As part of the translation process, it is necessary that several people check the translation to make sure that it is clearly communicating the message that it should communicate. A beginning translator who was told to check his translation once said, “But I speak my native language perfectly. The translation is for that language. What more is needed?” What he said was true, but there are two more things to keep in mind.
First, he may not have understood the source text correctly, and so someone who knows what it should say might be able to correct the translation. This could be because he did not correctly understand a phrase or expression in the source language. In this case, someone else who understands the source language well can correct the translation.
Or it could be that he did not understand something about what the Bible meant to communicate at a certain place. In this case, someone who knows the Bible well, such as a Bible teacher or a Bible translation checker, can correct the translation.
Secondly, although the translator may know very well what the text should say, the way he translated it might mean something else to a different person. That is, another person might think that the translation is talking about something other than what the translator intended. Or the person hearing or reading the translation might not understand what the translator was trying to say.
It often happens when one person writes a sentence and then another person reads it (or sometimes even if the first person reads it again later), that they understand it to say something different from what the writer meant. Take the following sentence as an example.
“John took Peter to the temple and then he went home.”
In his mind when he wrote it, the writer meant that Peter went home, but the reader thought that the writer probably meant that it was John who went home. The sentence needs to be changed so that it is more clear.
Finally, a translation team is very close to and involved in their work, and so they sometimes do not see mistakes that others can see more easily. For these reasons, it is always necessary to check what someone else understands from the translation so that you (the translator) can make it more accurate and more clear.
This Checking Manual is a guide to the process of checking. It will guide you through several kinds of checks that will allow you to fix these problems. We believe that having many people doing a variety of different checks will result in a faster checking process, allow broad church participation and ownership, and produce better translations.
For more examples of the things that need to be checked, see Types of Things to Check.
Credits: Quotation used by permission, © 2013, SIL International, Sharing Our Native Culture, p. 69.
This manual describes how to check Bible translations in Other Languages (OLs) for accuracy, clarity, and naturalness. (For the process to check Gateway Languages (GLs), see the Gateway Language Manual). This Translation Checking Manual also discusses the importance of obtaining approval for the translation and the translation process from the church leaders of the language area.
The manual begins with instructions for checking the translation that the translation team will use to check each other’s work. These checks include the Oral Partner Check and the Team Oral Chunk Check. Then there are instructions for the translation team to use for checking the translation with the translationCore software. These include the Translation Words Check and the Translation Notes check.
After this, the translation team will need to check the translation with the Language Community for clarity and naturalness. This is necessary because other speakers of the language can often suggest better ways of saying things that the translation team may not have thought of. Sometimes the translation team makes the translation sound strange because they are following the words of the source language too closely. Other speakers of the language can help them fix that. Another check that the translation team can do at this point is Church Leader Check (or OL pastor check). Since the OL pastors are familiar with the Bible in the Gateway Language (GL), they can check the translation for accuracy to the GL Bible. They can also catch mistakes that the translation team did not see because the translation team is so close to and involved in their work. Also, the translation team may lack some of the expertise or knowledge of the Bible that other OL pastors might have who are not part of the translation team. In this way, the whole language community can work together to make sure that the Bible translation is accurate, clear, and natural in the target language.
A further check for the accuracy of the Bible translation is to align it to the original languages of the Bible using the Word Alignment tool in Translation Core. After all of these checks have been performed and the translation has been aligned, the leaders of the OL church networks will want to Review the translation and give their Endorsement. Because many leaders of church networks do not speak the language of the translation, there are also instructions for creating a Back Translation, which allows people to check a translation in a language that they do not speak.
The goal of checking is to help the translation team produce a translation that is accurate, natural, clear, and accepted by the church. The translation team also wants to achieve this goal. This might seem easy, but it is actually very difficult to do, and achieving it takes many people and many, many revisions to the translation. For this reason, the checkers play a very important role in helping the translation team to produce a translation that is accurate, natural, clear, and accepted by the church.
The checkers who are pastors, church leaders, and leaders of church networks will help the translation team produce a translation that is accurate. They will do this by comparing the translation with the source language and, when possible, also with the original languages of the Bible. (For more information about accurate translations, see Create Accurate Translations.)
The checkers who are members of the language community will help the translation team produce a translation that is clear. They will do this by listening to the translation and pointing out to them the places where the translation is confusing or does not make sense to them. Then the translation team can fix those places so that they are clear. (For more information about clear translations, see Create Clear Translations.)
The checkers who are members of the language community will also help the translation team produce a translation that is natural. They will do this by listening to the translation and pointing out to them the places where the translation sounds strange and does not sound like the way that someone who speaks their language would say it. Then the translation team can fix those places so that they are natural. (For more information about natural translations, see Create Natural Translations.)
The checkers who are members of a church in the language community will help the translation team produce a translation that is approved and accepted by the church in that community. They will do this by working together with members and leaders of other churches from the language community. When members and leaders that represent the churches of a language community work together and agree that the translation is good, then it will be accepted and used by the churches in that community. (For more information about translations that are approved by the church, see Create Church-Approved Translations.)
The Bible belongs to the global Church, meaning all Christians throughout history and throughout the world. Every part of the Church is accountable to every other part of the Church for how we interpret, proclaim, and live what the Bible says. In regard to Bible translation, each language of the world will have its own way of expressing the meaning that the Bible contains. Even so, the part of the Church that speaks each language is accountable to the other parts of the Church for how they express that meaning. For that reason, those who translate the Bible must study how others have translated it. They must be guided by and open to correction from others who are experts in biblical languages and how the Church has understood and interpreted the Bible through history.
With the above understanding, we also affirm that the church that speaks each language has the authority to decide for themselves what is and what is not a good quality translation of the Bible in their language. While this authority to check and approve a Bible translation is unchanging, the ability to carry out the process of checking a Bible translation can increase over time. In other words, the authority for determining the quality of a Bible translation belongs to the church that speaks the language of the translation, independent of their current ability, experience, or access to resources that facilitate the checking of the Bible translation. So while the church in a language group has the authority to check and approve their own Bible translation, the unfoldingWord® tools (including these modules of unfoldingWord® Translation Academy) are designed to enable the church in each language group to have the capacity to check the quality of their Bible translation using an excellent process. These tools are designed to give the church in each language group access to some of what Bible experts have said about the Bible and how those in other parts of the Church have translated it into other languages.
The process for checking a translation will be described in the rest of this Checking Manual.
At this point, you (the translator) should have already gone through the steps of drafting at least one chapter of your translation, following the guidelines in the module called First Draft. Now you are ready for others to help you to check it, to find any errors or problems, and to make it better. You (or your translation team) should check your translation before you translate very many stories or chapters of the Bible, so that you can correct mistakes as early as possible in the translation process. Many of the steps in this process will need to be done several times before the translation is finished. To do an Oral Partner Check, follow these steps.
