The short answer
Request source-based review for published, customer-facing or consequential content. Define what the review covers; reading the target text alone cannot reveal all omissions or changed meanings.
Fluency is not verification
ATA — What is Machine Translation? recommends human review and editing of machine output. Assess the actual material from your AI tool rather than infer quality from its name.
An illustrative check: changing “must not exceed” to “may exceed” can produce a fluent sentence that reverses a condition. Negation, names and numbers need source comparison.
Match review to intended use
Internal reference, publication and operational instructions call for different acceptance criteria. Clarify completeness, terminology and style requirements.
Ask whether the reviewer will compare the full source, check figures and format, and flag specialist questions. “Polish the wording” is not a complete review brief.
Provide source and context
- The correct source and corresponding AI translation.
- Intended use and readers.
- Approved terms and reference material.
- Known issues and priority sections.
- Confidentiality and permitted-tool requirements.
Identify the current target version if you have already edited it. Avoid several competing files with no clear status.
Check the important failure modes
Look for missing or added content, changed conditions, wrong actors and terminology mismatches. Check table values and units; inspect UI strings in their screens.
Some passages may need retranslation rather than incremental editing. Confirm that scope instead of preserving unusable sentences simply because they already exist.
Do not assume a lower price
A usable draft may be efficient to edit; a misleading or incomplete one may require substantial work. Assess a source-and-target sample before comparing the cost with new translation.
Review later does not resolve confidentiality issues created during initial tool use. Check sharing terms before uploading sensitive material.
Frequently asked questions
Can target-only proofreading catch every error?
No. Source comparison is needed to find omissions, additions and changed conditions.
Can I review only priority sections?
Yes, but label the scope clearly so the remaining material is not assumed to have been checked.
References
Project checklists and examples are written by LocalizeZone. Linked references support the specific statements marked in the article.
Discuss your project
Send matching source and translated samples with the intended use. We can assess the appropriate review scope and identify passages that may need retranslation.