Keep AI Translation Review Focused on Names, Numbers and Meaning

A translation can read smoothly while changing a date, a product name or the force of an instruction. Review those elements separately from style. For consequential material, use an appropriately qualified reviewer rather than treating this checklist as sufficient assurance.

Prepare a protected-term list

List names, identifiers, URLs, dates and numbers that must remain exact. Add terms that have an agreed translation in your organisation. Keep the list short enough to inspect manually, and explain whether each item should remain unchanged or use a specified translation.

For a fictional public notice, protect “Room B-12,” “18 October,” and a sample registration reference. Ask the assistant to flag unclear wording rather than guess what a missing abbreviation means. Do not submit real confidential material just to test the workflow.

Review factual anchors first

Compare each protected item with the original. Check decimal separators, units and date order where they appear. Read instructions for differences between must, may and should. A change from permission to obligation is a meaning change even when the sentence sounds natural.

Then inspect the surrounding paragraph for omitted conditions. A polished sentence may lose an exception such as “only after confirmation.” Maintain a short issue list with the original phrase, the proposed rendering and the reason for review.

Use back-translation carefully

A back-translation can reveal a suspicious shift, but it is not an independent guarantee of accuracy. Both versions can preserve the same misunderstanding. Resolve important questions with someone competent in the relevant languages and subject matter.

Finish by checking links, layout and the intended audience's vocabulary. Save the reviewed version with its source so later edits can be compared against the same baseline.