Quality assurance is a vital part of the translation process. A high quality translation uses many people to ensure that the translation is clearly communicating the message that it should communicate. There are several important factors that are addressed in quality assurance.
Quality assurance is the process used to ensure an accurate translation. The translator may not have understood fully the passage in the source text, and therefore may not have communicated it clearly in his translation. Using tools such as commentaries and other translations can be helpful in confirming that the meaning is accurately understood and conveyed.
Quality assurance is the process used to ensure a clear and natural translation. The translator may have worded something in a way that is unclear, ungrammatical, or awkward. Having othersread a translation to check for flow will provide insight for correcting such problems.
Quality assurance helps to ensure that a text has consistent punctuation, spelling, and formatting. Often the translation is into a previously unwritten language, so people will have to work together to agree on standards for these things.
As soon as a translator has created a draft, he will check it himself. Then other translators will do some other checks and recommend improvements. After this, it is recommended that the community and church leadership review the translation and provide feedback to the translators so that the translation can be refined or revised as needed.
Quality assurance may seem tedious, but it is well worth the time and effort. And if everyone in the translation team, church, and community understands that every person is a part of the quality assurance process from the start, this will encourage people to read the translation and contribute to its improvement.
People want their Bible translation to be high quality. However, they may have different ideas about what makes a good translation. If people do not agree on what makes a good translation, they can waste a lot of time and effort criticizing a translation or trying to change it to what each person thinks it should be. Because of this, it is important for the translators, the community, and the church leadership to have a rubric by which they can evaluate the work. Creating a rubric helps to establish standards by which to judge translation quality and ensures that all members of a team are striving for the same kind of translation
A rubric is a list of characteristics that people use to evaluate how good something is. It is essentially a standard by which to judge something. In the case of Bible translation, the translators work together to produce a list of characteristics that a good Bible translation must have. They use that list as they produce their translation and as they assess its quality. If they find that any part of the translation lacks a particular characteristic, they adjust the translation so that it will have that characteristic.
The community and the church leadership use this same rubric as they review the translation. If they find that any part of the translation lacks a particular characteristic, they tell the translators. The translators then determine whether or not the translation actually lacks that characteristic and they decide whether or not they need to make any changes to the translation. This process is called refinement.
If after using a translation from a completed project, people are not satisfied with the translation, they may decide to revise the translation, particularly if they want to use a different rubric. As a community of believers grows, it is not uncommon for the community to have more than one translation, each translation based on its own rubric.
It is important for a language community to design its own rubric. When a language community establishes its own standards, it fosters ownership of a project.
During the first few days of a MAST workshop, the facilitator guides a translation team through the process of developing a rubric for assessing the quality of their translation. Below are the steps used to create a rubric to guide quality assurance throughout the project.
The translation team will choose a leader/representative of their language group to manage the rubric building process. If this leader/representative does not speak a language that the facilitator understands, the team will choose someone to translate the rubric for the facilitator.
The individuals on the team will independently answer the following questions:
The translation team will then work together to make one list that includes all the items from each individual’s list. The leader/representative will combine the qualities that are the same and develop one master list of around 10 qualities.
If the facilitator or anyone else at the event is familiar with Bible translation rubrics, he may review the team's rubric. If he sees that something important is missing in their rubric, he may ask questions of the group to help them to recognize other qualities that would be beneficial for their translation to have.
If there is no one at the event who is familiar with Bible translation rubrics, the team can compare their rubric with sample rubrics. Some examples can be found at v-raft.com. The following are questions that may help them decide whether or not to make any changes to their rubric:
The team will have a discussion and agree on the qualities to include in their rubric. There should be about 10 qualities.
The team will verbally define each of the qualities established in the rubric and then record the definitions. Each definition should be clear enough that anyone from that language group could use the rubric and understand the qualities the team wants their translation to have.
The team will create a list of things the translation needs in order for it to have each of those characteristics.
The team will make each item in this list into a question with a yes or no response.
The team should make sure that the rubric is clear enough that if a person who speaks the language were to later check a translated chapter, they could pick up that chapter, take the rubric and the source text, and determine whether the standards established in the rubric were met.
Finally, now is a good time for the team to discuss the following:
When possible, the team will translate the rubric into English and share it at v-raft.com.
Below you will see an example of how a rubric was created by following steps 2-8 above. (Steps involving individual work or discussion are not shown.)