To check the translation of a passage or chapter as a team, do a Team Oral Chunk Check. To do this, each translator will read his translation out loud to the rest of the team. At the end of each chunk, the translator will stop so that the team can discuss that chunk. Ideally, each written translation is projected where all can see it while the translator reads the text orally.
The duties of the team members are divided—it is important that each team member only plays one of the following roles at a time.
These steps can be repeated as necessary until the team is satisfied with their translation.
At this point, the translation is considered a first draft, and the team needs to also do the following.
After a selection has been made for all of the verses where a translationWord occurs, the list for that word can be reviewed. The instructions that follow are for the reviewer or for the translation team.
Continue this process until you have acted on all of the comments that were left for you.
If you are unsure if a translation for a certain term is correct in a certain context, it might be helpful to consult the key terms spreadsheet that the translation team made as they were creating the translation. You may also want to discuss a difficult term with others on the translation team and try to find a solution together. You may need to use a different term in some contexts, or find another way to communicate the concept, such as using a longer phrase.
Some Notes refer to a more general issue that applies to the specific verse being examined. To understand this more general issue and how it applies to the current verse, read the information in the panel on the right side.
After a selection has been made for all of the verses in a Note category, the list of translations in that category can be reviewed. The instructions that follow are for the reviewer or for the translation team.
After you have finished reviewing a Note category or a Bible book, you may still have questions about some verses or Note checks. You may want to discuss a difficult verse with others on the translation team and try to find a solution together, study more Bible translation resources, or refer the question to a Bible translation expert.
After the translation team has completed the steps of drafting and checking as a team and performed the checks in translationCore, the translation is ready to be checked by the target language community. The community will help the translation team to make the translation communicate its message clearly and naturally in the target language. To do this, the translation committee will choose people to be trained in the process of community checking. These could be the same people who have been doing the translating.
These people will go throughout the language community and check the translation with members of the language community. It is best if they do this checking with a variety of people, including young and old, male and female, and speakers from various parts of the language area. This will help the translation to be understandable to everyone.
To check a translation for naturalness and clarity, it is not helpful to compare it to the source language. During these checks with the community, no one should look at the source language Bible. People will look at the source language Bible again for other checks, such as the check for accuracy, but not during these checks.
To check for naturalness, you will read or play a recording of a section of the translation to members of the language community. Before you read or play the translation, tell the people listening that you want them to stop you if they hear something that is not natural in their language. (For more information on how to check a translation for naturalness, see Natural Translation.) When they stop you, ask what was not natural, and ask how they would say it in a more natural way. Write down or record their answer, along with the chapter and verse where this phrase was, so that the translation team can consider using this way of saying the phrase in the translation.
To check the translation for clarity, there is a set of questions and answers for each Open Bible Story and for each chapter of the Bible that you can use. When members of the language community can answer the questions easily, you will know that the translation is clear. (See http://ufw.io/tq/ for the unfoldingWord® Translation Questions.)
To use these questions, follow these steps:
Read or play the passage of the translation to one or more members of the language community who will answer the questions. These members of the language community must be people who have not been involved in the translation before. In other words, the community members who are asked the questions should not already know the answers to the questions from working on the translation or from previous knowledge of the Bible. We want them to be able to answer the questions only from hearing or reading the translation of the story or Bible passage. This is how we will know if the translation is communicating clearly or not. For this same reason, it is important that the community members not look at a Bible while they are answering these questions.
Ask the community members some of the questions for that passage, one question at a time. It is not necessary to use all of the questions for each story or chapter if it seems that the community members are understanding the translation well.
After each question, a member of the language community will answer the question. If the person only answers with a “yes” or a “no,” then the questioner should ask a further question so that he can be sure that the translation is communicating well. A further question could be something like, “How do you know that?” or “What part of the translation tells you that?”
Write down or record the answer that the person gives, along with the chapter and verse of the Bible or the story and frame number of Open Bible Stories that you are talking about. If the person’s answer is similar to the suggested answer that has been provided for the question, then the translation is clearly communicating the right information at that point. The answer does not have to be exactly the same as the suggested answer to be a right answer, but it should give basically the same information. Sometimes the suggested answer is very long. If the person answers with only part of the suggested answer, that is also a right answer.
If the answer is unexpected or very different than the suggested answer, or if the person cannot answer the question, then the translation team will need to revise the part of the translation that communicates that information so that it communicates the information more clearly.
Be sure to ask the same questions to several people in the language community, including male and female and young and old, as well as people from different areas of the language community, if possible. If several people have difficulty answering the same question, then there is probably a problem with that part of the translation. Make a note of the difficulty or misunderstanding that the people have, so that the translation team can revise the translation and make it more clear.
After the translation team has revised the translation of a passage, then ask some other members of the language community the same questions for that passage. That is, ask other speakers of the language who have not been involved in checking that same passage before. If they answer the questions correctly, then the translation of that passage is now communicating well.
Repeat this process with each story or Bible chapter until members of the language community can answer the questions well, showing that the translation is communicating the right information clearly. The translation is ready for the church leader’s accuracy check when language community members who have not heard the translation before can answer the questions correctly.
Go to the Community Evaluation page and answer the questions there. (See Language Community Evaluation Questions.)
For more information about making a clear translation, see Clear. There are also methods other than the Translation Questions that you can use to check a translation with the community. For these other methods, see Other Methods.
As well as asking questions, there are other checking methods that you may also use to ensure that the translation is clear, easy to read, and sounds natural to the listeners. Here are some other methods that you may like to try:
Retell Method: You (the translator or checker) can read a passage or story and ask someone else to retell what was said. If the person can easily retell the passage, then the passage was clear. Make a note of any place that the person left out or told incorrectly, along with the chapter and verse. The translation team may need to revise those places in the translation to make them more clear. Also make note of any different ways that the person said things that mean the same thing as in the translation. It may be that these ways of saying things are more natural than the ways in the translation. The translation team can use these ways of saying the same thing to make the translation more natural.
Reading Method: Someone other than you (the translator or checker) can read aloud a passage of the translation while you listen and take notes of where the person pauses or makes mistakes. This will show how easy or how difficult it is to read and understand the translation. Look at the places in the translation where the reader paused or made mistakes and consider what made that part of the translation difficult. The translation team may need to revise the translation at those points so that it is easier to read and understand.
