How to Judge if Translation is Good

Translation is not a mathematical science. Without a doubt, translation is a profession that is full of challenges, but mathematical equations are not among these challenges. In other words, the challenges that a translator may encounter are not solvable in one specific way, and if 2 +2 =4 in mathematics, it would probably equals 4, 5 or even 10 in the translation business. However, if there were no absolute facts in translation, how would you tell if the provided translation is good or not?
It is understandable that translators are humans after all and sometimes mistakes are inevitable. However, as a client, you would never compromise receiving ultimate quality as promised. Therefore, quality assurance specialists attempted to solve this conflict, so that a client can judge whether he/she received a high-quality translation service and a translator’s work would not be undervalued.
To meet this end, QA specialists classify mistakes into three main categories; namely minor, medium, and fatal mistakes. As the name indicates, the first two categories can be tolerated, unless they are excessively recurrent or fail to deliver the intended meaning. These categories include typographies, misspellings, inconsistencies, and likewise. On the other hand, clients have full rights not to tolerate fatal mistakes. This category includes mistranslation, missing translation, inaccurate translation, and likewise. After all, a translator’s primary concern is to deliver the intended meaning safely to the targeted reader.
Italians say “traduttore, traditore”, whenever they think the translator has not done his/her job properly. However, in the field of translation, judgment should not be limited to either good or bad; otherwise, there is a wide range of categories to judge how good a given translation is. And, whenever in doubt, QA standards would be so glad to help!