Notice that in condensing the qualities, some of the items on the list are combined so there are no longer 10 separate qualities. Also after discussion, the team decided not to include some qualities, because they pertained to community acceptance and not the quality of the translation itself or because they were qualities for a type of Bible the team did not want to produce.
Accurate
Style
Clear
Natural
Faithful
Authoritative
Historical
Accurate
Style
Clear
Natural
Faithful
Authoritative
Historical
The questions are designed as yes/no questions. If the answer is “no” to any portion of the scripture (that is, any word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, chapter, or book), then that portion needs to be reviewed and edited.
The church in each people group has the authority to decide what is and what is not a good quality translation of the Bible in their language. This is because they know their language and culture best and they are the ones who will be using this translation. Their authority is independent of their current ability, experience, or access to resources that facilitate the production of high quality Bible translations. Their authority does not change. However, their capacity for producing high quality translations can improve with time.
While the church in a language group has the authority to assure the quality of their own Bible translation, they can increase their capacity to do this by using the tools and resources available on bibleineverylanguage.org. Translation quality is something that can always be improved; this idea is true even if a translation is of high quality. The collection of resources on bibleineverylanguage.org is constantly growing to meet the needs of the churches as their desire for more in-depth resources increases.
The translators will check the translation during MAST steps 5-8. They should check their translation often (usually as soon as a whole chapter is drafted) so that they can correct mistakes as early as possible in the translation process. Sometimes a step will have to be repeated before moving on to the next step.
When the team has completed these steps, has incorporated the edits into the translated portion, and is collectively satisfied with the product, they then affirm the following:
Then they are welcome to upload the translation to the Wycliffe Associates content server where the work can be seen on bibleineverylanguage.org. This enables the broadest reach of the content as an active project, with an open invitation to others in the language community (implied or direct) to help improve the translation.
When you have completed these steps, you are ready to have a peer edit your work.
The key words check involves two processes. The first is to make a chart of key words that shows key words and how you will translate them in your language. The second is to check the key words in each portion of scripture that you translate.
After you make your list of key words, you may want to refer to the Translation Words resource to help you understand the meanings of the key words and other words in the Bible. This will help you with checking those words during the second part of this step. To learn more about this resource, see Translation Words.
The verse-by-verse check requires at least three people—the translator of the passage and two other translators—one who can translate the mother tongue to the source language and one who can compare what that translators says with the source text.
The translator will read their translation one verse at a time, out loud, in the mother tongue. Without using any resources, one partner will listen to the mother tongue translation and verbally translate the verse into the source language. The second partner will listen to the first partner’s verbal back-translation and compare it to the source text.
The wording will not be exactly the same between the source text and the back-translation, but it is important that:
(1) the meaning in the translation is the same as the meaning in the source text
(2) all of the events and important details found in the source text are present in the translation and
(3) no new or extra information has been added.
If it appears that the meaning in the translation is not the same as the meaning in the source text, the partner who compares the two will tell the translator. The three people will then discuss the verse to see if there really is a difference in meaning.
If there really is a difference in meaning, or if all of the events and important details are not present, the text should be edited. The team should consult the source text, Translation Notes, Translation Words, and other translations or other resources to help them make corrections and improve the translation.
The verse-by-verse check is also a good time to check that the translation has all of the verses and that it is consistent in wording, spelling, punctuation, and formatting. (See Complete Versification Check and Consistency Checks)
It is important that your target language translation include all of the verses that are in the source language Bible. We 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.
Versification checking takes place during step 8 of MAST, the verse-by-verse check. It is also part of the proofreading near the end of the refinement and revision processes. This is because during these processes it is very easy to find and resolve errors in the versification.
In order for readers to be able to understand the translation easily, it is important that there be consistency in the following things: important words, spelling, punctuation, and formatting. Checking a translation for consistency is something that is done continually. First it is part of Steps 5-8 of MAST; a MAST facilitator may develop a specific strategy for a project to help maintain consistency for important words, spelling, punctuation, and formatting.
Consistency checking is also part of the proofreading near the end of the refinement and revision processes. This is because during these processes it is very easy to find and resolve inconsistencies.