Offer Alternate Translations: At some places in the translation, the translation team may not be sure of the best way to express a source word or phrase. In this case, ask other people how they would translate it. For those who do not understand the source language, describe what you are trying to say and ask how they would say it. If different translations seem equally good, offer people a choice between two translations of the same idea and ask them which alternative translation they think is the most clear.
Reviewer Input: Let others whom you respect read your translation. Ask them to take notes and tell you where it might be improved. Look for better word choices, more natural expressions, and also spelling adjustments.
Discussion Groups: Ask people to read the translation out loud in a group of people and allow the people to ask questions for clarification. Pay attention to the words they use, since alternate words and expressions come up when someone is trying to make sense of a difficult point. These alternate words and expressions might be better than the ones in the translation. Write them down, along with the chapter and verse that they are about. The translation team can use these to improve the translation. Also make note of the places where people do not understand the translation so that the translation team can make those places clearer.
A translation should be clear. That means that someone reading or hearing it can easily understand what it is trying to say. It is possible to see if a translation is clear by reading it to yourself. But it is even better if you read it out loud to someone else from the language community. As you read the translation, ask yourself (or the person that you are reading to) questions like those listed below to see if the translated message is clear. For this section of testing, do not compare the new translation with the source language translation. If there is a problem at any place, make a note of it so that you can discuss the problem with the translation team at a later time.
Additional help:
To translate the Bible so that it is natural means that the translation should sound like it was written by a member of the target language community. The translation should not sound like it was written by a foreigner. The translation should say things in the way that speakers of the target language say them. When a translation is natural, it is much easier to understand.
To check a translation for naturalness, it is not helpful to compare it to the source language. During this check for naturalness, no one should look at the source language Bible. People will look at the source language Bible again for other checks—such as the check for accuracy—but not during this check.
To check a translation for naturalness, you or another member of the language community must read it out loud or play a recording of it. It is difficult to evaluate a translation for naturalness when you are only looking at it on paper. But when your people hear the language, they will know immediately if it sounds right or not.
You can read it out loud to one other person who speaks the target language or to a group of people. Before you start reading, tell the people listening that you want them to stop you when they hear something that does not sound like the way someone from your language community would say it. When someone stops you, then you can discuss together how someone would say that same thing in a more natural way.
It is helpful to think about a situation in your village in which people would talk about the same kind of thing that the translation is talking about. Imagine people that you know talking about that thing, and then say it out loud in that way. If others agree that that is a good and natural way to say it, then write it that way in the translation.
It can also be helpful to read or play a passage of the translation several times. People might notice different things each time that they hear it, that is, things that could be said in a more natural way.
As you read the new translation, ask yourself these questions. These are questions that will help determine whether or not the translation has been done in a style that is acceptable to the language community:
If there is a place where the translation uses language in the wrong style, make a note of that so that you can discuss it with the translation team.
This page can be used as a checklist for the work of the Community Checkers. This page can be printed, filled in by the translation team and community leaders, and kept as a record of the process of checking that was done for this translation.
We, the members of the translation team, affirm that we have checked the translation of ________________ with members of the language community.
Please also answer the following questions. The answers to these questions will help those in the wider Christian community know that the target language community finds the translation to be clear, accurate, and natural.
The community leaders might want to add their own information to this or make a summary statement about how acceptable this translation is to the local community. The wider church leadership will have access to this information, and it will help them to understand and to have confidence in the checking process that has been done so far. This will help them to validate the translation as approved by the local Christian community both when they do the Accuracy Check and when they do the final Validation Check.
After the translation has been checked by community members for clarity and naturalness, it will be checked by church leaders for accuracy. These are the guidelines for these church leaders who do the accuracy checking. They should be mother-tongue speakers of the target language and also understand well one of the languages in which the source text is available. They should not be the same people who did the translation. They should be church leaders who know the Bible well. Usually these reviewers will be pastors. These church leaders should represent as many of the different church networks in the language community as possible.
These reviewers should follow these steps:
It is very important to make sure that the new translation is accurate. A translation is accurate when it communicates the same meaning as the original. In other words, an accurate translation communicates the same message that the original writer intended to communicate. A translation can be accurate even though it uses more or fewer words or puts the ideas in a different order. Often this is necessary in order to make the original message clear in the target language.
Although members of the translation team have checked the translation for accuracy with each other during the Oral Partner Check, the translation will continue to improve as it is checked by many people, especially by pastors and church leaders. Each passage or book can be checked by one church leader, or, if many leaders are available, there can be several church leaders checking each passage or book. Having more than one person checking a story or passage can be helpful, because often different checkers will notice different things.
The church leaders who do accuracy checking should be speakers of the language of the translation, be respected in the community, and know the Bible well in the source language. They should not be the same people who translated the passage or book that they are checking. The accuracy checkers will be helping the translation team make sure that the translation says everything that the source says, and that it does not add things that are not part of the source message. Keep in mind, however, that accurate translations also might include Implicit Information.
It is true that the language community members who do the Language Community Check must not look at the source text while they check the translation for naturalness and clarity. But for accuracy testing, the accuracy checkers must look at the source text so that they can compare it with the new translation.
The Church Leaders doing accuracy checking should follow these steps:
If possible, find out ahead of time which set of stories or which Bible passage you will be checking. Read the passage in several versions in any languages you understand. Read the passage in the ULT and UST, along with unfoldingWord® Translation Notes and unfoldingWord® Translation Words. You can read these in translationStudio or in Bible Viewer.
Then each of the accuracy checkers should read the translation (or listen to the recording) by himself, comparing it to the original Bible passage or story in the source language. The checker can do this using translationStudio. It can be helpful for someone, such as the translator, to read the translation out loud to the checker while the checker follows along looking at the source Bible or Bibles. As the checker reads (or listens to) the translation and compares it to the source, he should keep in mind these general questions:
It can be helpful to read or listen to the translation of the Bible passage several times. You might not notice everything the first time through a passage or verse. This is especially true if the translation puts ideas or parts of a sentence in a different order than in the source. You may need to check for one part of the sentence, then read or listen again to check for another part of the sentence. When you have read or listened to the passage as many times as it takes to find all of its parts, then you can move to the next passage. For more ways to check if the translation is complete, see Complete.
The checker should make notes where he thinks there might be a problem or something to be improved. Each checker will discuss these notes with the translation team. The notes could be in the margins of a printed translation draft, or in a spreadsheet, or using the comment feature of translationCore.
After the checkers have checked a chapter or book of the Bible individually, they should all meet with the translator or translation team and review the chapter or book together. If possible, project the translation on the wall so that everyone can see it. As the team comes to the places where each checker made note of a problem or question, the checkers can ask their questions or make suggestions for improvement. As the checkers and the translation team discuss the questions and suggestions, they might think of other questions or new ways of saying things. This is good. As the checkers and the translation team work together, God will help them discover the best way to communicate the meaning of the story or Bible passage.
