There are mistakes translators do not want to have in the final copy they send to the client. In this article, I am going to target two of them that can really have a damaging impact on the quality of a translator’s final product. These are:
Omissions: It is hard to translate a whole text without living out some words, phrases or even sentences. Leaving out parts of the text being translated can really affect the quality of the translator’s final product and their image with regard to the client. Clients are often very angry when they discover that parts of the text were left out. To make sure that your final text has no omissions, it is better to compare each sentence in the source text with its translation in the target text. This can be done by reading each sentence in the source text and reading its translation in the target while making sure some words or segments are not left out. It is strongly recommended that this process should be sentence by sentence, in case of relatively shorter sentences. If one has to deal with very long sentences, it is often preferable to proceed segment by segment.
Mistranslations: It is always very easy for a wrong translation to find its way into our text. Clients, especially translation agencies, can really get annoyed if they find that there are wrong translations in our final copy. To avoid mistranslations, it is better to compare the source and target texts, often by reading aloud. A sentence by sentence reading aloud of the source and target text can really help the translator identify cases of mistranslation and correct them.
Apart from the above mistakes which negatively affect the quality of our work, translators should also carefully check their texts for spelling, grammar, punctuation etc. errors before submitting a final copy to the client.