Translation review & QA
A second pair of expert eyes on translations you did not produce with us — from another agency, an in-house team or an AI tool — before they go to print, publication or a regulator.
When you need a review, not a retranslation
Sometimes the translation already exists. Another agency delivered it. A distributor produced it years ago. An in-house colleague wrote it. An AI tool generated it. What you need now is an answer to a simple question: can we publish this?
Translation review is that answer. An independent specialist — native in the target language, with a background in your field — compares the translation sentence by sentence against the source and either confirms it is sound or corrects it until it is. Link Translation has provided this kind of independent check since 2005, and it is the same discipline we apply internally: every translation we produce ourselves gets a second-linguist review before delivery.
What gets checked
- Accuracy — nothing added, omitted or reversed; qualifiers and negations intact
- Terminology — consistent with your term base, your industry’s standards, or both
- Numbers, units and references — figures, tolerances, cross-references and dates verified against the source
- Compliance wording — warnings, claims, disclaimers and required phrases present and correctly rendered
- Consistency — the same concept translated the same way across the whole document set
You receive corrected files, tracked changes where the format allows, and a findings report in plain language: what was wrong, how often, and how serious. Where a formal framework helps — for example when you need to score a supplier, not just fix a document — we review against established industry quality metrics, so the same yardstick can be applied to the next delivery too.
Review of work done elsewhere
Reviewing another supplier’s work calls for professional judgment, not point-scoring. Our reviewers classify issues by severity — a genuine mistranslation is not the same as a stylistic preference — so the report tells you whether the translation has a real problem or just a different voice. That distinction matters when you are deciding whether to fix, retranslate or simply approve.
The same applies to AI output. Machine-generated translations tend to fail in a specific way: fluent sentences that drift from the source. A reviewer who knows the subject catches what a spell-checker, a back-translation or a second AI pass will not.
Sign-off you can put in a file
For regulated and contractual content, the deliverable is more than a corrected document. It is a documented verification step: a qualified, named human reviewed this translation against the source and confirmed it fit for purpose. If your quality system, notified body or legal team asks who checked the translation, you have an answer — with a report behind it.
Send us the source and the translation, and you get a fixed quote within 24 hours. Reviews are available in 30+ languages, handled by the same sector practice groups that have translated regulated and technical content here since 2005.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly do you check in a review?
Accuracy against the source (nothing added, dropped or reversed), terminology against your term base or industry standards, numbers, units and references, and compliance-sensitive wording such as warnings and claims. You receive the corrected files plus a report of what was found and why it matters.
Can you review translations our previous agency delivered?
Yes, and this is one of the most common requests. We review the work on its own merits and document issues factually — the goal is a text you can trust, not a takedown of another supplier. Many clients use a review round before switching providers or before a high-stakes release.
Do you review AI-generated translations?
Yes. Output from ChatGPT, DeepL and similar tools reads fluently, which makes its errors hard for a non-speaker to spot. Our reviewers compare every sentence to the source and correct what the machine got wrong. For a full workflow around this, see our AI translation review service.
What does the sign-off mean in practice?
A named, qualified reviewer confirms the translation is accurate and fit for its stated purpose. For regulated content, that gives you a documented human verification step to include in your quality records — something an AI tool cannot provide for itself.