What is Back Translation & Why is it Important?

Ambika Taylor February 15, 2022 Health Comments Off on What is Back Translation & Why is it Important? 168 Views

Multilingual legal proceedings can pose a challenge for your practice if your team isn’t fully fluent in both target and source languages. After all, how can you be sure a Aramaic translators provides an accurate account of the original without understanding your target language?

When it comes to the law, you can’t work under these kinds of uncertainties. Any ambiguity in your translated text could fail critical regulatory standards or skew evidence in the wrong direction.

That’s why you should consider having your court documents back translated when you need help with legal translations. This extra step to the translating process guarantees the utmost accuracy for important paperwork.

Table of Contents

What Does Back Translating Mean?

Back translation is a process that reverses an already completed translation project, reverting the text to its source language.

What does that mean in practice? If you originally had an English document translated into Spanish, back translation would translate the Spanish document into English.

Back translating is completed by a document translator who was not involved in the original English to Spanish translation services. Instead, the document translator brings fresh eyes to the project, having only ever seen the Spanish document.

This makes sure they don’t have any prior knowledge of the project that could influence their work.

Why is Back Translating Important?

This back and forth between languages may seem tedious, but it’s an important form of quality control. Here are three reasons why this additional process is important

1. It Helps You Remove Errors and Inconsistencies

A document translator’s work will revert the translated document to its original language. In doing so, they test the worth of the first translation.

After reversing the language, the document translator will compare their work to the original copy. They’ll flag any errors or unclear passages they find and, with your help, reconcile the differences to ensure the document is accurate.

Although it’s an added step from the usual services provided by a legal translation agency, it can be useful with high-risk court documents, contracts, and other mission-critical texts.

When it comes to court documents, every little detail counts. Back translating ensures you don’t miss a single thing. More importantly, you can eliminate the potential for inaccuracies that could unfairly sway a case.

2. It May Be a Procedural Requirement

In some cases, back translating may also be a requirement of the courts. Court documents contain highly sensitive information and might be subject to higher regulatory standards to ensure you handle them properly.

Reverse translating provides transparency to the process and validates the work. It’s a way of proving to a regulatory body that you’ve reviewed the text and made the appropriate changes to uphold accuracy.

3. It Gives You Greater Control Over the Project

Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of this process is how you can get involved. Since it reverts the document back into your source language, you’ll be able to review the quality without needing to understand the target language.

This puts this in stark contrast to simple projects, which only convert your source material into the target language.

With a reversal, you can judge the quality of work without needing fluency in the target language. You can check for yourself how well the document translator works.