After the checkers and the translation team have decided what they need to change, the translation team will revise the translation. They can do this right away during the meeting if all are in agreement about the change.
After the translation team revises the translation, they should read it out loud to each other or to other members of the language community to make sure that it still sounds natural in their language.
If there are any Bible passages or verses that are still difficult to understand, the translation team should make a note of the difficulty. The translation team can assign these problems to members to do more research in Bible translation helps or commentaries to find the answer, or they can ask for additional help from other Bible checkers or consultants. When the members have discovered the meaning, the translation team can meet again to decide how to express that meaning naturally and clearly in their language.
These questions can also be helpful for finding anything that might be inaccurate in the translation:
For more general types of things that need to be checked, go to Types of Things to Check.
We, as church leaders in our language community, affirm the following:
If there are any remaining problems, make a note of them here for the attention of the Validation Checkers.
Names and positions of the Accuracy checkers:
Alignment Checking will be done by the Church Network Delegates. These are people who are chosen by the church leaders in the language community. These people are first-language speakers of the target language, are knowledgeable about the Bible, and are persons whose opinions are respected by the church leaders. If possible, they should be people who are trained in biblical languages, biblical content, and translation principles. When these people affirm the translation, the church leaders will approve of the distribution and use of the translation among the people who know and respect them.
If these people do not exist in the language community, then the translation team may want to collaborate with Quality Checkers from outside the language community in order to do Alignment Checking. In this case, it may be necessary to prepare a backtranslation.
Those who do Alignment Checking should be other than the people who did the previous Accuracy Checking. Since Alignment Checking is also a form of accuracy checking, the translation will receive the maximum benefit if different people do each of these checks.
The purpose of Alignment Checking is to ensure that the translation accurately communicates the message of the original language texts and reflects the sound doctrine of the global Church throughout history and throughout the world. After Alignment Checking, the leaders of the churches that speak the target language can affirm that the translation is trustworthy for their people.
It is best if the leaders from every Church network in the language community can appoint or approve some of the people who will do the Alignment Checking. In that way, all of the church leaders will be able to affirm that the translation is trustworthy and useful for all of the churches of the community.
The tool that we recommend for Alignment Checking is the Alignment Tool in translationCore®. To learn how to use this tool, continue reading below.
If you are a Quality Checker (QC) and are using Alignment Checking as part of your checking process, go to Steps for Quality Checkers to see the rest of the QC checking process.
When you have finished this process for a verse, it should be easy to see if there are words left over in either the target word bank or the original language pane.
The Alignment Tool supports one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many alignments. That means that one or more target langage words can be aligned to one or more original language words, as necessary, to get the most accurate alignment of the meaning conveyed by the two languages. Do not be concerned if the target language uses more or fewer words than the original language to express something. Because languages are different, that is to be expected. With the Alignment Tool, you are really aligning meaning, not just words. It is most important that the target translation express the meaning of the original Bible well, no matter how many words it takes to do that. By aligning the target language words that express the original language meaning, we can see if all of the original language meaning is there in the translation.
Because each target language will have different requirements for sentence structure and the amount of explicit information that must be provided, there will often be some target language words that do not have an exact match to any original language words. If these words are there to give information that the sentence needs in order to make sense, or to provide some implicit information that is necessary for understanding the sentence, then the target words that are provided should be aligned with the original language word that implies them, or that they help to explain.
If you are a Quality Checker, after you have finished aligning a Bible book and making questions and comments about the translation, it is time to either send the questions to the translation team or plan to meet together with the translation team and discuss them. For the steps to complete this process, return to where you left off on the Steps for Quality Checkers page.
To learn more about the kinds of things that need to be checked, go to Types of Things to Check.
These are steps for the Quality Checkers or Church Network Delegates to follow when checking a translation for accuracy on behalf of a Church Network. These steps assume that the checker has direct access to the translator or translation team, and can ask questions face-to-face as the checker and the translation team review the translation together. If this is not possible, then the checker should write down the questions for the translation team to review. This could be done using the comment feature of translationCore (preferably), or in the margins of a printed translation draft, or even in a spreadsheet.
If you speak the target language, then you can read or hear the translation and ask the translation team about it directly.
Even if you do not speak the target language, you can communicate to the translation team in the Gateway Language and help them to improve their translation. In that case, you will need to work from a back translation in the Gateway Language. This can be oral as you meet with the translation team, or in written form. If it is written, it can be written separately from the translation, or it can be written as an interlinear—that is, with a line of back translation written under each line of the translation. It is easier to compare the translation to the back translation when they are written as an interlinear, and it is easier to read a back translation that is written separately. Each method has its own strength. The person who makes the back translation should be someone who was not involved in making the translation. See Back Translation for more details.
If there is no written back translation, then have someone who knows the target language and also a language that you understand make an oral back translation for you. This should be a person who was not involved in making the translation. As you listen to the oral back translation, make notes of words or phrases that seem to communicate the wrong meaning or that present other problems. The person should translate the passage in short segments, pausing in between each segment so that you can ask your questions after you hear each segment.
Some questions will need to be set aside for later, after the checking session. Be sure to plan a time to meet again to discuss the answers to these questions. These will be:
Make sure that the translation team is keeping a list of the Key Words (important terms) from the Bible passages that they are translating, along with the term in the target language that they have decided to use for each of these important terms. You and the translation team will probably need to add to this list and modify the terms from the target language as you progress through the translation of the Bible. Use the list of Key Words to alert you when there are Key Words in the passage that you are translating. Whenever there is a Key Word in the Bible, make sure that the translation uses the term or phrase that has been chosen for that Key Word, and also make sure that it makes sense each time. If it does not make sense, then you will need to discuss why it makes sense in some places but not in others. Then you may need to modify or change the chosen term, or decide to use more than one term in the target language to fit different ways that the Key Word is used. One useful way to do this is to keep track of each important term on a spreadsheet, with columns for the source language term, the target language term, alternative terms and the Bible passages where you are using each term. We hope that this feature will be in future versions of translationStudio.
For ideas of what kinds of things to check, see: Types of Things to Check.
These are things to check as you look at a passage of Scripture to check it for accuracy. Pastors who speak the target language can use these guidelines, as well as Quality Checkers who do not speak the target language.
Ask about anything that does not seem right to you, so that the translation team can explain it. If it also does not seem right to them, they can adjust the translation. In general:
Check to make sure that the main point or the theme of the passage is clear. Ask the translation team to summarize what the passage is saying or teaching. If they choose a minor point as the primary one, they might need to adjust the way that they translated the passage.
