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Q&A How do I judge the quality of a translation?

I'm advising a translation project, translating some short stories from a foreign language to English. What I'm advising about isn't the translations themselves -- but seeing the translated stories...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by Standback‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-12T20:06:05Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/30933
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T07:11:24Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/30933
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T07:11:24Z (almost 5 years ago)
I'm advising a translation project, translating some short stories from a foreign language to English. What I'm advising about isn't the translations themselves -- but seeing the translated stories, I'm concerned that some of them have been translated poorly.

It's hard for me to put my finger on any one thing, and it's hard for me to tell whether the various things bugging me are just differences of taste, or an "actual" indication of poor translation. (I'm a native speaker in both languages, but have done little-to-no-work with translations.)

What are good criteria to judge or check a translation by? How do I know whether a translation is "good quality"?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-10-20T07:50:51Z (about 7 years ago)
Original score: 4