How Internal Lay Reviewers Can Undermine Professional Translations

In many organizations, it’s common to have internal staff review translations delivered by professional linguists. These reviewers—often bilingual employees or regional colleagues—are tasked with checking accuracy or ensuring the content “sounds right.” While this might seem like a safeguard, it can sometimes create more problems than it solves.

The core issue is that internal reviewers are rarely trained translators. They may speak the target language at some level of proficiency but lack the deep linguistic, cultural, and subject matter expertise that professional translators bring. As a result, they may flag correct translations as “wrong” simply because they differ from personal preference.

This can lead to inconsistent feedback, unnecessary revisions, and even a degradation of translation quality over time. Worse still, it may frustrate both the translator and the reviewer, creating friction instead of collaboration.

Professional translators follow established terminology guidelines, tone preferences, and formatting conventions that promote consistency across markets and over time. Internal reviewers may unintentionally override these standards.

That’s not to say internal feedback has no value. On the contrary, input from local staff can be helpful—especially for highly localized campaigns, product names, or sensitive cultural references. But for best results, consumers of translation services are recommended to provide clear guidelines and limit lay reviewer input to specific areas such as branding or regulatory requirements, rather than grammar or style.

Preparing a list of preferred translations, sometimes referred to as a bilingual glossary, is a measure customers can take to give constructive input. Translators will give preference to customer provided preferred translations, of frequently used keywords and terms for example, when given direction at the beginning of a translation project before the work begins.