Translation verification is a focused quality assurance step that confirms your translated content accurately, fully, and consistently reflects the meaning of the source text and functions effectively in the target language. It’s designed to reduce risk by identifying mistranslations, omissions, additions, terminology or localisation issues, and instruction errors – before content is published, submitted, or deployed.
This service is particularly valuable when translations are produced by subject-matter experts rather than professional linguists, or by third parties, and when the content is high-stakes – such as educational assessments and exams – where accuracy is critical and errors can have serious consequences.
Our approach to translation verification
Translation verification (often called bilingual review, translation QA, or linguistic QA) involves a qualified linguist comparing the source and target texts side by side in detail.
Unlike editing, verification does not aim to rewrite for style. Instead, it focuses on whether the translation is works effectively and equivalent to the source. In short, editing asks whether the text reads naturally and is linguistically correct, while translation verification asks whether it faithfully and fully reflects the source and its intent.
Our verification approach typically covers aspects such as accuracy, completeness, clarity, consistency, tone alignment, equivalence, factual accuracy, cultural appropriateness and compliance with instructions.
Translation verification for educational assessments and research
For education and education research content – such as tests, questionnaires, item banks, surveys, and study documentation – small errors can create outsized problems, including:
- misinterpretation of questions or instructions
- inconsistent terminology across items
- invalid or incomparable data across countries/regions
- fairness concerns due to unclear or culturally inappropriate wording
Translation verification provides a dependable quality checkpoint to support clarity, consistency, and comparability in multilingual studies, assessments, and learning materials – whether you’re running a large international programme or a single multilingual rollout.
Our typical translation verification process includes:
- Setup & reference review
- Verification process
- Issue logging and categorisation
- Quality Assurance checks
- Finalisation
Formats and platforms we support
We can verify translations in:
- Word, Excel, XML, CSV, bilingual tables
- authoring platforms and client systems (where access is provided)
- final layouts (PDF / designed formats) when verification in context is required
If you have an established workflow or toolset, we’ll align to it.
We’d be happy to help with any upcoming translation verification needs – submit a no-obligation quote request using the form below or contact us directly.
FAQ’s
Translation verification is a bilingual, side-by-side comparison of the source and translated text to confirm accuracy, completeness, clarity, consistency, tone alignment, equivalence, factual accuracy, cultural appropriateness and compliance with instructions.
Proofreading typically focuses on linguistic aspects, formatting and accuracy.
Editing typically focuses on style, fluency and readability, as well as linguistic aspects.
Translation verification compares the translation against the source to confirm that the meaning is preserved, nothing is missing or added, the translation functions effectively and is comparable to the source, and it is culturally appropriate and compliant with instructions. It is typically completed by linguists with industry knowledge, enabling robust checks across meaning, terminology, and factual accuracy.
Although translation verification considers cultural aspects, it is less extensive than full localisation, which involves broader cultural and contextual adaptation.
Yes. Verification is often used as a human validation step for machine translation and AI-assisted translations – especially when the content is high-stakes or must be consistent across multiple languages.
Yes. Translation verification is commonly used when translations are produced by subject-matter experts or external providers, and you need independent confirmation that the translation is accurate, appropriate and complete.
We support a wide range of languages. If you share your language list and target countries, we’ll confirm coverage and any regional requirements (e.g., variants, orthography, scripts).
We can verify in common formats such as Word, Excel, XML/CSV, bilingual tables, and can also work directly in client platforms or review final formatted outputs where needed.
Timelines depend on length, number of languages, complexity, and whether verification is done in files or within a platform. If you share word counts, languages, and deadline, we can advise the most efficient approach.
If your main risk is accuracy and completeness, verification is often ideal. If you also need improvements to style, fluency, and naturalness – or significant cultural adaptation – editing or a fuller review/localisation may be more appropriate. We can advise based on your content and goals.
