This week, we’re going to look at four different types of client reviewers. As someone who has been in language services for almost 20 years now, I’ve worked with a lot of different types of client reviewers. If you’re unfamiliar with the idea of a client reviewer, they’re employed or contracted by end clients who review the work delivered by the language company. They may be a bilingual custodian, a bilingual director, or a language needs coordinator hired specifically to review the work of the LSP. I welcome client reviewers, especially for commercial clients, because they help the language company maintain a consistent message and feel that is in line with the company’s branding. I’ve come across various types of client reviewers in my time, and I’ve grouped them into four general categories of reviewers:
- Heritage speakers
- Formally educated
- Native speakers
- Professional translators/interpreters
Heritage speakers are the first group we’ll look at. These are people who were born and grew up in diaspora (mainly second-generation immigrants) and learned the language informally through use with their family and community. The important thing to note with heritage learners is that they have varying degrees of education in the target language. Those levels of education exist on a spectrum from no formal education in the language to college-educated, holding a degree in the language. As such, their grasp and understanding of the language’s lexicon and grammar may be limited if they never received any formal education in the language.
The reviews that heritage speakers return may introduce grammatical errors, may not be localized to the target audience that the LSP was asked to translate to, and can even introduce location-inappropriate terminology. Grammatical items like speaking in the past, present, or future may be correct, but in instances where they are instructing readers to do something, speaking in the more abstract, speaking about the distant past or conditional future, their grammatical skills may be limited or non-existent.
Formally educated client reviewers may be native speakers of the source language who studied the target language, they can also be heritage speakers of the target language who have received extensive education in the target language. Formally educated client reviewers have a better grasp of grammatical elements of the target language than heritage speakers, but their intricate knowledge of language variants by region and associated terminology may be lacking. When it comes to native speakers of the source language who learned the target language, there’s a level of intimate knowledge with the language that they may still lack. It’s the same as the reason why professional translators will only translate into their native language, there’s simply no replacement for growing up with the language and using it to survive day-in and day-out.
Native speaker client reviewers exist in two types, those who still live in a target language region and those who live in diaspora, acquired the source language as a second language, and who grew up in a target language region, thus receiving most of their formal education in the target language in that country’s education system – first generation immigrants. Short of bringing on a professional translator to your team to review translations, native speaker reviewers from the target location are top-tier reviewers. If you want translations into Spanish for Mexico, hire someone who came from or who lives in Mexico. If you want translations for Canadian French, bring someone on from French speaking Canada, just don’t expect them to be able to review translations geared toward other locations and understand the nuances of how that location uses the language – though they very well may be able to.
The last group we’re going to look at are professional translators and interpreters. Now these are ideal client reviewers. In addition to their knowledge of both languages, they can also navigate the stylistics of translating from one language to the other. They can make constructive suggestions and back up their reasoning for a change; and they can also see where a change to a translation would be subjective or objective. Is a translation objectively wrong, or is this just personal preference? Additionally, if an error was made, the translator would be able to inform you how severe the error is. Is the error a complete mistranslation? Was the verb conjugated incorrectly? Was the equivalent meaning missing completely? Is the translation not inherently incorrect, but would a different translation feel more on-brand?
The last thing I’d like to address in this post is the nature of language. There are multiple ways to say the same thing. Different regions use language differently. Heritage, formally educated, and native speakers may dig their feet in on how something should be worded, but it does not mean that the translation is wrong unless it’s complete mistranslation. In all instances of changes to a translation by a reviewer, the interaction with the LSP should be collaborative and not accusatory or relationship-ending. Any LSP worth collaborating with would be using translators who translate into their native language. Someone could study the language all they want, but there’s no replacement for the understanding and way with words that a native speaker has with their language – nothing can replace that, not years of education and living in the culture and certainly not AI. A client-side reviewer can be a great asset to your corporate language and marketing team, and a wonderful collaborating point-of-contact for your LSP. The tricky thing is being able to grade changes to a translation as being either objective or subjective changes.
Looking for a new language services partner? Want an LSP who will work with your reviewer to be of better service to you? Contact Green Linguistics today!
