Click on an error type to see definition and examples
Errors arising when a term does not conform to normative domain or organizational terminology standards or when a
term in the target text is not the correct, normative equivalent of the corresponding term in the source text.
Use of a term that differs from term usage required by a specified termbase or other resource.
Examples:
A termbase specifies that the term USB memory stick should be used, but the text uses USB flash
drive.
A French text translates English e-mail as e-mail but terminology guidelines mandated that
courriel be used.
The English musicological term dog is translated (literally) into German as Hund instead of
as Schnarre, as specified in a terminology database.
Use of multiple terms for the same concept in cases where consistency is desirable.
Examples:
The text refers to a component as the brake release lever, brake disengagement
lever, manual brake release, and manual disengagement release.
Use of term that it is not the term a domain expert would use or because it gives rise to a conceptual mismatch.
Examples:
The word river in an English source text is translated into French as rivière. But the river
in question flows into the sea, not into a lake or another river, so the correct French translation should have
been fleuve.
Errors occurring when the target text does not accurately correspond to the propositional content of the source
text, introduced by distorting, omitting, or adding to the message.
Target content that does not accurately represent the source content.
Examples:
A source text states that a medicine should not be administered in doses greater than 200 mg, but the
translation states that it should be administered in doses greater than 200 mg (i.e., negation has been
omitted).
Target text that is inappropriately less specific than the source text.
Examples:
The source text refers to a boy, but is translated with a word that applies only to young boys rather than the
more general term.
Target text that is inappropriately less specific than the source text.
Examples:
The source text uses words that refer to a specific type of military officer, but the target text refers to
military officers in general.
Target content that includes content not present in the source.
Examples:
A translation includes portions of another translation that were inadvertently pasted into the document.
Errors where content is missing from the translation that is present in the source.
Examples:
A paragraph present in the source is missing in the translation.
Errors occurring when a text segment or even a whole section of a text marked in the specifications as “Do not
translate!” is translated in the target text.
Examples:
A marketing slogan for worldwide use is intended to remain in English.
A product name should not be translated because it is supposed to remain in English.
Errors occurring when a text segment that was intended for translation is left untranslated in the target
content.
Examples:
A sentence in a Japanese document translated into English is inappropriately left in Japanese.
Errors related to the linguistic well-formedness of the text, including problems with, for instance, grammaticality
and mechanical correctness.
Error that occurs when a text string (sentence, phrase, other) in the translation violates the grammatical rules
of the target language.
Examples:
An English text reads: The man was seeing the his wife.
Punctuation incorrect for the locale or style.
Examples:
An English text uses a semicolon where a comma should be used.
Error occurring when the letters in a word in an alphabetic language are not arranged in the normally specified
order.
Examples:
The German word Zustellung is spelled Zustetlugn.
Text garbled or incomprehensible, perhaps due to conversion or other processing errors.
Examples:
The following text appears in an English translation of a German automotive manual: “The brake from whe
this કુતારો િસ S149235 part numbr,,.”
Error occurring when characters garbled due to incorrect application of an encoding.
Examples:
A text document in UTF-8 encoding is opened as ISO Latin-1, resulting in all upper ASCII characters being
garbled.
Errors occurring in a text that can be grammatical but are inappropriate because they deviate from organizational
style guides or exhibit inappropriate language style.
Errors occurring where the text violates company/organization-specific style guidelines.
Examples:
Company style states that passive sentences may not be used, but the text uses passive sentences.
Errors occurring when the text violates a third-party style guide.
Examples:
Specifications stated that English text was to be formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style, but the
text delivered followed the American Psychological Association style guide.
Errors occurring when text fails to conform to an external resource.
Examples:
A translation refers to a court decision but does not accurately reflect the language of the decision.
A target text translates text that should have been quoted from an existing text.
Errors occurring when a text uses a level of formality higher or lower than required by the specifications or by
common language conventions.
Examples:
A formal letter uses contractions, colloquialisms and expressions characteristic of spoken rather than written
language, and thus makes a less serious impression than intended.
