With the growth of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and life sciences industries, multinational corporations require translation services and localization services of scientific data, surveys, clinical research, lab notes, ingredients, packaging, and other related material. These technical and medical translations are needed in order to provide life-changing products to patients and consumers around the world. Accurate and precise translations are incredibly crucial as the products produced by these industries directly affect the lives and well-beings of the worldwide human population. One inaccurate translation could be the meaning between life and death.

The most effective way to ensure precise document translation is through performing back translations. This process first includes the initial translation from English into the target language by one linguist, and editing of the translation by an equally qualified second linguist. The target translation is then translated back into English by a separate translator independent of the project and with no prior knowledge to make sure that the original English has been properly translated into the foreign language.

The back translation can never be exactly like the original English text. The back translation can only give a fair idea of the content of the text and make sure that the correct meaning is conveyed. For example, in a medical survey, expressions such as, “to feel blue, to feel sad, to feel down, to be in low spirits, etc.” have more or less the same meaning, and the back translator may only use one of these.

Back translations are an extremely useful tool in ensuring that the proper meaning of the text has been conveyed. It also adds an additional level of quality check to a document translation.

Machine translations are also often referred to as automatic translations or non-human translations, which are produced by a translation service. A Machine translation can loosely be defined as a translation conducted by a computer, as opposed to a human translation, which is conducted by a translator. A machine translation will produce a document translation that is very different from a human translation produced by a translation service.

Often times, we hear the term machine translation used in the legal translation industry in reference to document translation. We are called upon to discuss the validity of a machine translation and to compare it to the translation service that a human may provide. Machines, or computers being referred to as machines, cannot possibly absorb all of the nuances and specialty knowledge base that is required for most legal translation matters.

To be sure, machines have revolutionized the world in a way that would not have been possible with humans alone. It is impossible to argue with the assertion that a machine can assemble car parts or portions of cereal more quickly and effectively than a human can. However, mechanical operations are precisely that and nothing more. Adding a precise and measured portion of cereal into a bag is all about measurements, a scientific measurement.

Translation, on the other hand, has very little to do with scientific measurement. Legal translation revolves around language and the attention to meaning and intention perceived in such language. A machine cannot possibly pick up on the difference between “like” and “as” and “such as”, for example. Ultimately, the use of machine translations to make a legal case is too risky an endeavor when considering the document translation at hand requires extreme care. As many legal cases rely on the meaning and understanding of one single word or phrase, a human translation is required to ensure that the sensitivity to that word or phrase is picked up on and adhered to.