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Arabic linguistic quality assessment (LQA)

Native Arabic reviewers score translations from any vendor by error category and severity, in Modern Standard Arabic or a named dialect.

Request a free LQA All Arabic services

Native Arabic reviewers check translations from your vendors or ours against an agreed error typology and report every issue by category and severity.

Arabic linguistic quality assessment (LQA) for LSPs and enterprises: native reviewers score translations from any vendor by error category and severity, in Modern Standard Arabic or a named dialect. El Turco runs Arabic LQA on its own work and on work from other vendors, with a documented methodology and a report that logs each issue with its category, severity and a suggested correction.

LSPs use Arabic LQA to evaluate a new supplier, settle disputed quality for an end client or audit legacy content. Enterprises use it to check the Arabic they already publish before they change anything. Reviewers are native Arabic linguists assigned by dialect and by subject, and the review can follow your own error typology where you have one.

Shared workflow: Translation & localization.

Buying for an LSP or an enterprise team? See For LSPs or For enterprises.

Scope

What does Arabic LQA cover?

Vendor evaluation
Onboarding tests and regular samples from a current or new Arabic supplier, scored on the same scale so vendors can be compared side by side.
Disputed quality
When an end client rejects an Arabic delivery, a native review from outside the original team shows which complaints are errors and which are preferences.
Audits of live content
Websites, help centers, apps and product catalogs already published in Arabic, sampled and scored before a vendor change or a relaunch.
In-context review
Native testers review the Arabic build or staging site as well as the strings. They log mirroring, truncation and shaping issues with screenshots.
Post-edited MT samples
Samples of Arabic MTPE output checked against the agreed post-editing level, as a one-off or on top of a running program.

Arabic specifics

What do Arabic reviewers check that general QA misses?

  • 01

    Register and dialect drift

    A text briefed as Modern Standard Arabic can slide into Egyptian or Gulf wording, and a dialect campaign can slip back into formal MSA. Reviewers score each sentence against the variant in the brief and flag mixed register.

  • 02

    Gender and number agreement

    Verbs, adjectives and pronouns agree with the person addressed. Arabic also has dual as well as plural forms. Agreement errors are common where the English source does not say who is addressed.

  • 03

    Right-to-left and mixed text

    Latin brand names, numbers, URLs and placeholders inside an Arabic line can push punctuation to the wrong side. In-context review catches mirroring and direction errors that a file check cannot see.

  • 04

    Digits and locale formats

    Western digits (0-9) or Eastern Arabic digits (٠ to ٩), dates and currency follow the locale in the style guide, such as ar-SA, ar-AE or ar-EG. Mixed digit styles in one text are logged as errors.

  • 05

    Spelling and diacritics

    Everyday Arabic leaves out short vowel marks, so diacritics added in some places and not others look careless. Reviewers also check hamza forms and the endings ة and ى, which are often confused with ه and ي.

  • 06

    Shaping and fonts

    Letters that appear disconnected or reversed point to a rendering problem in the engine or framework, not in the translation. Reviewers log those separately so the fix goes to the developers.

Process

How an Arabic LQA project runs

Turnaround is agreed at scoping, with a 24-hour option for small urgent updates.

  1. Scoping

    You send the files or the build, the target variant and any style guide or glossary. We agree the sample, the error typology with its severity scale and whether the review runs on files or in context.

  2. Reviewer assignment

    A native Arabic reviewer for the target variant and subject takes the job. Files and builds are handled under NDA and ISO/IEC 27001.

  3. Review and scoring

    The reviewer logs each issue with its category, severity, the original text and a suggested correction. What's Wrong? checks on numbers, tags and terms can run alongside the human review.

  4. Report

    You receive a scorecard with errors by category and severity, plus the full issue log. An LSP can pass the findings to its vendor or use them with the end client.

  5. Follow-up

    Where fixes are made, the reviewer checks them in the next round or the next build.

Who buys Arabic linguistic quality assessment?

Other combinations

Full service and language matrix

FAQ

Arabic linguistic quality assessment FAQ

What is Arabic LQA?

Arabic LQA, or linguistic quality assessment, is a structured review of finished Arabic translations by a native reviewer against an agreed error typology and severity scale. El Turco reviews its own work and work from other vendors in Modern Standard Arabic or a named dialect. The report logs each issue by category and severity with a suggested correction.

Can El Turco review Arabic translated by another vendor?

El Turco reviews Arabic translations from any vendor, including the current supplier of an LSP or an enterprise. LSPs use the review to evaluate a new supplier, check disputed quality for an end client or audit legacy content. Reviewers follow a documented methodology and can score against the LSP's own error typology where one exists.

Which Arabic variants can be reviewed?

Arabic LQA at El Turco covers Modern Standard Arabic and Gulf, Levantine, Egyptian and Maghrebi Arabic. Reviewers are assigned by dialect and by subject, so a Saudi campaign and an Egyptian game go to different native reviewers. The brief names the target variant, and drift away from that variant is logged as an error.

How long does an Arabic LQA take?

Turnaround is agreed at scoping, with a 24-hour option for small urgent updates. The schedule depends on the sample size, the content type and whether the review runs on files or in a live build. The project manager confirms the delivery date before the review starts, and the report follows the format agreed at scoping.

Is there a free Arabic LQA?

Enterprises can send up to 1,000 words of Arabic content that is already live for a free comparative LQA and receive a scorecard with errors by category and severity. LSPs evaluating El Turco as an Arabic vendor start with a free test translation of up to 300 words, which their own reviewers assess against their quality criteria.

From the blog

Related reading

Ready to scope Arabic linguistic quality assessment?

Enterprises can send up to 1,000 words of live Arabic content for a free comparative LQA. LSPs can start with a free 300-word test translation. LQA is quoted after scoping.

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A project manager reads your brief, usually the same working day.