Semantic drift
A change in what the content commits you to, introduced during translation, in a sentence that still reads correctly. An obligation becomes an option. A qualified claim becomes a promise. A time limit disappears. Semantic drift is the failure mode that fluency checks miss, because nothing in the target text looks wrong on its own.
Locked invariants
The items in a piece of content that must not change in any language: a defined term, a numeric limit, the strength of a claim, the force of an obligation. Naming them in advance turns a review from a matter of opinion into a check against agreed constraints. Everything not locked is left to the translator's judgment.
Review brief
The document that records the locked invariants along with the scope of the review: the versions, the languages, the intended reader action, the release owner, and what is explicitly out of scope. A reviewer without a brief will either flag harmless wording choices or miss the passage that matters.
Material finding
A difference between source and translation that changes what a reader understands, is obliged to do, or can expect. The test is consequence, not category. A finding names the passage, the constraint at issue, and the specific way the reader's understanding would change.
Back-translation
Translating the target text back into the source language to compare meanings. It is a useful check for specific high-consequence passages and a poor general method: it introduces a second translator's interpretation, and a clean back-translation does not prove the target reads correctly to a native audience. Use it on the sentences that carry the commitment, not on the whole asset.
Approval record
The evidence that supports a decision to publish: the scope reviewed, the versions examined, each finding and its resolution, the questions left open, and the named release owner. The test of a record is whether a colleague reading it in six months can follow why the content was approved.
Release owner
The person accountable for the decision to publish a specific version. A reviewer recommends; a release owner approves. Keeping the two separate in the record is what makes accountability legible after the fact.
Publish assurance
The step between translation and publication. It takes finished localized content, verifies it against the agreed constraints, reports the risk, and produces an approval record. It does not produce translations, and it does not manage translation projects.
Bring these questions to your next release.