Check that the different parts of the passage are connected in the right way – that the reasons, additions, results, conclusions, etc. in the Bible passage are marked with the proper connectors in the target language.
Check for the consistency of the unfoldingWord® Translation Words, as explained in the last section of Steps for Quality Checking. Ask how each term is used in the culture, who uses the terms, and on what occasions. Also ask what other terms are similar and what the differences are between the similar terms. This helps the translator (or translation team) to see if some terms might have unwanted meanings, and to see which term might be better. The translation might need to use different terms in different contexts.
Check figures of speech. Where there is a figure of speech in the ULT, see how it has been translated and make sure it communicates the same meaning. Where there is a figure of speech in the translation, check to make sure it communicates the same meaning as in the GL Bible text.
Check to see how abstract ideas were translated, such as love, forgiveness, joy, etc. Many of these are also Key Words.
Check the translation of things or practices that might be unknown in the target culture. Showing the translation team pictures of these things and explaining to them what they are is very helpful.
Discuss the words about the spirit world and how they are understood in the target culture. Make sure that the words used in the translation communicate the right meaning.
Check anything that you think might be especially difficult to understand or translate in the passage.
After checking all of these things and making corrections, ask the translation team to read the passage out loud again to each other or to other members of their community to make sure that everything still flows in a natural way and uses the right connectors. If a correction made something sound unnatural, they will need to make additional adjustments to the translation. This process of testing and revision should repeat until the translation communicates clearly and naturally in the target language.
For questions to consider about the translation as a whole, see Questions for Quality Checkers.
If the Church Network leadership or Translation Committee has given you the task of checking the accuracy of the translation in the role of a Quality Checker (QC), you can use these questions to guide your evaluation of the translation.
You can answer these questions after you read portions of the translation or as you come across problems in the text. If you answer “no” to any of these questions in the first group, please explain in more detail. Include the specific passage that you feel is not right, and give your recommendation for how the translation team should correct it.
Keep in mind that the goal of the translation team is to express the meaning of the source text in a natural and clear way in the target language. This means that they may have needed to change the order of some clauses and that they had to represent many single words in the source language with multiple words in the target language. These things are not considered problems in Other Language (OL) translations. The only times that translators should avoid making these kinds of changes is for Gateway Language (GL) translations of the ULT and UST. The purpose of the ULT is to show the OL translator how the original biblical languages expressed the meaning, and the purpose of the UST is to express that same meaning in simple, clear forms, even though it might be more natural to use an idiom in the OL. GL translators need to remember those guidelines. But for OL translations, the goal is always to be natural and clear, as well as accurate.
Also keep in mind that the translators may have included information that the original audience would have understood from the original message, but that the original author did not state explicitly. When this information is necessary for the target audience to understand the text, it is good to include it explicitly. For more about this, see Implicit Information.
Does the translation conform to the Statement of Faith and Translation Guidelines?
Did the translation team show a good understanding of the source language as well as the target language and culture?
Does the language community affirm that the translation speaks in a clear and natural way in their language?
Is the translation complete? (Does it have all of the verses, events, and information as the source)?
Which of the following translation styles did the translators appear to follow?
Do the community leaders feel that the style that the translators followed (as identified in question 4) is appropriate for the community?
Do the community leaders feel that the dialect that the translators used is the best one to communicate to the wider language community? For example, did the translators use expressions, phrase connectors, and spellings that will be recognized by most people in the language community? For more ways to explore this question, see Acceptable Style.
As you read the translation, think about cultural issues in the local community that might make some passages in the book difficult to translate. Did the translation team translate these passages in a way that makes the message of the source text clear, and avoids any misunderstanding that people might have because of the cultural issue?
In these difficult passages, do the community leaders feel that the translator used language that communicates the same message that is in the source text?
In your judgment, does the translation communicate the same message as the source text? If any part of the translation causes you to answer “no,” please answer the second group of questions below.
If you answer “yes” to any of the questions in this second group (below), please explain in more detail so that the translation team can know what the specific problem is, what part of the text needs correction, and how you would like them to correct it.
If there were problems with the translation, make plans to meet with the translation team and resolve these problems. After you meet with them, the translation team may need to check their revised translation with the community leaders to make sure that it still communicates well, and then meet with you again.
For questions to guide you as you check individual passages of Scripture, go to: Types of Things to Check.
If the Church Network leadership or the Translation Committee want you to give a report of the results of your checking, you can use this form: Translation Evaluation Form.
I, as a Quality Checker for the * fill in name of church network or other organization * Church Network or Organization serving the * fill in the name of the language community * language community, affirm that I have checked the translation of * fill in name of the part of the Bible checked * with members of the Translation Team, and also affirm the following:
If any problems remain unresolved after meeting with the Translation Team a second time, please make note of them here.
Signed: sign here
Position: fill in your position here
For Gateway Languages, you will need to follow the Source Text Process so that your translation can become a source text.
A back translation is a translation of the biblical text from the local target language (the OL) back into the language of wider communication (the GL). It is called a “back translation” because it is a translation in the opposite direction than what was done to create the local target language translation. The purpose of a back translation is to allow someone who does not speak the target language to know what the target language translation says.
However, a back translation is not done in a completely normal style, because it does not have naturalness as a goal in the language of the translation (which is in this case, the language of wider communication). Instead, the goal of the back translation is to represent the words and expressions of the local language translation in a literal way, while also using the grammar and word order of the language of wider communication. In this way, the translation checker can most clearly see the meaning of the words in the target language text, but can also understand the back translation well and read it more quickly and easily.
The purpose of a back translation is to allow a consultant or checker of biblical material who does not understand the target language to be able to see what is in the target language translation, even though he or she does not understand the target language. In this way, the checker can “look through” the back translation and check the target language translation without knowing the target language. Therefore, the language of the back translation needs to be a language that both the back translator (that is, the person doing the back translation) and the checker understand well. Often this means that the back translator will need to translate the target language text back into the same language of wider communication that was used for the source text.
Some people might consider this to be unnecessary, since the biblical text already exists in the source language. But remember that the purpose of the back translation is to allow the checker to see what is in the target language translation. The checker cannot see what is in the target language translation by reading the original source language text. In order to see what is in the target language translation, the back translator must make a new translation back into the language of wider communication that is based only on the target language translation. For this reason, the back translator must not look at the source language text when doing his back translation, but must look only at the target language text. In this way, the checker can identify any problems that might exist in the target language translation and work with the translator to fix those problems.
