International Market Research Translation Specialists

Back-translation is a method occasionally used instead of proofreading to allow you to see how your documents have been translated.

It involves translating “back” into the source language to provide a document which can then be compared against the original text.

This can be done in one of two ways:

Blind back-translation
The document is back-translated without the original source materials as reference. This has the advantage of providing an unbiased version of the translation. However, there is also the possibility that a perfectly accurate translation loses clarity in the back-translation, causing unnecessary confusion.

Back-translation with source text
The document is back-translated with the original source document as reference. The translator then amends the source using Track Changes where the translation deviates from the original.

Back-translation does have limitations, namely that it does not enable you to pick up and correct spelling mistakes, typos or awkwardly phrased text. For this reason, we recommend proofreading. For more information, click here … ->