longer the words. It is credible evidence that they are fit for purpose.
The structural argument
An audit performed by the party being audited is not evidence.
That principle is uncontroversial in accounting, in safety engineering and in clinical research, and it applies exactly the same way to language. When the company that produced the translation also grades it, the grade carries the producer's interest in it. When the company that built the engine also certifies the engine's output, the certificate is marketing.
We do not translate the content we review, and we do not sell an engine. That is not a slogan — it is the entire reason the assessment is worth something to the person you hand it to.
What a review contains
- Error identification. Every issue found, located to the segment, with the source and target shown side by side.
- Categorisation. Each error typed against MQM: accuracy, fluency, terminology, style, locale convention, design and markup.
- Severity. Minor, major or critical — because ten cosmetic issues and one flipped negation are not the same finding, and a single score that averages them is worse than useless.
- A quality score. A number you can track across languages, suppliers and time.
- A verdict. Whether, in our assessment, the content is fit for release at the standard agreed — stated plainly, with the reasoning.
- Trend reporting. For ongoing programmes: cumulative reports by language, supplier, content type and error category, so patterns surface before they become incidents.
What it is for
Supplier monitoring. You have three vendors and no comparable way to judge them. Structured scoring on the same framework makes them comparable, and makes rate conversations evidential rather than anecdotal.
Engine and model evaluation. Which system actually performs best on your content, in your pairs. The published benchmarks are general-domain and the vendors' own numbers are marketing. Your content is the only test that matters.
Release gating. For content where an error carries regulatory, legal or safety consequence, an independent check before release, documented.
Audit and evidence. Where you need to demonstrate that qualified humans reviewed content, and be able to show who, when and against what standard.
Dispute resolution. When a client says the quality was inadequate and the supplier disagrees, a structured third-party assessment converts an argument into a finding.
How we run it
- Reviewers are matched by subject as well as language. A device reviewer knows devices. For safety-critical content, a generalist is not sufficient, and we will not staff it that way.
- Reviewer qualifications are documented and available. Training, credentials, subject expertise, years in domain. If your auditor asks, you have an answer.
- Scoring is calibrated. Reviewers are checked against each other so that a score means the same thing in Arabic as in Japanese.
- Findings are versioned. Which source version, which target version, which date.
- We report what we find. Including when the answer is that the content is fine and you are over-spending on review. That has happened, and we would rather say it.
Pricing
Quality assurance is priced by time, volume reviewed and depth — never bundled into a per-word translation rate. It serves a different purpose from translation: it reduces risk rather than producing content, and pricing it per word would imply the opposite.
Sampling programmes are usually priced as a recurring monthly engagement. Release-critical full reviews are priced per project. Ask us and we will give you a number against your real volumes.
Common questions
How is this different from proofreading?
Proofreading produces a corrected file. Language quality assurance produces a categorised, scored assessment — what was wrong, what type of error it was, how severe, and what that means for whether the content can be released. You can buy the corrections as well, but the report is the deliverable.
Will you review work produced by another supplier?
Yes. That is most of what this service is for. We assess the output on its merits and we have no relationship with whoever produced it.
Do you sample or check everything?
Both are available. Sampling is right for ongoing supplier monitoring; full review is right for release-critical content. We will tell you which one your content justifies rather than selling you the larger number.
What framework do you score against?
MQM by default, because it is the industry standard and your clients will recognise it. We can work to DQF-MQM, to J2450 for automotive, or to a client's own scorecard if one already exists.