A back translation can also be very useful in improving the target language translation even before the checker uses it to check the translation. When the translation team reads the back translation, they can see how the back translator has understood their translation. Sometimes, the back translator has understood their translation in a different way than they intended to communicate. In those cases, they can change their translation so that it communicates more clearly the meaning that they intended. When the translation team is able to use the back translation in this way before they give it to the checker, they can make many improvements to their translation. When they do this, the checker can do his checking much more rapidly, because the translation team was able to correct many of the problems in the translation before meeting with the checker.
To do a good back translation, the person must have three qualifications.
An oral back translation is one that the back translator speaks to the translation checker in the language of wider communication as he reads or hears the translation in the target language. He will usually do this one sentence at a time, or two sentences at a time if they are short. When the translation checker hears something that may be a problem, he will stop the person doing the oral back translation so that he can ask a question about it. One or more members of the translation team should also be present so that they can answer questions about the translation.
An advantage of the oral back translation is that the back translator is immediately accessible to the translation checker and can answer the translation checker’s questions about the back translation. A disadvantage of the oral back translation is that the back translator has very little time to think about the best way to back translate the translation, so he may not express the meaning of the translation in the best way. This may make it necessary for the translation checker to ask more questions than if the back translation were expressed in a better way. Another disadvantage is that the checker also has very little time to evaluate the back translation. He only has a few seconds to think about one sentence before hearing another. Because of this, he may not catch all of the problems that he would catch if he had more time to think about each sentence.
There are two types of written back translations. For the differences between the two, see Written Back Translations. A written back translation has several advantages over an oral back translation. First, when a back translation is written, the translation team can read it to see if there are any places where the back translator has misunderstood their translation. If the back translator misunderstood the translation, then other readers or hearers of the translation certainly will misunderstand it also, and so the translation team will need to revise their translation at those points.
Second, when the back translation is written, the checker can read the back translation before meeting with the translation team and take time to research any questions that arise from the back translation. Even when the checker does not need to research a problem, the written back translation allows him more time to think about the translation. He can identify and address more of the problems in the translation and sometimes come to better solutions to the problems because he has more time to think about each one rather than having only a few seconds to think about each sentence.
Third, when the back translation is written, the translation checker can also prepare his questions in written form before meeting with the translation team. If there is time before their meeting and if they have a way to communicate, the checker can send his written questions to the translation team so that they can read them and change the parts of the translation that the checker thought might contain problems. This helps the translation team and the checker to be able to review much more of the biblical material when they meet together, because they were able to fix many of the problems in the translation before their meeting. During the meeting, they can concentrate on the problems that remain. These are usually places where the translation team has not understood the checker’s question or where the checker has not understood something about the target language. In these cases, often the checker thinks that there is a problem where there is not. During the meeting time the translation team can explain to the checker what it is that he has not understood.
Even if there is not time for the checker to send his questions to the translation team before their meeting, they will still be able to review more material at the meeting than they would have been able to review otherwise because the checker has already read the back translation and has already prepared his questions. Because he has had this previous preparation time, he and the translation team can use their meeting time to discuss only the problem areas of the translation rather than reading through the entire translation at a slow pace (as is required when making an oral back translation).
Fourth, the written back translation relieves the strain on the checker from having to concentrate for many hours at a time on hearing and understanding an oral translation as it is spoken to him. If the checker and translation team are meeting in a noisy environment, the difficulty of making sure that he hears every word correctly can be quite exhausting for the checker. The mental strain of concentration increases the likelihood that the checker will miss some problems with the result that they remain uncorrected in the biblical text. For these reasons, we recommend the use of a written back translation whenever possible.
There are two kinds of written back translations.
In an interlinear back translation, the back translator puts a translation for each word of the target language translation underneath that word. This results in a text in which each line of the target language translation is followed by a line in the language of wider communication. The advantage of this kind of back translation is that the checker can easily see how the translation team is translating each word of the target language. He can more easily see the range of meaning of each target language word and can compare how it is used in different contexts. The disadvantage of this kind of back translation is that the line of text in the language of wider communication is made up of translations of individual words. This makes the text difficult to read and understand, and may create more questions and misunderstandings in the mind of the translation checker than the other method of back translation. This is the same reason we do not recommend the word-for-word method for translation of the Bible!
A free back translation is one in which the back translator makes a translation in the language of wider communication in a separate space from the target language translation. The disadvantage of this method is that the back translation is not related as closely to the target language translation. However, the back translator can help to overcome this disadvantage when back translating the Bible by including the verse numbers and punctuation with the back translation. By referring to the verse numbers in both translations and carefully reproducing the punctuation marks in their proper places, the translation checker can keep track of which part of the back translation represents which part of the target language translation. The advantage of this method is that the back translation can use the grammar and word order of the language of wider communication, and so it is much easier for the translation checker to read and understand. Even while using the grammar and word order of the language of wider communication, however, the back translator should remember to translate the words in a literal way. This provides the most beneficial combination of literalness and readability for the checker. We recommend that the back translator use this method of free back translation.
For the purposes of this module, “target language” refers to the language into which the Bible draft was made, and “language of wider communication” refers to the language into which the back translation is being made.
If a word has only one basic meaning, then the back translator should use a word in the language of wider communication that represents that basic meaning throughout the back translation. However, if a word in the target language has more than one meaning, so that the meaning changes depending on the specific context, then the back translator should use the word or phrase in the language of wider communication that best represents the way that the word was used in that context. In order to avoid confusion for the translation checker, the back translator can put the other meaning in parentheses the first time that he uses the word in a different way, so that the translation checker can see and understand that this word has more than one meaning. For example, he might write, “come (go)” if the target language word was translated as “go” earlier in the back translation but is better translated as “come” in the new context.
If the target language translation uses an idiom, it is most helpful to the translation checker if the back translator translates the idiom literally (according to the meaning of the words), but then also includes the meaning of the idiom in parentheses. The translation checker can see that the target language translation uses an idiom in that place, and can also see what it means. For example, a back translator might translate an idiom such as, “He kicked the bucket (he died).” If the idiom occurs more than once or twice, the back translator does not need to continue to explain it each time, but can either just translate it literally or just translate the meaning.
In the back translation, the back translator should represent the parts of speech of the target language with the same parts of speech in the language of wider communication. This means that the back translator should translate nouns as nouns, verbs as verbs, and modifiers as modifiers. This will help the translation checker to see how the target language works.
In the back translation, the back translator should represent each clause of the target language with the same type of clause in the language of wider communication. For example, if the target language clause uses a command, then the back translation should also use a command rather than a suggestion or request. Or if the target language clause uses a rhetorical question, then the back translation should also use a question rather than a statement or other expression.