Check the important words throughout the whole translation to see that you have translated them in a consistent way. This does not mean that they must always be translated the same way, but that each sense of the word is translated in the same way. (See Key Word Check)
It will be good to have a consistent way of spelling all the words in your language. But in your checks, you may want to focus on checking the spelling of key terms, words you have borrowed from another language, and the names of people and places. (See: Consistent Spelling)
Check to see what decisions your team has made concerning punctuation, and make sure that it is used in a consistent way throughout your Bible. (See Consistent Punctuation)
Translators can use formatting to help readers understand how a text is organized. (See: Formatting)
Paragraphs help readers see how ideas are organized. If you use paragraph breaks in your translation, check to see that the breaks are in places that will be helpful for the readers. If you have a chapter with only one or two paragraphs, you may want to see if it could be broken up more. You may use the paragraph breaks in the Unlocked Literal Bible as a guide. You can see paragraphs in the Unlocked Literal Bible at Bibleineverylanguage.org.
Indenting poetry can help readers recognize that a portion of text is poetic, and it can help readers understand the structure of the poem. If you indent poetry, make sure that you do it in a consistent way.
Indenting lists can help readers recognize the organization of a complex list.
Section headings can help readers know what a portion of scripture is about before they start reading it. Section headings can also help readers find a passage that they want to read. If you use section headings, be sure that they are formatted differently than the rest of the text so readers can know that they are not part of the original text. You may want to center the headings over the page, or use bold or italic character styles. Make sure that your section headings all have the same character styles.
Refinement and revision are key aspects of making a quality translation that people will actually use and benefit from. Ideally the language community and their church leaders review a translation and provide feedback for the translators to improve their translation. This is the first step in the refinement and revision processes.
Refinement is the process of improving a translation before a translation project is complete. Refinement provides an open invitation (implied or direct) to members of the language community to suggest improvements to the translation. The translators are encouraged to print or otherwise publish their translation so that people can immediately use it and provide feedback about it. They also encouraged to invite members of the community and church leaders to review the translation and suggest improvements.
In the refinement process, the community and church leadership use the rubric created by the translators in order to assess the quality of the translation. If they find that any part of the translation lacks a particular characteristic, they discuss this with the translators. Then the translators can adjust the translation so that it will have that characteristic.
Revision is the process of improving a translation after a translation project has been completed. Revision provides an opportunity for the church to improve a translation whenever they determine there is sufficient need for a revision. There are a variety of needs for a translation to be revised; this is a natural part of ongoing church-owned Bible translation.
One marked difference between refinement and revision is that refinement always uses the rubric established by the translators, while a revision often establishes a new rubric for assessing the quality of their work. This new rubric can be adapted from the original rubric. However if the language community determines that the standards established in the original rubric were not met, they may do a revision that meets those standards.
The intent of the community review is to provide feedback to the translators to help them to ensure their translation is a quality translation that is accurate, clear, and natural. This helps the translators to know that they are meeting the standards they established for quality in their rubric. (See: Designing a Rubric for Bible Translation Quality.) Also, involving the community in the refinement process increases the likelihood that the translation will be accepted and used.
The translators will share the translation and their rubric with members of their language community. These people should be representative of their community. For example, there should be men and women, old and young, formally educated and not formally educated. The translators will use one or more testing methods so that they can receive feedback from the community about whether or not the translation has the characteristics that they established in their rubric. (See: Community Review Methods.) The translators will then refine their translation based on the feedback provided.
The following resources are recommended for use in reviewing the translation: Translation Questions and the Reviewer's Guide. These will help the translators find out what people understand when they hear or read the translation. To learn about the Translation Questions, see: Using Translation Questions.
The following resources are recommended for helping the translators address issues that are discovered through the community review process: Translation Notes and Translation Words. These resources can help the reviewers and translators better understand what was written in the source text so they can determine whether or not the translators need to change anything in the translation. To learn about these resources, see Translation Notes and Translation Words.
Translation Questions, Translation Notes, and Translation Words are embedded in BTT Writer. All of these resources are available on bibleineverylanguage.org.
Key elements of the community review are:
One method for getting feedback about the translation is to use the Translation Questions or the Reviewers Guide to find out how well people understand the scripture passage. If people have trouble answering a question, that may be an indication that something in the scripture has not been translated accurately, clearly or naturally.
The translator or leader will read (if it is a written translation) a portion of the translation to the gathered listeners. Before reading, he should tell the people listening to stop him if they hear something that does not sound accurate, clear, or natural. In this situation, it is often easiest for the reviewer to notice if a translation is not natural. Alternatively, if the people are literate, each one in the group can be asked to read a passage of the newly translated material. It is best, even if everyone in the group is literate, to have the portions read out loud to the whole group. Portions should not be too long (the length read is subject to the abilities of the group and the type of passage). It is also very important for listeners to understand that they are now a part of the team helping to improve the quality of the scripture. They themselves are not being tested. Rather the questions are designed to help them provide feedback on the meaningfulness of the new translation.
