How to Give Feedback in the Translation Industry

Feedback is incredibly important in the translation industry. It helps people improve their skills and brings up the overall quality of work.

Whether you’re a translator, editor, proofreader, or project manager, if you work in the translation industry you’ll have to give feedback at some point or another.

If you want to learn how to take feedback then check out part 2 of this article here: How to Take Feedback in the Translation Industry

Give Positive Feedback Along with Negative

My previous boss and video game localizer Richard Mark Honeywood once told me that you should always use positive feedback to cushion the negative.

It’s incredibly easy to just give negative feedback, but doing so can easily do more harm than good. If someone only ever hears the bad things they’ll never be aware of what they’re doing right, which will demotivate them.

Giving positive feedback not only makes the negative hurt less, it also lets someone know what they’re doing right and what they should keep doing.

Keep All Negative Feedback Constructive and Actionable

You can’t just tell someone, “this is shit”. Not only is it really rude, it’s not helpful. Purely subjective personal opinions don’t help the person learn or grow.

Negative feedback should be constructive and include advice that the person can use to improve things. It also helps to clearly explain why something should be done a certain way.

For example, “The register used for this character doesn’t seem to match the high-fantasy setting. What about reading your translation out loud and imagine what kind of character would say this? Or try reading a little bit of Lord of the Rings before starting to help get you in the mindset for this style of writing?” or “I noticed you use a lot of ellipsis in your writing. These should be used sparingly in English as they tend to slow the reader down.”

What Went Well?

As mentioned in my first point, feedback shouldn’t always be negative. Including what the person did right communicates that you would like them to do the same in the future.

“I really appreciated your quick response.” “Your questions on this project were great.” “I really liked how you translated the tutorials. They were very clear and easy to understand.” Etc.

Positive feedback helps ensure consistency because they’ll know what you liked and what you didn’t.

What Can We Improve Next Time?

Sometimes there’s not an opportunity for feedback until after a translation project is done. In which case, structure the feedback as actional points to work on for next time.

Postmortems or short follow-up meetings are great for this. Project managers should make sure to schedule check-ins with their translators and editors after a project is done to discuss how things went and have a space to provide constructive feedback.

Word Feedback to the Group

Related to the above point, if you arrange a group postmortem to discuss how things went and what do to better next time, make sure you give the feedback to the whole group. Do not call individuals out.

“I noticed there were a number of cases where people got caught on katakana words. We should all keep an eye on false friends and avoid directly translating those.”

I do this when working with translators and vendors. I’ll set up a time to do a postmortem and provide feedback for everyone, including myself. This way they know it’s not just them who needs to work on things.

Editors/Testers—Keep Notes!

If you’re an editor or tester for a translated work, keep notes of things you liked/things that can be improved upon as you work through a project.

Providing this feedback to the project manager to pass back to the translation team has many benefits. It makes you look good by showing that you did a thorough job, it gives the project manager insight to the translation practices of their translators, and gives constructive feedback to the translators so they can improve for next time.

Only give feedback directly if you’re a close co-worker and you think they’ll appreciate it. Otherwise it’s always best to provide feedback through the correct chain of command.

Project Managers—Give Feedback on Soft Skills

Project managers don’t always have the time to thoroughly look over the translation or edited work, but they do know what it’s like to work with a particular person.

Mentioning in emails how you appreciate someone’s fast replies or flexibility is a subtle method of giving feedback that makes the other person feel good and encourages certain behaviors.

Encouraging people to field feedback through you, and sharing feedback between members is also a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of a project while encouraging a positive working environment.

Project Managers—Don’t Call Individuals Out!

Whatever you do, do not give feedback to a single person in a group chat! Especially if it’s something negative. This will only make your employee or contractor feel terrible, which can impact their work performance and how they feel about you and the company.

In Japan blasting someone in a group chat is considered a form of power harassment. So try to keep feedback private, either in a private chat, a video call, or face-to-face. Provide the person with a safe space so they can discuss the feedback with you and explain the situation.

What Do You Do If Someone Won’t Take Feedback?

Some people just don’t want to take feedback. It could be pride, laziness, or maybe they just don’t agree with the feedback.

Give people the space and compassion to discuss things. If they don’t want to improve then there’s not much you can do about it—you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.