The back translator should use the same punctuation in the back translation as in the target language translation. For example, wherever there is a comma in the target language translation, the back translator should also put a comma in the back translation. Periods, exclamation points, quote marks, and all punctuation need to be at the same place in both translations. The translation checker can more easily see which parts of the back translation represent which parts of the target language translation. When making a back translation of the Bible, all chapter and verse numbers must be in the right places in the back translation.
Sometimes words in the target language will be more complex than words in the language of wider communication. In this case, the back translator will need to represent the target language word with a longer phrase in the language of wider communication. This is necessary so that the translation checker can see as much of the meaning as possible. For example, to translate one word in the target language it might be necessary to use a phrase in the language of wider communication such as “go up” or “be lying down.” Also, many languages have words that contain more information than the equivalent words in the language of wider communication. In this case, it is most helpful if the back translator includes that additional information in parentheses, such as “we (inclusive)” or “you (feminine, plural).”
The back translation should use the sentence structure that is natural for the language of wider communication, not the structure that is used in the target language. This means that the back translation should use the word order that is natural for the language of wider communication, not the word order that is used in the target language. The back translation should also use the way of relating phrases to each other and the way of indicating logical relations (such as cause or purpose) that are natural for the language of wider communication. This will make it easier for the checker to read and to understand the back translation. This will also speed up the process of checking the back translation.
There are checks that you can do before, during, and after translation of a book of the Bible that will make the translation process go much easier so that the translation will look good and be as easy to read as possible. The modules on these topics are gathered here under Formatting and Publishing, but they are things that the translation team should be thinking about and deciding throughout the translation process.
The translation team should make decisions about the following issues before you start to translate.
After several chapters have been translated, the translation team may need to revise some of these decisions to take care of problems that they discovered while translating. If ParaText is available to you, you can also do consistency checks in ParaText at this time to see if there are more decisions that you need to make about spelling and punctuation.
After finishing a book, you can check to make sure that all the verses are there, and you can decide on section headings. It is also helpful to write down ideas for section headings as you translate.
As you read the translation, ask yourself these questions about the way words are spelled. These questions will help to determine if an appropriate alphabet has been chosen to represent the sounds of the language. They will also help to determine if words have been written in a consistent way so that the translation will be easy to read.
If there is something about the alphabet or spelling that is not right, make a note of that so that you can discuss it with the translation team.
In order for the reader to be able to read and understand the translation easily, it is important that you (the translator) spell words consistently. This can be difficult if there is not a tradition of writing or spelling in the target language. When there are several people working on different parts of a translation, they may spell the same words differently from each other. For that reason, it is important for the translation team to meet together before they start translating to talk about how they plan to spell words.
As a team, discuss the words that are difficult to spell. If the words have sounds in them that are difficult to represent, then you may need to make a change in the writing system that you are using (see Alphabet/Orthography). If the sounds in the words can be represented in different ways, then the team will need to agree on how to spell them. Make a list of the agreed-upon spellings of these words in alphabetical order. Make sure that each member of the team has a copy of this list so that they can consult it when translating. Add other difficult words to the list as you come across them, and make sure that these are added to everyone’s list with the same spelling. It may be helpful to use a spreadsheet to maintain your spelling list. This can be easily updated and shared electronically, or printed out periodically.
The names of people and places in the Bible can be difficult to spell because many of them are unknown in target languages. Be sure to include these in your spelling list.
Computers can be a great help for checking spelling. If you are working on a Gateway Language, a word processor may have a dictionary already available. If you are translating into an Other Language, you can use the find-and-replace feature of a word processor to fix misspelled words. ParaText also has a spell check feature which will find all variant spellings of words. It will present these to you, and then you can choose which spellings you have decided to use.
“Punctuation” refers to the marks that indicate how a sentence is to be read or understood. Examples include the indicators of pauses such as the comma or period and the quotation marks that surround the exact words of a speaker. In order for the reader to be able to read and understand the translation correctly, it is important that you (the translator) use punctuation consistently.
Before translating, the translation team will need to decide on the methods of punctuation that you will use in the translation. It may be easiest to adopt the method of punctuation that the national language uses, or that a national language Bible or related language Bible uses. Once the team decides on a method, make sure that everyone follows it. It may be helpful to distribute a guide sheet to each of the team members with examples on it of the correct use of different punctuation marks.
Even with the guide sheet, it is common for translators to make mistakes in punctuation. Because of this, after a book has been translated, we recommend importing it into ParaText. You can enter the rules for punctuation in the target language into ParaText, and then run the different punctuation checks that ParaText can perform. ParaText will list all of the places where it finds punctuation errors and show them to you. You can then review these places to see if there is an error there or not. If there is an error, you can fix the error. After running these punctuation checks, you can be confident that your translation is using punctuation correctly.
The purpose of this section is to make sure that the translation is complete. In this section, the new translation must be compared to the source translation. As you (the translator or checker) compare the two translations, ask yourself these questions:
If there is a place where the translation is not complete, make a note of that so that you can discuss it with the translation team.
It is important that your target language translation include all of the verses that are in the source language Bible. You do not want some verses to be missing by mistake. But remember that there can be good reasons why some Bibles have certain verses that other Bibles do not have.
Here is one way to check your translation for missing verses. After a book has been translated, import the translation into ParaText, and then run the check for “chapter/verse numbers.” ParaText will give you a list of all the places in that book where verses are missing. You can then look at each of those places and decide if the verse is missing because of one of the three reasons above, or if it is missing by mistake and you need to go back and translate that verse.
One of the decisions that the translation team will have to make is whether or not to use section headings. Section headings are like titles to each section of the Bible that begins a new topic. The section heading lets people know what that section is about. Some Bible translations use them, and others do not. You (the translator) may want to follow the practice of the Bible in the national language that most people use. You will also want to find out what the language community prefers.
Using section headings requires more work, because you will need either to write or to translate each one in addition to the text of the Bible. It will also make your translation of the Bible longer. But section headings can be very helpful to your readers. Section headings make it much easier to find where the Bible talks about different topics. If a person is looking for something in particular, he can just read the section headings until he finds one that introduces the topic that he wants to read about. Then he can read that section.
If you have decided to use section headings, then you will need to decide which kind to use. Again, you should find out which kind of section heading the language community prefers. You may also choose to follow the style of the national language. Be sure to use a kind of section heading that the people will understand is not part of the text that it introduces. The section heading is not a part of the Bible; it is just a guide to the different parts of the Bible. You might be able to make this clear by putting a space before and after the section heading and by using a different font (style of letters) or a different size of letters. See how the Bible in the national language does this, and test different methods with the language community.