After a portion is read aloud, a translator will read a question and wait for the listeners to answer. Their answers will help the translator know if anything in the passage needs to be worded differently to make it more clear.
As well as asking questions, there are other checking methods that you may also use to ensure that the translation is easy to read and sounds natural to the listeners. Here are some other methods that you may like to try:
Retell Method: The translator reads a few verses and asks someone else to retell what was said. The translator compares what the person says to the text. This helps to check the clarity and naturalness of the translation and offers alternate ways of saying the same thing.
Reading Method: Someone from the community reads a portion of the translation aloud while the translator takes notes where the pauses and mistakes occur. This will show how easy or how difficult it is to read and understand the translation. Afterward the translator looks at the places in the translation where the reader paused or made mistakes and considers what part of the translation was difficult. The translators may need to adjust the translation at those points so that it is easier to read and understand.
Offer Alternate translations: In passages where the translators are not sure of the best way to express a word or phrase, they may ask other people for an alternative translation or offer a choice between two translations and see which translation people think is the most clear.
Reviewer Input: The translators ask others whom they respect to read the translation and to take notes and tell where it might be improved. These reviewers might give better word choices, more natural expressions, and even spelling adjustments.
Discussion Groups: The translators asks someone to read the translation to a group of people. The translators encourage the reader and the others to ask questions for clarification. The translators pay attention to the words people 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. The translators pay attention to the places where people do not understand the translation, and then work to make those places clearer.
The intent of the church leadership review is to provide feedback to the translators to help them to ensure that their translation is a quality translation that is accurate, clear, and natural. This helps the translators to know that they are meeting the standards they established for quality in their rubric. (See: Designing a Rubric for Bible Translation Quality.) Also, involving the church leadership in the refinement process increases the likelihood that the translation will be accepted and used.
We recommend that participants in this review be mother tongue speakers of the language who did not participate in the community review of the passage. When possible, these should be leaders who have been trained or ordained through their church network, and they should use every aspect of their own knowledge and training to check the scriptures.
The translators will share their translation, their rubric, the source text, the Statement of Faith, and their key terms list with the leaders of multiple church organizations in their language community. The church leaders will review the translation in order to affirm that the translation aligns with the intent of the original texts and with the Statement of Faith, which is an expression of what the Church around the world has taught since the beginning. The translators may also ask the church leaders to check the translation for complete versification and consistency. The translators will then refine their translation based on the feedback provided.
Church leaders should work together to review the work, although they may review it on their own and come together to discuss any concerns or suggestions. The leaders may choose from several different options how best to review the work as a team.
Any of these are good ways to review the text.
While reviewing the work, the leaders should make notes of any questions or concerns they have. Then they can plan a time to meet with the translators and work through those questions and concerns. The leaders and the translators should use the available translation resources for help with anything they don’t understand. After they resolve the issues and make any needed changes, the translators may need to ask the community to review the refined passage again to make sure that it still communicates well. If meeting with the community leads to more changes, they may need to meet with with the church leaders again to affirm that the translation is still accurate.
Here are some questions to ask yourselves while reviewing a portion of scripture. If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, please explain in more detail so that the translators can know what the specific problem is, what part of the text needs correction, and how you would like them to correct it.
Here are some general questions to ask concerning the translation. If the answer is no to any of these questions, please note the area in the text that is a concern and explain your concern to the translators.
The following resources are recommended for helping the church leaders check the accuracy of the translation: Translation Questions and the Reviewer’s Guide. (To learn how to use these resources, see: Using Translation Questions.) These will help the translators find out what people understand when they hear or read the translation.
The following resources are recommended for helping translators address issues that are discovered through the church leadership review process: Translation Notes and Translation Words. (To learn how to use these resources, see: Translation Notes and Translation Words.) These resources can help the reviewers and translators better understand what was written in the source text so they can determine whether or not the translators need to change anything in the translation.
Translation Notes and Translation Words are embedded in BTT Writer. All of these resources are available on bibleineverylanguage.org.
Key elements of the church leadership review are:
After the community or the church leadership reviews the translated portions, they and the translators should take the following steps.