Style involving excessive wordiness or overly embedded clauses, often due to inappropriate retention of source
text style in the target text.
Examples:
A text is written with many embedded clauses and an excessively wordy style. While the meaning can be
understood, the text is unnatural and difficult to follow.
Style that is grammatical, but unnatural, often due to interference from the source language.
Examples:
The following text appears in an English translation of a German letter: “We thanked him with heart”
where “with heart” is an understandable, but non-idiomatic rendering, better stated as
“heartily”.
Style that varies inconsistently throughout the text, often due to multiple translators contributing to the
target text.
Examples:
One part of a text is written in a light and terse style while other sections are written in a more wordy
style.
Errors occurring when the translation product violates locale-specific content or formatting requirements for data
elements.
Inappropriate number format for its locale.
Examples:
US-English target text retains German-style use of full stops and commas.
Incorrect currency format for its locale.
Examples:
A text dealing with business transactions from English into Hindi assumes that all currencies will be
expressed in simple units, while the convention in India is to give such prices in lakh rupees (100,000 rupees).
Inappropriate measurement format for its locale.
Examples:
A text created for use in France uses feet and inches and Fahrenheit temperatures.
Inappropriate time format for its locale.
Examples:
Unless specified as using a 24 hour clock, US time formats report time after noon using 12-hour notation (for
instance, 7:54:12 pm instead of 19:54:12 used in many other countries.
Inappropriate date format for its locale.
Examples:
A German text has 06/07/2012 for 7 June 2012 instead of 07.06.2012.
Inappropriate address format for its locale.
Examples:
An online form translated from English to Hindi requires a house number even though many addresses in India do
not include a house number, or the postal code is in the wrong position for a given locale.
Inappropriate telephone form for telephone numbers for its locale.
Examples:
A German text presents a telephone number in the format (xxx) xxx - xxxx instead of the expected 0xx followed
by a group of digits separated into groups by spaces.
Shortcuts in translated software product that do not conform to locale expectations or make no sense for the
locale.
Examples:
A software product uses CTRL-S to save a file in Hungarian, rather than the appropriate
CTRL-M (for menteni).
Errors arising from the use of content in the translation product that is invalid or inappropriate for the target
locale or target audience.
Errors where content inappropriately uses a culture-specific reference that will not be understandable to the
intended audience.
Examples:
An English text refers to steps in a process as First base, Second base, and Third base, and
to successful completion as a Home run and uses other metaphors from baseball. These prove difficult to
translate and confuse the target audience in Germany.
Errors related to the physical design or presentation of a translation product, including character, paragraph, and
UI element formatting and markup, integration of text with graphical elements, and overall page or window layout.
Inappropriate application of any glyph variation that is applied to a character or string of characters, such as
font, font style, font color, or font size.
Examples:
A corporate style guide specifies that body text in technical publications should be set in a serif font, but
body text in advertising and public reports should be set in a sans serif font. The body text for an annual
report was incorrectly set using the serif font specified for technical publications.
Inappropriate presentation format of paragraphs, headings, graphical elements, and user interface elements and
their arrangement on a form, page, website, or application screen.
Examples:
A fully justified paragraph was copied from one document and pasted into another where surrounding paragraphs
were flush left, ragged right, creating a visual mismatch.
Incorrect markup tag or tag component.
Examples:
Markup is used incorrectly, resulting in incorrect formatting.
Target text that is longer or shorter than allowed or where there is a significant and inappropriate discrepancy
between the source and the target text lengths.
Examples:
The German translation of an English string in a user interface runs off the edge of a dialogue box and cannot
be read.
An English sentence is 51 characters long, but its German translation is 253 characters long and does not fit
in the available space.
A source text is 300 character long but the translation is 15 characters, indicating a likely problem.
Existing text missing in the final laid-out version.
Examples:
A translation is complete, but during DTP a text box was inadvertently moved off the page and so the
translated text does not appear in a rendered PDF version.
Incorrect or invalid (no longer active) link or URI.
Examples:
An HTML file contains numerous links to other HTML files; some have been updated to reflect the appropriate
language version while some point to the source language version.