There are many different kinds of section headings. Here are some different kinds, with examples of how each one would look for Mark 2:1-12:
As you can see, it is possible to make many different kinds of section headings, but they all have the same purpose. They all give the reader information about the main topic of the section of the Bible that follows. Some headings are shorter, and some headings are longer. Some give only a little information, and some give more information. You may want to experiment with the different kinds, and ask people which kind they think is most helpful for them.
The process and checking framework described in this document depends on an ongoing process of checking and revising content, as determined by the Church that uses the content. We encourage each translation team to continue to accept feedback from the language and church community. By doing so, they can continue to improve the translation by incorporating corrections and including better ways of saying things as people discover them. For that reason, the translations of the content continue to be made available on the translation platform (see http://door43.org) indefinitely so that users can continue to improve it. We recommend that the translation committee invite input from the language community to Door43, and appoint one or more people to monitor the issues that people submit there for the translation. These people can make corrections to the translation and discuss other suggested changes with the translation committee. Over time, the committee may decide to adjust the style of the translation as well, such as to add or remove implied information or to use newer words or phrases. By maximizing input in this way from the greatest number of users of the content, the Church can work together to create biblical content that increases in quality and usability over time.
The objective of this module is to describe a process by which the Church can reliably determine for themselves the quality of a translation. This assessment is intended to suggest some of the most important techniques for checking a translation. It does not describe every conceivable check that could be employed. Ultimately, the Church must make the decisions regarding what checks are used, when they are done, and who does those checks.
This assessment method employs two types of statements. Some are “yes/no” statements, where a negative response indicates a problem that must be resolved. Other sections use an equally-weighted method that provides translation teams and checkers with statements about the translation. Each statement should be scored by the person doing the check (beginning with the translation team) on a scale of 0-2:
0 – disagree
1 – agree somewhat
2 – strongly agree
At the end of the review, the total value of all responses in a section should be added up. If the responses accurately reflect the state of the translation, this value will provide the reviewer with an approximation of the probability that the translated chapter is of excellent quality. This assessment method is designed to be simple and provide the reviewer with an objective way to determine where the work needs improvement. For example, if the translation scores relatively well in “Accuracy” but quite poorly in “Naturalness” and “Clarity,” then the translation team needs to do more community checking.
This assessment method is intended to be used for each chapter of translated biblical content. The translation team should do an assessment of each chapter after they finish their other checks. Then the Level 2 checkers should do it again. Then the Level 3 checkers should also assess the translation with this checklist. As more detailed and extensive checking of the chapter is performed by the Church at each level, the points for the chapter should be updated from each of the first four sections (overview, naturalness, clarity, accuracy), allowing the church and community to see how the translation is improving.
The process is divided into five parts: the overview (information about the translation itself), naturalness, clarity, accuracy, and Church approval.
Circle either “no” or “yes” for each statement below.
no | yes This translation is a meaning-based translation that attempts to communicate the meaning of the original text in ways that are natural, clear, and accurate in the target language.
no | yes Those involved in checking the translation are first-language speakers of the target language.
no | yes The translation of this chapter is in agreement with the Statement of Faith.
no | yes The translation of this chapter has been done in accordance with the Translation Guidelines.
Circle either “0” or “1” or “2” for each statement below.
This section can be strengthened by doing more community checking. (See Language Community Check)
0 1 2 Those who speak this language and have heard this chapter agree that it is translated using the correct form of the language.
0 1 2 Those who speak this language and have heard this chapter agree that the key words used in this chapter are acceptable and correct for this culture.
0 1 2 The illustrations or stories in this chapter are easy for people who speak this language to understand.
0 1 2 Those who speak this language and have heard this chapter agree that the sentence structure and order of the text in this chapter is natural and flows correctly.
0 1 2 The review of the translation of this chapter for naturalness included community members who have not been directly involved in creating the translation of this chapter.
0 1 2 The review of the translation of this chapter for naturalness included both believers and non-believers, or at least believers who are relatively unfamiliar with the Bible so that they do not know what the text is supposed to say before they hear it.
0 1 2 The review of the translation of this chapter for naturalness included speakers of the language from many different age groups.
0 1 2 The review of the translation of this chapter for naturalness included both men and women.
Circle either “0” or “1” or “2” for each statement below.
This section can be strengthened by doing more community checking. (See Language Community Check)
0 1 2 This chapter is translated using language that native speakers of the language agree is easy to understand.
0 1 2 Speakers of this language agree that the translations of names, places, and verb tenses are all correct in this chapter.
0 1 2 Figures of speech in this chapter make sense for people in this culture.
0 1 2 Speakers of this language agree that the way this chapter is structured does not distract from the meaning.
0 1 2 The review of the translation of this chapter for clarity included community members who have not been directly involved in creating the translation of this chapter.
0 1 2 The review of the translation of this chapter for clarity included both believers and non-believers, or at least believers who are relatively unfamiliar with the Bible so that they do not know what the text is supposed to say before they hear it.
0 1 2 The review of the translation of this chapter for clarity included speakers of the language from many different age groups.
0 1 2 The review of the translation of this chapter for clarity included both men and women.
Circle either “0” or “1” or “2” for each statement below.
This section can be strengthened by doing more accuracy checking. (See Accuracy Check)
0 1 2 A complete list of all the important words in the source text for this chapter has been used to help ensure all terms are present in the translation.
0 1 2 All the important words are translated correctly in this chapter.
0 1 2 All the important words are translated consistently in this chapter, as well as in other places where the important words appear.
0 1 2 For the entire chapter, exegetical resources and translation helps have been used to identify and resolve potential translation challenges, including the unfoldingWord® Translation Notes and unfoldingWord® Translation Words.
0 1 2 Historical details in the source text (like names, places, and events) have been preserved in the translation.
0 1 2 The meaning of each figure of speech in the translated chapter has been compared and aligned to the intent of the original.
0 1 2 The translation has been tested with first-language speakers of the target language who were not involved in creating the translation, and they agree that the translation accurately communicates the intended meaning of the source text.
0 1 2 The translation of this chapter has been compared against at least two source texts.
0 1 2 All questions or disagreements about any of the meaning in this chapter have been resolved.
0 1 2 The translation of this chapter has been compared against the original texts (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic) to check for correct definitions of words and for intent of the original texts.
Circle either “0” or “1” or “2” for each statement below.
no | yes Church leaders who have checked this translation are first-language speakers of the target language, and include someone who understands well one of the languages in which the source text is available.
no | yes People from the language community—both men and women, old and young—have reviewed the translation of this chapter and agree that it is natural and clear.
no | yes Church leaders from at least two different church networks have reviewed the translation of this chapter and agree that it is accurate.
no | yes The leadership (or their delegates) of at least two different church networks have reviewed the translation of this chapter and endorse it as a faithful translation of this chapter of the Bible in this language.